Viet Vet Don Wilmot: Time doesn’t heal it all
By Tammy Compton
Wayne Independent
Wed Jun 24, 2009, 05:27 PM EDT
Sterling, Pa. -
His helo was shot down four times in Vietnam. Twice behind enemy lines.
“Did you ever get a feeling that you’re falling out of bed? It’s like your stomach’s kind of up in your chest? Well, just imagine being in a helicopter, 500 or 600 feet, and all of a sudden you’ve lost power and the bottom drops out. Well, you’re on your gun, you’re trying to shoot the enemy. And you know the crash is coming. There’s nothing you can do to prevent it from happening. The three or four seconds it takes for you to crash just seems like a lifetime. It’s a helpless feeling ...there’s nothing that can be done until you hit the ground. You just wait,” says Don Wilmot of Sterling Township.
His unit was known as “Tweed’s Tigers” serving under Commanding Officer Col. Mac Tweed. Don was a crew chief/ door gunner with the Marines HMM-361 helicopter squadron, aboard Yankee November (YN)21. He flew 440 missions, 360 of those combat missions, including 200 successful medivacs.
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Viet Vet Don Wilmot: Time does not heal it all
Thursday, June 25, 2009
US Vietnam veterans send home fallen comrades
US Vietnam veterans send home fallen comrades
By Ian Timberlake – 16 hours ago
DANANG, Vietnam (AFP) — Standing to attention in the hot sun, a Marines baseball cap over his heart, US veteran Alan Segal watched as an honour guard carried the flag-draped coffins of his fellow servicemen onto an Air Force plane, taking them home 34 years after the Vietnam War ended.
Beside him another US veteran of the Vietnam conflict, Rick Janovick, 58, saluted fellow servicemen whose names he did not even know.
Segal and Janovick, who have chosen to live where they once fought, were among dozens who witnessed Wednesday's repatriation ceremony which came as the US and Vietnam step up cooperation in the hunt for missing servicemen.
Among the guests were crew from the USNS Bruce C. Heezen, the first US Navy ship to join the search effort. The ship has just completed a 12-day survey for missing American aircraft in waters off central and south-central Vietnam.
The two sets of remains sent home on Wednesday came from the land but US officials hoped the Heezen's involvement would speed up the search for underwater sites, meaning the remains of airmen still missing at sea could, in the future, also be repatriated with dignity.
Since Vietnam and the US began cooperating more than 20 years ago in the search for the remains of missing US servicemen, more than 600 have been repatriated but about 1,300 are still unaccounted for in Vietnam, the US says.
go here for more
US Vietnam veterans send home fallen comrades
By Ian Timberlake – 16 hours ago
DANANG, Vietnam (AFP) — Standing to attention in the hot sun, a Marines baseball cap over his heart, US veteran Alan Segal watched as an honour guard carried the flag-draped coffins of his fellow servicemen onto an Air Force plane, taking them home 34 years after the Vietnam War ended.
Beside him another US veteran of the Vietnam conflict, Rick Janovick, 58, saluted fellow servicemen whose names he did not even know.
Segal and Janovick, who have chosen to live where they once fought, were among dozens who witnessed Wednesday's repatriation ceremony which came as the US and Vietnam step up cooperation in the hunt for missing servicemen.
Among the guests were crew from the USNS Bruce C. Heezen, the first US Navy ship to join the search effort. The ship has just completed a 12-day survey for missing American aircraft in waters off central and south-central Vietnam.
The two sets of remains sent home on Wednesday came from the land but US officials hoped the Heezen's involvement would speed up the search for underwater sites, meaning the remains of airmen still missing at sea could, in the future, also be repatriated with dignity.
Since Vietnam and the US began cooperating more than 20 years ago in the search for the remains of missing US servicemen, more than 600 have been repatriated but about 1,300 are still unaccounted for in Vietnam, the US says.
go here for more
US Vietnam veterans send home fallen comrades
They buried Steve Staggs this week
If you go to this link on mental health care, you'll understand how we arrived where we are when it comes to the mentally ill and homeless. It will also help you to understand how timing is everything, considering when these events happened, it was at the same time Vietnam veterans were in dire need of the mental health community.
http://www.sociology.org/content/vol003.004/thomas.html
I found this on VAWatchdog, one of the best sites out there on veterans. It's about what we don't often enough read about when we talk about homeless veterans. Steve Staggs was a homeless veteran and he died as a homeless veteran, buried in a popper's grave. One more discard from a family that didn't care? Hardly. He had a family caring about him, trying to help him and searched for him after he walked away. They were still searching for him two years after he had been buried in a grave with just some numbers as a marker for the day his body was found.
Please read this and then come back for what I have to say. It won't matter as much unless you see a homeless veteran thru the eyes of someone who loved him.
Mental hospitals were never very good but at least the mentally ill were not left to live or die on their own. Today there are some half-way houses addressing recovery from drugs and alcohol, some shelters for the homeless, but considering reports about neighbors complaining about their property values and "not wanting those people living in my neighborhood" the likelihood of an adequate number of them to take care of all of our citizens needing help, is not about to happen anytime soon.
During WWII, one of my husband's uncles was a Merchant Marine. He was on a ship hit by a Kamikaze pilot and never really recovered. He was not left to wander the streets. He was sent to live on a farm so that he and others were cared for, to live out their lives provided with everything they needed. Even back then, there were not enough places for all of them to go and many ended up in Mental Hospitals. Instead of investing in fixing what was wrong with these facilities, they were shut down. It seems that President Reagan had better uses for tax payer funds resulting in the mentally ill walking the streets, left to suffer without care and die there.
In the long run, not fixing the hospitals for the mentally ill, cost more money than anyone was prepared for. What resulted was not only the increase in homeless, it increased crimes and incarcerations. This resulted in the need to build more prisons. When we provided nothing for the mentally ill, we put suffering people into dangerous positions and then they became more dangerous to the rest of society.
Veterans, with their unique circumstances, joined the ranks of the mentally ill and homeless. The same outcome for these veterans was guaranteed. One of them was almost my husband. Almost, simply because the homeless shelter had a waiting list and there was no way I could face our daughter knowing I put her father out to live on the streets. Looking back on the full shelter, I now consider it a blessing because I became more determined to make sure it never reached that point again.
All the years I had been researching PTSD and helping veterans, left me feeling totally lost and helpless because no matter what I said, what I did, how I acted, I couldn't get my own husband to listen and get the proper help. I stood by him as he entered into private rehabs, joined AA and then watched him sink right back down into the abyss. It was easier for him to accept being called an alcoholic than it was to accept the term associated with mental illness. The fear was greater for him to have PTSD, partly because he still couldn't understand it enough to get his preconceived concepts out of his head, and partly because he didn't think he knew anyone with the same illness. He did however know a lot of "alcoholics" or so he thought. It turned out most of the people he knew that were "just drunks like him" were also PTSD veterans.
Because of this, I ended up visiting the shelter and my heart was tugged by the full capacity of sheltered veterans. This was in the 90's, long before Afghanistan and Iraq veterans were coming back needing help for the same wound. The first tour I took, I was hopeful when I saw how there were doctors and nurses, dentists, all volunteering their time along with mental health providers, trainers and teachers. These veterans were not just being provided with shelter and food, but hope. I had a good feeling until I reached the floor for female veterans. It was there I was told there would be a lot more of them on that floor, but they couldn't take in children. Female homeless veterans with children were sent away.
Over the years, a lot of people have complained to me that I care more about homeless veterans than I do regular citizens. In a way, that's true. It is not that my heart is cold to the plight of all homeless people, it is simply tugged more by our veterans. It is also because they are a minority among the homeless as well as a minority in this nation.
While we are a nation of over 300 million, there are less than 30 million veterans, even less are combat veterans. These are the men and women we counted on, depended on them to risk their lives fighting the battles we decided needed to be fought. It was also us deciding that when they came home, they would just have to go back to being a civilian and left to fend for themselves, unless they happened to have body parts blown off. Those were the only wounds we were willing to accept as any excuse to have our tax dollars used to take care of them. TBI? PTSD? Agent Orange? Gulf War Syndrome? What more did these people want from us? After all, we already have mental health care, cancer treatments and research being done for the rest of us. Why do they expect to be treated any differently than the rest of us? Isn't that what financial junkies use for excuses to do nothing for them?
I can't use "Republican" for this because some of them actually do understand the obligation we have to our veterans, but too many under the "conservative" or "libertarian" banner are more like greedy junkies wanting to hold onto every dime they have, using the social system instead of acknowledging how much they need it all. Safe food and water, roads, bridges, fire departments, police departments, the list goes on but they fail to see where their money goes. They were also the same people standing on the floor of congress saying that taking care of the veterans was something they couldn't afford because there were two wars to pay for. Amazing isn't it? At the same time they took no issue with anything President Bush wanted to spend for Iraq and Afghanistan, they complained about having to take care of the men and women that were participating in it. I often wonder what their attitude would be if they had someone in their own family needing the help of the VA or wounded by PTSD if they would feel the same way?
This is why homeless veterans are very different to me. While they are just like us in many ways, they are also very different in other ways. While we don't risk our lives for anyone, they do. When they end up with life altering events as veterans for the rest of their lives, it's up to us to fulfill our end of the deal for them. The problem is, it's just not personal to the rest of us.
My eye opener on PTSD came when I met a Vietnam veteran I fell in love. My eye opener on homeless veterans came when a shelter was full. It was all personal to me and still is. If it hasn't been personal to you up to this point, then I hope the story you read about Steve Staggs managed to change your heart a little bit anyway.
A lot of people in this country were not really paying attention to what was happening in Iran until the image of Neda dying on the street made the national news. Then, it was personal to us because we thought about how an innocent person could be killed like that. Maybe Steve Staggs can make homeless veterans personal to you as well and move you to care about strangers.
http://www.sociology.org/content/vol003.004/thomas.html
I found this on VAWatchdog, one of the best sites out there on veterans. It's about what we don't often enough read about when we talk about homeless veterans. Steve Staggs was a homeless veteran and he died as a homeless veteran, buried in a popper's grave. One more discard from a family that didn't care? Hardly. He had a family caring about him, trying to help him and searched for him after he walked away. They were still searching for him two years after he had been buried in a grave with just some numbers as a marker for the day his body was found.
Please read this and then come back for what I have to say. It won't matter as much unless you see a homeless veteran thru the eyes of someone who loved him.
Laurie Roberts' Columns & Blog
A mother's son finally laid to rest
They buried Steve Staggs this week.
Old soldiers were there and an honor guard detail which offered a three-volley salute and sounded Taps. The Patriot Guard Riders came and the Old Guard Riders, too, standing in formation for more than an hour there in the mid-morning sun as Steve's family laid him, finally, to rest.
Steve didn't die in a war. At least, not the conventional kind. During his last days, most of us probably would have crossed the street to avoid him. We would have seen the homeless man battling mental illness from the empty end of a vodka bottle. We would have seen the disheveled man who shunned help. We would have seen and we would have walked on, never catching a glimpse of the real Steve Staggs.
The man who served his country. The one who was somebody's son, somebody's brother. Somebody's father.
“He was a very religious person in his heart,” his mother, Barbara Larson, told me after Monday's service. “This would have meant so much to him.”
Steve battled depression for most of his 44 years, but he was much more than a man with a mental illness. He served for a decade in the Coast Guard and later worked in the private sector until an accident left him with a head injury.
By 2004, he was no longer able to work and tried several times to commit suicide. He was in and out of hospitals as his family tried to get him help but you have to want help and even then, in this state, that's no guarantee that you'll get it.
Steve, sadly, didn't want help. In the fall of 2006, he threw his belongings in the trash, picked up his backpack and walked away from everything and everyone he knew. For 2½ years, his family searched for him, fueled by that spark of hope that maybe someday he would be found. In March, that spark was extinguished. Steve's body had been found two years earlier in a field in Surprise, lying under a salt-cedar tree, surrounded by empty vodka bottles.
It took two years before anyone realized that the body was the long sought Steve, well loved by some despite how he might have looked to the rest of us. By the time his family found him, he'd long ago been buried by jail inmates in the county pauper's cemetery.
go here for more
http://www.vawatchdog.org/09/nf09/nfjun09/nf062509-2.htm
Mental hospitals were never very good but at least the mentally ill were not left to live or die on their own. Today there are some half-way houses addressing recovery from drugs and alcohol, some shelters for the homeless, but considering reports about neighbors complaining about their property values and "not wanting those people living in my neighborhood" the likelihood of an adequate number of them to take care of all of our citizens needing help, is not about to happen anytime soon.
During WWII, one of my husband's uncles was a Merchant Marine. He was on a ship hit by a Kamikaze pilot and never really recovered. He was not left to wander the streets. He was sent to live on a farm so that he and others were cared for, to live out their lives provided with everything they needed. Even back then, there were not enough places for all of them to go and many ended up in Mental Hospitals. Instead of investing in fixing what was wrong with these facilities, they were shut down. It seems that President Reagan had better uses for tax payer funds resulting in the mentally ill walking the streets, left to suffer without care and die there.
In the long run, not fixing the hospitals for the mentally ill, cost more money than anyone was prepared for. What resulted was not only the increase in homeless, it increased crimes and incarcerations. This resulted in the need to build more prisons. When we provided nothing for the mentally ill, we put suffering people into dangerous positions and then they became more dangerous to the rest of society.
Veterans, with their unique circumstances, joined the ranks of the mentally ill and homeless. The same outcome for these veterans was guaranteed. One of them was almost my husband. Almost, simply because the homeless shelter had a waiting list and there was no way I could face our daughter knowing I put her father out to live on the streets. Looking back on the full shelter, I now consider it a blessing because I became more determined to make sure it never reached that point again.
All the years I had been researching PTSD and helping veterans, left me feeling totally lost and helpless because no matter what I said, what I did, how I acted, I couldn't get my own husband to listen and get the proper help. I stood by him as he entered into private rehabs, joined AA and then watched him sink right back down into the abyss. It was easier for him to accept being called an alcoholic than it was to accept the term associated with mental illness. The fear was greater for him to have PTSD, partly because he still couldn't understand it enough to get his preconceived concepts out of his head, and partly because he didn't think he knew anyone with the same illness. He did however know a lot of "alcoholics" or so he thought. It turned out most of the people he knew that were "just drunks like him" were also PTSD veterans.
Because of this, I ended up visiting the shelter and my heart was tugged by the full capacity of sheltered veterans. This was in the 90's, long before Afghanistan and Iraq veterans were coming back needing help for the same wound. The first tour I took, I was hopeful when I saw how there were doctors and nurses, dentists, all volunteering their time along with mental health providers, trainers and teachers. These veterans were not just being provided with shelter and food, but hope. I had a good feeling until I reached the floor for female veterans. It was there I was told there would be a lot more of them on that floor, but they couldn't take in children. Female homeless veterans with children were sent away.
Over the years, a lot of people have complained to me that I care more about homeless veterans than I do regular citizens. In a way, that's true. It is not that my heart is cold to the plight of all homeless people, it is simply tugged more by our veterans. It is also because they are a minority among the homeless as well as a minority in this nation.
National Coalition for Homeless Veterans - Background & ...
Conservatively, one out of every three homeless men who is sleeping in a ... NCHV strongly believes that all programs to assist homeless veterans
While we are a nation of over 300 million, there are less than 30 million veterans, even less are combat veterans. These are the men and women we counted on, depended on them to risk their lives fighting the battles we decided needed to be fought. It was also us deciding that when they came home, they would just have to go back to being a civilian and left to fend for themselves, unless they happened to have body parts blown off. Those were the only wounds we were willing to accept as any excuse to have our tax dollars used to take care of them. TBI? PTSD? Agent Orange? Gulf War Syndrome? What more did these people want from us? After all, we already have mental health care, cancer treatments and research being done for the rest of us. Why do they expect to be treated any differently than the rest of us? Isn't that what financial junkies use for excuses to do nothing for them?
I can't use "Republican" for this because some of them actually do understand the obligation we have to our veterans, but too many under the "conservative" or "libertarian" banner are more like greedy junkies wanting to hold onto every dime they have, using the social system instead of acknowledging how much they need it all. Safe food and water, roads, bridges, fire departments, police departments, the list goes on but they fail to see where their money goes. They were also the same people standing on the floor of congress saying that taking care of the veterans was something they couldn't afford because there were two wars to pay for. Amazing isn't it? At the same time they took no issue with anything President Bush wanted to spend for Iraq and Afghanistan, they complained about having to take care of the men and women that were participating in it. I often wonder what their attitude would be if they had someone in their own family needing the help of the VA or wounded by PTSD if they would feel the same way?
This is why homeless veterans are very different to me. While they are just like us in many ways, they are also very different in other ways. While we don't risk our lives for anyone, they do. When they end up with life altering events as veterans for the rest of their lives, it's up to us to fulfill our end of the deal for them. The problem is, it's just not personal to the rest of us.
My eye opener on PTSD came when I met a Vietnam veteran I fell in love. My eye opener on homeless veterans came when a shelter was full. It was all personal to me and still is. If it hasn't been personal to you up to this point, then I hope the story you read about Steve Staggs managed to change your heart a little bit anyway.
A lot of people in this country were not really paying attention to what was happening in Iran until the image of Neda dying on the street made the national news. Then, it was personal to us because we thought about how an innocent person could be killed like that. Maybe Steve Staggs can make homeless veterans personal to you as well and move you to care about strangers.
Bank turns down checks for Operation Open Arms?
How does a bank refuse to cash checks at all? I can understand them waiting the usual time for checks to clear before they release funds, but how do they refuse to do it? How do they refuse for a veterans charity of all places when there is such a dire need out there to take care of our troops and veterans?
Capt. John "Giddy Up" Bunch had an idea, perhaps a God sent idea, and has apparently been blessed with success. He managed to touch enough hearts that donations came in to support his work and blessed that he's getting the national media attention. So how is it that this program may be forced to close because of the bank's refusal to handle the transactions now that Operation Open Arms is tax exempt? I really wish that Capt. Bunch mentioned the bank's name because I'm sure all the military families and veterans families out there would be more than happy to pull their money out of whatever bank it is. It would also be very interesting to know if this bank was among the recipients of the bailout the tax payers provided.
Capt. John "Giddy Up" Bunch had an idea, perhaps a God sent idea, and has apparently been blessed with success. He managed to touch enough hearts that donations came in to support his work and blessed that he's getting the national media attention. So how is it that this program may be forced to close because of the bank's refusal to handle the transactions now that Operation Open Arms is tax exempt? I really wish that Capt. Bunch mentioned the bank's name because I'm sure all the military families and veterans families out there would be more than happy to pull their money out of whatever bank it is. It would also be very interesting to know if this bank was among the recipients of the bailout the tax payers provided.
Founder may shut down Operation Open Arms in 2010
Nonprofit offers soldiers on leave goods, services
By DREW WINCHESTER, dwinchester@breezenewspapers.com
Operation Open Arms has been so successful over the last four years that its success threatens its future existence.
OOA founder and Pine Island fishing guide Capt. John "Giddy Up" Bunch said he plans on shutting down the nonprofit organization by April 19, 2010, if the financial outlook does not improve.
"I have come to one astounding conclusion: If I can't get enough donations that will allow me to at least compensate our fishing guides and key benefactors by April 19, 2010 ... financially, I am going to have to shut it down," he said.
Bunch recently had to return nearly $24,000 in donations because his bank would not cash the checks. He said the bank refused to cash the checks after he received his nonprofit 5013c status.
With only $1,900 left in the bank account, Bunch had to turn down a prestigious invitation from Maj. Gen. Mark A. Graham to attend a conference in Colorado focusing on soldier mental and physical health.
Bunch said, as honored as he was to be invited, he did not feel right about draining the OOA bank account in order attend. He ranks it as his "biggest disappointment" thus far with OOA.
"I spend this money like I've got a leash around the eagle's neck," Bunch said. "Nothing is spent unless it's necessary."
Started as an organization that focused on Pine Island soldiers returning from active duty, OOA quickly grew to focus on soldiers from all over Southwest Florida. Now troops from 49 of the 50 states make their way to the area to take part in services offered by OOA.
go here for more
http://www.cape-coral-daily-breeze.com/page/content.detail/id/507640.html
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Indiana, Oregon and West Virginia National Guards, cancer and KBR
Did KBR know Iraq locale was polluted, putting soldiers at risk?
By SHARON COHEN AP National Writer
UNDATED - Larry Roberta's every breath is a painful reminder of his time in Iraq. He can't walk a block without gasping for air. His chest hurts, his migraines sometimes persist for days and he needs pills to help him sleep.
James Gentry came home with rashes, ear troubles and a shortness of breath. Later, things got much worse: He developed lung cancer, which spread to his spine, ribs and one of his thighs; he must often use a cane, and no longer rides his beloved Harley.
David Moore's postwar life turned into a harrowing medical mystery: nosebleeds and labored breathing that made it impossible to work, much less speak. His desperate search for answers ended last year when he died of lung disease at age 42.
What these three men - one sick, one dying, one dead - had in common is they were National Guard soldiers on the same stretch of wind-swept desert in Iraq during the early months of the war in 2003.
These soldiers and hundreds of other Guard members from Indiana, Oregon and West Virginia were protecting workers hired by a subsidiary of the giant contractor, KBR Inc., to rebuild an Iraqi water treatment plant. The area, as it turned out, was contaminated with hexavalent chromium, a potent, sometimes deadly chemical linked to cancer and other devastating diseases.
go here for more
http://www.katu.com/news/national/49006416.html
By SHARON COHEN AP National Writer
UNDATED - Larry Roberta's every breath is a painful reminder of his time in Iraq. He can't walk a block without gasping for air. His chest hurts, his migraines sometimes persist for days and he needs pills to help him sleep.
James Gentry came home with rashes, ear troubles and a shortness of breath. Later, things got much worse: He developed lung cancer, which spread to his spine, ribs and one of his thighs; he must often use a cane, and no longer rides his beloved Harley.
David Moore's postwar life turned into a harrowing medical mystery: nosebleeds and labored breathing that made it impossible to work, much less speak. His desperate search for answers ended last year when he died of lung disease at age 42.
What these three men - one sick, one dying, one dead - had in common is they were National Guard soldiers on the same stretch of wind-swept desert in Iraq during the early months of the war in 2003.
These soldiers and hundreds of other Guard members from Indiana, Oregon and West Virginia were protecting workers hired by a subsidiary of the giant contractor, KBR Inc., to rebuild an Iraqi water treatment plant. The area, as it turned out, was contaminated with hexavalent chromium, a potent, sometimes deadly chemical linked to cancer and other devastating diseases.
go here for more
http://www.katu.com/news/national/49006416.html
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