Local Veterans Talk About Experience With P.T.S.D.

With all the media attention on our veterans with PTSD, it's a wonderful thing. They are finally talking about it and understanding that it's a wound and nothing to be ashamed of at all. The question is, why are so many other veterans still ashamed that others have been wounded by this? Is it because they don't understand it? Is it because as the previous post, they think the rest of the country views them all as either having PTSD or psychotropic? My guess is that they don't understand it at all.

These are the same men and women they served with, fought next to, depended on for their lives and the same ones they knew they could count on to be there for them in the heat of battle. This they forget about. When their "brothers" end up wounded by PTSD, their battle is still going on but some butt heads decide they'd rather suddenly be ashamed to associate with them just in case someone else thinks "they're nuts too." One day they will understand that it is not the fact the media is reporting on PTSD that is the problem. The problem is them because they would rather walk away from a brother in need of help than help them. Pathetic.

PTSD is not a guaranteed anything. It is not guaranteed they will commit crimes any more than it's a guarantee they will be so destroyed by it they no longer want to live. If you ask the generals with the courage to admit they had PTSD and got help to heal, they will explain that one to you. It is not suddenly they are so dysfunctional they need to be institutionalized either. If they had a clue they would know that PTSD has all different kinds of levels and outcomes but the uniting factor is how much support they get to heal. We lost too many Vietnam veterans because they were not supported to talk about what was going on and felt they had to hide it. Had the media been interested or able to even get them to talk, we would be a lot further in getting the public to understand it, but it is what it is. For those with no understanding of what PTSD is and feel they are being looked at as if they had it, they need to either understand it or shut up about it and let the grownups deal with healing the wounded.

I marvel at the people joining in walks for breast cancer. Do we assume they all have it? No, we assume they have compassion for the women suffering from it.

NAMI, National Alliance on Mental Illness have walks as well. Do we assume they are all mentally ill? No, we assume they also have compassion.

Some people work in drug rehabs but we don't assume they were all drug addicts. Just as some people work with veterans but are not veterans. We just assume they have compassion for them and care about them. It's really time the dimwitted get out of the way and stop trying to get the rest of the country to stop taking PTSD seriously just because they managed to come home fine.

To the men and women veterans speaking out, you are courageous and marvelous. Because of you, many more will no longer be ashamed of being wounded or afraid to seek help. Because of you talking about this, more families will understand it and less will fall apart. Because of you, fewer and fewer will feel so hopeless to the point where they think suicide is the only way to end their own pain.

Local Veterans Talk About Experience With P.T.S.D.


Posted: 9:02 PM Apr 30, 2009
Last Updated: 9:10 PM Apr 30, 2009
Reporter: Christine Kennedy

It is the unseen battle wound, but one that can no less impact a veterans life for the rest of his or her life. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Sure, you've heard of it, but to really hear what it's like to live with it is something quite different.

From the Vietnam War, to Operation Desert Storm/Desert Shield, to Operation Iraqi Freedom men and women here in the east are suffering from P.T.S.D.... Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Don Overton Heads up a local support group for vets suffering from the stress disorder. You could say he's got a double whammy. During the time he served in Desert Storm/Desert Shield he lost part of his hand and his vision, but he says the worst injury he received was the invisible battle wound also known as P.T.S.D.
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Local Veterans Talk About Experience With P.T.S.D.

Government injecting veterans with cocaine for drug addiction research?

Government injecting veterans with cocaine for drug addiction research
By: Bill Myers
Examiner Staff Writer
04/29/09 9:05 PM
Drug-addicted veterans are being injected with cocaine by researchers at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in taxpayer-funded studies, The Examiner has learned.

The study subjects are being given the injections as part of a search for medicines that researchers hope will block cocaine absorption in the body, said Timothy O’Leary, the VA’s acting director of research and development.

All the subjects were recruited because they were addicted to cocaine, O’Leary said. About 40 volunteers — most of them veterans — are being given injections at VA labs in Kansas City and San Antonio, he added.

Hundreds of veterans have apparently been used as human subjects in the past decade, according to records and interviews with officials.

The VA has handed over several other abstracts from studies over the past decade, and O’Leary said his agency has been conducting such research for at least 25 years.

O’Leary said that the subjects’ safety was paramount. But documents of a decade-old study that tested morphine on veterans found nearly 800 “adverse events” from anorexia to heart tremors.
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Government injecting veterans with cocaine for drug addiction research

Training Afghans as Bullets Fly: A Young Marine’s Dream Job

While reading this article from Afghanistan I was troubled by what read.

“If you do what I do, then they think either you should have PTSD or you are some sort of psychopath.” PTSD is post-traumatic stress disorder.

Is that what some of them really think? Or is it what they think we think about them? Or maybe it's just tough talk? We don't know but we do know how a lot of them come home. No, not all with the wound of PTSD, but far too many. We don't understand it anymore than we understand why it is that some neighborhood kid has it within them to join the military and be able to "do what they do" and like it. We don't understand it anymore than we can understand what makes a cop become a cop or a firefighter decide he wants to run into burning buildings for a living. We can't understand them because we are not them, we need them, constantly depending on them to do what needs to be done and then somehow, we end up forgetting all about what they did for us when they end up needing us.

The comment made is a truthful one. They don't all end up as psychopath or wounded, but they all end up changed by what they go thru. Some are made differently than the rest of us and we should thank God they are.

Training Afghans as Bullets Fly: A Young Marine’s Dream Job

By C. J. CHIVERS
Published: April 30, 2009
FIREBASE VIMOTO, Afghanistan — Three stone houses and a cluster of sandbagged bunkers cling to a slope above the Korangal Valley, forming an oval perimeter roughly 75 yards long. The oval is reinforced with timber and ringed with concertina wire.

An Afghan flag flutters atop a tower where Afghan soldiers look out, ducking when rifle shots snap by.

This is Firebase Vimoto, named for Pfc. Timothy R. Vimoto, an American soldier killed in the valley two years ago. If all goes according to the Pentagon’s plan, this tiny perimeter — home to an Afghan platoon and two Marine Corps infantrymen — contains the future of Afghanistan. The Obama administration hopes that eventually the Afghan soldiers within will become self-sufficient, allowing the fight against the Taliban to be shifted to local hands.

He woke the next day before 4 a.m. for a patrol. As he slipped into his ammunition vest, he groused that back home, when conversations drift to the war, the infantry too often is misunderstood. “You know what I don’t like about America?” he said, in the chill beneath lingering stars. “If you do what I do, then they think either you should have PTSD or you are some sort of psychopath.” PTSD is post-traumatic stress disorder.

He exhaled cigarette smoke. “This is my job,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”

The war in Afghanistan defies generalization. Each province, each valley and each village can be its own universe, presenting its own problems and demanding its own solutions.
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Training Afghans as Bullets Fly: A Young Marine’s Dream Job

U.S. Sues New York City on Iraq Veteran’s Behalf

April 30, 2009, 6:16 pm
U.S. Sues City on Iraq Veteran’s Behalf
By Jennifer 8. Lee
The federal government sued New York City on Thursday on behalf of an Iraq war veteran who says he was denied a promotion in the city’s Department of Correction because he was on active duty when promotions were being considered.

The veteran, Emilio Pennes, is a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, and has worked for the Correction Department since 1987. According to the complaint, he applied for a promotion to deputy warden shortly before he was activated for duty in 2007. He was unable to attend a promotion interview in person, and so was passed over for the promotion even though he had been ranked first in an internal selection memo, the complaint said.

On a previous tour of duty in 2004 and 2005, he served in Iraq, near Tikrit.
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U.S. Sues City on Iraq Veteran’s Behalf

New Wheelchair operates by power of thought

Wheelchair operates by power of thought
Published: April 30, 2009
ZARAGOZA, Spain, April 30 (UPI) -- Spanish university scientists have developed a wheelchair controlled by the power of thought, promising to transform life for people with severe disabilities.

The wheelchair, developed at the University of Zaragoza, has a laser sensor and a screen that displays a real-time, three-dimensional virtual reconstruction of the wheelchair's surroundings. To steer the chair, a user concentrates on the part of the display where he or she wants to go, and electrodes in a skullcap detect the user's brain activity and work out the destination, the researchers said.
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Wheelchair operates by power of thought

Walter Reed Hospital touts 100 years of military health

Walter Reed touts 100 years of military health

By Kamala Lane - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Apr 30, 2009 16:43:13 EDT

WASHINGTON — At a time when many hospitals operated with few resources and in unsanitary conditions, the Walter Reed Army Medical Center was a state-of the-art facility — boasting electricity, indoor plumbing and an elevator.

Since it opened its doors in 1909, the facility has treated six U.S. presidents and thousands of injured people from conflicts dating back to World War I. But the hospital also has come under criticism recently for its deteriorating service and facilities.

On Friday, the hospital will reflect on the legacy of its namesake and its history as it marks its centennial anniversary.

The institution’s involvement in medical development is “profoundly important,” said Dale C. Smith, a medical historian and professor at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md.

“Throughout 100 years when American medicine and military medicine are making important changes, the name of Walter Reed is in the story,” Smith said.

The hospital has been hosting tours of its buildings this week and sponsored a symposium of its history on Wednesday. It plans to hold a formal ceremony and ball Friday to wrap-up the celebration.

The northwest Washington facility was named for Maj. Walter Reed, a Virginia native who earned two medical degrees by the age of 21, and served for 27 years in the Army. He is best known for leading a research team that uncovered new breakthroughs that led to the treatment of yellow fever in the early 1900s.
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Walter Reed touts 100 years of military health

Many Holocaust survivors live with PTSD

Many Holocaust survivors live with PTSD

By DONNA KOEHN

The Tampa Tribune

Published: April 30, 2009

Related Links

Holocaust survivors spend lives searching for sibling
TAMPA - The final years are supposed to be a time of reflection, of pride in one's children and grandchildren, of looking back with satisfaction on accomplishments of a life well-lived.

To survivors of the Holocaust and combat soldiers of World War II, they instead can bring nightmares, terrifying flashbacks and a rekindling of trauma submerged but never really put to rest.

Maya Lazarus sees it in those who attend Holocaust survivor support groups through Gulf Coast Jewish Family Services in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.

"They are reliving it for the second time," she says. "For them, it is happening all over again."

They shun psychotherapy, but almost all take sleeping pills to help fend off nightmares, she says. Jewish nursing homes now renovate showers to look more homey and less like the dreaded gas chambers.

"All of them are hoarding bread like crazy," Lazarus says. "Food is always an issue because they were once starving."

Eric Gentry of Compassion Unlimited of Sarasota is an expert in the treatment of late-onset Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

People who survived the Holocaust, as well as combat veterans of World War II, are especially vulnerable to the effects of PTSD in later years because no one realized at the time how devastating such experiences could be in the long term, he says.

PTSD — afflicting those who suffer a traumatic event and subsequently experience anxiety and a variety of debilitating symptoms — became widely studied after the Vietnam War.
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Many Holocaust survivors live with PTSD

New ad from IAVA does nothing for me

Paul Rieckhoff, Iraq Veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) has been a great advocate for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. I enjoyed hearing him on his many TV appearances and appreciated his candor when addressing the needs of our veterans. He has learned a lot over the years but with this ad following the other ad, he shows he has a lot more to learn. Maybe I'm just too old to appreciate this latest ad? While I really wish they had public service ads when Vietnam veterans came home, it's clear that this kind of ad wouldn't have done them much good.

If they really want to put together a ad worthy of the service of our veterans they need to do a better job.

Personally, separating Iraq and Afghanistan veterans from other veterans is not the right way to go, but this is an organization just for IAVA, so I understand that part. What they could do, since a lot of the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are also children of Vietnam veterans is to show a father and son, wearing baseball hats, one Vietnam and one with Iraq or Afghanistan veteran on it, and then have a simple message of, "I know where you've been and I'm here for you" without them even having to say a word. A quick, meaningful message that will touch every Vietnam veteran along with the newer generation of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans sharing the same emotional price and the wounds within the walls of their souls. If anyone is going to offer any help or guidance to the new veterans, it's the Vietnam veterans simply because had it not been for them PTSD wouldn't even be acknowledge as a wound.

The Ad Council needs to do a lot more homework before they put together another ad.

This part they got right;

Friends and family play a crucial role in supporting their men and women in uniform, and now it's our turn to support them.

So why not show what families can do and have been doing across the country as a role model? I fully understand that some will take this the wrong way and I'll get slammed, but as most of you know I cannot keep my thoughts to myself when it comes to our veterans. Had I remained silent on this and just posted it, then I would be a hypocrite because of how often I slam the VA and the DOD for what they do. Not that the IAVA would ever consider what I have to say now when they haven't in the past either.

"What was it like? Were you scared? Are you OK?"
For anyone who has welcomed someone home from Iraq or Afghanistan, these questions may sound familiar.
After spending months, or years, apart, being reunited at the end of a deployment is a welcome relief. It means the end of waiting for phone calls and worrying about a loved one's safety. But millions of families and friends of veterans are finding that coming home isn't always easy.
For them, we have one message: we can help you start the conversation.
Today, we're launching a massive new effort, in partnership with the Ad Council, to empower the friends and family members of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, and to offer support and guidance after a deployment.
Click here to watch our new television ad at SupportYourVet.org. Then please forward it your friends and family, and help us reach our goal of 100,000 views by Mother's Day, May 10th.
Starting today, the ad will be on TV, as well as radio, online and in magazines and newspapers. Hundreds of media companies, from local television stations to national magazines, are offering to run them free of charge, by donating ad space. Because of their generosity, we'll be able to reach friends and family members of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans in every corner of the country.
Click here to watch the television ad, and learn more about this effort at SupportYourVet.org.
With the drawdown in Iraq and a new wave of troops heading to Afghanistan, these ads are launching at a critical time. Friends and family play a crucial role in supporting their men and women in uniform, and now it's our turn to support them.
Please take a minute to watch the ad now.

Nevada senate OKs veterans court

Nevada senate OKs veterans court
Associated Press • April 30, 2009

The state Senate voted unanimously Wednesday for a plan that would allow for specialized courts for military veterans charged with nonviolent crimes while struggling to readjust to civilian life.

Assembly Bill 187 was approved earlier in the Assembly but must return there for approval of Senate amendments before it can be sent to Gov. Jim Gibbons.

Advocates of AB 187, proposed by Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, said it would help veterans charged with crimes and who suffer from mental or substance abuse problems stemming from their service.
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Nevada senate OKs veterans court

6-year-old boy accepts dad’s Silver Star

Army via AP First Lt. Jonathan Brostrom was killed July 13 in Afghanistan, one of nine soldiers killed when Taliban guerrillas ambushed an Army outpost.

6-year-old boy accepts dad’s Silver Star
The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Apr 30, 2009 13:09:20 EDT

WEST HAVEN, Utah — A 6-year-old Plain City boy has been presented with the Silver Star awarded posthumously to his father, who died in a firefight in Afghanistan.
The medal for valor was presented to Jase Spargur on Wednesday during an assembly at Kanesville Elementary School in West Haven. Utah National Guard Maj. Gen. Brian Tarbet gave the medal to Jase. His father, 1st Lt. Jonathan Brostrom, was killed July 13 in Afghanistan.
Brostrom was one of nine soldiers killed when Taliban guerrillas ambushed an Army outpost. Brostrom died carrying medical supplies and ammunition to other soldiers.
Related stories:
Dire sunrise at Wanat
6-year-old boy accepts dad’s Silver Star

Police officers pull man from burning house

April 30, 2009

Police officers pull man from burning house

By MARK I. JOHNSON
Staff Writer

DAYTONA BEACH -- Steve Beres is the first to admit he is no firefighter.

"I would rather grab a guy with a gun on crack than fight a fire," the Daytona Beach deputy police chief said Wednesday afternoon.

However, just hours before, he and three of his officers braved flames and smoke to pull a 60-year-old man from his burning home.

Dean Frederick Sweeney suffered second-degree burns over 80 percent of his body when a lamp cord overheated, sparking a fire that engulfed the living room of his South Ridgewood Avenue home just before midnight Tuesday, police said.

Beres was on routine patrol when he said he saw smoke drifting through the streetlights. He investigated, eventually going door to door in the block, before seeing flames inside Sweeney's home.

When a neighbor told him it was likely Sweeney was inside, the officer began looking for a way in, but locked doors and heavy smoke and flames blocked his way.

"I could hear him yelling, 'Help me! Help me!" Beres recalled. "And I could see him through the flames."
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Police officers pull man from burning house

VVA Homeless Veterans Report

March / April 2009

ANNUAL COMMITTEE REPORT:

Homeless Veterans



BY SANDY MILLER, CHAIR


HTF-1-07 Homeless Veterans as a “Special Needs Population”: To be continued. Nationally, 23-30 percent of the homeless population, or approximately 194,000, are veterans. While federal agencies acknowledge these statistics, they have yet to identify these veterans as a “special needs population.” They are due a fair share of the available federal dollars for programs and services funded in the United States.


Resolution HTF-1-07 urges the Presidential Interagency Council on Homelessness to recognize homeless veterans as a Special Needs Population. Further, we urge Congress to require all entities and agencies that receive or utilize federal program funding dollars to report statistics on the veterans they serve. Additionally, VVA supports legislation that would incorporate a fair-share dollar approach for the federal funding of homeless programs and services to specifically target homeless veterans.


HTF-4-07 Homeless Veteran HUD Transitional and Supportive Services Only Funding: To be retired.


HTF-5-07 Homeless Veteran HUD/VA Supportive Housing Funding: To be retired as fulfilled.


HTF-6-07 VA Homeless Grant and Per Diem Funding: To be continued. The VA HGPD Program is an effective tool in addressing veteran homelessness.


Resolution HTF-6-07 urges the VA HGPD Program to provide payment for services rather than the reimbursement for services it presently provides. Additionally, VVA supports and seeks legislation to establish Supportive Services Assistance Grants for VA HGPD Service Center Grant Awardees.


The committee is working on three new resolutions:


HUD Shelter Plus Care Housing Programs To Receive Supportive Service Dollars: The HUD Shelter Plus Care grants provide no funding for administrative or staffing support to provide the supportive services to veterans in Shelter Plus Care beds. HUD Supported Housing Program grants do provide for these services.


Support for Continued Funding and Oversight of the HUD/VASH Program: Continued funding for the existing HUD/VASH voucher program, as well as the proposed additional $75 million for 10,000 more vouchers, is key to ending homelessness among our nation’s veteran population. Oversight of the HUD/VASH program and its processes will be an invaluable tool in the continuance and expansion of this program.


Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program To Remain at the U.S. Department of Labor and Be Fully Funded at $50 Million: Job readiness training and reeducation are congressionally mandated functions and responsibilities of the Department of Labor.


The Homeless Veterans Committee: Sandy Miller, Chair; Marsha Four, Vice Chair; Jack Devine, Chair of Chairs. Members: Tom Berger, Pat Bessigano, Cheryl Beversdorf, Ed Chow, TP Hubert, and John Neuman. Also: Melvin Colston, Homeless Liaison; Kathleen Aylward-Barnes, Special Advisor; Suzanne Blohm-Weber, AVVA Liaison; and Jim Grissom, VSF Liaison. Staff Liaison: Sharon Hodge.
VVA.org Homeless Veterans

Vietnam Wall replica comes to Apalachicola

Vietnam Wall replica comes to Apalachicola
By Josh Bennett • DEMOCRAT WRITER • April 29, 2009


A 300-person motorcade Tuesday escorted the traveling replica of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., into Veterans Memorial Plaza in Apalachicola.

The display is part of a four-day event Thursday through Sunday in memory of the 58,000 soldiers who never returned from the Vietnam War.

The plaza, which is home to the recently built "Three-Soldier Statue South" war memorial, will host a wide array of public events, including a memorial service on Saturday. Volunteers will read the names of all 58,000 deceased or missing soldiers.

"This unique event is the first of its kind ever," said Tom Brocato, a volunteer coordinator and Vietnam veteran. "No where outside of Washington, D.C., have these two memorials been in the same location."

More than 500 volunteers will lend a hand to make these four days a reality.

"The most important part of this event is to honor our veterans and educate the public about the many issues that they faced when coming back from Vietnam," said Dan Scheck, program director of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, an organization that focuses on Vietnam War veteran awareness. Soldiers back then weren't given the respect and honor that these soldiers get today."
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Vietnam Wall replica comes to Apalachicola

Murder of Former Marine Sparks Anxiety Among the Homeless

The Dom in Orlando VA Hospital is one place taking care of veterans like Todd Hill. I've visited there a few times and each time as I looked at the "residents" all I could see was the fact they all were willing to risk their lives for this country, home of the brave, but ended up having to call a shelter home. Just doesn't seem right.

Back in Boston, the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans is an amazingly large building with several floors housing male and female veterans. The cafeteria is filled with veterans from all generations.

While I feel for all our homeless men, women and yes, we even have whole families homeless, it is the veterans tugging at my heart the most. I think of it as if we can't take care of the people willing to defend this nation, the odds of taking care of the civilians is not very good at all. There has got to be a better way.

Mental illness is a huge part of the homelessness in this country. There was a time when they were sent to secure hospitals until they were able to stand on their own two feet. While there were many problems with these hospitals, at least they had a place to live. When they were closed across the nation, it left them all out to fend for themselves, unable to be taken care of by their families or abandoned by them, they had no place to go. If you go to see the movie The Soloist, keep that in mind and remember there are homeless people in every state.

When it comes to homeless veterans, there are many reasons they are homeless. For most their plight can be directly linked to PTSD. They sought drugs and alcohol to kill off feelings they could no longer cope with. Some are alcoholics on top of having PTSD, which is a deadly mixture.

These men and women are viewed as heroes when they serve but when they need the nation, they are forgotten about simply because they survived war but could not survive coming home.

How is it that this nation cannot or will not take care of the "least among" us when we talk so much about being a "Christian nation" when it suits our desires but we never seem to live as if the vast majority of us are Christians, supposedly following the teachings of Christ?

Support your local veterans shelter and if you do not have a veterans shelter, support the homeless shelters for all of our countrymen. If you happen to be a veteran standing in judgment of the homeless remember that "There but for the grace of God go I."

Murder of Former Marine Sparks Anxiety Among the Homeless
Posted on April 29, 2009 by assteditor
By ERICK GALINDO

MIAMI — Lured by sunshine and balmy seas, Todd Hill came to Miami from his native Oregon three years ago looking for a fresh start.

After battling homelessness for 10 years, Hill, 41, a decorated Marine who fought in the first Gulf War, found an apartment and a job as a security guard. But his newfound stability did not last. Eight months after receiving a promotion, he was back on the streets. And on Nov. 26, on the bench he had come to call home, he was beaten severely with a tire iron, and pronounced dead at the hospital.

Hill lived his last moments surrounded by junkies sleeping on used garbage bags, in the shadow of the condominiums he’d helped build as a homeless laborer.

“Todd didn’t deserve to die like that,” said former Marine Samuel Hall, 62, who lived on the streets with Hill. “It was just senseless. He was homeless, but he always was willing to help others out.”

Hill was one of two homeless veterans recently beaten to death here. Ernest Holman, 67, a Vietnam veteran, was killed two weeks after Hill. No arrests have been made in his death. Secrecy Singleton, 29, also homeless, was charged in Hill’s murder.

The killings have heightened concern among the more than 250 homeless veterans in Miami-Dade, representatives for the local Veteran Affairs office said, and prompted a demonstration by dozens of homeless veterans in downtown Miami on New Year’s Eve.

Charles Buford, founder of VetsUnited.org, which is dedicated to feeding and rehabilitating homeless veterans, led the protesters in their demand for more federal money for homeless programs and shelters. There are an estimated 200,000 homeless veterans around the country, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. At least 400 are new veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Murder of Former Marine Sparks Anxiety Among the Homeless

Counselor who helped others is gunned down

Counselor who helped others is gunned down
Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, April 29, 2009


Marlon Mayorga was a social worker at UCSF who dedicated his life to counseling victims of violent crime and helping those who were struggling to kick drugs. The native of Nicaragua had insight into such problems, having gone through recovery years ago.

"He was an absolutely amazing person. It's particularly devastating for us to have someone like Marlon, who was so good at working with victims of violence, become another casualty on the streets of Oakland," said Alicia Boccellari, director of the trauma recovery center at UCSF, where Mayorga worked for the past five months.

As part of the program, Mayorga went to San Francisco General Hospital to meet with victims of crimes such as sexual assault and domestic violence. "He poured his heart and soul into his work," Boccellari said.
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Counselor who helped others is gunned down

Soldier's letters give first-hand look at Spanish flu pandemic

Soldier's letters give first-hand look at Spanish flu pandemic
Story Highlights
U.S. soldier survived Spanish flu pandemic not once, but twice

1918 Spanish flu ravaged military camps where soldiers trained for WWI

Letter says camp put "under quarantine to prevent an epidemic of Spanish influenza"

Martin "Al" Culhane in letter told his brother to keep infection secret from rest of family

By Larry Shaughnessy
CNN Pentagon producer


Editor's note: With fears of a swine flu pandemic rising daily, CNN Pentagon producer Larry Shaughnessy remembered a batch of letters from his grandfather, a World War I soldier who battled the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1919.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- "I'm coming, I'm coming
For my head is bending low
I hear those gentle voices calling
Old Black Joe"

As World War I rages in Europe, fresh U.S. Army soldiers pass the time on a train ride to to Camp Forrest, Georgia. "The boys are just starting to sing," Martin Aloysius Culhane wrote on September 6, 1918, to his friend back home. "They've gotten back to 'Old Black Joe' so far."

Stephen Foster's classic song from the Civil War is about the death of slaves who had become his friends. But Culhane, known as "Al," and the soldiers who sang along could not know how much death would hunt the recruits on that train, most of whom never made it to Europe to fight in the Great War.

They would find themselves in the deadliest influenza pandemic in history.

Culhane's letters to his older brother Frank and his long-time "chum" Clif Pinter are a young soldier's firsthand account of life as a draftee private and how he coped with a disease that would haunt Army camps around the United States and eventually infect people around the world. Some estimates say as many as 50 million people were killed by what's called the Spanish influenza in 1918 and 1919, far more than the number killed in combat during the war.

Three weeks after the train trip to Georgia, Culhane, a 21-year-old clothing salesman from Chicago, Illinois, writes again. Already the flu occupies his thoughts.
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Soldier's letters give first-hand look at Spanish flu pandemic

DoD issues new GI Bill family transfer rules

DoD issues new GI Bill family transfer rules

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Apr 29, 2009 17:23:07 EDT

Defense and service officials have settled on final rules that will allow career service members to share Post-9/11 GI Bill education benefits with their immediate families beginning Aug. 1.

In general, service members — officer, warrant officer or enlisted personnel — must be on active duty Aug. 1 and must have completed a minimum of six years of service, with a commitment to serve four more, in order to share their new Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits.

For most students, the benefits will cover full tuition and fees at any four-year public college or university at in-state tuition rates for undergraduate studies.

Defense officials expect to begin accepting requests to transfer benefits in June. But payments could not begin before Aug. 1, the start date of the new GI bill program.

Special rules have been approved for people who are eligible to retire before Aug. 1, 2012, or who have at least 10 years of service and are prevented by high-year tenure, mandatory retirement or other personnel rules or laws from completing the four years of additional service needed to earn transfer rights.
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DoD issues new GI Bill family transfer rules

Florida Gator prefers Toyota and shakes things up at car lot

Visit by big alligator shakes up Pasco car lot
By Erin Sullivan, Times Staff Writer

An alligator measuring 8 feet 7 inches is corralled by a trapper at Sun Toyota on Tuesday. “I was shaking,” said Denise Anderson, the first person to see the gator. Courtesy of Michael Chaparro

NEW PORT RICHEY — Something moved in the shadows. Denise Anderson peered close and then froze. Next to the used Toyota Sequoia she planned to test drive was an alligator.

"I saw its eyes. Mouth. Its jaws. Its teeth," said Anderson, 33.

It measured 8 feet 7 inches.
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Visit by big alligator shakes up Pasco car lot

National Convention for Veterans

You are cordially invited to attend and participate in the National Convention for Veterans to be conducted in the distinguished Reserve Officers' National Headquarters, a block from the US Capital in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, May 13th & Thursday, May 14th.

The Convention will advance a comprehensive veterans' platform and raise the priority for veterans in our nations' agenda. The two day program will feature the following:

* National Veterans' Leaders from Around the Country



* Leading Members of the United States Congress



* Highly Credentialed and Outspoken Speakers & Panel Members on the Subjects Veterans' Advocacy, National Defense and Budgetary/Spending Reform



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Children exposed to violence have PTSD symptoms

If you happen to be among the few in this country saying too much money is spent on PTSD research and treating our soldiers and veterans, consider this. Whatever the government spends on trying to get a grip on PTSD is a benefit to the entire country. PTSD is real and it comes after traumatic events striking humans. The troops, veterans, police officers, firefighters, emergency responders, families living with all of the people wounded by PTSD and regular civilians. Now read this about children exposed to traumatic events and understand there should never be a limit on what the government spends until we find the best way to treat this. The spending however should never include doing studies they have repeated over and over and over again over the last 30 years. In that case, it's just wasted time and money when it could be used on finding something new.

Children exposed to violence have PTSD symptoms
Wed Apr 29, 2009
By Joene Hendry

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Among children showing high levels of stress in reaction to exposure to community violence, researchers found stress hormone responses similar to children diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms include attention or sleep problems, intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, and other symptoms of psychological distress.

In previous research in children, Dr. Shakira Franco Suglia, at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, identified a disruption of the stress hormone, cortisol, among those with PTSD. Suglia and colleagues have now found "similar effects among children living in urban communities who have not been diagnosed with PTSD," Suglia told Reuters Health.

The study involved 28 girls and 15 boys, 7 to 13 years old. Forty-six percent were Hispanic, 54 percent were white. Forty-two percent of the children had mothers with less than a high-school education, Suglia and colleagues report in the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine.

The researchers assessed mothers' reports of their children's exposures to hearing gunshots or witnessing other forms of community violence, and mother's and children's reports of symptoms typical of PTSD.
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Children exposed to violence have PTSD symptoms