The Pastor's Ass

We all need to laugh every now and then. Just one of the emails I get from one of my Aunts.

The Pastor's Ass


The pastor entered his donkey in a race and it won.

The pastor was so pleased with the donkey that he entered it in the race again, and it won again.

The local paper read:PASTOR'S ASS OUT FRONT.

The Bishop was so upset with this kind of publicity that he ordered the pastor not to enter the donkey in another race.

The next day, the local paper headline read:

BISHOP SCRATCHES PASTOR'S ASS.


This was too much for the bishop, so he ordered the pastor to get rid of the donkey.

The pastor decided to give it to a nun in a nearby convent.


The local paper, hearing of the news, posted the following headline the next day:

NUN HAS BEST ASS IN TOWN.

The bishop fainted.


He informed the nun that she would have to get rid of the donkey, so she sold it to a farmer for $10.


The next day the paper read:

NUN SELLS ASS FOR $10.

This was too much for the bishop, so he ordered the nun to buy back the donkey and lead it to the plains where it could run wild.


The next day the headlines read:

NUN ANNOUNCES HER ASS IS WILD AND FREE.

The bishop was buried the next day.


The moral of the story is. . . being concerned about public opinion can bring you much grief and misery .. even shorten your life.


So be yourself and enjoy life.


Stop worrying about everyone else's ass and you'll be a lot happier and live longer!

War Comes Home "The man I married died in Iraq"

Last year while doing research for the video about suicides, Death Because They Served, (watch it on the right side of the blog with the rest of my videos) I had to search high and low for reports that had been confirmed as suicides. This was before the major new networks took this on in response to complaints the DOD and the VA were not providing reports that could be studied. Many families were left hanging, waiting for the "investigation" to be ended to be provided some closure. While searching I came upon many reports of young soldiers with deaths categorized as "natural causes" leaving the impression the DOD must have let in a lot of recruits that were either very unhealthy, or there was a lot more to these stories.

The link to Non-combat deaths

http://namguardianangel.blogspot.com/2007/04/
non-combat-deaths-non-caring-media.html

Twenty year olds do not die in such high numbers from "natural causes" and then we read reports that fear can cause heart attacks. We read reports of inoculations causing pneumonia. Depleted uranium causing cancer and birth defects, much like Agent Orange caused them after Vietnam. We read reports that the water is tainted and contaminated causing skin and internal illnesses. All of this and yet I only had a small portion of the deaths not connected to bullets and bombs.

Within the reports came suspected links to Larium and violent murder/suicides.

I received this email this morning with a request to post it. I do so gladly. We need to calculate all available evidence and information to ever understand the true price of war and what we ask of those who serve. I was a member of ATSS and because of this, I think I'll join again.

Chaplain Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
http://www.namguardianangel.org/
http://www.namguardianangel.blogspot.com/
http://www.woundedtimes.blogspot.com/

"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation."

- George Washington

Could you please post this on your website:

"In the Spring of 2002, members of the elite Special Operations units began returning home from duty in Afghanistan. Within six weeks, four Army wives, and one soldier, would be dead.

On June 11, 2002, Sergeant First Class Rigoberto Nieves, who had returned from Afghanistan just two days earlier fatally shot his wife, Teresa, and then killed himself.

Master Sergeant William Wright strangled his wife Jennifer on June 29, 2002, and then buried her body in a shallow grave.

On July 9, 2002, Sergeant Cedric Ramon Griffin stabbed his estranged wife, Marilyn, 50 times and then set her house on fire.

On July 19, 2002, the same day as Master Sergeant Wright was arrested for the murder of his wife, Sergeant First Class Brandon Floyd shot his wife Andrea to death and then and then took his own life. On July 30, 2002, Fort Bragg police arrested the wife of a major for shooting him in the head and chest while he slept. These homicides made national news, owing mainly to the number of deaths at Fort Bragg in a short period of time extreme prejudice with which the acts were committed. The incident also caused an increased awareness of post-deployment combat-related stress.

However, such incidents continue to occur following deployment throughout the US.

During a recent address to the House of Representatives, Stacy Bannerman, author of “When the War Came Home: The Inside Story of Reservists and the Families They Leave Behind” and wife of a Reservist reflected on an incident occurring in May 2007:

"This war cost me my family. When my husband returned from Iraq it quickly became apparent he was suffering from PTSD. He became increasingly verbally and mentally abusive to not only my daughter and I, but many of his subordinates at work who either quit or he had fired. He refused to admit he had a problem, and since the military does no mental status follow-up [for Reservists] he hasn't received any treatment for his condition. As a consequence, my family is destroyed. My son isn't being raised by his dad and my daughter lost the only father she knew. I know a divorce isn't as bad as losing my husband to death, but I can honestly say the man I married died in Iraq."

Unfortunately, the current system of screening for PTSD reflects data collected from past male-dominated warfare. However, Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) are unprecedented in the number of women exposed to combat-related stress and the percentage of Reserve and National Guard personnel, who never anticipated becoming full-time military members. Scientific research conducted since the end of the Vietnam Conflict finds PTSD is greatly influenced by personality factors and pre-existing ways of coping.

Unfortunately, a significant void exists in understanding how childhood social learning influences PTSD in the aftermath of deployment.

In April/May 2008, a PhD dissertation study of how gender, personality, traumatic experiences prior to deployment, and ways of coping affect post-deployment wellness will be conducted. Three groups of people are needed: (1) persons between the ages of 18-38 who have never served in the military; (2) persons (male and female) who have been deployed in support of OEF/OIF within the past 18 months; and (3) persons (military and non-military) who have been diagnosed by a medical or mental health authority with PTSD (combat related/or non-combat related). The researchers particularly need women (military and non-military) who served in Vietnam, Desert Storm or OEF/OIF, or experienced assault and sexual trauma.

Participants will need to complete a series of questionnaires requiring approximately 90 minutes to complete. No names or identifying information will be attached to the questionnaires; however, each volunteer will need to sign a Letter of Informed Consent of the benefits and risks prior to completing the questionnaires.

The completed study will be provided to the Department of Defense Surgeon Generals and Veterans Administration to develop more-targeted pre-deployment training, intra-deployment intervention, and post-deployment treatment. The findings of the study will also be used to train and treat professionals deployed in support of national disasters such as Hurricane Katrina.

If you are interested in participating in the study, please contact drhensley1@aol.com for more information."

Alan L. Hensley, PhD Candidate, BCETS, FAAETS
Board Certified Expert in Traumatic StressFellow,
American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress (AAETS)Member,
Association of Traumatic Stress SpecialistsMember,
American Counseling Association(712) 526-2401

Tampa Homeless Survey Hits Streets

Homeless Survey Hits Streets

By KEITH MORELLI

The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 28, 2008

Updated: 12:14 am

TAMPA - Jayne Stelley, in the lime-green T-shirt of the survey team, chatted easily outside a day-labor office with Leslie Joseph, a 52-year-old homeless man, hoping to get a glimpse into what can be done to ease his misery.

Three teams made up of volunteers and homeless advocates spread out Thursday in Tampa and Brandon toting armloads of survey forms, each consisting of 19 pages of questions meant to help identify the real problems facing the nearly 10,000 homeless men, women and children in Hillsborough County.

Joseph was a willing interviewee, answering question after question - including some intensely personal - about his life, the help he gets and the help he doesn't get.

He said he gets work occasionally, but could work more. For some unknown reason, his teeth began falling out over the past few weeks. He spent last night in a halfway house nearby.

He's been homeless for about two months.

"I know I don't look homeless," he said. "But looks can be deceiving."

Nearby volunteers interviewed others.

Chap Cererin works with the Department of Veterans' Affairs and said he wants to help veterans who have found themselves without a home. He said he has an easy rapport with them.

"You have to treat them with respect," Cererin said.
go here for the rest
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/mar/28/me-homeless-survey-hits-streets/

Homeless Veteran buried with dignity

Homeless Veteran Gets Military Burial
Miri Marshall-KFOX Morning News Traffic Anchor/Reporter
POSTED: 12:39 pm MDT March 27, 2008

EL PASO, Texas -- Family and friends wiped tears as they bid farewell to Navy Veteran Steven Lee Osborn Monday at Fort Bliss National Cemetery.

“We’re all gonna (going to) miss him,” said Osborn’s friend Besi Nicholes.

Osborn, 48, died of pneumonia. He was known for loving the desert and polishing trucks.

“He was a really a neat guy.” Said Nicholes. “He really was very humble, kind, loving, very understanding."

Osborn was homeless and last living in Socorro’s Tent City. He was one of more than 270,000 homeless veterans living on the streets.

The Dignity Memorial Program paid for Osborn’s burial arrangements. The program is sponsored by Kaster-Maxon & Futrell Funeral Home. Dignity Memorial pays for the military burial of homeless veterans.

"Instead of being buried in a pauper's grave they will be buried here at the national cemetery,” said Dignity Memorial spokeswoman Mary Slawson. “They served their country and did what they did for our country, then we need to give back to them."
go here for the rest
http://www.kfoxtv.com/news/15724291/detail.html

Public opinion on Iraq:Call in

Media Advisory for Friday, March 28, 2008 @ 1PM, EDT***

Call-in#: 888-325-3989, Passcode: 546571



Iraq Experts Hold Press Conference Call to Respond to Upsurge in Violence, Out of Touch Bush, McCain Assessments on Iraq



As U.S. Forces Are Pulled into Fighting in Baghdad, and as Green Zone Comes Under Attack, Iraq Veteran, National Security Expert, Expert on Public Attitudes Towards Iraq Asses the





WHO: Jon Soltz, Iraq War Veteran and Chairman and Co-Founder of VoteVets.org, Brian Katulis, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Jim Gerstein, Democracy Corps



WHAT: Press Conference Call Regarding Upsurge in Violence in Iraq, Evolving Public Opinion on Iraq



WHEN: Friday, March 28, 2008, 1:00 P.M.



Call-in#: 888-325-3989

Passcode: 546571

Free iPhone with Every Outrage!

Free iPhone with Every Outrage!
Bored with the 'war' on Iraq? 4,000 dead merely induce shrugging? Need an incentive to keep caring?
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Friday, March 28, 2008

It is a time for a radical rethinking. It is a time to reconsider it all, to perhaps reassess how we are presenting and digesting America's most costly and lost and unwinnable and brutal and ignoble and inept and insidious and depressing war that's not really a war; it's time to revolutionize how it's all packaged and broadcast and pumped like hot sticky misery into the heavily narcotized American cultural bloodstream because, oh my God, we are sick sick sick of it all, and only getting sicker.

This is the problem: People are getting bored. Check that: People are already bored, insanely so, have been bored for a few years now, so utterly and thoroughly jaded and burned out on stories and pictures and woeful tales of Iraq and death and Baghdad and cluster bombs and burned-out trucks and limbless soldiers and flag-draped coffins and photos of a grinning George W. Bush posing with a horribly burned, mutilated U.S. soldier, it might as well be Lindsay Lohan snorting blow off the dashboard of an Escalade.

We have now accomplished 4,000 dead U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Did you see that headline? Did it cause anything but a stab of pain and a heavy sigh and a need to click a different headline, maybe the one about cute baby polar bears in Germany? Did you simply mash and mix that inglorious number with tales of wretched economic meltdown and torture and health care system collapse and roll it all into a little ball of sadness and hurl it at the wall of forgetfulness? You are not alone.
go here for the rest
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/03/28/notes032808.DTL

Bill Addresses Military Suicides

Bill Addresses Military Suicides
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Senior Editor
March 27, 2008

(CNSNews.com) - Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) recently introduced legislation requiring the Defense Department to establish a detailed database on suicides and attempted suicides among U.S. troops.

Last year, 121 soldiers committed suicide and another 2,100 attempted suicide, Boxer said on her Web site. She noted that the 2,100 attempted suicides represents a six-fold increase since 2002 (when the U.S. was not at war).

In addition to requiring a comprehensive database, the Boxer-Lieberman legislation (formally, The Armed Forces Suicide Prevention Act of 2008) would require the individual investigation of all suicides across the Armed Forces, and it would require the Pentagon to provide Congress with regular updates on military suicides.

A second bill, The Armed Forces Mental Health Professionals Recruitment and Retention Enhancement Act of 2008, would increase the number of uniformed mental health providers serving service members and their families. (Lieberman noted that the troops have a strong preference for uniformed, rather than civilian, providers.)

"This legislation will help ensure that the Defense Department and Congress are getting an adequate picture of the state of mental health within our Armed Forces," Boxer said in a news release.
go here for the rest
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200803/NAT20080327d.html

Murder trail points to war trauma

Army Ranger Sgt. Gary Smith is accused of killing fellow Ranger Spc. Michael A. McQueen II.
Montgomery County Police Department / AP

Murder Trial Points to War Trauma
Thursday, Mar. 27, 2008
By MARK THOMPSON/WASHINGTON

A Maryland murder trial is being turned into a debate on the lingering traumatic impact of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq on the psyche of the Americans who served there. The prosecution is trying to prove that Gary Smith, a one-time Army Ranger, murdered his roommate of 20 days and fellow Ranger Michael McQueen, 22, by putting a .38-caliber revolver to his right temple and pulling the trigger. Smith's attorney, however, notes that the 25-year-old former sergeant has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder following repeated combat tours, and insists that McQueen committed suicide, drunk, despondent and unemployed.

Whether McQueen's death was a murder or a suicide, the tale offers a rare window into the grim realities of post-war mental trauma. As the odometer of war clicks past 4,000 killed in Iraq, and approaches 500 in Afghanistan, it's stories like those about the Ranger roommates that often fall below the nation's radar screen. The Army introduced these two men to one another — McQueen was African-American; Smith is white — and dispatched them to Afghanistan together twice, in 2004 and 2005. There, it seems one or both became unhinged by the experience. But in a country that rescues Wall Street banks from ruin while down-on-their-luck homeowners find themselves suddenly homeless, the prosecution would prefer to keep the focus of the trial in the Rockville, Maryland, courthouse away from the war.

"This is a homicide — Gary Smith is the person that did it," prosecutor John Maloney said in his opening argument March 18 in what is expected to be a two-week trial. "The most important thing you'll bring to your deliberations is your common sense." But Smith's attorney, Andrew Jezic, said McQueen was unemployed, not in school and drinking heavily when he killed himself. Smith, upset at the death of a war buddy, tried to hide how he died to preserve McQueen's dignity — and to avoid being implicated — according to police files. "There is no motive in this case," Jezic said. "Zero."

go here for the rest

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1725860,00.html

VA Reaches Out to Women Veterans

VA Reaches Out to Women Veterans

March 27, 2008

Women Vets Have Earned “Benefits, Respect, Thanks” – Peake
Fourth National Summit on Women Veterans Issues Begins June 20

WASHINGTON -- Recognizing the valor, service and sacrifice of America’s 1.7 million women veterans, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has created a comprehensive array of benefits and programs.

“Women who served this country in uniform -- whether veterans of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, the current Global War on Terror or peacetime service -- have earned our respect and thanks,” said Dr. James B. Peake, Secretary of Veterans Affairs. “They have also earned the full range of VA programs offered by a grateful nation.”

Secretary Peake also announced the Fourth National Summit on Women Veterans Issues to be held from June 20 – 22 in Washington D.C. The Summit will offer attendees an opportunity to enhance future progress on women veterans issues, with sessions specifically for the Reserve and National Guard, information on military sexual trauma and readjustment issues, after the military veteran resources and many more programs and exhibits.

http://www.vawatchdog.org/08/nf08/nfMAR08/nf032808-4.htm

Minnesota Female Veterans Face Unique Challenges

Thursday, March 27, 2008
Coming home

Minnesota female veterans face unique challenges

Although the numbers of female veterans are increasing, the lack of studies and information about female veterans makes it difficult to gauge the needs of returning female soldiers. Mainstream media coverage of returning veterans often makes little or no mention of the women who served. Andrea Lindgren, a state researcher with the Minnesota Office on the Economic Status of Women (OESW) commented on the difficulty of identifying the specific needs of female veterans. "There's not a lot of information out there," said Lindgren. "I think it's cultural-there may be a hesitancy to acknowledge that there exist issues related to being female."

by Kendall Anderson

Chante Wolf was in the U.S. Air Force for 12 years, returning to civilian life in 1992 after the first Gulf war. But the soldier-turned-activist has traveled a long road to resolving the trauma of what she calls regular sexual harassment and near-rape while serving her country.

"It's only recently that I started dealing with-started talking about in therapy-the sexual stuff, knowing that the longer this goes on the deeper this wound will go," said Wolf, now 50. "You just bury it."

The stress first surfaced in verbal attacks against her parents. Added to the normal anxiety veterans often face-Wolf slept with a loaded .357 magnum under her pillow during her first few years back-the sexual trauma nearly put the veteran over the top. She drank herself to sleep for many years.

That extra anguish from sexual assault and sexual harassment is not something every female vet experiences. But it's one of several challenges female vets face when returning to civilian life. So is returning to societal norms of female behavior and resuming parenting and other family roles that may differ dramatically from being a soldier. That's something Gina Sanders can testify to.

Becoming mom again
Sanders (not her real name), 25, came home to her son and found he was not quite the same. A sergeant who had served in Iraq, she had to accept that her toddler had experienced milestones without her. Her son's father took over parenting-and continued even after she first returned from duty.

"Coming home to your family, you're very happy to be home. You're thinking that the family you come home to are the same as when you left, which is not true-they had their own struggles while you're away," said Sanders, 25.

Eager as she is to become her son's most important parent-Sanders is a single mom-she also misses aspects of the life she left behind, especially the female soldiers who shared her experiences. The pleasure of being with her son has been the best part of coming home.

"It is a difficult transition coming home from the deployment. We tend to come back as stronger, more independent women," said Brandi N. Wilson, women veterans coordinator, Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs. Wilson sees among women vets challenged by parenting and interpersonal relating. She added that female vets often have a harder time finding the support they need.

Female vets and rape:
Nearly one-third of a nationwide sample of female veterans seeking V.A. health care said they experienced rape or attempted rape during their service. Among them:
• 37 percent said they were raped multiple times
• 14 percent reported they were gang-raped.


Family matters
43% of female vets have at least one child, compared to 22% of male vets.
56% of female vets are married, compared to 72% of male vets.

click above for the rest