Camp Lejeune Marine Shot by Police While Rushing Wife to Hospital

WIFE: Marine husband rushing me to hospital when shot by officer during chase
WITN News
By: Carly Swain, Rachael Cardin, and Clayton Bauman
Nov 28, 2014

The wife of a Marine who is accused of leading police on a chase and attempting to run down an officer says her husband was rushing her to the hospital.

Brandon Henry is facing several charges, including assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, assault with a deadly weapon against a government official, and fleeing or eluding arrest.

Jacksonville police say Henry was driving a vehicle that was first being chased by Camp Lejeune police.

The Wednesday night chase ended up in the city, and investigators said officers initially tried to stop the car near Corbin Road and Huff Drive. Police say the driver suddenly stepped on the gas, speeding straight toward Officer Jan Friis. Police said that officer shot at the car.

Jennifer Henry said she was unconscious in the car as her husband was trying to get her to the hospital. She says her husband was hit by one of the bullets in his arm, while another came close to hitting her. "One bullet came through the front window, the windshield and the other came in the passenger side, right behind my head, close to the door."

Henry, who says she was medically discharged from the Marines, told WITN's Rachael Cardin that both she and her husband suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. She says her husband told her he initially stopped for police, and then had a panic attack. Henry says her husband was only trying to go around the policeman when the officer opened fire.
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Wall Street Journal PTSD Report on Vietnam Veterans Mostly Wrong

Vets Seek Help for PTSD Decades After War
Hundreds of Thousands of Aging Vietnam Veterans Receive Treatment
Wall Street Journal
Clare Ansberry
November 28, 2014

SANDISFIELD, Mass.—Nightmares of a friend dying beside him in a bunker years ago now waken Donald Vitkus.

“There is stuff that you carry from the war,” the 71-year-old Vietnam veteran said.

Mr. Vitkus spends his days in and out of therapy at a residential rehabilitation center filled with mostly older veterans, working on his memory while trying to gain control over disturbing recollections and the emotions they surface.

He is one of hundreds of thousands of aging Vietnam veterans who late in life are now seeking help for post-traumatic stress disorder—a mix of flashbacks, depression and sleeplessness springing from a war that ended four decades ago.

More than 530,000 veterans received treatment for PTSD from VA hospitals and clinics through March of this year, nearly double the total through 2006, according to the Veterans Administration. Iraq and Afghanistan veterans make up a large portion of the increase but account for slightly more than a quarter of PTSD patients; the rest served in earlier wars, mainly Vietnam.

Many of those Vietnam veterans threw themselves into family and work after the war, keeping busy to avoid thinking about what happened. Now, in their 60s and 70s, they have retired, their children grown, living without the distraction of workaday life. Some no longer have confidants—spouses, friends or siblings.
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Now for something they got wrong among other things.

"PTSD wasn’t identified as a medical disorder until 1980, after the emotional troubles of Vietnam veterans became too overwhelming to dismiss."

The VA didn't compensate for PTSD until the 80's but it was already being used by the mental health community and veterans centers. Vietnam veterans pushed for the research and treatment as well as compensation to take care of all generations of veterans.

The title of the report this came from was this

It hangs on the wall right over my desk so I never forget how long we've been talking about PTSD.

Some experts question the reported rise in PTSD cases. Christopher Frueh, a University of Hawaii psychologist and former clinician and director of a VA PTSD clinic, said the VA has relaxed criteria in determining PTSD—for example, not requiring documentation of exposure to a traumatic event—making it easier for veterans to misrepresent their combat experience.

The article seems to want to send a message supporting an agenda instead of facts. In 2007 El Paso Times had this report about Vietnam Veterans seeking help for PTSD.

In the past 18 months, 148,000 Vietnam veterans have gone to VA centers reporting symptoms of PTSD "30 years after the war," said Brig. Gen. Michael S. Tucker, deputy commanding general of the North Atlantic Regional Medical Command and Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He recently visited El Paso.

That was long before the rules were changed to make it easier for Vietnam veterans to refile claims that had been turned down. Long before research, real research showed that Vietnam veterans were the majority of the homeless as well as the majority of the suicides connected to military service.

In the article them seem to be trying yet again to blame the veteran for not being, well, strong enough to deal with combat on one hand and on the other, being greedy taking advantage of the rule changes. With reporters like this, we have a view of what it will look like 30 or 40 years from now since they forgot what really happened.

Every generation came home with what we call PTSD. My Dad's generation still called it "shell shock" but they all knew what it was. They knew the price being paid by body and mind. Wounds that would never really heal.

My husband's Dad and uncles were of the WWII generation. One of them had "shell shock" and was given a choice. Go into an institution or go live on a farm with other veterans. He picked the farm.

Between WWI and WWII, psychiatric evacuations went up 300%. They tried something different during Kora and brought them down to 3% because they had clinicians pull soldiers out of combat, treat them and get them able to go back to duty.

With Vietnam they tried something else. 12 month deployments so that they were already back home and out of the military before they started to show signs they needed help. Marines did 13 months.

Now you know the rest of the story.

Massachusetts Department of Veterans Services Awarded for Outreach Efforts

Saugus veterans district is honored
Saugus Wicked Local
By Jessica Sacco
Posted Nov. 28, 2014

“For us being young Iraq and Afghanistan veterans in our 20s and 30s, we’re making our generation of veterans proud, too.” Andy Biggio

Ryan McLane, district director of veteran services for Melrose, Wakefield and Saugus, Andy Biggio, district veteran services officer, and Coleman Nee, Secretary of the Department of Veterans' Services, after the awards ceremony in Leominster.
Courtesy photo

SAUGUS
Saugus veterans’ officials were recognized for outstanding services and community outreach by the state. The Massachusetts Department of Veterans’ Services presented the Melrose, Wakefield and Saugus district with the Veterans’ Services District of the Year award during a ceremony on Oct. 27.

Every year the department hosts an annual training for veteran service officers to update officials on new policies, procedures and benefits. There are currently 201 VSOs throughout the commonwealth and 22 veterans’ services districts.

During the four-day training conference in Leominster, the department issued three awards: Veteran Service Officer of the Year, Veteran Service Officer Administrator of the Year and Veterans’ Services District of the Year.

The latter represents the hard work and dedication by District Director Ryan McLane and District VSO Andy Biggio.

“The Melrose, Wakefield and Saugus Veterans’ Service District has done a tremendous job of improving outreach and access to state, federal and other benefits for veterans and their families and are a perfect example for what communities can accomplish under a district model,” Coleman Nee, Secretary of the Department of Veterans’ Services said in a statement. “I congratulate Ryan and Andy on behalf of the Department and the veterans in their communities.”

Nee created the Veterans’ Services District of the Year award in 2011, after he released official guidelines on the process for establishing veteran districts.
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PR Campaign Starts to Counter WTU Reports

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
November 28, 2014

NBC5 and Dallas Morning News did a six month long report on the investigation of how PTSD soldiers were treated in Warrior Transition Units across military bases.

Injured Heroes, Broken Promises: Hundreds of Soldiers Allege Mistreatment at Army Warrior Transition Units Wounded soldiers found harassment and verbal abuse from commanders assigned to care for the injured.

Wounded Times has covered the truth for 7 years and it is far from what the national news will spend time on. Most of the great reporting is done by local news outlets across the country. That is where the reports on No excuse for Fort Hood mistreatment of Soldiers with PTSD came from.

The rest of the media can ignore it all they want but the truth is, while we do have the best military in the world, when it comes to the men and women serving, the leaders are PTSD imbeciles.

To discover how long all of this has been going on, we need to begin with the research the Army did on redeployments in 2006. The Washington Post reported their study showed this.

Repeat Iraq Tours Raise Risk of PTSD, Army Finds
Washington Post
By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 20, 2006

U.S. soldiers serving repeated Iraq deployments are 50 percent more likely than those with one tour to suffer from acute combat stress, raising their risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the Army's first survey exploring how today's multiple war-zone rotations affect soldiers' mental health.

More than 650,000 soldiers have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2001 -- including more than 170,000 now in the Army who have served multiple tours -- so the survey's finding of increased risk from repeated exposure to combat has potentially widespread implications for the all-volunteer force. Earlier Army studies have shown that up to 30 percent of troops deployed to Iraq suffer from depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with the latter accounting for about 10 percent.

The findings reflect the fact that some soldiers -- many of whom are now spending only about a year at home between deployments -- are returning to battle while still suffering from the psychological scars of earlier combat tours, the report said.

"When we look at combat, we look at some very horrific events," said Col. Ed Crandell, head of the Army's Mental Health Advisory Team, which polled 1,461 soldiers in Iraq in late 2005. "They come back, they know they're going to deploy again," and as a result they don't ever return to normal levels of stress, Crandell said.
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What did the Generals do? Did they make sure no one was sent back? No. As a matter of fact, they ignored their own research. This is an educated assumption simply because as they refused to adapt, they also refused to make sure these redeployed troops were properly cared for in response to what they knew would follow.

They pulled the wool over the public eye with Battlemind.

If BattleMind worked, there would not be more suicides and more attempted suicides than before BattleMind, but do you think they would be able to figure this one out yet? It came out in 2007 and yet again today I hear word of another soldier, a young, newly married soldier, who came back from Iraq and blew his brains out in front of his new bride. Is it because they do not show it to all the troops? Is it because they only show a lousy 11 1/2 minutes to the troops in Afghanistan as the BBC reported? Is it the trainers? Or, is the answer as simple as it does not work?

I don't know but you would think that since some of the finest minds in this country have been put to work on PTSD, they would have reduced suicides and attempted suicides instead of increasing them while they stick their fingers in their ears and hope the problem goes away! If they cannot cope with any of this after all this time, what's it going to be like two or three years from now when most of them have PTSD and they are still doing what does not work? Unit cohesion? Trust? How can they have any when they cannot trust what they are coming back to? How can they when some of them are National Guards and Reservists expected to go back to their civilian lives and jobs?

This was followed by Comprehensive Soldier Fitness

In a speech before the international affairs organization the Atlantic Council on Thursday, U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey laid out the virtues of the newly formed initiative, which he called Comprehensive Soldier Fitness.

"We have been looking very hard at ways to develop coping skills and resilience in soldiers, and we will be coming out in July with a new program called Comprehensive Soldier Fitness," said Casey. "And what we will attempt to do is raise mental fitness to the same level that we now give to physical fitness. Because it is scientifically proven, you can build resilience."

"The whole idea here is to give soldiers the skills they need to increase their resilience and enhance their performance," he went on. "A lot of people think that everybody who goes to combat gets post-traumatic stress. That's not true. Everybody that goes to combat gets stressed. There is no doubt about it. But the vast majority of people who go to combat have a growth experience because they are exposed to something very, very difficult and they prevail. So the issue for us is how do we give more people the skills so that more people have a growth experience... We thought it was important to get started on this because everything else involves you treating the problem. We need to be more proactive."

Yet by 2009 it was already followed by a warning that this "program" would increase suicides simply by feeding the stigma.
Comprehensive Soldier Fitness will make it worse

If you promote this program the way Battlemind was promoted, count on the numbers of suicides and attempted suicides to go up instead of down. It's just one more deadly mistake after another and just as dangerous as sending them into Iraq without the armor needed to protect them.

This training was designed as a research project to help school aged kids feel better about themselves but these yahoos decided to treat soldiers like kids on the playground and tell them they could train their brains to be mentally tough. As we've seen from the reports on Warrior Transition Unit leaders telling PTSD soldiers to "man up" they got the wrong message.

This training told the soldiers if you train right you'll be resilient and they heard if they ended up with PTSD, they were mentally weak. Would you want to admit you needed help after that? Would you want to tell you buddy you are falling apart or need to talk with this idea your brain?

Every single OEF-OIF veteran I talked to pointed to this training as part of the problem but the leaders have not been willing to listen to them.

Generals have been delivering the wrong message at the same time they ignore the right ones. When other generals talked about having PTSD, when MOH heroes talked about their own battles, the DOD failed to get their message.

Ok so now you know more of what has been happening. Just as the PR campaign started to blame soldiers for committing suicide making sure the country knew most of them had not been deployed, they failed to address the simple fact that CSF wasn't even good enough to keep them alive but they thought it would work for those redeployed over and over again?

They play another game of selling how great they are with a "success story" on Warrior Transition Units.

VA soldier interns share transition success stories with WTU soldiers
By Gloria Montgomery
Warrior Transition Unit Public Affairs
November 26, 2014

TEMPLE — It gave her goose bumps, she said as she listened to her former Fort Hood Warrior Transition Unit soldiers share stories of their transitioning successes with other WTU soldiers who will soon enter the civilian workforce.

The goose bumps, said Maj. Thelma Nicholls, a WTU nurse case manager, were from witnessing the transformation of her former “broken and worn-down” soldiers into confident and beaming professionals, thanks to the Temple Veterans Affairs’ “intern to hire” philosophy and the Operation Warfighter federal internship program.

“To see how they have transitioned into productive citizens and are now paying it forward is remarkable,” she said, adding how special it was that the WTU interns and VA veteran hires were sharing their positive messaging with Nicholls and nearly 50 other WTU soldiers and family members Nov. 14 at the Olin E. Teague Medical Center in Temple, during a panel discussion on federal internships and employment opportunities.

“It was so uplifting,” Nicholls said. “They are a light for the soldiers who are leaving and thinking there is nothing out there for them. Well, there is something out there, but they have to want it, go for it and be that little light to make things happen.”

It also validated everything about the WTU and the “process” called healing and transitioning, said WTU’s intake company’s 1st Sgt. Renita Garrett.
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Researchers Find Reason PTSD is Not All in Your Head

'Trigger' for stress processes discovered in the brain
Medical Xpress
Medical University of Vienna

"In contrast, the consequences of chronic stress are manifold and can, for example, lead to an increased tendency to suffer from infections but also to high blood pressure, diabetes and an increased risk of cardio-vascular disease right through to chronic headaches, tinnitus or osteoporosis."

At the Center for Brain Research at the MedUni Vienna an important factor for stress has been identified in collaboration with the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm (Sweden). This is the protein secretagogin that plays an important role in the release of the stress hormone CRH and which only then enables stress processes in the brain to be transmitted to the pituitary gland and then onwards to the organs. A current study on this molecular switch has now been published in the top-ranked EMBO Journal.

"If, however, the presence of secretagogin, a calcium-binding protein, is suppressed, then CRH (= Corticotropin Releasing Hormone) might not be released in the hypothalamus of the brain thus preventing the triggering of hormonal responses to stress in the body," explains Tibor Harkany of the Department of Molecular Neurosciences at the MedUni Vienna.

"Now we have a better understanding of how stress is generated," says Tomas Hökfelt of the Karolinska Institutet and guest professor at the MedUni Vienna. This could result in a further development where secretagogin is deployed as a tool to treat stress, perhaps in people suffering from mental illness such as depression, burn out or posttraumatic stress disorder, but also in cases of chronic stress brought on by pain. If a rapid recovery phase follows a period of stress, body and mind are restored to "normal working", which is associated with a suppression of the release of circulating stress hormones.
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