POW-MIA Traditional Bible Removed from Akron VA

Seems really odd that a tradition that goes back decades suddenly offends a few and is removed while the multitudes finding comfort in the remembrance were forgotten about in a POW-MIA remembrance display.

Bible removed from Akron Veterans Affairs display causes uproar
By Amanda Garrett
Beacon Journal staff writer
March 11, 2016

A small dining table in Akron set up to remember soldiers who never came home — those missing in action or taken prisoner during war — has set off a large national battle over religious symbols in government spaces.

Everything on the POW-MIA table, a tradition since the Vietnam War, is a symbol: The white tablecloth represents the purity of the soldiers’ duty. Salt on a bread plate represents tears shed by soldiers’ families. A Bible has represented faith.

But not all POW-MIAs are Christian.

And when a local soldier, permanently disabled in Afghanistan, saw a red New Testament Bible on a POW-MIA table in the lobby of the Akron Veterans Affairs health care facility last month, he was troubled.

“I know for a fact that all POW-MIAs were not Christian because my grandfather was MIA from World War II and he was Jewish,” the disabled soldier said this week during an interview.

He reached out to a nonprofit that fights for the religious rights of the U.S. armed forces, which in turn contacted the administrator of the Akron VA.

Within days, the Bible was gone.
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Opera Fallujah Premiere Harder For Marine Veteran

World premiere of opera 'Fallujah' in Long Beach may be among former Marine's most difficult missions
Los Angeles Times
David Ng
March 12, 2016

The idea for the opera originated after his return from the war. While at an Idaho retreat for veterans, he struck up a friendship with Charles Annenberg Weingarten, the son of Los Angeles philanthropist Wallis Annenberg, who was shooting a documentary on veterans.

'Fallujah' Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times Clockwise from top, Zeffin Quinn Hollis, Ani Maldjian, LaMarcus Miller, Jason Switzer and Jonathan Lacayo perform a scene from the opera "Fallujah" at the Army National Guard in Long Beach.

During his tour of duty as a gunner in Iraq, former Marine Sgt. Christian Ellis experienced his share of trauma — the battles, the killings, an assault that left him with a spinal injury. But there were good memories too — the gung-ho Marine spirit, the camaraderie, even the sunsets in the Iraqi desert.

"They were incredible," he recalled, almost wistfully. "You've never seen anything like them."

Ellis was standing near a stage at the Army National Guard in Long Beach, looking at a wall-size photo of an orange sun descending on a desolate Iraqi landscape, a backdrop that will serve as a setting for the new opera inspired by his life.
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Deadly Decade of PTSD Healing Prevention

Deadly Decade Followed Army PTSD Prevention
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
March 12, 2016

It has been one deadly decade of service members and our veterans but this enemy was allowed to follow them home. For all the talk we keep hearing on raising awareness, far too many veterans are still not aware of the simple fact they survived combat multiple times but were not trained to survive being back home. 

They were left not understanding what PTSD is or why they have it anymore than they were made aware of the simple fact, the Army knew it all along.


Sergeant Cory Griffin summed up what has been going on in the Army.

"Cory was a leader with the U.S. Army. He served tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Qatar. He says many soldiers come back with PTSD because, 'Every other year we are deploying. There's not really ever a reset time. We train, shoot and deploy.'"

He is facing time in prison, much like far too many veterans left with the stigma of PTSD after a decade of Army prevention programs.  So stigmatized he knew he needed help but did not ask for it.

In 2006 the Army discovered that redeployments increased the risk of PTSD by 50%.

Repeat Iraq Tours Raise Risk of PTSD, Army Finds
Washington Post
By Ann Scott Tyson
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.

Within that same report was this

The report also found a doubling of suicides among soldiers serving in the Iraq war from 2004 to 2005, the latest period for which data are available. Twenty-two soldiers took their own lives in Iraq and Kuwait in 2005, compared with 11 in 2004 and 25 in 2003, Army officials said.

So the Army decided to start Battlemind to prevent PTSD.  Yep, they thought instead of actually stopping these redeployments, their best bet would be to just stop PTSD.  We saw how well that worked out when suicides went up.

By 2008 when the Army was facing an increase in suicides, they were also looked at the number of attempted suicides.

There were also 935 active-duty suicide attempts, which Col. Elspeth C. Richie, psychiatry consultant to the Army's surgeon general, said includes any self-inflicted injury that leads to hospitalization or evacuation. This number is less than half of the approximately 2,100 attempts reported in 2006.

This was followed by Comprehensive Soldier Fitness, which by 2009 was already sounding warning bells in the veterans community. Telling soldiers they could train their brains to be mentally tough was telling them they were weak and PTSD was their fault.

Years later, after all this training was pushed, soldiers like Griffin were still left not understanding what PTSD was, why they had it or how they could heal. How could he think anything differently when the Army told him they trained him to prevent it?

If you want to know why there is such an increase in PTSD and suicides, start with that then have a real conversation with these veterans that may actually do some good.

PTSD defense- a local soldier's story
KOAA News
By Brie Groves, Investigative Reporter
March 11, 2016

A local soldier is going to jail as part of a plea deal he made, after an evening with friends that turned violent.

Sergeant Cory Griffin says Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is to blame for the night he shot another man. He wants to tell his story to shed light on a problem that may be affecting more people in our community.

In November of 2014 Cory and his wife, Jenarae had some friends over to their home. They had been drinking for hours. Jenarae tells us Cory left and didn't return for quite some time. When she found him, he was having a full-blown PTSD episode at the top of the stairs. Jenarae says their friend walked up to the stairs, startling Cory. That's when Cory shifted the gun and shot the victim in the hand.

However, a different story was told to police that night. According to the police report the couple and their friends were indulging in a heavy night of drinking, when Cory confronted his wife of infidelity. That's when he grabbed the handgun and pointed at her. His friend walked up on the situation and Cory shifted his focus. According to police records, that's when Cory shot the victim in the hand.

Cory says, "I felt detached from myself. The anxiety poured in." Cory was a leader with the U.S. Army. He served tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Qatar. He says many soldiers come back with PTSD because, "Every other year we are deploying. There's not really ever a reset time. We train, shoot and deploy."
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You can't dismiss the deadly outcome. After a decade of excuses as to why soldiers and veterans of these wars are committing suicide in higher numbers, the results cannot be dismissed nor needless suffering be diminished because in the veterans community, we see the numbers the DOD does not have to account for. All of them had the same prevention training. 

Here are the numbers from the Department of Defense.

2008 268 Service Member suicides 
2009 309 Service Members died by suicide
2010 295 Service Members died by suicide
2011 301 Service Members died by suicide
2012 319 suicides among Active componentService members and 203 among Reserve component Services members
2013 259 suicides among Active Component SMs and 220 among Reserve and National Guard
2014 269 Active Component deaths and 169 Reserve Component 

For 2015 they are reporting quartily numbers.

In the first quarter of 2015, there were 57 suicides among service members in the active component, 15 suicides among service members in the reserve component and 27 suicides among service members in the National Guard.

In the second quarter of 2015, there were 71 suicides among service members in the active component, 20 suicides among service members in the reserve component and 27 suicides among service members in the National Guard.

In the third quarter of 2015, the military Services reported that there were 72 Active Component suicides and 70 Reserve Component suicides with 38 suicides in the Reserves and 32 in the National Guard. Please refer to Figure One for a detailed breakdown of the number of suicides within each Service and component through the third quarter of 2015.

4th Quarter has not been released yet.

November 5, 2009 Fort Hood Memorial Opened

Hundreds honor those lost, wounded in Nov. 5 shooting as memorial is dedicated
Killeen Daily Herald
Jacob Brooks
March 11, 2016

"Those killed on Nov. 5, 2009, honored self service above all else. Together we all honor their sacrifice.” Governor Greg Abbott

Sheryll Pearson, mother of fallen soldier PFC. Michael Pearson,

shows his bronze to Maj. Theresa Long during Friday's Fort Hood

Memorial dedication Gabe Wolf Herald Ft Hood Memorial

Soldiers who were shot in one of the bloodiest mass shootings in American history, as well as family members of the fallen, were reunited today, more than six years after the 2009 Fort Hood shooting that left 13 people dead and 31 wounded.

Dozens of families who lost sons, daughters, spouses and other loved ones were in Killeen today for the official dedication of the “November 5, 2009 Fort Hood Memorial,” an outdoor memorial that honors those who were killed and wounded in the shooting.

The $400,000 memorial — which was paid for through donations and in-kind services — includes a gazebo, 13 statues symbolizing those killed and a flag pole in the center.

Former Army Capt. Dorothy Carskadon, who was shot four times by Nidal Hasan in the shooting, said she got into town Thursday night, and had already visited the memorial twice.
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Military Checking 664 Sites for Contaminate Water?

Military to check for water contamination at 664 sites, including 3 in Colorado Springs
Associated Press
By: JENNIFER McDERMOTT
March 10, 2016

The Navy is giving bottled water to its personnel at the Naval Auxiliary Landing Field Fentress in Chesapeake, Virginia, and is testing wells in a nearby rural area after the discovery of perfluorinated chemicals in drinking water, which the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry says may be associated with prostate, kidney and testicular cancer, along with other health issues.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The military plans to examine hundreds of sites nationwide to determine whether chemicals from foam used to fight fires have contaminated groundwater and spread to drinking water, the Defense Department said.

The checks are planned for 664 sites where the military has conducted fire or crash training, military officials told The Associated Press this week.

Colorado Springs installations Fort Carson, Peterson Air Force Base and the U.S. Air Force Academy are among those where checks are planned. So are Buckley Air Force Base and Lowery Air Force Base in Denver.
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