The Hell Of PTSD

There is only one problem I have with this. Disney is not always a problem. We live near it and it is the one place where my husband can be in crowds but is relaxed. Even his doctors couldn't understand this. He told them that Disney is all about family and most of the people there are kids under 12. Everyone is just trying to enjoy themselves and he sensed no danger there at all. Some of the rides he'll stay away from depending on the day. He has problems with Universal Studios a bit more especially toward dark because of the changes in the people in the crowds. As for Disney, it's Disney and geared toward kids of all ages.

If you have someone in your family with PTSD, it could be a problem for them and for others not so much a problem. It's up to them and how they view it but it also depends on what kind of a day they are having to begin with.

The Hell Of PTSD
By Tim McGirk / Colorado Springs Monday, Nov. 30, 2009
Ashley Gilbertson / VII Network for TIME
In retrospect, disneyland wasn't an ideal family-vacation spot for Mark Waddell, a Navy SEAL commander whose valor in combat hid the fact that he was suffering from severe mental trauma. The noise of the careening rides, the shrieking kids--everything roused Waddell to a state of hypervigilance typical of his worst days in combat. When an actor dressed as Goofy stuck his long, doggy muzzle into his face, Waddell recalls, "I wanted to grab Goofy by the throat."

It has long been taboo in military cultures for soldiers to complain about the invisible wounds of war. After a distinguished career as a SEAL commando, Waddell reached his breaking point following the worst disaster in SEAL history, in June 2005: a Chinook helicopter filled with eight SEALs and eight Army aviators was shot down while trying to rescue four comrades trapped by a Taliban ambush in the Kunar Mountains in Afghanistan. Waddell, who was stationed at the unit's base in Virginia Beach, had the agonizing task of sorting through the remains of his dead men--young warriors he had fought beside, mentored and led into battle. He also had to tell their families of the deaths. One wife, he recalls, "just ran away from me, ran down the street. I could understand." By Waddell's reckoning, he attended more than 64 memorial services for his friends and comrades in arms. "Finally," says Waddell, "I raised my hand and said I needed help." The doctors' diagnosis: Waddell was suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)--known in previous conflicts as combat fatigue.

For Waddell, the diagnosis was a long time in coming. Several years earlier, his wife Marshéle Carter Waddell and their three kids had noticed that everyday things like a whining vacuum cleaner could trigger his rages. Even his kids riled him. "I'd come back from stepping over corpses with their entrails hanging out, and my kids would be upset because their TiVo wasn't working," he recalls. Arriving home from one combat mission, Waddell insisted on sleeping with a gun under his pillow. Another night, he woke up from a nightmare with his fingers wrapped around his wife's throat, her face turning blue. Marshéle had to change the sheets every morning because of her husband's night sweats. "I had an emergency evacuation plan for myself and the family," says Marshéle. "You feel physically unsafe."

At 48, now retired from the Navy and living in Colorado, Waddell is a thoughtful, good-humored man with a quick, catlike energy. After years on the clandestine side of combat, the idea of sharing secrets--especially those of a personal nature--doesn't come easily to him. But as agonizing as it is to relive the experiences of his ongoing bout with PTSD, he and Marshéle agreed to talk to TIME in an effort to sound the alarm for what has become a broader problem: the vast number of men and women returning from punishing stretches in Iraq and Afghanistan bearing the psychological scars of war. "By speaking out," says Waddell, "maybe it will help someone's son or daughter in the forces."

Soldiers who serve in Iraq and Afghanistan may not experience the hostility from society upon their return to the U.S. that Vietnam vets did. But they encounter something that psychologists say is nearly as disorienting: America has found ways to distract itself from the fact that it has dispatched 1.6 million service members to two wars and kept them fighting for far longer than the duration of World War II. This struck Waddell while he was at a mall, when a shopper asked him how he broke his leg. "Iraq," Waddell answered. The reply: "Was it a car wreck or a cycle wreck?" Colorado Springs psychologist Kelly Orr, who is treating the ex--Navy SEAL, says, "We get all excited when Johnny goes marching off to war, and then we forget about him a few days later when our favorite football team loses a game." This, says Orr, adds to a returnee's well of anger and loneliness.

Read more: The Hell Of PTSD

2007 memo criticizes Fort Hood suspect's judgment, professionalism

2007 memo criticizes Fort Hood suspect's judgment, professionalism
November 19, 2009 8:58 a.m. EST

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Memo written by Maj. Nidal Hasan's supervisor at Walter Reed
NPR says it got a copy of the memo; CNN cannot confirm authenticity
Memo says "faculty has serious concerns" about Hasan's work ethic
(CNN) -- A memo reportedly written two years ago by Maj. Nidal Hasan's supervisor at Walter Reed Army Medical Center says the accused Fort Hood shooter demonstrated "a pattern of poor judgment and a lack of professionalism" during his residency at the hospital.
read more here
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/11/18/fort.hood.hasan.memo/

Companies Bilked Vets Program of $100M

Companies Bilked Vets Program of $100M
November 19, 2009
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Companies fraudulently collected at least $100 million in federal contracts from a $4 billion government program designated for disabled military veterans who run small businesses, congressional investigators charge.

The Small Business Administration failed to check if companies were eligible for the no-bid contracts for veterans with service-related injuries, allowing, for example, a contracting employee at a military base in Tampa, Fla., to improperly funnel a $900,000 Air Force contract to his wife's firm.

Moreover, because there are few penalties for companies found ineligible, many were still being handed tens of millions of dollars in government work even after they were found to be flouting the rules, according to the report released Thursday by the Government Accountability Office.

In many cases, small business owners falsely claimed they had a service-related injury to get the federal work - such as a $7.5 million FEMA contract for Hurricane Katrina work - and were only caught when competitors protested. In other situations, the small veteran-owned businesses were legitimate but then improperly passed the work to large or foreign-based corporations.

"Fraud in this program means that honest veterans who own a small business lose out on projects to impostors who, in many cases, aren't small businesses or even veterans," said Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the House Committee on Small Business, who requested the report.
read more here
Companies Bilked Vets Program of 100M

PTSD is an invasion

PTSD is an invasion
by
Chaplain Kathie

Once we understand PTSD comes from an outside force, only comes after traumatic events and why it invades one person instead of others, then there will be absolutely no excuse to allow what has been preventing too many from seeking help.

If we use the term defective, it means there was something wrong the day they were born, but there is nothing "wrong" with them. As a matter of fact, it is what is right(eous) and good within them that opens the door. There is nothing "defective" within them. There is however a time in their lives when they have been "damaged."

When an object is damaged, it is cut, torn, cracked, broken, burned and if a damaged thing is not repaired, it is tossed out with the trash. It is no longer useful. If it is repaired, it is just as useful, but we tend to take greater care of it and cherish it more. When we are talking about someone we love and care about, it is easier for us to understand a thing being damaged than a person.

When I was in school one of our star athletes was hurt during a football game. He got up on the field, continued to play, but it was easy to see he was in a lot of pain. He was in class for the first few days after the injury. He assumed it was just something he would get over and recover from as he limped throughout the day. Then one day he was not in class. The following week, he returned to school with his leg in a cast. He had two broken bones. His injury was something no one could really see with their eyes aside from the fact he was clearly hurting when he limped. Everyone assumed the cause of the pain was something minor and he would simply recover on his own. An x-ray proved otherwise. Then we could see what was there beneath the skin. He was helped to heal when the damage was known. The days of him walking around with a serious wound left him wondering every time he was tackled after that if he would end up hurt again.

We tend to understand a broken bone more easily than we can understand PTSD, but as my classmate was wounded by the force of another football player, PTSD is a wound caused by the force invading from the outside. Traumatic events are not part of normal daily life. They are events no one is ever really prepared for. When the events are part of combat, they are more horrific, happen more often and no one really has a time when the senses are not on guard. They wonder when the next one will happen knowing every second that passes could bring the next bullet or bomb blast when their normal reality is once again shattered by violence.

We talk a lot about terrorists knowing they could look just like everyone else. Terrorism works not by the number of people killed, but by the numbers of witnesses because it puts the thought into our heads it could have been us and the next time we wouldn't see it coming either. While most will look over their own shoulder for a time, that feeling of impending doom wears off as time goes by. For others, that feeling lingers.

Imagine being in Iraq or Afghanistan, Kuwait, Vietnam, Korea or any of the other wars, never knowing when the next strike would come. Your sleep would never be deep. Every sound would wake you up. You would lay there in stillness on alert for the next sound as your body is preparing to spring into action. With the return of quite, you drift back off to sleep but your senses do not rest. This is a reaction brought back with you as you return to your neighborhood. Hypervigilance becomes "normal" because it was normal in the environment you left just as when you arrived in that hellish place, you had to adjust to the facts on the ground in the "normal" realities of war.

It all comes back with you. What you show others, knowingly or not, is much like the limp. They can see you have something going on inside of you, but it is easy to expect you will simply recover and get over it. You know there is something wounded inside of you, but you also expect that there will come a time when the pain eases and you recover back to "normal" never knowing that normal for you is the current reality. You have to be helped to transfer that new normal into something that lets you make peace inside yourself.

Much like a cast protects a broken bone, your mind protects your broken spirit. It builds all kinds of defenses around your emotions attempting to keep more painful invaders from getting in. Anger is allowed to come out but every other emotion must remain behind the wall. That wall gets thicker and thicker with each new attack against your emotions. Family and friends attack because of the way you are suddenly acting, unable to understand your detachment from them. Your anger and mood swings seen as coldness, masks the pain trapped behind the wall. Their reaction to you is another assault against your emotions and it feeds the negative forces. The limp in your soul becomes a prison to the person you always were. You expect "you" will never be seen again and others you are supposed to feel closets to begin to judge what you have become instead of trying to understand why you appear to be wounded.

When you know after trauma comes injury(wound)then it is no longer your fault. There was nothing you could have done to prevent it other than not being there in the first place. Like the football game and the broken leg bones would not have happened had he not been there, PTSD would not invade had you not been in place when a traumatic event came. While you cannot prevent PTSD, you can heal it with help and prevent what can come when you do not receive the facts to protect further injury like a cast, do not receive the understanding of the people close to you so they can support you, help you carry this load and let you lean on them. They do not have to become like the enemy attacking you all over again, but retain the care they had for you all along. When they know you are hurting, they will help but they cannot see what is broken needing healing unless you show them.

You do not have to get into details with them but you should with trained professionals. You can however help them to understand what is going on inside of you as an x-ray shows the break in bones, your words can help them see beneith the surface. They loved you before and cared about you before but they need help to understand why you changed. They need to know it came for you because you were in that place at that time. You were there with the same kind of compassion and courage. All you were is still there. You just need help to find it all again.

Man accused of attacking Greek Orthodox priest talks to Bubba the Love Sponge

Is this part of a bigger problem? Is he telling the truth? Was this Marine always nasty? Is there more to this story than we already know? People do not suddenly turn around and do something like this all of a sudden when they showed no actions like this before. Did he change?

Man accused of attacking Greek Orthodox priest talks to Bubba the Love Sponge
By Alexandra Zayas, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Friday, November 13, 2009
TAMPA — Jasen Bruce, the Marine reservist who has remained silent since police accused him of hitting a Greek Orthodox priest with a tire iron Monday, spoke publicly for the first time Thursday — with Bubba the Love Sponge Clem.

Bruce, 28, talked with the shock jock on his syndicated morning show. He repeated his lawyer's account that the priest sexually attacked him, spoke of initially being heralded as a "hero" by police and declared his heterosexuality in the face of online pictures that show him flexing his muscles while wearing little clothing.

Tampa Police Department spokeswoman Laura McElroy said police are still investigating and don't want to give a blow-by-blow response to Bruce's account. But "his credibility is in question as part of our investigation," she said.

Police say the bearded, robed priest got incorrect directions from his global positioning device, left Interstate 275 and found himself driving around the Channel District. He followed a row of cars into the Seaport Channelside condominiums and approached Bruce, who was bent over the trunk of his car. He tapped on his shoulder before uttering, in broken English, the words "help" and "please."
read more here
Man accused of attacking Greek Orthodox priest

also

Tampa tow truck driver also accused Marine reservist of rampage
By Alexandra Zayas and Demorris A. Lee, Times Staff Writers
In Print: Thursday, November 12, 2009

TAMPA — Two years before police said he hit a Greek Orthodox priest over the head with a tire iron, Jasen Bruce had a run-in with another stranger, a tow truck driver who said the Marine left him hurting for months.

Steven Ray Allen, now 59, remembers a time when he towed cars outside the Calta's Fitness Club on Gandy Boulevard. And he remembers the incident that made him stop.

It was Halloween afternoon, 2007. Someone had parked a silver Jaguar in a tow-away zone. As Allen backed his tow truck bed up to the Jag, he says seven or eight large men came out of the gym and surrounded him.

"They puffed their chests out like they were He-Man," Allen said, "like they were trying to intimidate me."

Bruce came out, and they got into an argument.
read more here
Tampa tow truck driver also accused Marine reservist of rampage

Team effort saves basketball player Drake Williams

Team effort saves basketball player
In three minutes Saturday, Drake Williams went through a whole lifetime's worth of luck — both good and bad. The bad: having a rare heart condition that causes "sudden cardiac death." The good: After he collapsed at basketball practice, everyone around him knew what to do, and two Tampa Fire Rescue paramedics happened to be right outside.

Coburn lifts hold on vet benefits bill

Coburn lifts hold on vet benefits bill

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Nov 18, 2009 9:48:11 EST

One senator’s hold delaying consideration of a veterans caregiver and health benefits bill has been lifted.

A new agreement will allow a final vote on S 1963 after senators consider an amendment that would pay for stipends, health care, counseling and other benefits for people taking care of severely disabled veterans by cutting the U.S. contribution to the United Nations.

As a result of the agreement, the Senate is now expected to take up and pass the bill this week, allowing House and Senate negotiators to begin work on a compromise measure that could become law this year The U.N. amendment will be offered by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., the person who since Memorial Day has prevented the Senate from taking up veterans legislation because he thinks it is wrong to pass new benefits without paying for them.
go here for more
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/11/military_coburn_veteransbill_111809w/

Army suicides set another yearly record

The screaming fact is that while the numbers they report has gone up, they are not reporting all of them. Consider when a soldier is no longer active. The DOD will not track what happens to him or her. They may not be in the VA system, which reports 18 veteran suicides a day and another 10,000 a year attempting suicide. Still there are many more not bring tracked by the VA either. That's the thing we always need to remember. The numbers being reported are just the ones they are sure about. The rest, well, they just vanish from all records but not from the minds and hearts of the people who loved them.

Army suicides set another yearly record
By Mike Mount, CNN Senior Pentagon Producer
November 17, 2009 7:57 p.m. EST

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Officials say recent trend downward could mean Army is making headway in prevention
As of Tuesday, 211 active duty soldiers and reservists have killed themselves the year
In 2008, total was 197 suicides among active duty soldiers and reservists
Fort Campbell, Fort Stewart and Schofield Barracks singled out for special concern

Washington (CNN) -- Suicides among soldiers this year have topped last year's record-breaking numbers, but Army officials maintain a recent trend downward could mean the service is making headway on its programs designed to reduce the problem, Army officials said Tuesday.

Since January, 140 active-duty soldiers have killed themselves while another 71 Army Reserve and National Guard soldiers killed themselves in the same time period, totaling 211 as of Tuesday, Gen. Peter Chiarelli, U.S. Army vice chief of staff, told reporters at a briefing Tuesday. But he said the monthly numbers are starting to slow down as the year nears its end.

"This is horrible, and I do not want to downplay the significance of these numbers in any way," Chiarelli said.

For all of 2008, the Army said 140 active-duty soldiers killed themselves while 57 Guard and Reserve soldiers committed suicide, totaling 197, according to Army statistics.

The Army is still trying to tackle why soldiers are killing themselves.
read more here
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/11/17/army.suicides/index.html