Veteran Army Ranger healing his PTSD with hugging arms

Soldier’s new mission: giving free hugs to help others’ mental health

WGN9 News
BY MARCELLA RAYMOND
DECEMBER 23, 2019

“There are many routes to recovery, Dr. Troiani says, there’ not one golden brick road” to help people recover from PTSD.

Kevin Milligan is 6’6”, has a massive wingspan and a giant smile. He’s also a great hugger.

Kevin is a former Army Ranger who was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. He was in Kosovo and Afghanistan from 1998 to 2003. When he had to stay in Afghanistan longer than he planned, he says he felt like the whole world had fell out from under him.

To help him heal, he started The Unconditional Hug. Studies have shown that people need eight hugs a day for maintenance and twelve for survival. They help ward off disease, reduce stress and just make us feel good.

Kevin stood on the corner of Washington and Clark for about an hour and a half, in ten-degree temperatures, and hugged as many people that would let him. We counted about twenty-five to thirty.

Dr. Joseph Trioani is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Adler University in the Loop. He’s a retired Navy Commander and the founder of The Military Psychology Program. He trains other clinical psychologists to treat veterans with PTSD.
read it here

Warriors Rock with another way to heal PTSD in South Dakota

Warriors rock out

Brookings Register
By: John Kubal
Posted Dec 24, 2019

“I don’t feel like it’s fair that veterans who are not into hunting or outdoors not get the same opportunity through recovery with something that fits them more specifically.” Connie Johnson

Connie Johnson and Cole Hennen strum some guitar chords during a Warriors Rock session on Tuesday evening in the Christmas tree-decorated room at the Brookings Arts Council. Johnson, a combat veteran and Purple Heart recipient, is working with Kristina Gindo, a certified music therapist, in putting together a program aimed at teaching veterans the basics of playing guitar. John Kubal/Register

BROOKINGS – Connie Johnson, coordinator for Veterans Services at South Dakota State University and herself a combat veteran (Purple Heart recipient) who has battled post-traumatic stress disorder, is open to exploring avenues that have the potential for making life better for military veterans.

One of those avenues she’s now exploring and using to help others explore is music.

After she partnered with several local organizations and individuals, the end result is a new guitar-based music program for veterans called Warriors Rock.
read it here

All they hear about is that other veterans lost their battles

Operation Snowflake helps gold star family heal following suicide

KIVI News
By: Steve Dent
Dec 22, 2019

GREENLEAF, Idaho — In 2013 Tanner Volkers died by suicide while serving in the United States Air Force, it's a loss the Volkers family continues to mourn.

"He always knew from 12-years-old that he wanted to be in the military," Tanner's mother Melissa Volkers said. “He was the happiest kid ever, and why he’s not here right now, we will never know.”

Volkers now channels her energy into helping other military families honor the lives of their loved ones lost to suicide.

"I was having a really hard time during the holidays, so I sent out for snowflakes," said Volkers. "It was very small in the beginning and I never dreamed it would turn into this.”

Operation Snowflake is a memorial that now raises awareness to the fact that every day in our country, 22 veterans and active duty service members die by suicide.
read it here

This is not the story I thought it would be.

While I feel terrible for the family, it is happening way too often. A grieving family wants to turn their pain into something positive, and that is good. What is bad is when they are passing on information that is not true. The number is not now, nor has it ever been "22 a day" and that is according to the VA and was within the report everyone seems fixated on repeating.

Further, this report contains information from the first 21 states to contribute data for this project and does not include some states, such as California and Texas, with larger Veteran populations. Information from these states has been received and will be included in future reports.

Estimates that the number of suicides among Veterans each day has increased, are based on information provided by 21 states and may not be generalizable to the larger Veteran population.

I do not blame the families but I do blame everyone, from politicians to the media for sharing a lie. To pretend to care is what made all this worse for our veterans after over a decade of people doing what they want to instead of what is needed to change the outcome.

Raising awareness veterans are killing themselves makes no sense at all. They already know that. What they do not know is how to heal because all they hear about is that other veterans lost their battles.

NYPD officer asked for help with PTSD, has to sue to make sure others get it?

NYPD veteran shunned over mental health issues to sue NYPD for $1M

New York Post
By Craig McCarthy
December 22, 2019

“The NYPD has repeatedly shown an ineptitude in dealing with the mental health of their police officers,” Oliveras’ lawyer, John Scola, told The Post. “We hope that this lawsuit will help shed light on those deficiencies and prevent other police officers from having to suffer in the same way as Jonathan.”

A cop who says the NYPD ostracized him for coming forward with mental health issues amid this year’s police-suicide epidemic now plans to sue for $1 million, The Post has learned.

Jonathan Oliveras
Stephen Yang

Twelve-year-veteran officer Jonathan Oliveras exclusively revealed to The Post in October that the brass stripped him of his gun — and bounced him around assignments before stationing him in a post with department screw-ups — after he admitted to NYPD doctors he was on anti-depressants.

His tale of woes even triggered an apology from former top cop James O’Neill and promised to make sure no one else was put through a similar experience.

But that same day, internal affairs showed up at Oliveras’ post to confront his bosses in an apparent effort to jam him up, he previously told The Post.

Now, eight weeks later, the NYPD has yet to reach out to the 40-year-old cop to try and make things right, he says.
read it here

Female veterans #BreakTheSilence and get your service on equal footing

Yesterday I posted on PTSD Patrol about female veterans service being overlooked. Too many times people have assumed that when you mention a female veteran with PTSD, they try to point to military sexual assaults. Not that they do not happen, but no one jumps to that conclusion when a male veteran has PTSD, even though they get attacked too.

As you can see in this recent report, it happens to males as well as females.

The US military is reporting a disturbing spike in the number of active-duty service members who said they’d experienced sexual assault last year, raising questions once again about the military’s handling of misconduct.
The Pentagon estimates that about 20,500 service members across the military branches — about 13,000 women and 7,500 men — were sexually assaulted in the 2018 fiscal year, based on data from an anonymous survey that’s compiled by the Department of Defense every two years.
That’s a four-year high — and an alarming jump from 2016, in which 14,900 service members said they had been sexually assaulted. VOX.com

Yet the public assumes that PTSD caused by combat situations in females, on top of everything else, does not happen.

There are, sadly still, too many things that are getting worse while it seems as if more is being done claiming to change all of it.

Things our politicians do, do not work, then everyone wants more done. Huge problem when it is all more of the same and the worst outcome spreads out! If you are a female veteran, or currently serving, use your voice and make sure that your service is honored, your wounds are tended to and you get the help you need to live a better quality of life. #BreakTheSilence

Why do women wonder when their service will count?

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
December 22, 2019

We read about it all the time. A couple is sitting together, both wearing military hats, yet it is only the male who receives a "thank you" for his service.

Someone forgot to inform the "thanker" that women have served this country since before it was a country.

Today over 210,000 women serve on active duty in the military services of the Department of Defense (Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force), and another 5,955 serve in the Active Coast Guard—part of the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime.

The Reserve Components are federal forces. Guard components play dual state and federal roles. Like most of the active forces, the Reserve and Guard components have an increasing percentage of women in their ranks. As of February 2018, women constituted 158,090 or 19.8 percent—of all personnel serving in the six DoD Reserve and Guard forces. Women number 1,067—or 17.4 percent—of all personnel serving in the Coast Guard Reserve.

Women have been bestowed with every military medal for heroism, including the Medal of Honor. Dr. Walker not only served during the Civil War, she was a POW.

Released from government contract at the end of the war, Dr. Walker lobbied for a brevet promotion to major for her services. Secretary of War Stanton would not grant the request. President Andrew Johnson asked for another way to recognize her service. A Medal of Honor was presented to Dr. Walker in January 1866. She wore it every day for the rest of her life. read it here