Texas Veterans Try To Find Ways to Prevent More Suicides

Experts address suicide at veterans center event in Texas
Victoria Advocate, Texas
By Laura Garcia
Published: May 7, 2016

This week when he talked to his friends from that unit, they agreed they should check up on each other more often - before someone else dies.

Often suicide leaves friends and family members wondering what they could have done to prevent the death.

Michael Allen woke up Monday to messages from old Army buddies saying they had lost another one.

Six veterans in his unit have committed suicide after returning home from war, including the chaplain and chaplain's assistant.

The combat soldiers in this unit were deployed to Iraq in 2008. Allen was a platoon sergeant.

"You go from somebody watching your back 24/7 and then it's not there," he said.

An often-cited and alarming statistic states 22 U.S. service veterans take their lives every single day.

For many veterans, it's difficult to transition back into civilian life after seeing war.

"I try not to lose any more," Allen said in his office, which is in the Crossroads Area Veterans Center.

The veteran service center in the Dr. Pattie Dodson Public Health Center opened in November.

Allen points out a photo on a bookshelf of him and a friend whom he lost to suicide a couple of years ago.
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Military Moms Mother's Day Deployments

On Mother’s Day, deployed soldier-moms deal with separation from children in Texas
Killeen Daily Herald
David A Bryant
Herald Staff Writer
May 8, 2016

Even for longtime veterans such as Staff Sgt. Deidre McPherson, the signal and communications noncommissioned officer in charge for the brigade’s 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, it can be rough. She has missed five Mother’s Days due to deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and rotations to different European locations.

CAMP CASEY, South Korea — Mother’s Day is a time we set aside thoughts of ourselves and focus on that very important person in our lives who brought us into the world. People across Central Texas will fill the restaurants in the area today while taking their mothers out for a special meal, or might be cooking and doing chores they normally would not do and finding other ways to say “thank You” to the woman who gave them life.

But not all of those mothers can be home for a special day of pampering, and for 193 moms, today will be spent thousands of miles away from their children while they serve in uniform with the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, in South Korea.

For the women who chose to serve their nation first by joining the U.S. Army, Mother’s Day is another reminder of the many things they have given up to defend their fellow Americans. For some of the newest members of the Army, however, it is one of many important days in their children’s lives they have missed — and more than once.
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Rep. Gwen Graham makes surprise Mother’s Day visit to Afghanistan
Tallahassee Democrat
Special to the Democrat
May 5, 2016

Fla. Rep. Gwen Graham visiting mothers and others serving in the armed forces and women in Afghanistan.

(Photo: Special to the Democrat)

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Gwen Graham, D-Tallahassee, joined a bipartisan congressional delegation visit to Afghanistan to meet with deployed mothers in uniform and Afghan women fighting for equal rights and working to rebuild their country.

“It’s difficult for anyone in our military to leave their family and serve overseas – and it can be especially hard on mothers serving in warzones,” Rep. Graham said. “It was an honor for me to meet with these brave mothers serving in Afghanistan. They deserve our respect, admiration and support.”

The congressional delegation hosted a Mother’s Day luncheon where they discussed the challenges faced by deployed mothers and they delivered handmade Mother’s Day cards to troops. In addition to meeting United States Military moms, Rep. Graham also met with women serving in the Afghan Armed Forces and with Rula Ghani, the first lady of Afghanistan.
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Four children at home, Mom deploys to Afghanistan
Des Moines Register
Kim Norvell
May 6, 2016

Every day after school, Jessica Hoenicke and her four kids work on homework around the kitchen table.

They practice multiplication and the alphabet. Her two oldest compete to see who can solve math flashcards the fastest. The younger ones read out loud.

This week there's been less focus on work and more on play. They've been going to the park and riding their bikes. Anything the family of six can do together.

On Mother's Day, Sgt. Hoenicke will deploy with her Iowa Army National Guard unit to Afghanistan. She'll be gone for a year. That's 365 days without reading, writing and arithmetic around the table; 365 days without bus drop offs and pick ups.
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Green Beret Who Risked Everything to Stop Rapist Naming First Child After Congressman

Green Beret to name son after a career-saving congressman
Army Times
Kyle Jahner
May 6, 2016


The Green Beret who faced separation for beating up an Afghan child rapist has said he will name a son after the congressman who had his six.

It was Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who vehemently fought to save Martland's career when the soldier was flagged for involuntary separation last year. Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland's wife is expecting twin boys, and the second one to arrive will be named Duncan Hunter Martland, Army Times has learned, to honor Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.

"I am extremely thankful for your help over the course of the last nine months and giving me the opportunity to continue to serve. If it was not for your leadership, my career would be over. My wife an I can never thank you enough," Martland wrote to Hunter, a former Marine.

The soldier's wife is due in July. His first-born son will be named Konrad (they're undecided on the middle name).
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DOD Uses Dream EZ App to Fight Against PTSD Nightmares?

DOD mobile app diffuses nightmares
National Center for Telehealth and Technology Release
Posted: Thursday, May 5, 2016 6:00 pm

SILVER SPRING, Maryland – Being ambushed in a firefight but can’t escape to safety. Being chased and can’t find safe shelter. Flying through the air after an explosion flips your vehicle. From reliving our worst experiences to playing on our deepest fears, bad dreams – nightmares – can not only interrupt our rest, they can make us afraid to even go to sleep.

Nightmares are a normal way for the brain to process a traumatic event. Isolated nightmares are normal, but when dreams that consist of flashbacks, unwanted memories, visceral fear or anxiety recur often, they can become a debilitating sleep disorder, according to research done by the National Center for PTSD. The Defense Department’s National Center for Telehealth & Technology has developed a new mobile application to help users rewrite bad dreams to reduce the frequency and intensity of nightmares. The app, called Dream EZ, is based on a nightmare treatment called imagery rehearsal therapy.

According to David Cooper, a psychologist and T2 mobile applications lead, Dream EZ is the first mobile app that uses IRT therapy to address nightmares. The app helps patients stay engaged in their own health care by continuing to practice IRT techniques between appointments.

IRT has steadily gained favor as a treatment for nightmares. In 2001, a landmark study found that this kind of therapy can help reduce nightmare frequency and intensity, or even eliminate them.

The technique follows a step-by-step process for identifying, confronting and gaining control over the content of a nightmare. Working with a doctor or therapist, a patient uses IRT to recall a nightmare. Then, using their emotions and senses, they visualize a new ending to the dream and regularly replay it over and over (similar to how an athlete visualizes their desired performance). Although patients do not usually dream their reimagined dream, most report fewer nightmares, or none at all, or they experience a different, less-disturbing dream.

IRT is effective, but it can be intense. Many people struggle with the idea of replaying frightening details about a disturbing dream over and over. Experts like Cooper recommend integrating the technique with psychiatry and behavioral health therapies to treat the underlying condition. “Up to now, there’s really been no app for treating nightmares that accompany PTSD,” Cooper said. “In IRT, a patient must put effort into confronting the nightmare, visualizing it, rewriting the plot and ending, and reiterating the new dream over and over for the therapy to be effective. In the past, this was done by hand on paper – but now we’ve worked to make it easier so you can just use your smartphone.”

The Dream EZ app enables users to:
•Write and log a description of the nightmare
•Track when and how often the nightmare occurs
•Practice visualization techniques to rewrite the dream’s plot and ending
•Record a new version of the dream, which can be played over and over before bedtime.
“Dream EZ continues the T2 tradition of making apps that make behavioral health treatmenteasier,” said Cooper.

The free app is available for Android and iOS devices at the App Store and Google Play.
About Dream EZ:
The Dream EZ app also features:

•A dream log with a rating function – to track the intensity of dreams
•Sleep tools such as muscle relaxation and diaphragmatic breathing exercises to help the user reduce feelings of stress and anxiety, and promote better sleep
•Reminders prompt users to practice the new version of the dream before going to sleep, and to log the previous night’s dream after they awake
•A summary section that users can share with their health care provider to show how they’ve been doing between appointments.

Too Many Moms Visit Graves After Suicide For Mother's Day

How Many More Grieving Moms Will Be Too Many?
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
May 8, 2016

All over the country, women are waking up to "Happy Mother's Day" and remembering their children they lost to suicide. So many haunting questions remain even though they may never know the answers, they need to know why their sons and daughters made the choice to end their lives. It is usually harder on Moms because they were the ones who could make it all better, take care of illnesses and injuries, comfort an aching heart, encourage after disappointment, give support to seek dreams coming true as well as punishment when the "kid" did something wrong so they would grow up to be a better person.

So many of the children raised to care about others so much they were willing to die for them could not find a single reason to live one more day upon this earth and left their Moms. We read about some almost everyday but all over the country too many Moms, Dads, Sisters, Brothers, Wives and Husbands along with children, suffer in silence as if they were responsible for the suicide. Sometimes that grief causes action so that someone else may be spared from the same loss. Sometimes that grief causes anger to be turned inward so deeply anything positive seems like an insult to the veteran they buried. Other times the loss is just too much to carry. It happened in Texas last year.

Alexandre Quiros, an academically decorated Air Force Academy cadet, stabbed himself to death, the El Paso County Coroner's Office announced Wednesday. His mother, Ksenia Quiros, ingested deadly levels of antihistamine and hiked into remote open space to kill herself 13 days later.

Some of you may be thinking that Alexandre was one of the "22 a day" lost to suicide but you're wrong. He would have been one of the 475 suicides within the military last year.


USA Today reported the number of suicides for 2015 showed that while the number of enlisted decreased, almost a decade of "prevention efforts" had little effect on the sons and daughters willing to die for someone else.

The Pentagon reported Friday that 265 active-duty servicemembers killed themselves last year, continuing a trend of unusually high suicide rates that have plagued the U.S. military for at least seven years.

Data released Friday also show that suicides among reserve troops — reservists in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps and the National Guard — were 210 last year.

As with all military members, he would not have been counted among the often misquoted number of veterans committing suicide. The DOD does not have to track those they failed while in the military. That is up to the Department of Veterans Affairs. The DOD gets to wash their hands as if they had absolutely nothing to do with the loss. No one has asked them to explain anything that happens to veterans and as far as the currently serving losses, leaders are not held accountable by Congress. Hearings have proven to be useless displays of Senators and Representatives attempting to portray themselves as being on top of all of this. CSPAN has covered these hearings but apparently what members of Congress have been hearing has been good enough for them because they keep funding failures.

This is from the report that every seems all too willing to talk about but few bothered to read the report.

Of the 147,763 suicides reported in 21 states, 27,062 (18.3%) were identified as having history of U.S. military service on death certificates. However, Veteran status was unknown or not reported for more than 23% (n=34,027) of all suicides during the project period. Without linking to VA or DoD resources to validate history of U.S. military service, it is necessary to remove those without information on history of military service from estimates of Veteran status among suicide decedents. Among cases where history of U.S. military service was reported, Veterans comprised approximately 22.2% of all suicides reported during the project period. If this prevalence estimate is assumed to be constant across all U.S. states, an estimated 22 Veterans will have died from suicide each day in the calendar year 2010. Last month the Department of Veterans Affairs released another suicide report but the press didn't seem to be too interested in it. After all, it was a lot more appealing to them to use "22 a day" from a simple line in the 2012 report taken from limited data of just 21 states up to 2010.

This is from the new study.

Nearly 14 percent of Veterans reported suicidal thinking at one or both phases of a two-year VA study.

The study, now online, is slated for publication in the June 2016 issue of the Journal of Affective Disorders.

That would fit with some other research showing that a greater proportion of Veterans experience suicidal thinking—as well as attempts, and deaths by suicide—relative to the general population. One oft-cited VA study found that Veterans, while making up only about 13 percent of U.S. adults, account for about 22 percent of suicides. Another study, from 2007, found that compared to civilians, Veterans were twice as likely to die by suicide.

But for Moms, these same veterans survived risking their lives for others and as Moms visit their graves they wonder why no one did anything after all these years that actually saved the lives of their children. How many more deadly decades do we need before someone changes the ending of far too many stories?