Missing Veteran's Body Found in Red River

Family of veteran found in river offers advice in dealing with PTSD 
KSLA News
Posted by Troy Washington
Updated: Feb 21, 2016

BOSSIER CITY, LA (KSLA) - The body of a Bossier City man who was reported missing earlier this month was recovered from the Red River Sunday.

The body of 33-year-old Bernard Rozell Hall
was found Sunday morning in the Red River
(Source: Bossier City Police Department)

The Caddo Parish Sheriff's Office Marine Patrol found the body of 33-year-old Bernard Rozell Hall around 7:00 a.m.

Police say the Bernard Hall's body was found in the river near the Arthur Ray Teague Parkway scenic overlook area, just north of McDade Street.

Hall was reported missing on February 10 by family members.

"Anyone out there going through this or dealing with this let it be known, post traumatic stress disorder is a serious illness," said Pamela Hall.
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VA Nurse Accused of Being Drunk in Operating Room?

Nurse accused of aiding in emergency surgery at Wilkes-Barre Veterans Administration Medical Center while under the influence of alcohol 
Times Leader
By Joe Dolinsky
February 22nd, 2016

PLAINS TWP. — A registered nurse is accused of assisting in an emergency surgical procedure on a patient at Wilkes-Barre VA Medical Center while under the influence of alcohol.

Richard J. Pieri, 59, (removed address) is charged with reckless endangerment, driving under the influence and public drunkenness. A summons was issued for him Monday, according to court documents.

The charges stem from a Feb. 4 incident in which Pieri allegedly staggered into the hospital and struggled through his duties before aiding in the procedure. Pieri was responsible for prepping and retrieving the patient, preparing surgical materials inside the operating room, documenting the procedure and monitoring the subject’s vital signs, according to the affidavit.
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Researchers Discover Link Between Concussions and Suicide

The terrifying link between concussions and suicide is the headline on the Washington Post and after reading it, it seems as if there is a lot that is contributing to suicides in our veterans. As someone with over 50 years walking around following a concussion and a fractured skull, it makes a lot of sense but it also causes concern that researchers are still learning how to crawl through researching what is happening instead of being able to run marathons on how to help healing.

The terrifying link between concussions and suicide
Washington Post
Erin Blakemore
Feburary 22, 2016

“The magnitude of the increased risk surprised me,” says Donald Redelmeier, a practicing physician and professor of medicine who led the study. “I always had my doubts about whether individuals fully recover from concussions, but I never thought I’d find a three-fold increase in risk.”

Suicide and brain injury have long been linked by scientists, but just how many people who have had a brain injury end up committing suicide? A new study has a grim answer: It found that the longterm risk of suicide increases three-fold among adults who have had concussions.

That’s the conclusion of a team of Canadian researchers who studied a health insurance database of more than 235,000 people. Their work was recently published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Rather than focus on athletes or people who were hospitalized for days or weeks after head injuries, they looked at ordinary people who had concussions but did not sustain severe brain injury.
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Attempted Rapist Gets 20 Years After Attacking Army Captain

Ex-Navy reservist gets 20 years for attempted rape of Army captain in Kuwait 
The Virginian-Pilot 
By Scott Daugherty 
23 hrs ago

In court Monday, the victim recalled how she told the masked man that he didn’t need to do this, that he could just leave. She said the man, later identified as Garcia, responded by trying to drag her to a bathroom stall on the other side of the trailer. She said she fought back, only to be cut several times with a box cutter.

While showering almost six years ago in Kuwait, an Army captain turned around as someone pulled back the curtain.

She recalls thinking it was a friend pulling a prank on her, but then she saw a muscular man wearing a homemade ninja mask.

Amin Jason Carl Garcia – a former Navy reservist – was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison for trying to sexually assault the woman. The sentence is on top of an earlier life-plus-30-years term he received in connection with a 2008 rape in Norfolk.

“It was a crime of barbaric, inhumane nature,” U.S. District Judge Raymond Jackson said in court, adding that a review of Garcia’s life story reveals no explanation for his criminal record. “Somewhere along the way, something happened to you.”
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Suicide Prevention Not Preventing Them

Sen. Mark Kirk wants the head of VA Mental Health fired? Ok, but what had the Senate or the House done after all the complaints came in over the years going back to when this started in 2007?

Senator to VA: Fire your mental health director
Military Times
By Patricia Kime
February 22, 2016

Illinois Republican Sen. Mark Kirk has called on the VA to fire its mental health director after an investigation found that calls made to the department’s suicide hotline went unanswered.

In a letter to VA Secretary Bob McDonald on Monday, Kirk, who chairs the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees Veteran Affairs Department spending, said Dr. Mary Schohn should lose her job over problems at the Veterans Crisis Line, which include veterans being placed on hold or sent to voicemail.

VA officials have said the problems stemmed from routing calls to backup centers when the New York based line was overloaded.

Employees at the backup centers were unaware they had a voice mail system, according to the report. Investigators also raised concerns over staff training and the qualifications and training of backup center personnel.

VA officials said Wednesday improvements have been underway at the hotline since early 2015 and more are planned. They also said they would implement the recommendations of the VA IG by the end of the fiscal year.
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Perhaps the biggest question is, if all these veterans were calling the crisis line, then why do we keep losing them to suicide?

"The volume of calls to the crisis line increased 30 percent over the course of just one year, from 287,070 in 2013 to 374,053 in 2014, while the backup centers saw a 112 percent increase, from 36,261 in 2013 to 76,887 in 2014."

Think about that for a second. Actually the numbers would be even higher and that is the most important factor in all of this especially when you consider all the "awareness" raisers running around the country talking about the problem and asking for money.  Too bad they never talk about the solutions at the same time they haven't even put in enough thought to discover the simple fact they don't have a clue what the real number is.

Department of Veterans Affairs Suicide Report
To date, data from twenty-one (21) states have been cleaned and entered into a single integrated file containing information on more than 147,000 suicides and 27,062 reported Veterans.

In addition to the issues identified above, barriers to full project implementation include inconsistent availability of requested information in all states, barriers to providing non resident data and sending preference to provide de-identified data due to conflicting interpretations of Social Security laws. Negotiations with states are continuing as we begin requesting more recent years’ data as well as renewing or revising previously completed Data Use Agreements.

The ability of death certificates to fully capture female Veterans was particularly low; only 67% of true female Veterans were identified. Younger or unmarried Veterans and those with lower levels of education were also more likely to be missed on the death certificate.  

This decreased sensitivity in specific subgroups can affect both suicide surveillance and research efforts that utilize Veteran status on the death certificate. From a surveillance standpoint, the rate of Veteran suicides will be underestimated in these groups.

According to data provided by the United States Census Bureau, 93% of all Veterans are male and 21% of all males aged 18 years and older have history of U.S. military service.

When this is pointed out to them, they snap back with "it's just a number" insisting on using it because "it's easy to remember" but they seem to have forgotten, they were not just numbers they don't have to really think about. They were sons, daughters, husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, parents and friends. If they didn't bother to read the whole report, that pretty much sums up how much effort they put into learning before they started talking.