Forgetting Those Betrayed Insured More Suicides

In 2007 Obama was onto the fact troops were being kicked out of the military but that didn't do much good since they just kept on doing it.

The pre-existing part is the kicker — because it means that the Pentagon, acting like your least favorite HMO, won’t pick up the cost of the medical care of these troops after it discharges them. “They’ve kicked out about 22,000 troops who they say have pre-existing personality disorders. I don’t believe that,” Missouri Sen. Kit Bond told the newspaper. “And when you kick them out, they don’t get the assistance they need, they aren’t entitled to DOD or Veterans Administration care for those problems.” Bond and Obama have introduced a bill to attempt to remedy this outrage.

By now just about everyone has heard of the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention Act and how it was supposed to be different from everything else that has been done. There is nothing new in it other than more veterans have committed suicide since the other bills were passed with the same claim about addressing the issue. Tribute to Justin Bailey

Parents blame VA in fatal overdose
An Iraq war veteran should have been watched more closely, his family says, because of his abuse of drugs.
LA Times
Mary Engel
March 12, 2007

Iraq war veteran Justin Bailey checked himself in to the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center just after Thanksgiving.

Among the first wave of Marines sent into battle, the young rifleman had been diagnosed since his return with posttraumatic stress disorder and a groin injury. Now, Bailey acknowledged to his family and a friend, he needed immediate treatment for his addiction to prescription and street drugs.

"We were so happy," said his stepmother, Mary Kaye Bailey, 41. "We were putting all of our faith into those doctors."

On Jan. 25, Justin Bailey got prescriptions filled for five medications, including a two-week supply of the potent painkiller methadone, according to his medical records.

VETERANS' MENTAL HEALTH AND OTHER CARE IMPROVEMENTS ACT OF 2008
110th Congress

This bill had Peer Specialist Training

Peer Specialist.--To be eligible to be appointed to a peer specialist position, a person must
(A) be a veteran who has recovered or is recovering from a mental health condition; and
(B) be certified by--(i) a not-for-profit entity engaged in peer specialist training as having met such criteria as the Secretary shall establish for a peer specialist position; (ii) a State as having satisfied relevant State requirements for a peer specialist position.''.

Officials seek ways to stem increasing military suicides
Philly.com
By Edward Colimore, Inquirer Staff Writer
POSTED: February 28, 2011

When Army Sgt. Coleman Bean left Iraq to resume his civilian life in New Jersey, he was a changed man.

No longer as outgoing, he appeared subdued and unfocused after two combat deployments. He also began drinking too much.

"I thought he just needed to unwind," said his mother, Linda Bean of East Brunswick. "I was just so grateful to have him home in one piece."

But inside, the 25-year-old veteran carried disturbing memories of Iraq, including one of women and children burning alive in a bus fire.

A few months after his 2008 homecoming, Bean couldn't deal with his feelings anymore. He wrecked his Jeep one night, was charged with DUI, and took a cab to his apartment in South River, Middlesex County, where he fatally shot himself.
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N.J. military suicide prevention helpline to become national program
The Star-Ledger
By Mark Mueller
December 12, 2011

Linda Bean of East Brunswick testified before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs in Washington, DC, on July 14, 2010. Bean, whose son Coleman committed suicide after two tours of duty in Iraq, urged Congress to pass legislation that would benefit soldiers returning home from the war.

Vets4Warriors, a peer-to-peer helpline administered by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, will be available Tuesday morning to members and veterans of the National Guard in all 50 states and four U.S. territories, officials are due to announce today. The program also is open to members of the military reserves.

In all, about 950,000 service members will have access to Vets4Warriors, said Chris Kosseff, the chief executive officer of UMDNJ’s University Behavioral HealthCare division, which runs the Piscataway call center with support from the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.

Joshua Omvig

The effects were apparent enough that others noticed. One of Josh's first desires was a meal at McDonald's. While there, the family encountered a veteran of the Vietnam War.

The older man saw the jitters and addressed Josh.

"'I know. It will get better. Thank you for your service,'" Ellen remembers the man saying.

Josh only shared information about Iraq in one- or two-sentence fragments at a time. But as they spent time together, his parents learned driving presented perceived threats to the veteran. Deer along the road. Headlights in the review mirror. Ordinary items, like culverts, that to Josh represented hiding places.

"His head was on a pivot," Randy says.

Josh was in his truck. The doors were locked. Ellen pleaded with her son to not do what he was contemplating. Her appeals turned to screams.

Ellen did not the time Josh had already called a friend, police officer Terry Oltman. He asked Oltman to stop by the house in a few minutes.

Seeing what was developing, Oltman ordered Ellen away from the car, she remembers. Ellen refused to leave her son.

Josh raised a handgun and fired a single shot. He turned his head slightly to avoid possibly injuring his mother.

"I just can't believe how much can happen in one minute," Ellen says.

Father and mother want information in their son's suicide note held privately. Save for the closing thought:

"I will always love you. Josh."

The family buried their soldier with help from the U.S. Army Reserve 339th Military Police Company.

Josh Omvig was 22.

"He thought it would get better because he was home," Westly says. "And it never got better. It got worse."

Josh told his mother once he died in Iraq. But he kept living for another year.

President Bush Signs H.R. 327 and H.R. 1284 into Law
White House News
On Monday, November 5, 2007, the President signed into law:

H.R. 327, the "Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act," which requires VA to develop and implement a comprehensive program to reduce the incidence of suicide among veterans; and

H.R. 1284, the "Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2007," which provides a cost-of-living increase for the beneficiaries of veterans' disability compensation and dependency and indemnity compensation.

Joseph Dwyer, famous for running with a child in his arms in Iraq, was sent to Iraq because his wife was worried about being deployed and having to leave her own children.

GI in Famous Photo Defeated By His Demons

Warren Zinn / Army Times file
Joseph Dwyer carries a young Iraqi boy who was injured during a battle between the U.S. Army's 7th Cavalry Regiment and Iraqi forces near the village of Al Faysaliyah, Iraq, on March 25, 2003.

When it became clear that the U.S. would invade Iraq, Knapp became distraught, confiding to Dwyer that she would rather disobey her deployment orders than leave her kids.

Dwyer asked to go in her place. When she protested, he insisted: "Trust me, this is what I want to do. I want to go." After a week of nagging, his superiors relented.

Dwyer assured his parents, Maureen and Patrick — and his new wife, Matina, whom he'd married in August 2002 — that he was being sent to Kuwait and would likely stay in the rear, far from the action.

But it wasn't true. Unbeknownst to his family, Dwyer had been attached to the 3rd Infantry's 7th Cavalry Regiment. He was at "the tip of the tip of the spear," in one officer's phrase.

I could keep going on this but it would take far too long and wouldn't do any of the others the justice they properly deserve. They all mattered. They mattered to their families, friends and those they serve with. Their lives cut short mattered for a time to members of congress, but as with most things, they just didn't matter enough to remember them, or what they do, or what was done in their name, the next time another name made headlines it their hometowns and congressmen once again, got to sponsor another bill with their names on it as another headstone was carved with the name of the past heroes they claimed to honoring.

Disabled Veterans VA Checks Stolen From E-Benefits System

Veterans say scam has their benefits going to S. Dakota
WFAA News
Jim Douglas
February 6, 2015

Benefit checks for all three vets never made it to their bank accounts. They say someone created fake profiles in the government's online E-benefit program, which they didn't even subscribe to.

Many of our aging veterans survive on monthly benefit checks from the Veterans Administration. But identity thieves have apparently breached the system somewhere. Algie Robinson, Robert Etheridge, and LC Moore say they were victims.
(Photo: WFAA)

Many of our aging veterans survive on monthly benefit checks from the Veterans Administration. But identity thieves have apparently breached the system somewhere.

"So, I'm broke," said 76-year-old Algie Robinson. "I ain't got no money to pay the rent."

His missing monthly check was for more than $1,100.

"If I don't pay some bills - like light bills - next week, they'll be turned off," said 81-year-old Robert Etheridge.

His check was for $600.

LC Moore, 69, says he and his wife pawned jewelry to pay the power bill. "Had to pay bills," he said.

He missed a check for $890.

Benefit checks for all three vets never made it to their bank accounts. They say someone created fake profiles in the government's online E-benefit program, which they didn't even subscribe to.

Crooks diverted the vets' money into a bank in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Some vets were told the account is connected to a number out of Florida.
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Fort Carson Policy Targeted Troubled, Wounded Soldiers, Still

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
February 8, 2015

Warrior Transition Units have been in the news for a long time now because some reporters actually bothered to tell their stories. Thanks to the Dallas Morning News and NBC out of Texas, some of their stories were told. Because of their reporting Army orders new training for Warrior Transition Units

The Army has ordered new training to address complaints from wounded soldiers describing harassment and intimidation inside the nation’s Warrior Transition Units, which are supposed to help these soldiers heal.

The problem is, not much has changed since 2011 for those who served, risked their lives only to find those lives were still being jepordized by the military claiming to to take their suffering seriously.

Critics: Fort Carson policy targeted troubled, wounded soldiers
Stars and Stripes
By Bill Murphy Jr.
Published: November 15, 2011

FORT CARSON, Colo. — Army Cpl. Joshua Smith saw the orange glow against the South Carolina night sky long before he reached his sister’s apartment complex. The fire in the back buildings was intense. People stood in shock, watching the blaze.

Smith leapt from his rental car and vaulted a five-foot brick wall, yelling at onlookers to call for help. He grabbed an exercise weight someone had left in the yard, threw it through a sliding glass door and burst into the burning building. He shepherded a mother and her 16-month-old daughter to safety, then turned his attention to the other apartments, kicking down doors, running room to room, making sure no one else was trapped. By the time he emerged, firefighters had arrived. The local TV news hailed the 22-year-old infantryman — home on leave after a tour in Iraq before transferring to Fort Carson, Colo. — whose quick action saved lives.

“It was easy,” Smith said later. “Nobody was shooting at me.”

Sixteen months later, in November 2010, the acting commander at Fort Carson, Brig. Gen. James H. Doty, pinned the Soldier’s Medal, the Army’s highest award for noncombat heroism, to Smith’s chest. It was the young soldier’s second valor medal in three years in the military, after an Army Commendation Medal with valor device that he’d been awarded for his combat service.

For all his heroics, however, Smith’s life was falling apart.

‘This pattern ... is so clear'

With soldiers coming home broken in record numbers, the Army has pledged to take care of their physical and mental wounds. The quick-separation policy at Fort Carson stands in direct conflict with that pledge.

The Army touts a zero-tolerance policy for drug use, but commanders have considerable discretion regarding how much punishment soldiers receive and whether they ultimately are retained or discharged.

Moreover, defense lawyers and veterans advocates point to many cases in which soldiers who tested positive for use of drugs once, or occasionally even twice or more — but who were not facing a possible medical discharge — have been retained on active duty.

Just last month, the vice chief of staff of the Army, Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, talked about the link between PTSD and traumatic brain injury on the one hand, and substance abuse and suicide on the other.
read more here

That "pattern" was clear way back in 2011 when that report came out. At least, to some. What wasn't clear was who would be the "one too many" the military keeps talking about when they have to answer questions about military suicide reports? When will that actually happen? When will there be one too many before things change for the men and women risking their lives and paying the price, far too often, with their lives because their suffering has been responded to with abuse?

Fort Carson Wounded Warrior Abused by Doctor and Social Worker
Military.com
by Richard Sisk
Feb 07, 2015

The abuse was "largely associated with disrespect, harassment, belittlement within the three WTUs in Texas" - Fort Hood, Fort Bliss and Brooke Army Medical Center, Toner told the military personnel subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee.

Editor's Note: The following article updates the previous one to include Army corrections to misstatements made by Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Patricia Horoho on the mistreatment of a soldier at the Warrior Transition Unit at Fort Carson, Colo.

A soldier at the Fort Carson, Colo., Warrior Transition Unit (WTU) suffered mistreatment by a doctor and a social worker for several months last year, an Army investigation concluded.

The fact-finding investigation under Article 15-6 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice found that the two heath care providers engaged in "problematic encounters" with the soldier between February and May of 2014, the Army said.

At a roundtable session with Pentagon reporters Friday, Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Patricia Horoho said that the doctor and the social worker "showed a lack of dignity and respect to one soldier" and had been disciplined.

Horoho said the mistreatment at Fort Carson's WTU was limited to the two heath care providers and "we did not find that there was a systemic issue."

The Army said that the complaints of several other soldiers dating back to 2011 were also reviewed but were determined "not to contain problematic behavior by the providers.

Horoho initially suggested that the abuse by the doctor and the social worker occurred in the 2009-2013 time frame but the Army later put out a correction to several of her statements to reflect that the Fort Carson incidents occurred last year and were the subject an Article 15-6 investigation.

It was not the first time the WTU at Fort Carson had come under scrutiny. In 2010, the Army disputed a New York Times report on the Fort Carson WTUs that detailed shortcomings in therapy, and patients becoming addicted to medications and suffering abuse from non-commissioned officers.
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Afghanistan War Memorial Brings Memories Back For Chaplain

YELLOWKNIFE VIGIL ‘BRINGS IT ALL BACK’ FOR MILITARY CHAPLAIN
Yellowknife News Canada
OLLIE WILLIAMS
FEBRUARY 7, 2015

Things like the vigil’s opening ceremony are a reminder of that great support network we have, and give us a chance to grieve and honour at the same time, so you don’t keep the feelings all inside.

When Major Darren Persaud stood in front of plaques at the Afghanistan Memorial Vigil in Yellowknife, he saw more than faces.

Sadly, the military chaplain – after three tours of Afghanistan – knew many of those commemorated by the plaques only too well.

Here, as told to Moose FM on the day of the vigil’s opening ceremony, is how Major Persaud reflects on what the vigil meant to him.

I’ve served for 12 years. I was in Afghanistan in 2004, 2008 and 2011, with the Air Force, Army and special forces.

When I look at a lot of the faces on the plaques at the vigil, I either was with them, or part of the chaplain team that would notify their families when they passed away overseas.

It’s really hard to even begin to talk about it.

I think, over time, I got better at coping with talking to the families. Not that it’s ever easy, but you really have to understand how to take care of yourself by creating a great support network, which I’m very thankful to have – be it other chaplains, social workers, the medical professional or other soldiers themselves. It’s so important for us.

Things like the vigil’s opening ceremony are a reminder of that great support network we have, and give us a chance to grieve and honour at the same time, so you don’t keep the feelings all inside.
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Detroit Army Ranger Killed in Ambush

Highland Park Reserve Officer shot and killed in Detroit
5 people in custody related to shooting
Click On Detroit News
Author: Alison Darany, Assignment Editor
Published On: Feb 07 2015

DETROIT
Five people were in custody Saturday morning after Roderick Jones, a Highland Park Reserve Officer and Army Ranger veteran, was shot and killed overnight in Detroit.

Sources said Jones, 33, was gunned down as he was walking into the parking lot at the Opyum Lounge Nightclub at 8 Mile and Telegraph. He was taken to the hospital, where he died.

Police said Jones went outside to secure the parking lot for club goers and employees when he was ambushed and shot three times in the chest.
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