Saturday, August 26, 2017

Soldier Missing Five Rescued After Black Hawk Crash in Yemen

U.S. Black Hawk Helicopter Crashes off Yemen Coast, One Crew Member Missing

Associated Press
August 26, 2017

A U.S. military Black Hawk helicopter crashed off the southern coast of Yemen while training its crew, leaving one service member missing, officials said.
Five others aboard the aircraft were rescued, officials said in a statement issued by U.S. Central Command.
The crash took place Friday evening. Officials said the accident was under investigation.
Asked if the crash involved another special forces raid, Central Command told The Associated Press that "this was a routine training event specifically for U.S. military personnel."

PTSD on Trial: Man Went For Help First, Before Shooting

Man on trial in deputy shooting says he intended to only harm himself

Oregon Live
Everton Bailey Jr.
August 25, 2017

Everton Bailey Jr. | The Oregonian/OregonLive Steven Wilson testifies in his own defense during his trial in Clackamas County Circuit Court on August 25, 2017. Wilson, 40, is accused of grabbing a county deputy's gun and shooting them both in November 2016. Wilson said he meant to grab the gun, kill himself and didn't intend to injure the deputy. (Everton Bailey Jr./The Oregonian)
Steven Wilson felt suicidal last fall and had gone to Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center for help, but was released hours later. He returned to his Portland apartment, later grabbed his psychiatric medication and went to a nearby MAX stop. Then he threw the pills on the ground.
A voice inside his head told him: If you're serious about killing yourself, you don't need your medicine, Wilson told the jury Friday during his attempted murder trial. The voice also said he needed to die to keep his mother alive.
From there, Wilson testified, he remembers only snippets. He's accused of shooting a Clackamas County deputy with the deputy's own gun in a Nov. 15, 2016 encounter that left them both injured.
Wilson, 40, said he somehow got to a home in Clackamas where his mother no longer lived and took a blanket off a neighbor's porch.
He doesn't remember later walking into traffic along Southeast Sunnyside Road during the early morning traffic commute, he said. Nor being hit by at least one car or the two women who stopped to try to help him afterward.
He said he doesn't remember the deputy who responded to the scene, but said he did recall at some point seeing a gun in front of him and a voice in his head repeatedly telling him, "Grab the gun and kill yourself."

New Hampshire AG Shuts Down Veterans Charity

Police Open Probe Into VetCare

Valley News
Rob Wolfe
August 26, 2017
The attorney general said some of Project VetCare’s leaders had diverted money to pay for a range of personal purposes, including a cruise vacation, a heating system for the executive director’s home, and loans and stipends for directors and their relatives.Robert Chambers, co-founder of Project VetCare, was among those named in the report. The investigation found that he used the organization’s fund to pay for a Toyota van and that his daughter had received a stipend payment.
Hanover — The Hanover Police Department says it has opened a criminal investigation into the veterans aid group Project VetCare stemming from a report that some of the organization’s directors took money for personal expenses.
The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office on Thursday announced that the Hanover-based nonprofit would close and that officials involved in the misuse of the organization’s funds had agreed to repay some of the money.
Officials at area veterans groups on Friday expressed concern that news about Project VetCare’s improprieties could hurt their own efforts.
The state’s Charitable Trusts Unit, which oversees New Hampshire charities, investigated the organization and discovered “diversion of large sums of money for the benefit of the charity’s executive director, her family, an employee and some members of the board of directors,” the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office said in a statement on Thursday.
State officials have passed their findings to Grafton County Attorney Lara Saffo, who said on Friday that Hanover police had begun a probe.

Quiet Hollers Songwriter Takes On Mental Health Challenges


For Quiet Hollers, the song comes first

Lacrosse Tribune
Michale Martin
August 25, 2017
His wife has a panic disorder and Wilde suffers from depression — something alluded to in the song, “Medicine”. Meanwhile a close friend, a veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder, took his own life.

For a while it looked like Quiet Hollers were going to be pegged as an Americana or roots band — or maybe even an alt country band. But the latest album by the Louisville, Kentucky-based band — “Amen Breaks” — makes it clear that those kinds of “boxes” are far too small to contain the band’s creativity.
The Hollers are doing a show at the Cavalier Theater on Sept 2. The band’s latest album has elements of post-punk and indie-leaning sounds, as well as hip-hop-style drum machines, soaring synthesizers, string quartets and harmony-laden choruses. Despite the disparate styles and sounds, it’s all somehow held together by Shadwick Wilde’s thoughtful songwriting.
Wilde, the band’s primary songwriter, explained that the album was inspired by life challenges faced by friends and family. 
“It’s kind of an amalgam of things that have been in the forefront of my mind, about mental health and mental illness — these things that have touched the lives of virtually everyone I know, myself included,” Wilde said.

Siblings Suffer After Suicide But Go Without Help to Heal

After a suicide, sibling survivors are often overlooked

NPR
Cheryl Platzman Weinstock
August 25, 2017 
"I think people don't understand how profound a loss of a sibling can be. They help shape your trajectory and sense of self." Julie Cerel, a psychologist and president of the American Association of Suicidology  

Ryan Steen (left) found himself "on edge" and isolated for years after his younger brother, Tyler, died by suicide. 

When Taylor Porco's brother, Jordan, died by suicide during his freshman year of college in February 2011, people told her to be strong for her parents, who were incapacitated by their grief. Hardly anyone seemed to notice that Porco, only 14 at the time, was suffering and suicidal.

"I was really depressed and in such extreme pain. Nothing, literally, mattered to me after he died. All I wanted was my brother back. I never loved someone as much as I loved him," she says.

Porco's experience is hardly unique. Approximately 25,000 people each year become sibling survivors of suicide, according to the support group, Sibling Survivors of Suicide Loss. Those who lose a sibling to suicide at any age can experience anger, complicated grief reactions, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and thoughts of taking their own lives.

Until recently, these survivors often fell under the radar. They were overlooked in medical research, and no one understood what they were going through or how to support them. But, according to several studies of survivors, those who lose a sibling to suicide, especially one of the same sex or close in age, have more serious mood disorders and thoughts of suicide themselves than survivors who lose a sibling for any other reason. 
read more here