Young veteran helped homeless 83 year old Korean War veteran

Local veteran helps find home for fellow 83-year-old Korean War vet

KNOE 8 News
By Reggie Wells
Jan 31, 2020

MONROE, La. (KNOE) - A local army veteran helped another vet who had been homeless for years. Drew Baker and Arthur Calhoun first met when Calhoun was looking for a warm place to rest in a local restaurant.

“It was quite a shivering cold day that evening," Baker says. "He had came in trying to seek some shelter. It was warm. There were a couple individuals offering to give him a ride home, but Mr. Calhoun explained he didn't have a home. He was living on the street."

After meeting the 83-year-old Korean War veteran a second time on the Louisville Bridge, Baker knew he had to find a way to help him.

Baker gave Calhoun food, opened up his home for a few nights in his home and even helped get Calhoun admitted into the hospital to check on some injuries.

"I put Mr. Calhoun in a hotel for a couple of nights until the Northeast Louisiana Veteran's Home could take him in and get everything processed."

"This guy has saved my neck a time or two,” Calhoun says. “He don't look much like a hero, but he's a pretty good friend."
read it here

Tennessee boasts 32 of the Medal of Honor Recipients

A look at Tennessee's Medal of Honor recipients and their stories

Chattanooga Times Free Press
by Sabrina Bodon
February 1st, 2020

The state of Tennessee boasts 32 of the medal's 3,525 honorees thus far, including a Signal Mountain native for whom the new Charles H. Coolidge National Medal of Honor Heritage Center is named.

Medal of Honor awards are displayed during the third annual Celebration of Valor luncheon at the Chattanooga Convention Center on Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2019, in Chattanooga, Tenn. / Staff file photo

On multiple occasions, while awarding the Medal of Honor, President Harry S. Truman remarked, "I would rather have the blue band of the Medal of Honor around my neck than to be president of the United States." But when Congress attempted to award the badge to him in 1971, he wrote to the House that he did " ... not consider that I have done anything which should be the reason of any award, Congressional or otherwise."

Truman continued, saying the medal was for combat bravery, and awarding it to him would detract from that significance.

"This does not mean I do not appreciate what you and others have done, because I do appreciate the kind things that have been said and the proposal to have the award offered to me," Truman wrote. "Therefore, I close by saying thanks, but I will not accept a Congressional Medal of Honor."

Fifty-two medals have been awarded for acts of valor that occurred in and around Chattanooga, including one to Mary Edwards Walker, the only female recipient. read it here

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it

Does it offend you because you did not ask for it?

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
January 31, 2019

When someone offers to pay for something you need, do you allow your pride to reject the offer? Does it offend you because you did not ask for it?

Too many times we do not believe we deserve help, even though we know we need it. If we decide to go-it-alone, we remain where we are, suffering within the darkness we created. It suffocates hope.

The Word Became Flesh
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was with God in the beginning.
3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
John 1:1-5

We have been conditioned to believe that we need to get right with God in order for Him to hear us, see us suffering and then solve our problems. The truth is, God does hear you, see you and He also knows what you are going through.
read it here

The rest of this post is about how Jesus changed the life of someone who did not ask for it. That man was Saul of Tarsus. He could have rejected the offer, but he made the choice to accept the change he never knew he needed.

If you have been suffering, do not reject the hope that you need but may believe you do not deserve it. Saul did not deserve it, in the eyes of other humans...but Jesus saw more within him.

Widow thinks males need support to speak up about needing help?

We failed at too much for too long!

When you know how long people have been openly talking about PTSD, discovering a widow seems to think it is just males who need to speak up...it proves we failed!

Anil wasn't diagnosed with PTSD until four years after he left the armed forces (Image: Hull Daily Mail)

Army veteran Anil Carbon took his own life in February 2019 after finding it hard to adjust to civilian life.

Anil was suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder, but wasn't diagnosed with it until four years after he left the armed forces.

Despite having symptoms, he would always say "I'm fine, it's nothing".

Now his wife Myshelle Carbon wants to raise awareness of men's mental health and how important it is that men feel they can speak up, reports Hull Live.
read it here

Reminder, females have higher rates of PTSD and suicide!

Researchers finally figured out "prolonged exposure and cognitive processing therapy" do not work?

First-line Psychotherapies for Military-Related PTSD

JAMA
Maria M. Steenkamp, PhD1; Brett T. Litz, PhD2,3; Charles R. Marmar, MD4
Published online January 30, 2020

Two well-established first-line cognitive-behavioral psychotherapies for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), prolonged exposure therapy (PE) and cognitive processing therapy (CPT), are used in the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and US Department of Defense (DoD) based chiefly on good outcomes in randomized clinical trials (RCTs) with civilians. PE and CPT are manualized (ie, protocolized in a session-by-session manner) trauma-focused therapies that are based on processing the emotional and cognitive aspects of the traumatic event.

Consequently, these treatments are emotionally demanding for patients because PTSD is characterized by a strong motivation to avoid talking about the trauma and rekindling negative emotions associated with it. The prominence of PE and CPT in treating individuals with military-related PTSD has been increasingly challenged in recent years because RCTs of veterans and military personnel have yielded mixed results, with patients often not obtaining clinically meaningful symptom improvement.

These findings have led to questions about the extent to which these therapies should be prioritized and how military-related PTSD is best conceptualized, namely as a disorder that can be reliably managed by brief (approximately 12 session) monotherapies or as a highly complex and multiform condition requiring more individualized and comprehensive intervention.
read the report here

So they finally figure out they do not work? Now, will they focus on what does work?