Thousands of vets could get benefits upgrade
By KIMBERLY HEFLING
The Associated Press
Monday, January 25, 2010; 3:59 PM
WASHINGTON -- A military review could bring millions of dollars in benefits to thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans discharged with post-traumatic stress disorder.
The military has agreed to review the records of recent veterans discharged with PTSD to decide whether they were improperly denied benefits.
The agreement stems from a judge's order in a class action lawsuit originally filed by seven combat veterans. They alleged the military illegally denied benefits to those discharged, at least in part, because of the disorder during a six-year period that ended Oct. 14, 2008.
read more here
Thousands of vets could get benefits upgrade
Monday, January 25, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
For better or worse, life changes all of us
For better or worse, life changes all of us
by
Chaplain Kathie
Every event in your life goes into who you are at this moment in time. You change as events happen. Some events are good. The first time you fall in love, graduating college, the first grown up job, marriage, having children, watching your children take their first steps and then witnessing the changes in them as events happen in their lives. Bad events come too. The end of your first love affair, graduating college and understanding from that point on, you are on your own two feet to make it or break it, losing your first real job when you have rent to pay, marriages that are not happy, children born with birth defects, watching your parents reach the end of their lives and you know, things will never be the same again. These events, pretty much we all go through and these events are part of us.
No one leaves this earth untouched or unchanged by living lives.
Sometimes the events are not very important on the surface. You walk into a grocery store, having a really bad day, feeling as if you are invisible, then a clerk at your local Publix smiles, talks to you and makes you feel special. When you leave the store, you feel differently about yourself and about other people. That change in your mood is carried on when you return home. Instead of thinking your life sucks and taking it out on your family, you have a nice night and enjoy their company. Had the clerk not been so nice to you when you needed it, things could have turned out a lot differently.
Sometimes events are very important. From the moment they happen, you know deep inside yourself, you will never be the same again. You went to work one day then a stranger decides it's the day he will try to kill others. You drive down the same road heading to work and it is the same day someone decides to get behind the wheel of their car drunk and you were unfortunate enough to have gotten in their way. We face these changes unwillingly. We find it easier to understand what happens in "normal" life and how it can all change in a moment, change how we feel about ourselves, other people, our families and our futures as well as how we feel about a relationship with God, yet we cannot bring ourselves to understand changes when someone puts themselves in harms way willingly every day as the job they do.
We don't see a police officer as a person with a life, family, friends, hopes and dreams, another human changed by what they encounter everyday. We don't see a firefighter changed by one too many fires where they have had to pull unrecognizable bodies out once too often. We don't see an EMT after they have had to collect the remains from a roadway after another accident when a drunk driver has killed a family. Above all, we don't see what comes when men and women return from combat.
All humans, just like us, facing the same troubles and triumphs we face but they see what we pray to God we never see with our own eyes. The death and destruction they witness weighs heavily on their soul. No one ever leaves traumatic events unchanged. Sometimes they push it in the backs of their memories and just move on. Other times they find themselves unable to just push it away and they see the person they were slip away.
For everyone trauma does not have to mean that there is no hope even though there is no hope of going back to the way you were before. It does however mean that with the right response to it, you can be better than you were before.
Even for the older veterans of combat, we have seen remarkable changes in them when they are finally treated for the life changing traumas they endured. They learn how to make it through the day without getting drunk, without having to have a gun at their side at all times, without having to push everyone away and without hating themselves for what they had to do. We have seen them learn to trust again enough so that they open up and show how human they are. We have also seen the greatness of their compassion change the lives of others. Nothing about PTSD is hopeless.
Once people get past wanting what is not possible they can enjoy what is achievable. It is not possible to be the way they were before any more than it is possible for anyone to turn back the clock to their perfect day where all was well with the world. What we can do is to take what has come into our lives, good and bad, and then make peace with it so that we can be happier. If you have PTSD, the nightmares may stay but they will not be as strong. The flashbacks will come but they will not happen as often and you will break out of it sooner. PTSD is not the end of you but the beginning of who you can become with the right help to get you there.
If you are seeking help make sure you are addressing all of you. You mind, body and soul, as well as your family. They can either help you heal or they can make it worse if they do not understand. Even the best psychologist can't break down the wall of pain if your family is handing you bricks because of what they do not understand. Make sure your psychologist is fully educated on what PTSD is so they will not misdiagnose or guess at how best to treat you, You wouldn't go to a dentist for a broken arm so you should not go to a doctor that does not specialize in PTSD.
Find support groups where you can feel as if you can be honest and open. Use your intuition and keep looking until you find the right one. The same goes for medication. If you are on medication that makes you feel worse or is not helping, then talk to your doctor so they can find the right one for you to be on. What works for friend may not work for you. Make sure you get therapy and not just medication. Talking is very important in healing.
All of this will all work better if you understand what PTSD is and make peace with the fact you have it because you are human exposed to events that were life changing. Know why you feel the way you do and why you react the way you do so that you can focus on doing something about it instead of spending your energy trying to hide it. The people in your life know you changed even though they can't understand why.
Life changes all of us but what we do in response to it will change the lives we live from this point on.
by
Chaplain Kathie
Every event in your life goes into who you are at this moment in time. You change as events happen. Some events are good. The first time you fall in love, graduating college, the first grown up job, marriage, having children, watching your children take their first steps and then witnessing the changes in them as events happen in their lives. Bad events come too. The end of your first love affair, graduating college and understanding from that point on, you are on your own two feet to make it or break it, losing your first real job when you have rent to pay, marriages that are not happy, children born with birth defects, watching your parents reach the end of their lives and you know, things will never be the same again. These events, pretty much we all go through and these events are part of us.
No one leaves this earth untouched or unchanged by living lives.
Sometimes the events are not very important on the surface. You walk into a grocery store, having a really bad day, feeling as if you are invisible, then a clerk at your local Publix smiles, talks to you and makes you feel special. When you leave the store, you feel differently about yourself and about other people. That change in your mood is carried on when you return home. Instead of thinking your life sucks and taking it out on your family, you have a nice night and enjoy their company. Had the clerk not been so nice to you when you needed it, things could have turned out a lot differently.
Sometimes events are very important. From the moment they happen, you know deep inside yourself, you will never be the same again. You went to work one day then a stranger decides it's the day he will try to kill others. You drive down the same road heading to work and it is the same day someone decides to get behind the wheel of their car drunk and you were unfortunate enough to have gotten in their way. We face these changes unwillingly. We find it easier to understand what happens in "normal" life and how it can all change in a moment, change how we feel about ourselves, other people, our families and our futures as well as how we feel about a relationship with God, yet we cannot bring ourselves to understand changes when someone puts themselves in harms way willingly every day as the job they do.
We don't see a police officer as a person with a life, family, friends, hopes and dreams, another human changed by what they encounter everyday. We don't see a firefighter changed by one too many fires where they have had to pull unrecognizable bodies out once too often. We don't see an EMT after they have had to collect the remains from a roadway after another accident when a drunk driver has killed a family. Above all, we don't see what comes when men and women return from combat.
All humans, just like us, facing the same troubles and triumphs we face but they see what we pray to God we never see with our own eyes. The death and destruction they witness weighs heavily on their soul. No one ever leaves traumatic events unchanged. Sometimes they push it in the backs of their memories and just move on. Other times they find themselves unable to just push it away and they see the person they were slip away.
For everyone trauma does not have to mean that there is no hope even though there is no hope of going back to the way you were before. It does however mean that with the right response to it, you can be better than you were before.
Even for the older veterans of combat, we have seen remarkable changes in them when they are finally treated for the life changing traumas they endured. They learn how to make it through the day without getting drunk, without having to have a gun at their side at all times, without having to push everyone away and without hating themselves for what they had to do. We have seen them learn to trust again enough so that they open up and show how human they are. We have also seen the greatness of their compassion change the lives of others. Nothing about PTSD is hopeless.
Once people get past wanting what is not possible they can enjoy what is achievable. It is not possible to be the way they were before any more than it is possible for anyone to turn back the clock to their perfect day where all was well with the world. What we can do is to take what has come into our lives, good and bad, and then make peace with it so that we can be happier. If you have PTSD, the nightmares may stay but they will not be as strong. The flashbacks will come but they will not happen as often and you will break out of it sooner. PTSD is not the end of you but the beginning of who you can become with the right help to get you there.
If you are seeking help make sure you are addressing all of you. You mind, body and soul, as well as your family. They can either help you heal or they can make it worse if they do not understand. Even the best psychologist can't break down the wall of pain if your family is handing you bricks because of what they do not understand. Make sure your psychologist is fully educated on what PTSD is so they will not misdiagnose or guess at how best to treat you, You wouldn't go to a dentist for a broken arm so you should not go to a doctor that does not specialize in PTSD.
Find support groups where you can feel as if you can be honest and open. Use your intuition and keep looking until you find the right one. The same goes for medication. If you are on medication that makes you feel worse or is not helping, then talk to your doctor so they can find the right one for you to be on. What works for friend may not work for you. Make sure you get therapy and not just medication. Talking is very important in healing.
All of this will all work better if you understand what PTSD is and make peace with the fact you have it because you are human exposed to events that were life changing. Know why you feel the way you do and why you react the way you do so that you can focus on doing something about it instead of spending your energy trying to hide it. The people in your life know you changed even though they can't understand why.
Life changes all of us but what we do in response to it will change the lives we live from this point on.
Respect and honor followed by ambivalence during soldier's funeral
Update
Deputy injured during funeral procession for soldier
By GEORGE H. NEWMAN The Tampa Tribune
A Hillsborough County motorcycle deputy, working in the procession escort for Sgt. David A. Croft Jr., was hit by a pickup truck that cut into the procession line, causing serious injury to the deputy.
The accident occurred near the tail end of the procession at Reynolds Street West and John Martin Street, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. The deputy – identified as Daryl Bowden, 55, a 10-year veteran – was airlifted to Tampa General Hospital with non-life threatening injuries, the sheriff's office said.
The driver of the pickup – identified as Shannon Lima-Jones, 40, of Crystal Springs – received numerous citations: one charging her with failure to yield to a funeral procession, another with failure to yield the right of way and a third for having no insurance.
At about 3:25 p.m., Lima-Jones, who was at the wheel of a 2005 Chevrolet pickup truck, darted out of the parking lot of a Dairy Queen and cut into the funeral procession line, the sheriff's office said. Once in the line, she decided to turn left to get out of the procession line, driving into the path of the motor unit accompanying the funeral procession, deputies said.
Deputy injured during funeral procession for soldier
Deputy injured during funeral procession for soldier
By GEORGE H. NEWMAN The Tampa Tribune
A Hillsborough County motorcycle deputy, working in the procession escort for Sgt. David A. Croft Jr., was hit by a pickup truck that cut into the procession line, causing serious injury to the deputy.
The accident occurred near the tail end of the procession at Reynolds Street West and John Martin Street, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. The deputy – identified as Daryl Bowden, 55, a 10-year veteran – was airlifted to Tampa General Hospital with non-life threatening injuries, the sheriff's office said.
The driver of the pickup – identified as Shannon Lima-Jones, 40, of Crystal Springs – received numerous citations: one charging her with failure to yield to a funeral procession, another with failure to yield the right of way and a third for having no insurance.
At about 3:25 p.m., Lima-Jones, who was at the wheel of a 2005 Chevrolet pickup truck, darted out of the parking lot of a Dairy Queen and cut into the funeral procession line, the sheriff's office said. Once in the line, she decided to turn left to get out of the procession line, driving into the path of the motor unit accompanying the funeral procession, deputies said.
Deputy injured during funeral procession for soldier
It is heartening so many people showed up to honor Sgt. Croft Jr and his family. Reports of his arrival at McDill, followed by the procession to the funeral home and then a couple of hundred people showing up for the funeral itself is very touching. The Patriot Guard Riders along with members of the Nam Knights stood in honor of this brave fallen soldier. What came after showed that while, thank God, there are more people caring about our men and women in the military, there are a few with absolutely no regard for them or anyone else.Emotional homecoming for Plant City soldier
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY (Bay News 9) -- Sgt. David Croft, Jr. was supposed to be coming home from his deployment Thursday.
Instead, family and friends, now pay their respects.
A procession for the 22-year-old of Plant City traveled from MacDill Air Force Base to downtown Tampa and on to eastern Hillsborough County Wednesday.
Croft was killed earlier this month in Baghdad by a improvised explosive device.
His body was flown to MacDill Air Force Base early Wednesday morning.
Croft's older sister, Robin, an Air Force reservist, reminisced about her brother.
"I just want people to know that David was an awesome person, he had a great personality he enjoyed life, he lived his life to the fullest," she said.
go here for more and touching videoEmotional homecoming for Plant City soldier
What a difference this is from what happened afterWoman hits deputy's car in Plant City funeral procession
By Jessica Vander Velde, Times Staff Writer
Posted: Jan 23, 2010 07:01 PM
PLANT CITY — A woman exiting a Plant City Dairy Queen cut through a soldier's funeral procession and struck a deputy's car, sending the deputy to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Saturday afternoon, Hillsborough County deputies assisted with the funeral procession of Sgt. David A. Croft Jr., who was killed in Iraq on Jan. 5 after insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device and small arms fire.
read more here
Woman hits deputys car in Plant City funeral procession
PTSD caused by duty spawns action across the nation
PTSD caused by duty spawns action across the nation
by
Chaplain Kathie
Massachusetts has reason to be ashamed when there is even one remaining branch of public service denying PTSD and what it brings to those who serve as well as their families. Haven't they read the newspaper articles about National Guardsman and women committing suicide? Haven't they read them about active duty servicemen and women trying to heal? If they do not recognize PTSD as being behind the suicides of those who serve, no matter in what capacity, then they are attacking all demographics with it.
This means they do not value the men and women serving as police officers, State Troopers or the National Guards or those in the military enough to learn much at all, yet they have one of the best Veteran's hospitals for PTSD in the nation right there in Bedford.
They have one of the best VA psychologists honored as an expert on PTSD, author of some of the best books on PTSD, Dr. Jonathan Shay, now retired from the Boston VA, but in all these years, he was right there to get them out of the dark ages.
When we know about something good being done, we assume it is happening everywhere but this is not the case when it comes to PTSD. One state may be far ahead of other states address the trauma first responders face everyday, but a neighboring state may still be totally oblivious to it. One state may have chaplains fully train on trauma and PTSD working with survivors but ignoring the responders, or visa versa. Civilians face trauma all the time but for most, it is only a one time event while responders face multiple traumas as part of their jobs. If we do not take care of the responders, then we are not honoring anyone's service. It's as simple as that.
My friend Lily Casura over at Healing Combat Trauma wanted to make sure I read the following. It makes me wonder what it will take for all of the people we count on everyday to be able to receive all the help they need to do it.
The police suicide problem
Being a cop is a dangerous job -- and not just for the obvious reasons. Suicide kills more officers every year than homicides or accidents at work. But what does society owe the families of those for whom this high-stress job is too much to take? One widow answers: respect.
By Julia Dahl
January 24, 2010
Early on the afternoon of July 28, 2006, Captain Paul McCarthy of the Massachusetts State Police put on his blue trooper uniform, holstered his gun, and got into the driver’s seat of his police cruiser. McCarthy was despondent, exhausted from 13 years of physical and emotional pain. It all began on an overtime shift back in 1993: a snowy March midnight when a man driving a stolen MBTA bus bulldozed his cruiser, crushing his legs and trapping him inside the vehicle. After that came the surgeries and months spent learning to walk again. He fought hard and, defying doctors’ predictions, after a year and a half made it back to active duty in the only job he’d ever wanted.
by
Chaplain Kathie
Massachusetts has reason to be ashamed when there is even one remaining branch of public service denying PTSD and what it brings to those who serve as well as their families. Haven't they read the newspaper articles about National Guardsman and women committing suicide? Haven't they read them about active duty servicemen and women trying to heal? If they do not recognize PTSD as being behind the suicides of those who serve, no matter in what capacity, then they are attacking all demographics with it.
This means they do not value the men and women serving as police officers, State Troopers or the National Guards or those in the military enough to learn much at all, yet they have one of the best Veteran's hospitals for PTSD in the nation right there in Bedford.
They have one of the best VA psychologists honored as an expert on PTSD, author of some of the best books on PTSD, Dr. Jonathan Shay, now retired from the Boston VA, but in all these years, he was right there to get them out of the dark ages.
When we know about something good being done, we assume it is happening everywhere but this is not the case when it comes to PTSD. One state may be far ahead of other states address the trauma first responders face everyday, but a neighboring state may still be totally oblivious to it. One state may have chaplains fully train on trauma and PTSD working with survivors but ignoring the responders, or visa versa. Civilians face trauma all the time but for most, it is only a one time event while responders face multiple traumas as part of their jobs. If we do not take care of the responders, then we are not honoring anyone's service. It's as simple as that.
My friend Lily Casura over at Healing Combat Trauma wanted to make sure I read the following. It makes me wonder what it will take for all of the people we count on everyday to be able to receive all the help they need to do it.
(Photograph by Webb Chappell)
A widow speaks "I have three children who need validation from someone other than their mother that this had nothing to do with them," says Janice McCarthy, whose trooper husband killed himself with his service weapon after years spent struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder.
The police suicide problem
Being a cop is a dangerous job -- and not just for the obvious reasons. Suicide kills more officers every year than homicides or accidents at work. But what does society owe the families of those for whom this high-stress job is too much to take? One widow answers: respect.
By Julia Dahl
January 24, 2010
Early on the afternoon of July 28, 2006, Captain Paul McCarthy of the Massachusetts State Police put on his blue trooper uniform, holstered his gun, and got into the driver’s seat of his police cruiser. McCarthy was despondent, exhausted from 13 years of physical and emotional pain. It all began on an overtime shift back in 1993: a snowy March midnight when a man driving a stolen MBTA bus bulldozed his cruiser, crushing his legs and trapping him inside the vehicle. After that came the surgeries and months spent learning to walk again. He fought hard and, defying doctors’ predictions, after a year and a half made it back to active duty in the only job he’d ever wanted.
In June 2006, he poured his frustrations into a rambling eight-page letter of complaint to the state Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, writing: “The Massachusetts State police do not recognize Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as an issue that affects the employees of the Mass State Police.”
It was all too much. On the last Friday of July, Janice and the kids were visiting family in Saratoga Springs, New York, when McCarthy stepped out of his apartment and got into his cruiser. At 6:30 p.m., he pulled up to a construction site in Canton at the junction of Route 128 and Interstate 95. A surveillance camera caught the last hour of his life: A passing thunderstorm roared through, then Paul got out of his cruiser and paced. At 7:30 p.m., he pulled out his gun and shot two rounds into a mound of dirt. Moments later, he turned the barrel around and fired a single shot into his chest. He was 41 years old.When I went to Washington DC for Memorial Day last year, the Nam Knights also went to honor the officers as well. This picture is from the Memorial.
Janice took her case to the state retirement board, and in June 2007 her husband’s death was ruled “accidental.” The decision meant she would collect 72 percent of his pension (an “in the line of duty” death would have meant 100 percent and an additional one-time payment of nearly $100,000), but more important, it drew a line connecting his on-the-job injuries to his suicide, opening the door for what Janice McCarthy really wants -- her husband’s death to be ruled “line of duty” and his name added to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, D.C.In May of 2009, news of McCarthy’s quest reached Andy O’Hara, a former California highway patrolman and the founder of Badge of Life, a national advocacy group devoted to improving mental health training for law enforcement officers. The two began talking, and in December O’Hara and his colleagues established a working definition of line-of-duty suicide: “any police officer suicide in which work-related psychological trauma is a precipitant or significant contributor to the act of suicide.” To determine whether an officer suicide fits this definition, O’Hara suggests that outside mental health professionals conduct what’s called a “psychological autopsy,” collecting information through interviews with family and friends of the deceased and a review of his or her medical and job history.
O’Hara’s group is one of several like-minded organizations advocating for police mental health services. The National Police Suicide Foundation was begun in 1997 by a former Baltimore police officer and chaplain who lost a co-worker to suicide. In 1995, Teresa Tate of Cape Coral, Florida -- whose officer husband had taken his life in 1989 -- formed Survivors of Law Enforcement Suicide. Both groups are working to persuade departments across the country to add suicide prevention programs and awareness training for officers and to adopt more compassionate protocols for how to treat surviving families.
read more here
The police suicide problem
VA, DoD discuss suicide research, screening
After reading this I don't know if I want to scream or cry. How is it after all these years, they still don't get it? How can they not understand how the men and the women in the military think and react? Granted that there was very little research being done by the time Vietnam veterans came back, but that was in the 70's. Since then PTSD has been researched to death and there has not been enough results to prove new research has done any good at all. It may have made it worse aside from the findings that the changes in the brain of PTSD veterans can be seen with scans, the fact remains that suicides, attempted suicides and the complications of multiple traumatic events has claimed more and more lives every year.
Medication without therapy for PTSD does not work. So, stop sending them back into combat on medication and no therapy.
Make sure there are therapists deployed with them ready to listen as soon as they need to talk but you better make sure those therapist are trained when it comes to crisis intervention and fully educated on what PTSD is. So far, this has not happened enough. Civilians know what needs to be done following traumatic events when crisis teams rush in. So why has the military not learned this one yet?
Stop repeated deployments when the Army study showed the increase risk of doing this especially without enough dwell time in between them. When they are home, they need to make sure that the time back home is used to help them heal and not just rest so they regret.
Making sure families are aware of what PTSD and what part they play in either helping them heal or making it worse comes from what they understand. They need to be fully involved in all of this to make sure as the veteran heals, they are not making it worse, reversing the efforts or walking away from the veteran they couldn't wait to see again.
If the DOD and the VA want evidence on any of this all they have to do is to talk to families of Vietnam veterans still together and then they'll know what works. You can't stay married to someone with PTSD unless you know what works. The evidence is the life still being lived and the family still together despite all the odds against them. Normal marriages end with divorce rates as high as half, so to see marriages with PTSD in the family, you see all the evidence you need right in front of your eyes.
Medication without therapy for PTSD does not work. So, stop sending them back into combat on medication and no therapy.
Make sure there are therapists deployed with them ready to listen as soon as they need to talk but you better make sure those therapist are trained when it comes to crisis intervention and fully educated on what PTSD is. So far, this has not happened enough. Civilians know what needs to be done following traumatic events when crisis teams rush in. So why has the military not learned this one yet?
Stop repeated deployments when the Army study showed the increase risk of doing this especially without enough dwell time in between them. When they are home, they need to make sure that the time back home is used to help them heal and not just rest so they regret.
Making sure families are aware of what PTSD and what part they play in either helping them heal or making it worse comes from what they understand. They need to be fully involved in all of this to make sure as the veteran heals, they are not making it worse, reversing the efforts or walking away from the veteran they couldn't wait to see again.
If the DOD and the VA want evidence on any of this all they have to do is to talk to families of Vietnam veterans still together and then they'll know what works. You can't stay married to someone with PTSD unless you know what works. The evidence is the life still being lived and the family still together despite all the odds against them. Normal marriages end with divorce rates as high as half, so to see marriages with PTSD in the family, you see all the evidence you need right in front of your eyes.
VA, DoD discuss suicide research, screening
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Jan 24, 2010 8:38:39 EST
As Veterans Affairs and Defense Department officials gathered at a conference Jan. 12 to discuss what research tells them about suicide in the military, a young Army captain stood up to ask a question:
“What can we do at the unit level? That’s the only reason my commander sent me here.”
He left empty-handed.
“There are certainly things you could do, but there’s nothing evidence-based,” said Col. Carl Castro, a psychologist and director of operations for the Medicine Research Program in the Army’s Medical Research and Materiel Command. “This is a very complex problem. Nobody has the answer.”
Castro called suicide the military’s “No. 2 or 3 priority, with [post-traumatic stress disorder] at No. 1.”read more here
VA, DoD discuss suicide research, screening
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