Trip to Peru with the PTSD Patrol T-Shirt

 PTSD Patrol looking out from peak in Peru!

My wonderful friend Erica took a trip to Peru with the PTSD Patrol T-Shirt in her bag. I had no idea she had it with her. Today she sent me these pictures and I almost fell off my chair! Just stunning to see it with that view and that message.

How can anyone look at God's creation and not see His love in those mountains?

You may think that your troubles are just too big when you are at the bottom. How can you get over them until you start to take one step ahead?

Standing there will not get you anywhere but when you have the courage to move forward, the view from the top is stunning!

Bacteria feeding off the veterans we love!

Why do they do it? Why do they cheat the very people they claim are so worthy of being helped? Why do they take advantage of the fact we love our veterans?

It's easy! They do not really give a damn and frankly, we do not care enough to find out if veterans get what the group claims they need. 

What is worse, is that most of the time, the fact these groups are not delivering anything for the money they get, are masked behind some carefully chosen words to let us assume they are not some bacteria feeding off the veterans we love!

Police raid New Jersey couple's home after $400G in GoFundMe cash they raised for homeless veteran disappears
FOX News
Greg Norman

Superior Court Judge Paula Dow said the day before that McClure and D’Amico must show up in court next week for a deposition in a suit filed by Bobbitt over the whereabouts of the hundreds of thousands of dollars raised for him via GoFundMe, according to Fox 29.

Bobbitt’s story went viral in late 2017 after he gave McClure his last $20 for gas when she was stranded. She set up a GoFundMe page for him, which raised $400,000.
read more here

Stop Veteran Charity Scams 
Federal Trade Commission

FTCvideos
Published on Jul 19, 2018
Many charities do a great job supporting our nation’s veterans, but a few take advantage of people’s generosity. This video tells donors how to research charities to avoid donating to a sham charity.

The Federal Trade Commission deals with issues that touch the economic life of every American. It is the only federal agency with both consumer protection and competition jurisdiction in broad sectors of the economy. The FTC pursues vigorous and effective law enforcement; advances consumers' interests by sharing its expertise with federal and state legislatures and U.S. and international government agencies; develops policy and research tools through hearings, workshops, and conferences; and creates practical and plain-language educational programs for consumers and businesses in a global marketplace with constantly changing technologies.

Brave lighthouse keeper makes history at Arlington National Cemetery

Lighthouse keeper who rescued mariners will be the first woman honored with a street name at Arlington National Cemetery
Washington Post
By Michael E. Ruane
September 5, 2018

In its 154-year history, all of the more than 40 roadways have been named after men — such as Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ulysses S. Grant, and Gens. George Patton and John Pershing, the cemetery said.

Ida Lewis saved at least a dozen people during her service at the Lime Rock Lighthouse in Newport, R.I. (Library of Congress)

In her day, she was the heroine of the Lime Rock Lighthouse, the intrepid young woman who by herself rowed into the stormy waters of Newport harbor in Rhode Island to rescue mariners in distress.

She was Ida Lewis, the shy daughter of a disabled sea captain. And after bold rescues in the late 1800s, she was front page news. She was given awards. VIPs clamored to see her. A polka, “The Ocean Waves Dashed Wildly High,” was written in her honor, and the sheet music bore her image.

But since she died in 1911, her deeds have been largely forgotten.

As Arlington National Cemetery opens its new $81.7 million section with solemn fanfare on Thursday, she will become the first woman to have one of the cemetery’s drives named for her.

“It’s a big deal,” Karen Durham-Aguilera, executive director of Army National Military Cemeteries, said this week. “It’s a huge commemoration.”
read more here

Joliet Police Officer's body found in Cook County Forest

Joliet police officer dies in apparent suicide
By The Herald-News
September 6, 2018

A Joliet police officer apparently committed suicide Tuesday in a Cook County Forest Preserve.

Daniel Rupp, 33, was pronounced dead about 3 p.m. Tuesday in the Sag Valley Equestrian parking lot in Lemont, according to the forest preserve police and medical examiner’s office.

Rupp’s body was found outside his personal vehicle, and a handgun was located nearby, said Sophia Ansari, a spokeswoman for the Cook County Sheriff’s Office.
read more here

Why are people making a living off suicide awareness?

The delusion of awareness
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
September 5, 2018

I do not send veterans to the "awareness" folks for more help than I can give. I send them to professionals because they do in fact make a difference!

Are they therapists? Are they psychologists or psychiatrists?
Have they invested years of getting college degrees to help people living with mental health conditions? Are they members of the clergy, listening to people who have lost all hope?

What qualifies the "awareness" raisers to earn all the millions people donate to them all the time? 

What is so important about the stunts they pull to attract reporters all over the country and being bestowed such publicity?

Why aren't we asking those questions?

Thirty six years ago I started to research PTSD and invested years training to do this work for one reason. It was personal to me. I did it for the veteran I loved, and fell in love with veterans. I do not make my living off this work. It is not my occupation. It is my obligation!

I know what it is like to feel all alone, lost and confused. Above all, what it is like to lose hope.

I can tell you right now, that after all the years of hearing the "awareness" folks, not once have I heard the one thing veterans need to hear the most. The one reason that will make them want to get up one more day. 

Who thought that telling veterans they were committing suicide was a good thing to do? Hell, we did that way back over a decade ago, because no one was taking it seriously. Back then we thought it was eighteen a day. Then again, we thought that if we let people know what was going on, someone would do something to help.

I read the DOD Suicide report, see the numbers remain about 500 a year, and I grieve. Those men and women were willing to die to save others, but did not think they were worth saving too? What the hell did these groups do for them?

I read the news reports from across the country and see the veterans' families left behind, grieving and wondering what they did wrong. I wonder what the hell these groups did for them.

How does raising awareness of a number, that is not the whole truth, give anyone a reason to fight to stay alive?

This delusion of doing anything worthy of the lives we continue to lose must end! 

The groups attempt to gain attention but so do the veterans who have committed suicide in public so that some knows they were here and suffered.

The veterans over the age of fifty, the majority of the known veterans committing suicide, are wondering why they no longer matter to the folks claiming to be raising awareness.

The one thing these veterans needed to hear was that there was HOPE for them to heal and live a better quality of life. That they really mattered and not were reduced to a slogan of a number when they all had names!

You may say that it is not hurting anyone to get the number wrong.  Some have even had the audacity to say "It is just a number" when defending the use of the "20" or "22" a day. 

They live their lives making a living off the fact that veterans continue to take their own lives. Professionals make their living off saving them, one at a time. That is the only number they need to know because they have a name to go with it!