Documentary with Pennsylvania vets awakens Vietnam demons
By Craig Smith
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, February 1, 2010
Last updated: 11:18 am
Army Sgt. Lamont B. Steptoe came home to Pittsburgh after fighting in the jungles of Vietnam and bought a gun.
"I was so enraged. ... I was going to go out one day and start shooting everybody I saw," said Steptoe, 60, who now lives in Philadelphia.
Then, reading "A Choice of Weapons," the autobiography of acclaimed photographer Gordon Parks, and the thought of what his mother would face if he carried out his plot, stopped the Peabody High School grad cold.
A poet, photographer and publisher who grew up in East Liberty, Steptoe exorcises his demons from the war through his writing. The author of 11 collections of poetry and three books on Vietnam, he is a 2005 American Book Award winner and recipient of a 2006 Pew Fellowship.
He and other Vietnam veterans from Pennsylvania are featured in "the weight," a three-part, six-hour documentary being completed that chronicles the war experiences of 10 Vietnam veterans and late CBS newsman Ed Bradley. In addition to Bradley, a Marine featured in the film, Jim Downey, has died.
read more here
Documentary with Pennsylvania vets awakens Vietnam demons
Monday, February 1, 2010
Federal review finds errors at Anchorage VA office
Federal review finds errors at Anchorage VA office
The Associated Press
Published: January 29th, 2010 08:17 AM
Last Modified: January 29th, 2010 08:42 AM
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Federal inspectors gave the Anchorage Veterans Administration regional office a poor review for its handling of disability claims - a 29 percent error rate.
The Anchorage Daily News reports that has resulted in delays, underpayments and denials of services for some veterans.
Office supervisors say they are well on the way toward fixing the problems identified in last year's inspection.
Alaska had the highest number of veterans per capita of any state as of the last census, at nearly 18 percent of the population.
read more here
Federal review finds errors at Anchorage VA office
The Associated Press
Published: January 29th, 2010 08:17 AM
Last Modified: January 29th, 2010 08:42 AM
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Federal inspectors gave the Anchorage Veterans Administration regional office a poor review for its handling of disability claims - a 29 percent error rate.
The Anchorage Daily News reports that has resulted in delays, underpayments and denials of services for some veterans.
Office supervisors say they are well on the way toward fixing the problems identified in last year's inspection.
Alaska had the highest number of veterans per capita of any state as of the last census, at nearly 18 percent of the population.
read more here
Federal review finds errors at Anchorage VA office
Navy supervisor doctored whistle-blower's records
Navy supervisor doctored whistle-blower's records
Fired after criticizing subpar care for Marines, a psychiatrist finds his good personnel reviews turned to bad
By Mark Benjamin
Internal documents and e-mails show that Navy officials unfavorably doctored a psychiatrist’s performance record after he blew the whistle on what he said was dangerously inept management of care for Marines suffering combat stress at Camp Lejeune, N.C. The internal correspondence, obtained by Salon, also includes an order to delete earlier records praising the work of the psychiatrist, Dr. Kernan Manion, who was fired last September after lodging his complaints.
Now top Navy officials are tangled up in the blackball campaign. Soon after Manion was fired, Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., asked the Pentagon about Manion’s concerns about healthcare at Camp Lejeune. In a Dec. 17 letter to Jones, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus panned Manion’s ethics and professionalism, presumably based on information Mabus received about Manion from Camp Lejeune.
But Salon has obtained internal Navy documents and correspondence that suggest officials at Camp Lejeune altered Manion’s favorable personnel records after he went public with his concerns, adding new, derogatory remarks similar to some of the information in Mabus’ letter to Jones.
read more here
Navy supervisor doctored whistle-blowers records
Fired after criticizing subpar care for Marines, a psychiatrist finds his good personnel reviews turned to bad
By Mark Benjamin
Internal documents and e-mails show that Navy officials unfavorably doctored a psychiatrist’s performance record after he blew the whistle on what he said was dangerously inept management of care for Marines suffering combat stress at Camp Lejeune, N.C. The internal correspondence, obtained by Salon, also includes an order to delete earlier records praising the work of the psychiatrist, Dr. Kernan Manion, who was fired last September after lodging his complaints.
Now top Navy officials are tangled up in the blackball campaign. Soon after Manion was fired, Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., asked the Pentagon about Manion’s concerns about healthcare at Camp Lejeune. In a Dec. 17 letter to Jones, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus panned Manion’s ethics and professionalism, presumably based on information Mabus received about Manion from Camp Lejeune.
But Salon has obtained internal Navy documents and correspondence that suggest officials at Camp Lejeune altered Manion’s favorable personnel records after he went public with his concerns, adding new, derogatory remarks similar to some of the information in Mabus’ letter to Jones.
read more here
Navy supervisor doctored whistle-blowers records
Living with the wounds of Fort Hood
Living with the wounds of Fort Hood
By DANIEL P. FINNEY • dafinney@dmreg.com • January 31, 2010
The pink surgery scar runs halfway down Staff Sgt. Joy Clark's left arm like a zipper.
Dime-sized dots mar each side of the limb - permanent reminders of a bullet that ripped through her arm during another soldier's Nov. 5 shooting rampage that left 13 dead and 30 wounded at Fort Hood near Killeen, Texas.
Those scars are as obvious as the grimace on the Des Moines native's 27-year-old face as she grips a weight during physical therapy.
Unseen is the ache inside her. Clark survived the attack, but her injuries forced her to stay home while her unit deployed to Afghanistan.
"I know it's not my fault," Clark said in her first extended interview since the tragedy, "but there is this sense of an unfinished mission."
On Nov. 5, Clark waited in line for a routine medical checkup inside a Fort Hood office building.
The exam was her third stop in a necessary but tedious preparation for deployment to Afghanistan scheduled for after Thanksgiving.
The mission was to be Clark's first overseas mission since joining the military in 2001.
Instead, Clark found herself on the front line of what Vice President Joe Biden later would call the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.
At 1:34 p.m., military investigators allege Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan entered the building and opened fire on his fellow soldiers.
The soldier closest to Clark, a man she did not know, was hit. He slumped forward. Clark, a field medic, wrapped her left arm around him and tried to help.
A bullet pierced her left arm. She recoiled and the wounded man she held fell to the ground. He died.
Clark looked at her arm. A bullet had passed through it and there wasn't much blood. She felt no pain. With her good arm, she reached out for another wounded comrade.
"We were unarmed," Clark said. "There were no weapons in the building. There was no way we could defend ourselves."
go here for more and video
Living with the wounds of Fort Hood
By DANIEL P. FINNEY • dafinney@dmreg.com • January 31, 2010
The pink surgery scar runs halfway down Staff Sgt. Joy Clark's left arm like a zipper.
Dime-sized dots mar each side of the limb - permanent reminders of a bullet that ripped through her arm during another soldier's Nov. 5 shooting rampage that left 13 dead and 30 wounded at Fort Hood near Killeen, Texas.
Those scars are as obvious as the grimace on the Des Moines native's 27-year-old face as she grips a weight during physical therapy.
Unseen is the ache inside her. Clark survived the attack, but her injuries forced her to stay home while her unit deployed to Afghanistan.
"I know it's not my fault," Clark said in her first extended interview since the tragedy, "but there is this sense of an unfinished mission."
On Nov. 5, Clark waited in line for a routine medical checkup inside a Fort Hood office building.
The exam was her third stop in a necessary but tedious preparation for deployment to Afghanistan scheduled for after Thanksgiving.
The mission was to be Clark's first overseas mission since joining the military in 2001.
Instead, Clark found herself on the front line of what Vice President Joe Biden later would call the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.
At 1:34 p.m., military investigators allege Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan entered the building and opened fire on his fellow soldiers.
The soldier closest to Clark, a man she did not know, was hit. He slumped forward. Clark, a field medic, wrapped her left arm around him and tried to help.
A bullet pierced her left arm. She recoiled and the wounded man she held fell to the ground. He died.
Clark looked at her arm. A bullet had passed through it and there wasn't much blood. She felt no pain. With her good arm, she reached out for another wounded comrade.
"We were unarmed," Clark said. "There were no weapons in the building. There was no way we could defend ourselves."
go here for more and video
Living with the wounds of Fort Hood
PTSD:Casualties At Home
Reading this took me back to when PTSD ruled over my own house. How many conversations did I have to walk away from? How many times did I listen as co-workers were acting as if their life was ending over someone trivial compared to what I was going thru? It happened all the time.
"My husband's snores and it drives me crazy!" I'd hear and then think, my husband is going through hell, can't sleep through the night, has nightmares so severe he breaks out sweating and screaming. Then he spends the night on the couch watching TV after checking every door and window to make sure we were safe.
"All my husband does is talk about sport!" While I thought about how my husband didn't talk anymore unless he had to. How he didn't want to tell me what was going on with him, why he was acting like a stranger, why he couldn't remember a conversation we had moments before or feel as if he owed me an explanation of where he had been.
So many conversations when someone would talk and the listener would understand but how could anyone understand any of this? Would they even listen? Usually not. I had some close friends over the years working for different businesses. Most of them were really great people but even they would change the subject when I tried to talk about what was going on in my house. I stopped talking. There wasn't much of a point to it when the usual well meaning advice I'd receive was to get a divorce.
Why is it so hard to understand PTSD when it is really not that hard to do if someone wants to know? The problem is, they have no desire at all.
Is it because they can't think of what happens in combat or having to have to take a life? Is it because somewhere in the back of their own minds they know PTSD could wound them as well should something traumatic happen to them?
For us, living with PTSD, we need to make it as plain and simple as possible for them to understand. There is nothing to be ashamed of when you live with PTSD in your home. Until the day comes when most people are aware of this, support groups are vital to our survival so that we can share with other people fully aware of what we're going thru. AA works because everyone there has a deep secret in common and there is mutual trust where there is sharing and not judgment. While it's hard to talk to people with no understanding of what PTSD is, talking to other people going thru it is freeing and empowering.
"My husband's snores and it drives me crazy!" I'd hear and then think, my husband is going through hell, can't sleep through the night, has nightmares so severe he breaks out sweating and screaming. Then he spends the night on the couch watching TV after checking every door and window to make sure we were safe.
"All my husband does is talk about sport!" While I thought about how my husband didn't talk anymore unless he had to. How he didn't want to tell me what was going on with him, why he was acting like a stranger, why he couldn't remember a conversation we had moments before or feel as if he owed me an explanation of where he had been.
So many conversations when someone would talk and the listener would understand but how could anyone understand any of this? Would they even listen? Usually not. I had some close friends over the years working for different businesses. Most of them were really great people but even they would change the subject when I tried to talk about what was going on in my house. I stopped talking. There wasn't much of a point to it when the usual well meaning advice I'd receive was to get a divorce.
Why is it so hard to understand PTSD when it is really not that hard to do if someone wants to know? The problem is, they have no desire at all.
Is it because they can't think of what happens in combat or having to have to take a life? Is it because somewhere in the back of their own minds they know PTSD could wound them as well should something traumatic happen to them?
For us, living with PTSD, we need to make it as plain and simple as possible for them to understand. There is nothing to be ashamed of when you live with PTSD in your home. Until the day comes when most people are aware of this, support groups are vital to our survival so that we can share with other people fully aware of what we're going thru. AA works because everyone there has a deep secret in common and there is mutual trust where there is sharing and not judgment. While it's hard to talk to people with no understanding of what PTSD is, talking to other people going thru it is freeing and empowering.
Casualties At Home
February 1, 2010, by Sharon Adams
Sitting in a dentist’s chair, Susan Binnie asks if she can stay after the dentist is through—just so she can soak up the peace. She lives near St. Albert, northwest of Edmonton with her two daughters, aged nine and 14, and her husband, a veteran who has struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for 15 years. Binnie has discovered if one person in the family has PTSD, the whole family suffers.
And so she takes her peace where she finds it.
Angelle Peacock, a mother of two small boys, lives in Morinville, Alta. She is also coping with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Her husband Ted, a serving member of the military, is in treatment, and at times it has been like she has three small children, especially when her husband has had to be reminded to eat or to shower.
Both women describe other instances when typical childhood behaviour has triggered angry outbursts or flashbacks from their husbands. Both are juggling full-time jobs and family issues that demand full-time attention.
These women—and hundreds more across Canada—cannot turn to colleagues at work or chums for support because those who don’t live under the umbra of Operational Stress Injury just won’t understand. “They say, ‘Why don’t you leave?’” says Binnie. Peacock adds: “I’ve woken in the night to find my husband has taken out a window and is in the backyard ‘fighting bad guys.’ How do you go to work the next day, and over coffee say, ‘You know what’s going on at my house?’”
read more here
http://www.legionmagazine.com/en/index.php/2010/02/casualties-at-home/
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)