Reaching Out To Veterans
Kotowski, Alexian Unveil Program Aimed At PTSD
By TOM ROBB
Journal Reporter
A new program to treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for returning veterans was unveiled at Alexian Brothers Hospital Wednesday.
State Sen. Dan Kotowski (D-33d) of Park Ridge attended. His bill helped fund the program.
Physicians at Wednesday's press conference explained that new state of the art equipment recently brought online at the hospital is helping doctors tell the difference between PTSD and traumatic brain injuries.
"The one thing we can agree on is that we need to honor our veterans in a better way," said Kotowski.
Kotowski said the Pentagon identified 40,000 veterans who have sought treatment for PTSD. He explained that some groups estimate the true number of veterans suffering the condition is closer to 300,000.
Kotowski said through technology PTSD can be detected physically and not just through psychological examination.
go here for more
http://www.journal-topics.com/eg/08/eg080625.1.html
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Morning the loss Marine Andrew Whitacre
Morning the loss of our beloved Marine Andrew Whitacre
June 26, 2008
The sun was shining over Jay County on Saturday morning. The sky was a glorious blue.
But there was a cloud over our heart.
Despite all logic, we had hoped that the community could make it through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq without the loss of local life.
Last week, those hopes were dashed.
With the death of Andrew Whitacre, this community joins hundreds of others across America in mourning.
It is an occasion for solemnity. It is an occasion for dignity. And it is an occasion for honor.
On those three points, every American can agree.
This is not about politics. This is not about policy.
This is about a young man, one of our own, who is lost to us now.
Let us honor him now, with solemnity and with dignity and with enormous respect.
Let us honor and console his family and loved ones. Let us remind them that they are not alone.
They are part of a larger community and a nation that places great value on their sacrifice.
But, most of all, let us honor Andrew, a Marine, but also not much more than a kid.
A young man with the world and all its possibilities in front of him.
A young man so much like so many other young men and women who serve their country.
And let us acknowledge the painful passing of that cloud over our heart
This was found in the Commerical Review, Portland, Indiana
http://www.policelink.com/news/34546-morning-the-loss-
of-our-beloved-marine-andrew-whitacre
Good Lord, how I wish that everyone in this country could remember these exact words.
Community honors fallen Indiana Marine
Posted: June 26, 2008 11:57 AM EDT
Lance Corporal Andrew Whitacre died last Thursday in Afghanistan.
JAY COUNTY, Ind. (WISH) - A community is honoring a fallen Indiana Marine.
The body of Lance Corporal Andrew Whitacre arrived in Jay County Wednesday. Hundreds of people lined the streets.
The 21-year-old, from Bryant, died Thursday in Afghanistan.
Whitacre's visitation is going on now in Portland.
His funeral will be held on Friday at 10 a.m. at the Jay County High School.
http://www.wishtv.com/global/story.asp?s=8559187
Help on Four Legs, Sometimes Followed by Confusion
Help on Four Legs, Sometimes Followed by Confusion
By GREGORY BEYER
Published: June 29, 2008
THE incident occurred about two years ago. Laura Damone, a 56-year-old resident of Gramercy Park who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and panic attacks, walked into the Union Square subway station with Buddy, who was her service dog at the time.
The dog, who wore a vest, attracted the attention of two transit workers, who, Ms. Damone says, humiliated her by backing her into a corner, demanding proof of her disability and giving her a ticket.
The confrontation exemplifies problems that can arise from what Assemblywoman Deborah Glick thinks is a vague city law.
Unlike state and federal law, which explicitly prohibits asking about or demanding proof of a disability, city law declares only that establishments provide “reasonable accommodation” to people with service animals. According to Bethany Jankunis, Ms. Glick’s chief of staff, this subjects people like Ms. Damone, who use service animals and whose disabilities are not plainly evident, to discrimination and embarrassment.
click post title for more
By GREGORY BEYER
Published: June 29, 2008
THE incident occurred about two years ago. Laura Damone, a 56-year-old resident of Gramercy Park who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and panic attacks, walked into the Union Square subway station with Buddy, who was her service dog at the time.
The dog, who wore a vest, attracted the attention of two transit workers, who, Ms. Damone says, humiliated her by backing her into a corner, demanding proof of her disability and giving her a ticket.
The confrontation exemplifies problems that can arise from what Assemblywoman Deborah Glick thinks is a vague city law.
Unlike state and federal law, which explicitly prohibits asking about or demanding proof of a disability, city law declares only that establishments provide “reasonable accommodation” to people with service animals. According to Bethany Jankunis, Ms. Glick’s chief of staff, this subjects people like Ms. Damone, who use service animals and whose disabilities are not plainly evident, to discrimination and embarrassment.
click post title for more
Veterans for Common Sense fight goes on
From Paul Sullivan
My two cents
Because of this, because of the hard work they all did on this (as well as what they plan to do) things will change. It proved once and for all there are people in this country willing to step up and force the changes so that our veterans receive the care they not only earned but the care they all deserve. We have so many who were willing to lay down their lives for this country that need our help for what should never, ever, have been something they had to fight for. They did their fighting when they were deployed. They shouldn't have to keep fighting for their lives because they made it home.
I’m sure you are aware of Judge Samuel Conti’s detailed 82-page ruling that found VA is in crisis and that he was “troubled” by VA’s delays. Yet he decided that the Court lacks jurisdiction and that VA and Congress should fix VA’s problems. Although we are disappointed the Judge would not order VA to act, we are pleased he found in our favor on many facts of the case. VCS re-states our offer to provide Congressional staff with any information that could be used to reform VA so our veterans receive prompt and high-quality VA healthcare as well as fast, complete, and accurate VA claims decisions.
Attached for your review are four items regarding the U.S. District Court’s ruling in our lawsuit, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth v. James Peake (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs):
Link to Army Times news article:http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/articleid/10516
Link to KPIX-TV (CBS News in San Francisco) television broadcast: http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/articleid/10517
Link to VCS press release:http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/articleid/10517
Attachment containing the Court’s ruling.
Our lawsuit enjoys broad support from veterans and the public. Here are just a few of the many overwhelmingly positive e-mails VCS received from our members about our landmark lawsuit with our co-plaintiff organization, Veterans United for Truth:
Your efforts will make life better for … veterans.
Thanks for all the hard work.
It was a great effort. The fact you were able to get the VA attitude out in the public, presented as evidence in a federal court, was of critical importance…. KEEP IT UP!
I think you did a terrific job of exposing the tragedy of the veterans with the law suit.
All of you working on this should be proud of yourselves.
You have accomplished a great deal and there still things to do. This is only the beginning of the fight; end of round one.
You are to be commended for your hard work.
You should be very proud of the effort you put into this. Because of you, there was a lot learned that would have remained hidden. You gave it your best as you always do.
It will pay off in the long. It will help.
Our fight is now in Congress.
As of April 2008, VA medical centers have treated 325,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, including 133,000 with a mental health condition, 75,000 of whom are diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder. We remain alarmed that VA still has no national policy on what to do when a suicidal patient shows up at a VA medical facility. We remain concerned that veterans such as Jonathan Schulze and Jeffrey Lucey were improperly turned away by an under funded and under staffed VA.
Therefore, VCS plans to appeal the Court’s decision primarily on the grounds that the Judicial Branch must enforce the laws of the Legislative Branch ignored by the Executive Branch. Please contact VCS if you have any questions.
Thank you,
Paul.
Paul Sullivan
Executive Director
Veterans for Common Sense
Post Office Box 15514
Washington, DC 20003
(202) 558-4553
Paul@VeteransForCommonSense.org
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/
My two cents
Because of this, because of the hard work they all did on this (as well as what they plan to do) things will change. It proved once and for all there are people in this country willing to step up and force the changes so that our veterans receive the care they not only earned but the care they all deserve. We have so many who were willing to lay down their lives for this country that need our help for what should never, ever, have been something they had to fight for. They did their fighting when they were deployed. They shouldn't have to keep fighting for their lives because they made it home.
Returning Veterans Conference
Returning Veterans Conference
Paving the Road Home: The National Behavioral Health Conference and Policy Academy on Returning Veterans and Their Families
Conference Date: August 11, 2008
Location: Hyatt Regency in Bethesda, MD
Registration begins June 16, 2008
This national conference and policy academy sponsored by SAMHSA will help Federal, State, and local partners improve and enhance mental health and substance abuse services for returning veterans and their families. The conference/policy academy will facilitate nationwide sharing of information on mental health and substance abuse services and supports across multiple health care delivery systems. Attendees will be provided science-based information to assist veterans and their families in building resiliency and preventing and/or treating complex conditions, including mental disorders (e.g., TBI, PTSD) substance use disorders, suicide, homelessness, domestic violence, and co-occurring disorders.
Visit the Conference Web site and Register
NAMI provides support to those facing PTSD
Group aids troops with combat stress
NAMI provides support to those facing PTSD
BY LILY GORDON - lgordon@ledger-enquirer.com --
Kenneth McDonald was 17 when he joined the Army in 1968. After completing basic training at Fort Benning, he was deployed to the jungles of Thailand where his duties included loading the bodies of dead American soldiers onto airplanes to be transported home.
It was there in the hot, isolated jungle that McDonald says his troubles began.
After two years of active duty service, McDonald was stressed, depressed and worn. In 1971, he left the Army and enrolled in trade school. He was having a hard time adjusting to civilian life, however, and six months later McDonald dropped out of school and went to work at Fort Benning as a mechanic. When he was laid off from that job, he launched a landscaping business, then a catering and florist company, then a small antiques business. Nothing seemed to hold his attention and he spiralled deeper into depression.
It wasn't until 1990, more than two decades later, that a doctor told McDonald he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, schizo-affective disorder and bipolar disorder.
Help available
Some 40,000 troops have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder since 2003, according to Pentagon statistics released in May. It's a growing problem among veterans returning from tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and one that is just beginning to get the attention it deserves, said Sue Marlowe, director of the Columbus chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Combatting the stigma surrounding the disease is ostensibly more challenging than treating it, especially when soldiers are the ones effected.
go here for more
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/story/357312.html
NAMI provides support to those facing PTSD
BY LILY GORDON - lgordon@ledger-enquirer.com --
Kenneth McDonald was 17 when he joined the Army in 1968. After completing basic training at Fort Benning, he was deployed to the jungles of Thailand where his duties included loading the bodies of dead American soldiers onto airplanes to be transported home.
It was there in the hot, isolated jungle that McDonald says his troubles began.
After two years of active duty service, McDonald was stressed, depressed and worn. In 1971, he left the Army and enrolled in trade school. He was having a hard time adjusting to civilian life, however, and six months later McDonald dropped out of school and went to work at Fort Benning as a mechanic. When he was laid off from that job, he launched a landscaping business, then a catering and florist company, then a small antiques business. Nothing seemed to hold his attention and he spiralled deeper into depression.
It wasn't until 1990, more than two decades later, that a doctor told McDonald he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, schizo-affective disorder and bipolar disorder.
Help available
Some 40,000 troops have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder since 2003, according to Pentagon statistics released in May. It's a growing problem among veterans returning from tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and one that is just beginning to get the attention it deserves, said Sue Marlowe, director of the Columbus chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Combatting the stigma surrounding the disease is ostensibly more challenging than treating it, especially when soldiers are the ones effected.
go here for more
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/story/357312.html
Dr. Loree Sutton, Brigadier General and Psychiatrist
Special to The Press-Enterprise
Loree Sutton says military service “changed my life in ways that I could not have anticipated.”
Loma Linda native is first female psychiatrist to attain rank of brigadier general
By MARK MUCKENFUSS
The Press-Enterprise
When Dr. Loree Sutton was born, Loma Linda did not yet have its university medical center.
"I'm old enough that I was born at the old sanitarium up on the hill," said Sutton, 49.
"The physician that delivered me, Dr. (Herbert) Henken, was actually one of my instructors when I was in medical school. Talk about a small town."
click post title for more
Resident wants support for returning troops
Resident wants support for returning troops
June 26, 2008
By MARCIA SAGENDORPH msagendorph@pioneerlocal.com
Iraq veteran Jim Black, 26, returned home to fight a new war. He, and millions of other veterans, are battling brain injuries and post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
His father-in-law, Tim Corrigan of Mundelein, wants to do something about it.
Black served in Iraq from April 2003 to March 2004. He originally lived in Tempe, Arizona before moving to Lake Villa in 2007. He is married to Jennifer and they have two boys, RJ, 5, and Gavin who will be a year old on Sept. 11.
Black originally joined the Army to get some training and college funding, Corrigan said.
"He didn't hesitate to go to war and he became a Recon Scout and saw lots of action as soon as he stepped foot in Iraq," Corrigan said.
He returned home to Tempe after finishing his active duty in June of 2004. He was called back to active duty but was already diagnosed with PTSD, which kept him from going back.
go here for more
http://www.pioneerlocal.com/grayslake/news/1025267,gr-PTSDgroup-062608-s1.article
June 26, 2008
By MARCIA SAGENDORPH msagendorph@pioneerlocal.com
Iraq veteran Jim Black, 26, returned home to fight a new war. He, and millions of other veterans, are battling brain injuries and post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
His father-in-law, Tim Corrigan of Mundelein, wants to do something about it.
Black served in Iraq from April 2003 to March 2004. He originally lived in Tempe, Arizona before moving to Lake Villa in 2007. He is married to Jennifer and they have two boys, RJ, 5, and Gavin who will be a year old on Sept. 11.
Black originally joined the Army to get some training and college funding, Corrigan said.
"He didn't hesitate to go to war and he became a Recon Scout and saw lots of action as soon as he stepped foot in Iraq," Corrigan said.
He returned home to Tempe after finishing his active duty in June of 2004. He was called back to active duty but was already diagnosed with PTSD, which kept him from going back.
go here for more
http://www.pioneerlocal.com/grayslake/news/1025267,gr-PTSDgroup-062608-s1.article
Goodbye Jim Hinde, Tribute to Vietnam Vet
Goodbye Jim Hinde
Eat the State - USA
by Jim Page
Jim Hinde was the real deal. He was born and raised in Ohio. He was a Vietnam Vet who rambled homeless and broke in the early '70s, lived in the skid road missions, and rode the freights. He settled in Seattle as a father and musician, and wrote a whole bunch of songs. He became such a solid force in the Seattle busking scene that when he died unexpectedly the morning of June 9, the whole city gasped and half of the Pike Place Market went home early.
The wind blew real hard all that day. Jim didn't like the hard winds because they reminded him of the typhoons when he was in the Navy. That was a time that haunted him. It kept him from sleeping and woke him up with night sweats--Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the shadow partner that Uncle Sam gives to his military veterans. Jim would spend the last years of his life pursuing his claim for service-related disability benefits from the Veterans Administration. Not just for himself but for all vets. Maybe it wore him out.
Jim was one of the founders of the Pike Market Performers Guild, an organizing body of Seattle street performers. With his work ethic and background, he was an enormous asset for getting all the nuts and bolts in place to create and produce the annual Pike Market Busker Festival. Organized collectively, the Guild seeks to raise the profile and legitimacy of street performers, who by nature are a little outside the social norm. Jim could bridge that gap. The festival has now become an established part of the city's culture, and busking a celebrated art form.
click above for more
Eat the State - USA
by Jim Page
Jim Hinde was the real deal. He was born and raised in Ohio. He was a Vietnam Vet who rambled homeless and broke in the early '70s, lived in the skid road missions, and rode the freights. He settled in Seattle as a father and musician, and wrote a whole bunch of songs. He became such a solid force in the Seattle busking scene that when he died unexpectedly the morning of June 9, the whole city gasped and half of the Pike Place Market went home early.
The wind blew real hard all that day. Jim didn't like the hard winds because they reminded him of the typhoons when he was in the Navy. That was a time that haunted him. It kept him from sleeping and woke him up with night sweats--Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the shadow partner that Uncle Sam gives to his military veterans. Jim would spend the last years of his life pursuing his claim for service-related disability benefits from the Veterans Administration. Not just for himself but for all vets. Maybe it wore him out.
Jim was one of the founders of the Pike Market Performers Guild, an organizing body of Seattle street performers. With his work ethic and background, he was an enormous asset for getting all the nuts and bolts in place to create and produce the annual Pike Market Busker Festival. Organized collectively, the Guild seeks to raise the profile and legitimacy of street performers, who by nature are a little outside the social norm. Jim could bridge that gap. The festival has now become an established part of the city's culture, and busking a celebrated art form.
click above for more
PTSD education is veterans mission
PTSD education is veterans mission
TONY SPINELLI
MILFORD — U.S. Marine Corps Vietnam veteran Charles Trumpower flips open his souvenir Zippo cigarette lighter, the one he carried with him through fields of blood and gore, to reveal its clever slogan. "I'm not here to die for my country," the lighter reads, in words inscribed just below the insignia of the Playboy Bunny with the erect ears and numerals for the year "1969."
"Let that other SOB die for his," it reads.
Trumpower, 61, didn't die for his country. But he did not make it out of the steaming Vietnamese jungle unscathed: in addition to bullet wounds and shrapnel that sent him home wounded in November 1969 after nearly 10 months in combat as a rifleman, Trumpower suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
go here for more
http://www.connpost.com/localnews/ci_9692485
TONY SPINELLI
MILFORD — U.S. Marine Corps Vietnam veteran Charles Trumpower flips open his souvenir Zippo cigarette lighter, the one he carried with him through fields of blood and gore, to reveal its clever slogan. "I'm not here to die for my country," the lighter reads, in words inscribed just below the insignia of the Playboy Bunny with the erect ears and numerals for the year "1969."
"Let that other SOB die for his," it reads.
Trumpower, 61, didn't die for his country. But he did not make it out of the steaming Vietnamese jungle unscathed: in addition to bullet wounds and shrapnel that sent him home wounded in November 1969 after nearly 10 months in combat as a rifleman, Trumpower suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
go here for more
http://www.connpost.com/localnews/ci_9692485
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)