Afghanistan Veteran "...can focus on healing" after war

Army veteran, family get new home mortgage free

WFXL FOX 31
Alexandria Ikomani
January 5, 2018

“I can focus more on my healing, take care of me and take care of my family now that we have a home.” Sgt. Chad Turner

ALBANY. Ga. — An army veteran and his family have somewhere to call home.

Operation FINALLY Home is an organization that gives free homes to veterans in need.

Sergeant Chad Turner and his family can't put their feelings into many words.

Turner was diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries, short-term memory loss, post-traumatic stress disorder and more after an explosion while serving in Afghanistan.

read more here 

Heroes Warehouse Fills Home Base

ABC7 Salutes Heroes Warehouse, organization that furnishes homes for veterans
ABC 7 News
Josh Haskell
January 5, 2018

"They place them in permanent housing, which is wonderful and get them off the streets, but there's no furniture. Just imagine yourself going on vacation and you have an empty hotel room." Mary Kelly

FONTANA, Calif. (KABC) --

Iraq War veteran Ted Telemaque and his son slept on the floor of their Riverside apartment when they first moved in because they didn't have enough money to furnish their new home.

"I moved in there and I was scratching my head, ok, as a single father, what do I do? I reached out, tried to exert all options and then came across the Heroes Warehouse. Now I have my whole apartment furnished, from bed, to couch, to even kitchen," Telemaque said.

Since 2012, the Heroes Warehouse in Fontana - founded by Mary Kelly - has helped 3,000 families adjust to life after the service. Their 7,000 square foot warehouse isn't just full of donated household furniture, but washers and dryers, food and clothes.
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Stealing healing or raising awareness?

In the fight for their lives!
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
January 5, 2018
Stealing healing or raising awareness? That is the question that needs to be answered fast. If people do not know about a situation, they think it is only happening to them. If no one talks about what is happening to them, no one tries to do anything about it.

That's the point. We talked about suicides when no one knew it was happening, then tried to move onto healing when no one was talking about that either. Now we have to talk about both, but it seems far too few are listening...again.

"Now I think I know what you tried to say to me,How you suffered for your sanity,How you tried to set them free.They would not listen, they're not listening still.Perhaps they never will..." Starry, Starry Night

January 6, 2006 was one of the first post I did on a veteran committing suicide.

An Iraq war veteran's suicide earlier this month was a cry for helping others with post-traumatic stress disorder, his close friend says.
Douglas A. Barber, a 35-year-old truck driver, shot and killed himself on Jan. 16 with a shotgun as Lee County sheriff's deputies and two friends on the phone tried to talk him out of it.

That was when I was "screaming in an empty room" trying to "raise awareness" of something I had been tracking for decades on other sites I had online. After all, I'd been doing it since 1993 when I had been given my first PC. Truth is, by then I had already been active in writing about it to local newspapers since 1984. It took me two years before that to understand enough to open my mouth publicly.

I tried to do something that would hit more people back in 2007 with the video "Death Because They Served" but I had to a lot of research first. Over 400 reports later, it was necessary to get their stories out.

Back then, yes, "raising awareness" was vital.. It was the only way anyone would try to do something on a massive scale. Little did I know that the "effort" would be reduced down to an "easy number to remember" and people would get away with quoting from a headline.

Non-combat deaths, non-caring media was the first attempt to put the stories together April 16, 2007. That was followed up with Cause of death, because they served. It must have worked because in August of 2007, Greg Mitchell asked "Why isn't the press on suicide watch." (I checked to see if the original link worked, it doesn't by mine still does.)

The thing is, we knew there was a problem back then. We also knew there were things to do to make sure we changed the outcome. 

Raising awareness meant that veterans would finally find out they were not alone, and not just about talking about how many gave up. It was about facts, sure, but it was also about the most important fact of all. They could heal. Life could get better.

So, most of in all this since "before the flood" move on from talking about the "problem" after the press and politicians decided they needed to focus on this great American secret we lived with. The problem was when we moved on, they moved in and took over.

They took over the attention of the press and got boatloads of cash to talk about something they had absolutely no understanding of or even a basic enough idea to know what had been done, how long it had all gone on, or even discover the way to change the outcome.

We had to step back into the mix and not just fight for veterans to take back control of their lives, but fight to get the facts straight.

Before I got involved in giving suicides attention, it was more about raising awareness of healing.  That's why the books and the videos, plus all these articles.

If the truth is supposed to "set you free" then we need to make sure we set veterans free from the notion that they cannot heal. That their last worst day is the one they just had because with the right help, there is a whole new world of living with PTSD but not letting PTSD destroy them anymore.



If you want to know what they need to know, here is something they need to reminded of. They were willing to die because they loved others more. Help them live for love now too!

Lessons from WMHT’s multimedia ‘Vietnam in a Word’

‘We are the carriers’: Lessons from WMHT’s multimedia ‘Vietnam in a Word’

Current

Ian Fox

January 3, 2018

WMHT’s project “Vietnam in a Word” caught my eye with its simple concept and its even more elegant execution: a multimedia and community-driven oral history project, realized as an attractive digital hub for all of the station’s programming related to The Vietnam War, the documentary film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick.

WMHT staffers interview a Vietnam veteran at the Gateway Diner in Albany.

ALBANY, N.Y. — The offices of joint licensee WMHT would blend into its business-park surroundings if not for a protruding broadcast tower throwing its light into the November afternoon sun. Situated between the rowhouse-lined town square of Troy, N.Y., and Albany’s legislator-laden diners, the station’s innocuous digs — like those of many public media stations — don’t scream “community center.”

Yet WMHT’s exceptional work in its community is exactly why I was in the station’s parking lot on a biting cold day, a mile from the main road and 175 miles from my Boston home. It’s the first of what’ll be many station visits across the country for this series, In Public, in which I’ll explore the operations of innovative community engagement projects across public media.

read more here

*******

The word I'd pick is "mind-boggling." The first time I heard a group of veterans talking about it, that was the term that struck me the most. They were still trying to figure it out.

Fire Chief David Dangerfield's Widow Fights Against Suicides

Leslie Dangerfield could have settled for just talking about firefighters risking their lives to save others, but ended up taking their own lives, but she didn't. She could have settled for putting it all behind her, but she didn't.

There are many things she could have done but giving up and moving on was not among them.

The thing is, Leslie Dangerfield decided to bring in some help for other firefighters. This way, they will get support, to not just ask for help, but know where to get it, and change the outcome from suicide to healing.

Palm Beach Fire Rescue to hold PTSD training

WPTV News

Amy Lipman

January 3, 2017

Next week, she's helping to bring the founder of Firefighter Behavioral Health Alliance, Jeff Bill, to Palm Beach Fire Rescue for training sessions on the signs of PTSD.

PALM BEACH, Fla. - Firefighters put their lives on the line every day, but the cumulation of those horrifying experiences can result in PTSD, causing some to ultimately commit suicide.

Indian River County Battalion Chief David Dangerfield took his own life in October 2016. 

“He said, 'I can’t do it anymore. The memories are too much. They’re haunting me and I can’t let them haunt me anymore,'" said Leslie Dangerfield, his wife.

David had been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder.

"He began a downward spiral with really irrational behavior, frightening behavior," Leslie said.

read more here

Local firefighter’s widow mission to save lives, numbers show firefighter suicide rising
CBS 12 News
Liz Ortiz

Suicide among firefighters outpaces deaths in the line of duty by about 40%. Dangerfield said expanding their benefits could reduce those numbers.

PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. (CBS 12) — 

Only on CBS12: They put their lives in jeopardy to keep us all safe, but the stress they take home is killing them.

Numbers show firefighters and EMS suicides are on the rise.

A local widow is on a mission to change that and is taking her fight all the way to our state capital.

It was a phone call that changed Leslie Dangerfield’s life forever.

“He said, just know that I love you, you’re a good mom, and take care of our boys.”

On October 15, 2016, fallen Indian River County Fire Chief David Dangerfield said goodbye to his wife on the phone first, and then on Facebook.

After a 27-year career, Chief Dangerfield wrote in his suicide post that it was due to PTSD on the job. He posted on Facebook:

"PTSD for Firefights is real. If your loved one is experiencing signs get them help quickly. 27 years of death and babies dying in your hands is a memory that you will never get rid off. It haunted me daily until now. My love to my crews. Be safe, take care. I love you all."

U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) confirmed in 2016, 89 firefighters deaths in the line of duty were recorded, and 130 committed suicide.

read more here