Guardsman adjusting to civilian life

Guardsman adjusting to civilian life/


By Mary Jo Balasco - The (Rock Hill) Herald via The Associated Press
Posted : Saturday Dec 20, 2008 14:22:17 EST

ROCK HILL, S.C. — South Carolina Army National Guard Capt. Bill Berry spent his last holiday season on an Army base in Afghanistan, packing equipment for a mission to teach soldiers how to handle roadside bombs. During his 13-month deployment, the Rock Hill man often had to leave the base, sometimes for days, placing him in jeopardy nearly every day.

“The hair stood up on the back of my neck a few times,” said Berry, 47. “Any time you’re outside of the gate, there is danger.”

Berry and the 175 other soldiers of the 178th Engineer Battalion arrived home in May. This year, they will celebrate the holidays with their families as they continue to adjust from serving in the war zones.

Readjusting to civilian life can be fraught with problems for returning soldiers. Military officials say they may face issues that vary from mild to severe, depending on their experience.

And the adjustment for National Guard soldiers like Berry can be even more difficult than for active military soldiers. That’s because, unlike active soldiers, guardsman go home to communities where most people can’t relate to their experiences, said Chief Warrant Officer Terry O’Conner, reintegration program director for the South Carolina Army National Guard.
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PTSD and false arrest of a 12 year old

Police assault 12-year-old girl after mistaking her for a prostitute
Andrew McLemore
Published: Friday December 19, 2008


A girl's family has filed a lawsuit against Galveston police for their assault on their 12-year-old daughter after mistaking her for a prostitute.

As the girl, Dymond Milburn, walked in her front yard, three men jumped out of a van and beat her about the face and throat, one of them telling her, "You're a prostitute. You're coming with me."

Police attacked Milburn despite the fact that she didn't fit the racial description of their suspects: three white prostitutes and a black drug dealer.

Three weeks after Milburn was hospitalized for her injuries, police went to her school and arrested her for assaulting an officer during the incident.

The incident occurred two years ago, and since then, Milburn has suffered behavioral problems, nightmares and post-traumatic stress disorder.
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Dr. Phil takes on the inadequate care our veterans receive

Yesterday the show was not on the air here in Orlando because of Caylee Anthony's DNA results coming back. All the stations were focused on her so I was unable to watch the show. Big Thanks to Larry Scott for posting this.

VIDEO: DR. PHIL TAKES ON THE VA'S INADEQUATE CARE --

With Dr. Phil, Rep. Bob Filner, Col. David Hunt of

Fox News, Tammy Duckworth and many more...

but, VA is a no-show.

This is an incredible program.

Vets complain that the "mainstream media" doesn't pay attention.

Well, there's nobody more "mainstream" than Dr. Phil.

On these videos you will see:

Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA), Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, say that the VA lies to Congress.

Col. David Hunt, Fox News analyst, talks of "criminal" activity and says someone should be doing a "perp walk."

Tammy Duckworth, head of the Illinois Department of Veterans' Affairs, tells of her terrible experiences with the VA.

And, veterans tell heart-wrenching stories of trying to get the care they need and have earned.

Also... you'll want to hear Dr. Phil explain why the VA cancelled their appearance on the show.

Share these videos with your friends.

This video is in six parts.....

go here for all of them
http://www.vawatchdog.org/08/nf08/nfdec08/nf122008-1.htm
This is part two

Part three is about a PTSD veteran and his wife

Col. Hunt put it right "We suck at taking care of them"


Part five
Death of a son from suicide


The problem with all of this is that they knew what was coming. They knew how long and how brutal it would all be because they were all on tape stating it without a doubt. They said it all thru the 90's when they were defending the decision to not invade Iraq after the Gulf War. They also knew because of Vietnam and what happened when they came home. How many times does this have to be posted before people pay attention to these glaring facts? Anyone have an answer when people will stop saying "no one knew" instead of saying they just didn't care?

War hero at Nellis battling a new adversary: PTSD

War hero at Nellis battling a new adversary: PTSD
San Francisco Chronicle - CA, USA
By KEITH ROGERS, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Saturday, December 20, 2008

With a Silver Star medal clipped to his Air Force jacket, 1st Lt. Thomas Cahill spoke humbly about his efforts to pilot a rescue helicopter through enemy fire while flying low over eastern Afghanistan's snowcapped mountains.

His "uncanny skills," his citation read, for keeping the Pave Hawk airborne in thin air at low rotor speed with mortar rounds whizzing by resulted in saving three men during that mission on March 3, 2002.

"As dark as it was, impacting the terrain was my first enemy," he said five years ago after his award ceremony at Nellis Air Force Base. "I would say it was probably luck."

In the years since Operation Anaconda, Cahill's luck and his adversary have changed. Cahill's enemy now is post-traumatic stress disorder, an anxiety that stirs nightmarish memories of terrifying ordeals from the battlefield.

He was court-martialed and pleaded guilty May 27 to charges related to off-base thefts and was confined in the brig at Nellis until his release in September. Cahill's attorneys argued that his illness caused him to lose focus in his job with the 561st Joint Tactics Squadron and do things out of character.
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Hundreds say thanks in Wesley Chapel as hero comes home

At his homecoming in Land O’Lakes on Friday, Jose Pequeno is joined by his sister, Elizabeth Bagley, left, family friend Kimberly Bennett, center, and his 13-year-old daughter, Mercedes Pequeno, right. He was severely injured in Iraq in 2006.

Hundreds say thanks in Wesley Chapel as hero comes home
Tampabay.com - St. Petersburg,FL,USA
By Erin Sullivan, Times Staff Writer
Saturday, December 20, 2008


LAND O'LAKES — The grenade blasted him out the door of the Humvee. The soldier who had been sitting next to him was dead. Others thought Staff Sgt. Jose Pequeno was dead, too. Half of his skull was gone. But a medic cleared his airway and got him out of Iraq and to a hospital in Germany and then to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

It happened on March 1, 2006. Pequeno, then 32 years old, was a police chief in New Hampshire and the father of three children. Before that, he had served as a Marine, and later, he had enlisted in the National Guard. He was handsome and loved motorcycles and skiing. He and his wife lived a few miles from his younger sister and his mother. The last time they heard his voice was in a message he left for his mother's birthday a week earlier. They still play it sometimes. They don't know whether they will ever hear him speak again.

His mother, Nelida Bagley, and his sister, Elizabeth Bagley, have been by his side since then — nearly three years of caretaking. Nelida and Elizabeth both put their lives on hold when Pequeno was injured. They quit their jobs, moved out of their homes, put their things into storage.
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Dr. Phil show focused on our wounded veterans

More than 170,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan, sacrificing life and limb to keep America safe. Nearly 40,000 have been wounded, an estimated 300,000 are living with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and in 2005, there were at least 6,256 suicides among those serving in the armed forces. Many vets say when they return home, they feel mistreated and neglected and are forced to fight a medical system bureaucracy that doesn't hear them. Are we doing enough to care for our heroes? Find out what's really going on as Dr. Phil tackles this hot-button issue!


Broken and Forgotten?
Randy, 22, was severely injured during an ambush while serving in Iraq. His mother, Tammy, says when he returned home and sought medical care, he got lost in the system. They say trying to get any help from the Veterans Affairs is a struggle with minimal results.



"They lied to him, they used him, they broke him, and they threw him away."


The Truth Revealed?
Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Congressman Bob Filner, explains why military heroes like Randy are falling through the cracks. And, Maggie Lockridge from the Iraq Star Foundation shares a surprise with Randy.



"That is a crime, and that's been committed by our own VA."


Substandard Care?
Jerry says he got a "raw deal" when he returned from Iraq, and he's struggling with what he believes to be PTSD. His wife says Jerry is angry and violent, and the situation has reached a crisis point. And, Col. David Hunt shares his strong opinions about the VA health care system.


"If they did their job like my husband did his job, we wouldn't be where we're at."


Failed by the VA?
Kevin and Joyce say their son, Jeffrey, came home from war a changed man, and help came too late. And, Tammy Duckworth, director of the Illinois Department of Veterans' Affairs and Paul Rieckhoff, director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, share how Americans can help our wounded warriors. Plus, hear the Department of Veterans Affairs answers to some hard questions!

"We all need to get involved and make Veterans Day every day."

Family sues Disney over bassinet death

Family sues Disney over bassinet death


By Patricia Callahan | Tribune reporter
December 19, 2008
The family of a child who died this year in a Winnie the Pooh bassinet has sued the Walt Disney Co., alleging the company allowed sales of the bassinets despite a flawed design that had been linked to another baby's death a year earlier.

The bassinet had a drop-down side for easy access, but the design created a gap where babies could slide through and hang to death. Kennedy Brotherton Jones was 6 months old when she was strangled on Aug. 21.

Shortly after Kennedy's death, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission directed retailers to stop selling the bassinets, which were manufactured by Simplicity Inc. Disney's consumer products division licensed its Winnie the Pooh name and image to Simplicity, records show.

The suit, filed in California state court in Los Angeles on Wednesday, raises questions about a common practice in the nursery products industry: Are companies that license their names and characters to other manufacturers responsible when those products turn out to be deadly?

About 11 months before Kennedy's death, a 4-month-old Missouri baby, Katelyn Marie Simon, died after getting trapped in a Simplicity-branded bassinet that shared the same design as the Winnie the Pooh bassinets. Kennedy's family alleged in its suit that Disney knew or should have known about Katelyn's death and should have halted sales of the bassinets before Kennedy's aunt bought hers.

Man has tumor removed from face because a customer cared

Wonderful story of being who you are not matter what you look like and a lesson of what one person can do when they care.

James O'Neal was born with a condition that made a huge tumor grow on his face. He couldn't afford to have it removed. It grew and as it grew, he grew on the customers of the Safe Way.

Katie Knuff, a customer decided to raise money so that he could get the operation. KOMO pitched in and so did Safe Way.

Not only is this a remarkable story of James himself and the kindness he has for others, it is one also of how we can bless each other when we look inside the person and not at what they look like.

When we see horrific injuries of some of our wounded troops coming back, this is a lesson for all of us.

James O'Neal: 'Today's my big day'
KOMO News tagged along as James O'Neal showed off his new, post-surgery look to his beloved customers at work.

Two charter buses crash in Seattle filled with passengers

Charter bus dangles over I-5 after icy accident
Two charter buses packed with passengers collided while sliding down a slippery hill in Seattle, and one is now hanging precariously over a 30-foot wall beside Interstate 5. The buses crashed through a metal railing and screeched to a stop seconds before tumbling onto the freeway below. Read more »

Vulnerability to post-traumatic stress disorder runs in families

Keep in mind, I'm not a psychologist, but this makes no sense at all. Family members have been involved in many traumatic events together, from sudden death, fires, accidents, hurricanes and tornadoes, yet they do not walk away the same way. All members of the same family yet all different. While all survivors of trauma are never the same after, some are more wounded than others. Some get over it with time but others need help to heal from it. Maybe this study is right but then again maybe they just found what they went looking for.

We all know what it's like living with someone with PTSD. The "secondary PTSD" plays into this. Depression and anxiety are part of the "normal" life of the family.

Vulnerability to post-traumatic stress disorder runs in families ...
EurekAlert (press release) - Washington,DC,USA

Contact: Mark Wheeler
mwheeler@mednet.ucla.edu
310-794-2265
University of California - Los Angeles
Vulnerability to post-traumatic stress disorder runs in families, study shows
Research finds genetic connection between PTSD, depression and anxiety

Earthquakes have aftershocks — not just the geological kind but the mental kind as well. Just like veterans of war, earthquake survivors can experience post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety.

In 1988, a massive earthquake in Armenia killed 17,000 people and destroyed nearly half the town of Gumri. Now, in the first multigenerational study of its kind, UCLA researchers studying survivors of that catastrophe have discovered that vulnerability to PTSD, anxiety and depression runs in families.

Armen Goenjian, a research psychiatrist in the UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, and colleagues studied 200 participants from 12 multigenerational families exposed to the earthquake. Participants suffered from varying degrees of the disorders. The researchers found that 41 percent of the variation of PTSD symptoms was due to genetic factors and that 61 percent of the variation of depressive symptoms and 66 percent of anxiety symptoms were attributable to genetics. Further, they found that a large proportion of the genetic liabilities for the disorders were shared.

The research appears in the December issue of the journal Psychiatric Genetics.

"This was a study of multigenerational family members — parents and offspring, grandparents and grandchildren, siblings, and so on — and we found that the genetic makeup of some of these individuals renders them more vulnerable to develop PTSD, anxiety and depressive symptoms," said Goenjian, a member of the UCLA–Duke University National Center for Child Traumatic Stress and lead author of the study.

In addition, Goenjian noted, the study suggests that a large percentage of genes are shared between the disorders.

"That tracks with clinical experience," he said. "For example, in clinical practice, the therapist will often discover that patients who come in for treatment of depression have coexisting anxiety. Our findings show that a substantial portion of the coexistence can be explained on the basis of shared genes and not just environmental factors such as upbringing."

The researchers used statistical methods to assess heritabilities. One method was used to determine the genetic component of a disorder such as PTSD. Then, a separate analysis was used to see if different phenotypes shared genes. The results showed that a significant amount of genes are shared between PTSD and depression, PTSD and anxiety, and finally depression and anxiety.
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