PTSD News: Another Army General Fights Stigma by Announcing He Sought PTSD Recovery
Pamela Walck
Savannah Morning News (Georgia)
Dec 21, 2008
December 21, 2008, Fort Stewart, Georgia - War changes a person. It's a truth Maj. Gen. Tony Cucolo knows all too well from his 29 years of service - and counting - in the U.S. Army.
And it's a truth he tries to share with each new man and woman arriving at Fort Stewart to serve in the 3rd Infantry Division he guides.
"Command Sgt. Maj. Jesse Andrews and I try to speak to each newcomers' group," said the commanding general of the 3rd ID. "We get all ranks - from private to colonel - and in part, we try to impress upon them ... it is a point of moral courage to step forward and say you need help."
Cucolo then points to a few examples of soldiers he knows who recognized the classic signs of combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury in their own behavior - then sought help for it.
"I applaud that behavior," Cucolo said Friday, moments after participating in a groundbreaking at Winn Army Hospital for a new PTSD and TBI clinic.
Cucolo said he then tells his soldiers they are looking at an officer who sought counseling and got help.
"A lot of people think it is a career-ender," Cucolo said in an exclusive interview.
But he's living proof to the contrary.
Cucolo took command of the 3rd ID in July, after serving a two-year tour at the Pentagon as the Army's chief of public affairs.
During a career that spans nearly three decades, he has served 16 of those years in infantry and armor divisions.
"Soldiers return (from war) a slightly different person," Cucolo said. "It's understood ... we all deal with it different."
The general contends that details over when, why or where he personally sought help are not important.
The fact that he sought help, however, is.
click link above for more
Monday, December 22, 2008
Maj. Thomas Lawrence Egan, decorated homeless veteran dies alone in the snow
by
Chaplain Kathie
Think of those words tied together. Decorated, would indicate above and beyond the call of duty. He was a Major. He also served in the Oregon National Guard. That indicates the kind of person that wanted to be of service to his state and his nation. Imagine that! Then he dies, homeless and alone in the snow. All of that yet we manage somehow to keep saying this is a grateful nation.
People tried to help Major Egan. He tried to get help. The shelter has rules on sobriety. One of the statements made was that Egan "chose" to not stop drinking. That's the biggest problem of all. Too many simply assume that a man willing to sacrifice his life for his country would rather be homeless, living on the streets than to stop drinking. The truth is, most of them can't stop. It's not due to being an alcoholic, as many would simply assume. Most of them are self medicating the feelings they cannot cope with. Without the proper help and support, this is their only refuge. We've heard the stories all too often. It's not generational. It's human need.
While the people trying to help him did what they could, what they knew how to do, the problem is, no one told them what else was needed to be done.
Too many of these veterans have lost hope of healing. Egan had a college degree. He had a Master's Degree. This would indicate a man with intelligence, along with the bravery he showed serving the nation. Even with that intelligence, the message that what was eating away at him could be healed and he could live a life again instead of just existing as yet one more nameless person most of us just walk by.
Without hope, all the education, all the bravery in the world, cannot replace what is missing. They need to reconnect to human kindness and above all, the spiritual connection to a Higher power to renew their strength. They need to see themselves through eyes of love and not condemnation. The people at the shelter tried to replace what was not in their power to deliver. He needed help to find that piece within all of us trapped under a wall of pain to heal.
Read the rest of the story and then watch Homeless Veterans Day, because they are veterans and they are homeless everyday. Not just one day of the year. They are homeless in the summer as well as in the winter when they can freeze to death alone. The very same streets this man was willing to lay down his life for as a member of the National Guard, claimed his life because this nation refused to guard his life.
Chaplain Kathie
Think of those words tied together. Decorated, would indicate above and beyond the call of duty. He was a Major. He also served in the Oregon National Guard. That indicates the kind of person that wanted to be of service to his state and his nation. Imagine that! Then he dies, homeless and alone in the snow. All of that yet we manage somehow to keep saying this is a grateful nation.
People tried to help Major Egan. He tried to get help. The shelter has rules on sobriety. One of the statements made was that Egan "chose" to not stop drinking. That's the biggest problem of all. Too many simply assume that a man willing to sacrifice his life for his country would rather be homeless, living on the streets than to stop drinking. The truth is, most of them can't stop. It's not due to being an alcoholic, as many would simply assume. Most of them are self medicating the feelings they cannot cope with. Without the proper help and support, this is their only refuge. We've heard the stories all too often. It's not generational. It's human need.
While the people trying to help him did what they could, what they knew how to do, the problem is, no one told them what else was needed to be done.
Too many of these veterans have lost hope of healing. Egan had a college degree. He had a Master's Degree. This would indicate a man with intelligence, along with the bravery he showed serving the nation. Even with that intelligence, the message that what was eating away at him could be healed and he could live a life again instead of just existing as yet one more nameless person most of us just walk by.
Without hope, all the education, all the bravery in the world, cannot replace what is missing. They need to reconnect to human kindness and above all, the spiritual connection to a Higher power to renew their strength. They need to see themselves through eyes of love and not condemnation. The people at the shelter tried to replace what was not in their power to deliver. He needed help to find that piece within all of us trapped under a wall of pain to heal.
Read the rest of the story and then watch Homeless Veterans Day, because they are veterans and they are homeless everyday. Not just one day of the year. They are homeless in the summer as well as in the winter when they can freeze to death alone. The very same streets this man was willing to lay down his life for as a member of the National Guard, claimed his life because this nation refused to guard his life.
Homeless man who died in snow was a decorated war veteran
By Laura Rillos
KVAL News
Video
EUGENE, Ore. -- The homeless man who froze to death Tuesday evening, believed to be the first victim of Oregon's snow, was a decorated war veteran who earned a master's degree from the University of Oregon.
Thomas Lawrence Egan, 60, was found partially covered in snow near the corner of Blair Boulevard and West First Avenue. According to the Lane County Medical Examiner's office, he died from exposure to the cold.
Word of Egan's death spread quickly throughout Lane County's community of veterans. He was well known among veterans support circles. He served two decades in the Army and Oregon Army National Guard, spent two years serving in Korea and earned several medals and ribbons for his service.
Bud Dickey, a Vocational Rehablitation Coordinator with Eugene's VA Clinic, says Egan's story is tragic.
Dickey served alongside Egan for five years in the Oregon National Guard. He calls Egan " a good person who fell on bad times."
"There were several different times when people tried to help him and for certain times, he was OK," said Dickey. "For whatever reasons, he couldn't stay on track and chose to continue to drink."
That was one reason Egan remained homeless. According to Dickey, many local housing projects for veterans required sobriety and Egan was unable to remain sober.
Awards:
Army Reserve Components Achievement Medal with 2 Bronze Oak Leaf Clusters
National Defense Service Medal
Humanitarian Service Medal
Armed Forces Reserve Medal
Army Service Ribbon
Overseas Service Ribbon
Army Reserve Components Overseas Training Ribbon
Oregon Faithful Service Ribbon with 1 Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster
Connecticut Recruit-badge
click link above for more
Sunday, December 21, 2008
New Orleans CNN Hero of the Year talks about what came after
Ask the CNN Hero of the Year 29:24
Liz McCartney answers your questions and talks about how her life has changed since becoming CNN's Hero of the Year.
Liz McCartney answers your questions and talks about how her life has changed since becoming CNN's Hero of the Year.
Passengers yell: 'The plane's going to blow up!'
Passengers yell: 'The plane's going to blow up!'
A passenger aboard Continental Airlines Flight 1404 described a scene of panic as the plane skidded off the runway and caught fire while trying to take off at Denver International Airport on Saturday. "Everybody was trying to get off the plane," passenger Gabriel Trejos told CNN affiliate KUSA. "Everybody was yelling, 'The plane's going to blow up, the plane's going to blow up!''' At least 38 people were hospitalized, an official said. full story
KMGH: Passenger describes harrowing flight
Passenger saw engine on fire
A passenger aboard Continental Airlines Flight 1404 described a scene of panic as the plane skidded off the runway and caught fire while trying to take off at Denver International Airport on Saturday. "Everybody was trying to get off the plane," passenger Gabriel Trejos told CNN affiliate KUSA. "Everybody was yelling, 'The plane's going to blow up, the plane's going to blow up!''' At least 38 people were hospitalized, an official said. full story
KMGH: Passenger describes harrowing flight
Passenger saw engine on fire
PTSD:“You never know what will take place in the house,” says Mom
Keith Myers
For Randal and Dianna Bagby, life with their son Zachary (left), who was diagnosed with traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in Iraq, has its uncertainties. “You never know what will take place in the house,” Dianna Bagby said.
Kin share suffering of one who served
Kansas City Star - MO,USA
By MALCOLM GARCIA
The Kansas City Star
Randal Bagby can still experience the joy he felt when his oldest son, Zachary, came home from Iraq a little more than two years ago.
He also remembers his shock at the drinking. The flashbacks. The emergency drives to Kansas City Veterans Hospital.
Since then, Zachary, 25, has improved. Not as much as his father would like, certainly, but it’s a process of incremental steps that he and his family have come to accept. Zachary returned alive from war, but in some ways was lost despite his survival. He is here but not here. He escaped death, but didn’t come back. Not completely.
click link above for more
Navy vet reaches out to help others with PTSD
Navy vet reaches out to help others
Southtown Star - Chicago,IL,USA
December 21, 2008
BY LAUREN FITZPATRICK Staff writer
Mark T. Hicks knows how mental illness can tear a family apart.
He's seen how soldiers from his own family returning from war have suffered - whether their malaise is called shell shock, or battle fatigue, or post-traumatic stress disorder.
He's afraid the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs isn't prepared to deal with thousands of vets returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or with their families.
And he has the professional chops to do something about it.
So Hicks, a Navy vet who was too young to fight in Korea and too old to go to Vietnam, is offering a few hours a week of free counseling to military members and veterans and to their immediate families.
The licensed clinical social worker already has taken pro bono patients from south suburbs such as Tinley Park during the 10 years he's lived in Chicago, and he's looking to help more men and women in uniform.
click link above for more
Southtown Star - Chicago,IL,USA
December 21, 2008
BY LAUREN FITZPATRICK Staff writer
Mark T. Hicks knows how mental illness can tear a family apart.
He's seen how soldiers from his own family returning from war have suffered - whether their malaise is called shell shock, or battle fatigue, or post-traumatic stress disorder.
He's afraid the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs isn't prepared to deal with thousands of vets returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or with their families.
And he has the professional chops to do something about it.
So Hicks, a Navy vet who was too young to fight in Korea and too old to go to Vietnam, is offering a few hours a week of free counseling to military members and veterans and to their immediate families.
The licensed clinical social worker already has taken pro bono patients from south suburbs such as Tinley Park during the 10 years he's lived in Chicago, and he's looking to help more men and women in uniform.
click link above for more
THE WAR BACK HOME: COMBAT'S 'INVISIBLE WOUNDS'
THE WAR BACK HOME: COMBAT'S 'INVISIBLE WOUNDS'
Las Vegas Review - Journal - Las Vegas,NV,USA
Veterans are returning to Nevada in need of help for mental problems
By ALAN MAIMON
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
This is the first in a four-part series.
TODAY: Veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan routinely overcome horrid wounds and loss of limb, but equally formidable foes are the mental effects of head injuries, constant or repeated exposure to danger and making decisions of awesome consequence.
NEXT SUNDAY: When an American dies in combat, the warrior's loss leaves a hole in American hearts.
More than 30 surgeries have helped fix what a roadside bomb in Iraq did to Senior Airman Brandon Byers' body, but nothing can erase the anger, paranoia and flashbacks that sometimes haunt his mind.
His physical recovery from the near-death experience in October 2006 has been difficult.
So has his fight to heal his mental wounds from the battlefield.
"There have been times since I've been back that I didn't want to walk down the street because I was afraid somebody was going to get me," said Byers, who lives with his wife and two children on Nellis Air Force Base. "But I'm not the only one having a hard time, a bad day, or every now and then, a mental breakdown."
Other Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans interviewed by the Review-Journal tell similar accounts of the realities of post-traumatic stress disorder, the psychological offshoot of a life-threatening or traumatic event.
A report earlier this year by the Rand Corp., a nonpartisan think tank, estimates that up to 300,000 recently returned veterans have PTSD or major depression. The report said that only about a quarter of veterans diagnosed with mental health conditions are getting minimally adequate care.
The symptoms of severe PTSD, including extreme anger, flashbacks to a traumatic event, hypervigilant behavior and sleeplessness, can be debilitating and deadly.
Joseph Perez, a Nevada National Guardsman injured during a prison riot in Iraq in 2003, said he became so distraught after his tour that he self-medicated with vodka and painkillers and twice attempted suicide.
"If it'll help somebody else, then I don't mind talking about it," said Perez, a husband and father of three daughters from Logandale, about 60 miles northeast of Las Vegas.
Nationally, nearly 84,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have been diagnosed with PTSD, said Dr. Antonette Zeiss, deputy chief of mental health services for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
click link above for more
Las Vegas Review - Journal - Las Vegas,NV,USA
Veterans are returning to Nevada in need of help for mental problems
By ALAN MAIMON
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
This is the first in a four-part series.
TODAY: Veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan routinely overcome horrid wounds and loss of limb, but equally formidable foes are the mental effects of head injuries, constant or repeated exposure to danger and making decisions of awesome consequence.
NEXT SUNDAY: When an American dies in combat, the warrior's loss leaves a hole in American hearts.
More than 30 surgeries have helped fix what a roadside bomb in Iraq did to Senior Airman Brandon Byers' body, but nothing can erase the anger, paranoia and flashbacks that sometimes haunt his mind.
His physical recovery from the near-death experience in October 2006 has been difficult.
So has his fight to heal his mental wounds from the battlefield.
"There have been times since I've been back that I didn't want to walk down the street because I was afraid somebody was going to get me," said Byers, who lives with his wife and two children on Nellis Air Force Base. "But I'm not the only one having a hard time, a bad day, or every now and then, a mental breakdown."
Other Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans interviewed by the Review-Journal tell similar accounts of the realities of post-traumatic stress disorder, the psychological offshoot of a life-threatening or traumatic event.
A report earlier this year by the Rand Corp., a nonpartisan think tank, estimates that up to 300,000 recently returned veterans have PTSD or major depression. The report said that only about a quarter of veterans diagnosed with mental health conditions are getting minimally adequate care.
The symptoms of severe PTSD, including extreme anger, flashbacks to a traumatic event, hypervigilant behavior and sleeplessness, can be debilitating and deadly.
Joseph Perez, a Nevada National Guardsman injured during a prison riot in Iraq in 2003, said he became so distraught after his tour that he self-medicated with vodka and painkillers and twice attempted suicide.
"If it'll help somebody else, then I don't mind talking about it," said Perez, a husband and father of three daughters from Logandale, about 60 miles northeast of Las Vegas.
Nationally, nearly 84,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have been diagnosed with PTSD, said Dr. Antonette Zeiss, deputy chief of mental health services for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
click link above for more
PTSD:Tough Talk
by
Chaplain Kathie
TOUGH adjective, -er, -est, adverb, noun, verb
–adjective
strong and durable; not easily broken or cut.
capable of great endurance; sturdy; hardy: tough troops.
not easily influenced, as a person; unyielding;
Slang. remarkably excellent; first-rate; great.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tough
When it comes to PTSD, the tough talk about it. It takes a lot of courage to talk about something very few understand but it helps when you’re talking to others that do. There comes a time in your life when you say that you don’t care what other people say. You know where you were and you know what you lived thru. You finally understand that not many others can claim the same.
Let’s put it this way. We are a nation of over 300,000,000 people. There are less than 24,000,000 veterans and even less combat veterans.
American Veterans By the Numbers
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
When They Served23.6 million The number of military veterans in the United States in 2007.
Female Vets
1.8 million The number of female veterans in 2007.
16% Percentage of Persian Gulf War veterans in 2007 who were women.
9.3 million The number of veterans age 65 or older in 2007. At the other end of the age spectrum, 1.9 million were younger than 35.
7.9 million Number of Vietnam-era veterans in 2007. Thirty-three percent of all living veterans served during this time (1964-1975). In addition, 5 million served during the Gulf War (representing service from Aug. 2, 1990, to present); 2.9 million in World War II (1941-1945); 3 million in the Korean War (1950-1953); and 6.1 million in peacetime.
358,000 In 2007, number of living veterans who served during both the Vietnam era and in the Gulf War.
Other living veterans in 2007 who served in two or more wars:315,000 served during both the Korean and Vietnam wars.
69,000 served during three periods: World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam War.
263,000 served in World War II and the Korean War.
Disabilities
6 million Number of veterans with a disability. More than half this number (3.5 million) were 65 and older.
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/veteranscensus1.html
Congratulations, you’ve are officially a minority and you would think that the rest of the people in this country would make sure they not only took care of you when you were wounded, but tried really hard to understand you.
After all that is the least they could do. Some want to settle for a magnet on the back of their cars. Most of them are faded since they bought those magnets when the first troops were sent into Afghanistan in 2001. They just never thought about replacing the magnet because the memory of having troops deployed into Iraq and Afghanistan has faded the same way the magnet did. Too many people with too many of their own problems to take on someone else’s I guess.
Some say we’re a nation at war but in reality we are not. We’re not even paying for it. It’s borrowed money that our kids and grandchildren will have to pay for. We don’t buy war bonds. We don’t write letters to congress to make sure the wounded are taken care of and it takes TV shows like the one Dr. Phil just did and MTV to show any kind of interest in what wounded veterans are still going through, not that it’s that big of a news story to any of you. You already knew.
When you think that you were brave enough to enlist, it was inside of you. You were brave enough to train. Brave enough to get on the plane and head into the unknown of Afghanistan and Iraq. You were certainly brave enough to do your duty, no matter how afraid you were deeply inside, you knew the lives of your buddies depended on you holding it all together. You went without food at times, without showers and clean clothes, without beds at times and without much sleep at all, but you still got up and did what you were expected to do. Don’t you see the courage in that? You did your time and came home, but you noticed something was different about you. It was like this invader sneaking in to take over.
Little by little parts of you were changing and you didn’t know how to take control. You couldn’t shoot it. You knew you had to fight it but you just didn’t know how. Then more and more of you came under its control. This time the enemy was Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
When you think of what that name means instead of thinking there is something wrong with you, you begin to understand that it is exactly what the title implies. “Post”, means after. Trauma actually means “wound” in Greek. Stress, well we all know what that means because you deal with stress everyday of your life. The “disorder” part comes from when everything in your life if out of order. Nothing makes sense anymore especially when you are freaking out after a flashback, shaking and sweating from a nightmare that the best Hollywood minds couldn’t have imagined and feeling angry all the time. Once you see that it’s all a normal reaction to abnormal events, you begin to understand there’s nothing wrong with you, but you were wounded. It’s not a mental illness in the way most people think mental illness is. It begins with an outside force that hits you right in your gut and pounds away at you until the chemicals in your brain change. It’s playing a movie over and over again with the least bit of influence from things that remind you of horror.
I really think that anyone living through the kinds of traumatic events created by combat saying they were not touched by it, are either lying or never really felt anything before. Very few can walk away from combat the same way they were before it. Most of the people you know in your civilian life can’t do it either. Events become a part of the person no matter how much they try to deny it.
So, there you are, sitting in your chair, wondering why no one in your family wants to talk to you and why you don’t want to talk to them. You wonder why everything your wife says bothers you and why your kids try to stay away from you, thinking that in a way, you’re glad they do. You wonder why there are some days when you want to be around them and you can’t understand why they seem so angry at you because you forgot about what happened the day before and the day before that. It all becomes a blur.
But with all of this, you think that if you tell someone what’s going on with you, they will think you’re crazy. What is happening to you, to the people you love and your relationship with them is passed off with “I’ll make it up to them” or “I’ll snap out of this and everything will be wonderful” but you know that is not true. You can see the damage being done. Some days reality sinks and you wonder why they even bother with you at all. You ask yourself if you would bother with someone like you.
Then the day comes when you’ve had enough of excusing it all away. Common sense takes over. You understand that it all has to do with where you were and what you saw. All the flashbacks are about being deployed. All the nightmares are about being in danger and seeing your friends in danger. None of it has anything to do with the way you were before the trauma. It’s all tied into being there! Eureka! It’s not you! It’s trauma.
Being wounded by a bullet is taken as some kind of badge of honor, but being wounded by PTSD is all about being where you were and what you lived through. You actually have strong emotions and feel for other people, stronger than others that could “come home normal.” You felt things more deeply than they did and there is nothing weak about that at all. While this emotional strength enabled you to feel life more deeply, it also allowed you to feel tragedy more deeply.
When PTSD takes over, the need to trap out those bad feelings ends up having your own mind build a wall around your soul. It builds it brick by brick until the pain is trapped behind it and good feelings are prevented from entering. You self medicate so you don’t have to feel for as long as you can and drink too much or being to use drugs. You drive too fast. Too often you also drive while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Pretending the drug of choice is a shield to protect you from being you, you put other people’s lives in danger along with your own.
It’s all falling apart until a friend gives you the support you need to see the truth. You actually managed somehow to express what is going on with you and they actually listened. What you do not notice is in that exact moment, PTSD stopped getting worse. As soon as you begin to talk about it honestly, the wall PTSD built beings to have bricks removed one by one. As they come down, all the emotions trapped behind the wall begin to come out. You begin to feel again. You cry more often. It’s the awakening of emotions that have been in a coma.
You know that as you seek help, there will be people supporting you but there will also be people judging you. The more people you meet with the same wound you have, the less of a punch the others are able to hit you with. You understand that the doubters are the ones with the problem because the symptoms of PTSD have been documented since the beginning of time and it’s only human to be changed by traumatic events. It only means you are thinking, feeling human and not a weak one.
As you found strength in numbers as part of the unit you were with while deployed, you also find the same strength in numbers understanding that there are a lot of “you” living with PTSD. As a matter of fact, since PTSD is a human wounding caused by trauma, there are over 7 million other Americans with this wound. This is not even beginning to count the numbers worldwide.
So, you can see, you are not so odd at all. When you look at other veterans from other generations, you notice how similar they are to you. Talk to a Vietnam veteran and you’ll hear the same things happened to them. Read reports about wars of the past and you know that even though technology has changed, being human has not.
While generations before Vietnam returned in silent suffering, the Vietnam veterans turned to each other. The war stories were replaced with the war stories of what was being fought inside of them. They said it was because they served the nation. They said they should be treated and compensated for this wounding. They used the courage they had to fight to get it done. They are the reason we know as much as we do about PTSD and why the VA is paying for the lost incomes because you can no longer work and because your lives have been changed.
If you think about all the combat veterans you’ve met in your life, none of them appear to be anything but tuff. Most of them would go back if asked to. Most of them also turn around and fight for other veterans. None of them walked away from their duty. They did their duty for as long as they were able to. Then, out of danger from the enemy, back home, the enemy that hitched a ride inside their skin attacked them. They sought treatment when most of the country was telling them they were crazy because they knew better. They knew what they lived through and what they were living with. They were not about to let idiots try to stop them from healing. They knew there was no way possible a civilian could ever understand what it was like for them.
Then a miracle happened. We began to see bumper stickers and hats with the words “Proud Vietnam Vet” and we were reminded they have no shame in them because their service was honorable. They served when asked to step up or were drafted when their number came up. Once there, nothing else mattered than doing their duty, watching the backs of their brothers and facing the enemy they were sent to fight. They didn’t get to decide what nation they would go to, or who they would try to kill. They were told by their commanders and once there, they knew the chosen enemy was just as determined to kill them. That’s what happens in war and has happened since the beginning of time. Someone in charge says they need to fight someone on the other side and bingo you have a war with humans against humans.
The Vietnam veterans understood this. Because they did, the rest of the country understood a lot more about them than they ever would have discovered on their own. In turn, they understand a lot more about you.
When you realize within the detached population there are thousands of people involved and stepping up to help, you know you do matter. Stop looking at the people without a clue and start to look at the people taking an active interest in you. The others will not support you but they will. The others don’t care but they do. They see the courage you had within you the day you were born and they appreciate the fact you used it for the greater good of the nation. Supporting you means far more than a faded bumper sticker while ignorant of the fact what the really is supposed to mean. Supporting you should always begin with respecting you as a member of the finest minority this nation has ever seen. The courage of your character is still there and you show it when you stand up and say you need help no matter what others may think.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Beyond Front Lines, when war comes home
December 19, 2008, 7:50 PM
Dr. Phil Highlights CBS Investigation
Posted by Pia Malbran 6
(CBS/The Early Show)On Friday, the Dr. Phil television program became the first national mainstream talk show to devote an entire hour to the plight of veterans featuring an investigative report by CBS Chief Investigative Correspondent Armen Keteyian that exposed an epidemic of suicide among those who have served in the military.
Dr. Phil Show Dec 19, 2008 “Beyond the Front Lines”
Video: Vets' Suicide Epidemic“They come home and have no help, no voice,” said the show’s host, Dr. Phil McGraw, of veterans who often feel mistreated and neglected when they return to the U.S. after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. “The system is broken,” he added. Congressman Bob Filner, Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, appeared on the show along with the director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs, Tammy Duckworth, and Paul Rieckhoff, the executive director and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA).
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America’s ‘Veterans Online Community’
Filner said the U.S. government was not prepared for the aftermath of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He said the current crisis in the Middle East has generated almost a million veterans and the federal agency charged with taking care of them, the Department of Veterans Affairs, is struggling to keep up with physical and mental wounds. He said there have been cases where suicidal veterans have been turned away from the VA and then kill themselves. And, he said the VA currently has a backlog of approximately 800,000 benefits claims that need to be processed. During the show, a clip was also shown of the CBS News story that aired in November of 2007. The report, done by Keteyian, exposed for the first time just how widespread the issue of suicide is among vets.
CBS News discovered that young veterans in their twenties commit suicide at a rate that is up to four times what it is for civilians the same age.
Keteyian was shown questioning the VA’s head of mental health, Dr. Ira Katz, who was, at the time, downplaying the risk. Dr. Phil said the VA declined his invitation to appear on the show. He ended the program by telling veterans: “you are not forgotten.”
Video: Struggle Of Soldier SuicidesThe pain of losing a loved one to suicide.
Video: Eye To Eye: Veteran HealthPaul Sullivan, a former VA analyst who is now the executive director of the advocate group Veterans For Common Sense, shares his insight.
Video: Veterans Families Speak OutThe families of veterans speak out.
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/12/19/primarysource/entry4679162.shtml
Click all the links above and then do something for me. Email CBS and then email the Dr. Phil Show to tell them how important it is they are doing shows like this.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)