I'm going to keep this short but far from sweet. There is yet another suicide prevention bill out of congress. Yep, those guys who did such marvelous work on all the others they decided to just do more of them. As if that makes sense to anyone.
"According to Brown's office, an average of 18 to 22 veterans take their lives each day — a statistic that has largely remained unchanged for more than a decade."
If he's quoting those numbers while writing a bill for female veteran suicide prevention, we're all screwed!
This one is out of Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown on the Veterans Affairs Committee. If he doesn't know where those numbers came from or what the real ones are, pretty much sums up lack of attention to all the hearings they've held IN THE LAST DECADE!
Saturday, February 6, 2016
Wounded Warriors United Worried About Name?
Small veterans group concerned they may get shut down
KAKE ABC News
By: Gloria Balding
Feb 04, 2016
MANHATTAN, Kan. (KAKE) — A small non-profit group helping servicemen and women in Kansas fears they may be shut down.
Tom Tavtigian returned home a broken man after being wounded in combat.
He founded the group Wounded Warriors United as a way to help veterans like himself who were struggling.
"While I was still stationed at Fort Riley in the warrior transition unit, where all the wounded guys go, I started to take a few guys out here and there and the response was pretty good. So, I started a non-profit." explains Tavtigian.
Wounded Warriors United focuses on taking veterans on hunting and fishing trips. Tavtigian hopes to expand.
"What we are doing next year is the guys that need the grab bars, or need to widen their doors for their wheelchairs, we are going to do it for them," says Tavtigian.
Tavtigian is concerned that Wounded Warrior Project could come after him for using the term 'wounded warriors." because they have done it before. A search of federal court records show the Wounded Warrior Project has sued three non-profits for trademark infringement in the past. In one complaint WWP noted that "defendant's infringement of WWP's trademark rights has caused defendant monetary harm." It is wording like this from such a large non-profit that concerns Tavtigian.
This all leaves me wondering how much money I'd have right now if I was ever in any of this for the money? Good Lord!
I was using the term "wounded warriors" long before this group became a famous name. The truth is I was simply tired of using wounded Soldier, Marine, Airmen and Sailor. The Native Americans used it long before I did. But it goes to show that just because someone makes something famous, it isn't as if they invented it or can claim ownership of it against all others.
This is from my site December 2005
From my book 2002
KAKE ABC News
By: Gloria Balding
Feb 04, 2016
MANHATTAN, Kan. (KAKE) — A small non-profit group helping servicemen and women in Kansas fears they may be shut down.
He founded the group Wounded Warriors United as a way to help veterans like himself who were struggling.
"While I was still stationed at Fort Riley in the warrior transition unit, where all the wounded guys go, I started to take a few guys out here and there and the response was pretty good. So, I started a non-profit." explains Tavtigian.
Wounded Warriors United focuses on taking veterans on hunting and fishing trips. Tavtigian hopes to expand.
"What we are doing next year is the guys that need the grab bars, or need to widen their doors for their wheelchairs, we are going to do it for them," says Tavtigian.
Tavtigian is concerned that Wounded Warrior Project could come after him for using the term 'wounded warriors." because they have done it before. A search of federal court records show the Wounded Warrior Project has sued three non-profits for trademark infringement in the past. In one complaint WWP noted that "defendant's infringement of WWP's trademark rights has caused defendant monetary harm." It is wording like this from such a large non-profit that concerns Tavtigian.
WWP does not make money solely from donations or investments. According to tax filings they have made more than 3 million dollars since 2009 by renting their mailing list.
read more here
This all leaves me wondering how much money I'd have right now if I was ever in any of this for the money? Good Lord!
I was using the term "wounded warriors" long before this group became a famous name. The truth is I was simply tired of using wounded Soldier, Marine, Airmen and Sailor. The Native Americans used it long before I did. But it goes to show that just because someone makes something famous, it isn't as if they invented it or can claim ownership of it against all others.
This is from my site December 2005
This one really sums up what this is all about. It is from January 2006. Long before I ever heard of this famous group but far too many years after I knew what it was like living with a Wounded Warrior.When they are warriors no more, who will hear their cries? When they are warriors no more, who will help them find peace?Who will lift their voice to be heard above their whispers and suffering silence?
The men and women of our military should never have to go to war, but they do.
They should never have to heal wounds, but they do. They should never have to watch a comrade die, but they do. They should never have to worry about a place to call home when they are warriors no more, but they do. On any given night in America, thousands of those who answered the call of this nation, walk the streets because they are homeless.
Our nation has forgotten them when their duty is done and we as a people refuse to see them. The people who run the New England Shelter For Homeless Veterans in Boston, MA refuse to let them remain alone. They are there when the rest of us forget them. They are there to give them a bed to sleep in, a meal to feed them, comfort and support when we have all forgotten them. There are homeless veterans in this nation with half a million at one time or another become homeless during any given year and over a quarter of a million of them are homeless every night. Men who made a choice to protect and serve this nation, walk the streets while we still remain safe in our beds. As bad as that is that one veteran would be homeless, there are also women who served and are homeless. Even more, there are women veterans of this nation with children and no place to call home.
Check out your state and see how many there are in your state alone. Go to The National homeless veterans site. Check out the shelter's site in Boston MA. If you are not moved to help them, then may God have mercy on this nation that asked so much of them yet was willing to do so little for them in return.
'Marlboro Man' in Iraq War Photo Suffers from PTSD So whatever happened to Lance Cpl. Blake Miller -- the U.S. Marine pictured as a kind of war-weary "Marlboro Man" in one of the most widely published iconic images of the Iraq war? The 2004 photograph by Luis Sinco of the Los Angeles Times showing Miller, face dirty under a helmet, a cigarette dangling from his lips, went around the world and back again, hitting front pages everywhere. Now Miller, of Jonancy, Ky., is a civilian "and is having trouble adjusting to civilian life," CBS News reports.From New York Times
Why is it so hard for other veterans to accept that PTSD is real? Is it because somewhere deep inside they see the possibility of it existing within themselves? I must have heard it a thousand times in the last twenty years. Veterans attacking other veterans because of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. They will claim PTSD is not real and label those with it as frauds. No about of scientific evidence, no amount of clinical studies and no amount of suicides resulting from PTSD will ever be enough to penetrate their brains. They are the kind of people who live in a state of disgust toward anyone, civilian or military, living with what they fear the most. It could have been them.
When you look at the pictures of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, among the carved names, there are many more names which Vietnam claimed the lives of. Forty years after the official start of America's entry into the conflict in 1964, Vietnam is still taking lives from PTSD and suicides as well as Agent Orange. Yet this is the timeline of death.
http://thewall-usa.com/stats/
This is the list of the years the troops died in Vietnam. Look at the years and then remember the attitude of those who failed to see the futility of staying the course.
1957 1
1958 0
1959 2
1960 5
1961 16
1962 53
1963 118
1964 206
1965 1863
1966 6,144
1697 11,153
1968 16,589
1969 11,614
1970 6,083
1971 2,357
1972 640
1973 168 The last two Marines were killed in April of this year.
Numbers were added after as follows
1974 178
1975 160 The last two Marines died in Vietnam in April.
1976 77
1977 96
1978 447
1979 148
1980-1995 66
The total is 58,178
The Wall is finding more names added to it. One count put the figure at 58,249, although I do not know the exact numbers as of today. Within the reflection of the Wall there are faces to each name of the lives lost. There are also many more who paid with their lives who will never be known. Men like my husband's nephew who took his own life because of PTSD are not there.
Too many are gone and the connection to Vietnam were never made in the minds of the families these men left behind. Yet to some veterans these of the fallen are not to be honored for the price they paid to serve the nation in Vietnam.
The faces of the homeless veterans are a reminder of the suffering in silence and isolation. Are they too unworthy of honor because Vietnam so changed their state of being they are unable to stop the invasion of their mind and remove the traumatic results?
This Wall should be a reminder to the nation that the price paid for war by those sent to fight it, do not end when the pieces of paper are signed and they get to go home. It does not end for the families when their son or daughter, husband or wife, parent or child, are no longer there to be held. It does not end for the veterans with wounds of their body or unseen wounds of the mind or for the families of those left wondering when the war will ever end for them.
In 2002 when I finished my book the sub title was, His War/My Battle for this very reason. He is the one who put his life on the line, as all others did, by choice of volunteering as my husband did, or by draft as so many others did. The war has yet to be finished for him. This is the battle he fights on a daily basis to try to keep up with his medication and treatment. Vietnam became my battle when I had to fight for him because he couldn't fight for himself.
War reaches out to total strangers years after. I didn't know him when he was in Vietnam. We didn't meet until ten years after he returned home. Yet my life changed because of Vietnam when I lost my best friend because of it. 500,000 other families are just like mine. The truly sickening part is that the number is even higher because too many other families never knew what was wrong with their family member, were never diagnosed and never had their claim approved to be recorded within the VA system.
Today there is a chance to stop the procession of suffering in silence for this new generation of veterans and wounded warriors. The chance is for the rest of us to stand up and tell the others who want to dismiss PTSD to either start supporting other wounded warriors or shut up and get out of their way. The time for needlessly adding to the death count of Vietnam is over. This new generation needs to see an example of what true support really means. Until we take a stand for the dignity of all veterans, too many of them will end up never really being supported or honored for their sacrifices.
How can anyone stand and say they support the troops when any of them have to go without treatment from the Veterans Administration because the funding is not there? How can anyone claim it when any veteran has to go homeless? Can it be claimed if any veteran has to spend their days drinking and doing drugs to kill off the effects of war because they have been so stigmatized by the term mental illness they would rather be labeled an alcoholic or drugged up? How pathetic is that? Are there some who actually are alcoholics or drug addicts? Sure, but for the most part these people are self medicating because they cannot turn to the VA for legal medication and treatment.
Congressman Murtha put the figure of veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan at 50,000 already. How many of them are we willing to let slip through the cracks in the system designed to help them heal and cope with their service to this nation? How many are we willing to let go homeless because they served in the military? Is any of this proving they are supported? What made us think that supported ended when they were no longer doing our bidding?
The time to take the steps to insure we prove what we say was yesterday when the funding was not put into place for the veterans we already had. Tomorrow will be too late for too many. How many names are you willing to look at when they erect a monument to the fallen of Iraq and Afghanistan? How many names are you willing to acknowledge still paying the price for Vietnam? If you care nothing about being part of the solution to their problems, then shut up and get out of the way. The rest of us are willing to prove what we say when we say we honor them. Isn't it time you did the same thing?
http://thewall-usa.com/
Kathie Costos
Nam_guardianangel@yahoo.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
http://namguardianangel.blogspot.com
http://journals.aol.com/namguardianangel/media
http://hometown.aol.com/namguardianangel/KathieCostosindex.html
http://hometown.aol.com/namguardianangel/fortheloveofjackindex.html
The Wounded Warrior Project’s roots are more humble. Its founder, John Melia, was a Marine veteran who had been injured in a helicopter crash off the coast of Somalia in 1992. When wounded troops began returning from Iraq in 2003, Mr. Melia remembered how he had arrived in a stateside hospital with only his thin hospital gown, and began visiting military hospitals to distribute backpacks stuffed with socks, CD players, toothpaste and other items.
As the backpack project grew, Mr. Melia hired a few employees, including Mr. Nardizzi, a lawyer who had never served in the military but was an executive for a small nonprofit, the United Spinal Association, which served disabled veterans.
They began raising millions of dollars and broadening their services to include adaptive sports for disabled veterans, employment and benefits help, and retreats to teach veterans to cope with post-traumatic stress disorder.
By 2009, the group had grown to about 50 employees and $21 million in revenue. But by then, Mr. Melia and Mr. Nardizzi were fighting over the charity’s future, with Mr. Nardizzi pushing for more aggressive expansion than Mr. Melia, former employees said.
In January 2009, Mr. Melia resigned.
I've been doing this for so long now that lost count on how many different websites I've had over the years, but emails, well they're very important to me, so I save a lot of them.
This is from 2004 about the book I wrote in 2002.
This one is about another charity using "Wounded Minds" but I leave them alone even though my first video on PTSD was "Wounded Minds." This email is from 2006.
WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT INC
4899 BELFORT RD STE 300, JACKSONVILLE, FL 32256-6033 | TAX-EXEMPT SINCE AUG. 2005
From my book 2002
500,000 Vietnam Veterans continue to pay because of Post Traumatic Stress and have been joined by veterans of all the other actions that followed. Hundreds of thousands continue to pay with wounds and broken bodies as well as wounded spirits. I pray that if President Bush is re-elected he learns this lesson as well. War is something that should always be the last attempt to have peace. The peace of a nation is paid by the turmoil of those who defend it.
Bronze Star for Valor Honors Two Fallen Airmen
Two airmen killed in Afghanistan receive Bronze Stars with Valor
Air Force Times
By Oriana Pawlyk
February 5, 2016
Staff Sgt. Louis M. Bonacasa and Tech Sgt. Joseph G. Lemm, both with the 105th Security Forces Squadron at Stewart Air National Guard Base, New York, have been honored with the nation's fourth highest military decoration for valor “for saving the lives of other airmen at the cost of their own,” the Guard said.
Lemm, 45, and Bonacasa, 31, and four other airmen were killed when a suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden motorcycle into a joint patrol with Afghan security forces on Dec. 21, 2015, outside of Bargram Air Field.
read more here
Air Force Times
By Oriana Pawlyk
February 5, 2016
Bonacasa, left, and Lemm, right, have been posthumously honored with the Bronze Star with Valor (Photo: Air Force photos)Two airmen killed in Afghanistan in December have been posthumously awarded the Bronze Star Medal with “V,” the Air National Guard announced Thursday.
Staff Sgt. Louis M. Bonacasa and Tech Sgt. Joseph G. Lemm, both with the 105th Security Forces Squadron at Stewart Air National Guard Base, New York, have been honored with the nation's fourth highest military decoration for valor “for saving the lives of other airmen at the cost of their own,” the Guard said.
Lemm, 45, and Bonacasa, 31, and four other airmen were killed when a suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden motorcycle into a joint patrol with Afghan security forces on Dec. 21, 2015, outside of Bargram Air Field.
read more here
VA Says "Veterans suicide must be a top priority"
VA: Veterans suicide must be a top priority
Military Times
By Patricia Kime
February 4, 2016
VA Under Secretary for Health Dr. David Shulkin said Tuesday that suicide reduction is one of his top priorities, and he called on experts to help the department establish prevention initiatives aimed at getting veterans into treatment.
“This is really one of our top priority issues for VA,” Shulkin said. “Seeing the number of suicides that occur every day is simply not acceptable.”
The VA hosted a Veterans Suicide Summit in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to jump-start the effort, drawing behavioral health providers, veterans service organizations, Defense Department personnel and veterans who have attempted suicide, as well as parents of troops who have died.
Military Times
By Patricia Kime
February 4, 2016
“In recent years, the suicide rate has risen steadily for the general population, but not veterans in the VA system. For veterans in our care, rates have remained stable, maybe even declined slightly, which tells us that treatment works," McDonald said.
Susan Selke, mother of Marine veteran Clay Hunt who committed suicide due to PTSD, testifies as Jean Somers, whose son Daniel took his own life, listens at a Capitol Hill hearing in 2014. Selke and Summers spoke at a Washington conference on the issue of veterans suicides on Feb. 3, 2016.The Veterans Affairs Department is ratcheting up efforts to address the high rate of suicide among veterans, bringing in mental health experts, advocates and affected families to formulate an “action plan” in the coming months to reduce these preventable deaths.
(Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
VA Under Secretary for Health Dr. David Shulkin said Tuesday that suicide reduction is one of his top priorities, and he called on experts to help the department establish prevention initiatives aimed at getting veterans into treatment.
“This is really one of our top priority issues for VA,” Shulkin said. “Seeing the number of suicides that occur every day is simply not acceptable.”
The VA hosted a Veterans Suicide Summit in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to jump-start the effort, drawing behavioral health providers, veterans service organizations, Defense Department personnel and veterans who have attempted suicide, as well as parents of troops who have died.
The VA estimated in 2012 that 22 veterans die each day by suicide, but the number is an extrapolation derived from 1999-2011 data from 21 states, and both the VA and advocacy groups say it should be interpreted with caution.
read more here
Hampton VA Nurse Convicted of Raping Veteran
Hampton VA nurse convicted of sexually assaulting patient previously raped
The Virginian-Pilot
By Scott Daugherty
17 hrs ago
Juan M. Lopez, 52, of Virginia Beach is set for sentencing May 19 in U.S. District Court in Newport News. He faces the possibility of life in prison. A federal jury returned the guilty verdicts Friday on the fourth day of trial. Stephen Plott, Lopez’s attorney, maintained his client’s innocence and said he was disappointed in the jury’s verdict. read more here
The Virginian-Pilot
By Scott Daugherty
17 hrs ago
According to a news release drafted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Lopez was a nurse in the hospital’s emergency department on Sept. 20, 2014, when a woman sought treatment for a leg injury. The woman had post-traumatic stress disorder related to a prior rape and two traumatic brain injuries, the release said.NEWPORT NEWS
A former nurse at the Hampton VA Medical Center was convicted Friday on charges of aggravated sexual assault and making a false statement to a federal agent.Juan M. Lopez, 52, of Virginia Beach is set for sentencing May 19.
He faces the possibility of life in prison. Courtesy Photo
Juan M. Lopez, 52, of Virginia Beach is set for sentencing May 19 in U.S. District Court in Newport News. He faces the possibility of life in prison. A federal jury returned the guilty verdicts Friday on the fourth day of trial. Stephen Plott, Lopez’s attorney, maintained his client’s innocence and said he was disappointed in the jury’s verdict. read more here
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