2 million men and women have shouldered deployments

A million soldiers deployed since 9/11

By Michelle Tan - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Dec 18, 2009 14:35:33 EST

Eight years since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, American troops have deployed almost 3.3 million times to Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Defense Department data.

The numbers, as of October 2009, show that more than 2 million men and women have shouldered those deployments, with 793,000 of them deploying more than once.

Here’s a look at how the numbers break down, by service.
go here for the numbers
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/12/army_deployments_121809w/

Wise men would still be lost if they had help like this

Three wise men (kings) prayed for a sign the deliverer, the answer to their prayers had finally show up. They checked and rechecked their charts and knew what to look for so that they would be ready when the evidence was there. When the star started to shine in the sky, they knew they had to follow it because it was exactly what they had been waiting for. All the evidence told them they were right so without hesitation, each left their own part of the world, traveled their own road, at their own pace, but managed to get to the place where they would find the answer to their prayers. Christ was born and they had arrived to greet him.

Ever wonder if they didn't have a clue what the star would mean? Ever wonder if they never bothered to look up and see the star? That's the biggest problem of all. It's not that help and the answer to prayers is not out there. It's just that people don't have a clue what to look for or how to get there from here. Sorry the DOD and the VA have yet to figure out how to get up a star to shine the way. What we do have is an archive filled with 30 years of research and news reports, letters to the editor printed in local papers, divorce filings, arrest reports and the conclusion of research papers in most colleges plus a ton of thesis papers. We also have the living veterans from combat going back to WWII, although few of them remain.

So what's the problem? Why are we still doing studies, funding research on what was already done instead of taking what is already known and then taking it all forward? Wouldn't that be the best way to get to where we need to go? Veterans are waiting for what they were promised. Families are waiting for hope and what they need. The facts are waiting to be used so that people stop suffering needlessly. Isn't it time someone gave the road map to the DOD and the VA to get them where they need to be?

NONE OF THIS IS NEW and there are too few new programs to justify the waste of time and money repeating it all over again.

They need medication and I won't argue against it. It cannot be the answer to everything though. They need therapy. They are getting it.

They need their families support as well as being involved in their care. This isn't happening all over the country. It's only available in certain parts of the country. Too many mental health providers think they shouldn't have to waste their time with the families instead of considering the likelihood the veteran is holding back instead of being totally honest and the instead of the family telling the provider what is really going on with them, they trust the person needing help instead. A veteran has a hard time saying they haven't had sex in years when they see Viagra commercials on every program they watch. They will minimize sleeping problems in general just as they will minimize what is being done to the family simply because they are oblivious to it.

They need the support of the community to honor their service but above that, understand what their service did to some of them and not fear it. Crimes in PTSD veterans are not what you think. Considering how few of them are actually involved in crimes, that's pretty obvious. They need jobs and friends that will really listen to them talk and be there for them. They need them to be aware of what PTSD and how they can help.

Most of the time, when people feel lost they just need a little help to get to where they are going. If they pull over on the side of the road and keep getting wrong directions, they are more lost and finding it very hard to find hope enough to ask for help again. That's what we're seeing today. So as we celebrate the day Christ was born, think about the wise men and the star and finally, once and for all, remember the veterans are feeling lost because the signs are not clear showing them were they need to go or how to get there from here.

Patrick Air Force Military Mom under fire for tweet after son's death

I want to be angry with this story, but I can't. No one can ever figure out how someone will react to shock, especially after losing your own child. Maybe she was feeling a need to connect and judging by the numbers of her followers, she must have been very good at it, felt at home doing it and it may have seemed natural to her.

I went the other way when I was feeling grief. For me it was when my Mom died and when my brother died. I did a quick note on the blog before heading off to the airport. Yet when my dog Brandon was dying and I faced the fact he'd have to be put down, I did a huge post the day before. It doesn't mean I loved my Mom or my brother less, it was just different circumstances. I didn't need to share online. I needed to share with the rest of my family back home in Massachusetts. When it was my dog, yet another member of my family, I needed to share what I was going thru as the clock was ticking away and his life was ending. No one responds the same way, so while our knee jerk reaction may be to blame this Mom, we have no way of knowing for sure exactly how we'd respond.

Florida mom under fire for tweet after son's death

MERRITT ISLAND, Fla. (AP) — A Florida mother is being criticized by bloggers and Twitter users for posting a tweet less than an hour after her 2-year-old son drowned in a swimming pool at her home.

Shellie Ross, a 38-year-old stay-at-home mother who lives outside Patrick Air Force Base where her husband serves, posted a message asking that people pray for her son after he had fallen into the family's swimming pool on Monday. Her son, Bryson, died at a hospital less than an hour after paramedics responded.

Ross has more than 5,000 followers on her Twitter account, Military—Mom, and she also maintains a blog, Blog4Mom.
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Florida mom under fire for tweet after son's death

Roy Hallums talks about time in Iraq as hostage

Roy Hallums was abducted and held hostage in Iraq for 311 days until U.S. Special Forces found him buried alive. In an AC360 interview, Hallums recalls how his cell almost became his tomb -- and how his rescue was a "miracle."

Pregnancy in Iraq could mean court-martial

Pregnancy in Iraq could mean court-martial

By Anne Flaherty - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Dec 18, 2009 17:37:58 EST

WASHINGTON — An Army general in northern Iraq has added pregnancy to the list of reasons a soldier under his command could be court-martialed.

The new policy, outlined last month by Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo and released Friday by the Army, would apply to both female soldiers who become pregnant on the battlefield and the male soldiers who impregnate them.

Civilians reporting to Cucolo also could face criminal prosecution under the new guidelines.
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Pregnancy in Iraq could mean court martial

Video tells Minn. guardsmen in Iraq of services

Video tells Minn. guardsmen in Iraq of services

By Kari Petrie - St. Cloud (Minn.) Times via Gannett News Service
Posted : Friday Dec 18, 2009 9:26:46 EST

Minnesota National Guard soldiers serving in Iraq were able to hear from St. Cloud service providers during a live video link Thursday.

Providers of education, health care and employment services presented information to about 40 soldiers from St. Cloud City Hall. They communicated with the soldiers stationed in Iraq on a large video screen.

St. Cloud VA Medical Center spokeswoman Joan Vincent said organizers believe the video link is the first of its kind for providing reintegration information.

The goal was to provide soldiers with information before they return home, when their focus is on returning to their families and civilian jobs rather than learning about programs.

“Once they get home, they want to go home,” Vincent said.

The video link was done in coordination with Beyond the Yellow Ribbon and Warrior to Citizen programs, which work to make the transition from deployment to home as smooth as possible.
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Video tells Minn. guardsmen in Iraq of services

Muncie man's son dies in Iraq

Muncie man's son dies in Iraq
By IVY FARGUHESON • ifarguheson@muncie.gannett.com • December 17, 2009


MUNCIE -- A man who moved to Muncie two years ago to be closer to his family has now lost his only son in the Iraq War.

Pfc. Jaiciae L. Pauley, 29, of Austell, Ga., son of Muncie residents Roger and Teressa Pauley, died Dec. 11 in Kirkuk, Iraq, as a result of a "non-combat related incident," according to a military press release.

The death is still being investigated by the U.S. Army, but for Roger Pauley, the manner of his son's death isn't important.

"It bothers me (knowing the death is still being investigated), but whether it's a suicide or an accidental discharge of a gun, my son is still gone," the elder Pauley said. "He was a typical man in his 20s and he was my best friend who I could talk to about anything."

Jaiciae Pauley enlisted in the Army during the summer of 2008, after his father and stepmother moved from the Atlanta metropolitan area to Muncie. The family had begun to struggle financially, prompting the Pauleys to choose to live with family in Indiana.
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Muncie man son dies in Iraq

Help available for soldiers, veterans, families

Help available for soldiers, veterans, families
posted by Kate Santich on December, 17 2009 6:55 PM


Seminole Behavioral Healthcare is offering free mental-health and substance-abuse counseling to military personnel and their families who work or reside in Seminole County and have been impacted by deployment to Afghanistan or Iraq.

The nonprofit organization recently received a grant of nearly $50,000 to provide the services, which will cover individual, couple and family therapy; drug and alcohol abuse; post-traumatic stress disorder and counseling for children of military personnel. Also, in January, the agency will launch a support group for family members of deployed or deploying soldiers.

The number of sessions covered will be determined on a case-by-case basis.

“We see a great need for it,” says Jim Berko, president and CEO of Seminole Behavioral Healthcare. “We became aware of the issues when people who had been in Afghanistan started returning to our area. … There is a lot of post-traumatic stress.”

go here for more

Help available for soldiers, veterans, families

By all accounts he was a good soldier, then committed suicide

Families are franticly searching for ways to help but find little hope as they watch someone they love get to the point they can find no hope things will get better tomorrow. How can they? When the men and women serving in the military come back home, families go from euphoria when they believe all is well now they're home to believing they have just entered into hell with a stranger causing all kinds of problems in the house and they have no clue how to cope or what to do to help. As a matter of fact, too many families don't understand they need help in the first place. They end up blaming the veteran simply because they don't know what they are dealing with.

Their lives fall apart and the veteran, well, he or she is left to hang onto whatever hope they can that tomorrow will bring a better day, some miracle will arrive in time to save them, or, the day they will "get over it" finally arrive. It won't come unless they get help to heal. The other problem is, too often either help does not come because the family does not know where to find it or no matter what they do, they cannot get the help that is supposed to be there waiting.

More often than not even when the veterans do receive help, it is in the form of pills and not therapy. So we here the military and the VA get it, came up with suicide prevention programs along with a list of "new programs" that will take care of the problem, but as evidence has shown, their programs have not worked enough to stop the rate of suicides and attempted suicides from rising. Too often an official will say that "we're saving lives" and then we believe they finally got it only to find out months later, what they've done has left a gaping wound left over few are able to recover from.

Pvt. Greg Tilton ran out of reasons to stay alive and we have ourselves to blame for this. Not his family and not Tilton himself, but the rest of us because they never received what they needed to recover from what was asked of him. When we talk about casualties as a price of war, Tilton and his family should also be found among them, but they won't be.

Family Seeks Answers From Army After Son Commits Suicide
Thursday, December 17, 2009 5:43 PM

WORTHINGTON, Ohio — After losing their son to suicide, one family was urging the U.S. military and other families to take action before more lives are lost, 10TV's Cara Connelly reported.

On the day before Thanksgiving, Army Private Greg Tilton, a Worthington native, shot and killed himself in his apartment near Fort Riley, Kan.

Tilton, 20, had recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq.



"By all accounts he was a good soldier - he was an excellent soldier," Tilton's father Tim Tilton said.

The family has a box full of medals to prove it.

Tilton's father said his son was a sensitive young man, who told his parents he shot and killed an 11-year-old suicide bomber while on duty in Iraq.

Tim Tilton said that violence took a tool on his son and his mental health.

"There is a huge disconnect; he had a counseling session in Iraq but when he returned, up until the day he died, he never had another one," Tim Tilton said.

Tilton's wife Molly was calling 911 for help after she said he began having a flashback to Iraq, but authorities did not arrive in time.

"We don't need any more of our soldiers doing what my son did. He was in such a dark place and not in his right mind when this happened," Tim Tilton said.

Suicides among members of the military are expected to set a record this year, Connelly reported.

The Army said one in five soldiers returns home from war suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

The Tilton's said the military needs more counselors and are urging military families to speak out and demand help.
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Family Seeks Answers From Army After Son Commits Suicide

Burn pits could cause long-term damage to troops

We should be asking if the burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan could replace Agent Orange for Vietnam Vets, still being linked to more illnesses and Gulf War Syndrome for the Gulf War vets still leaving many without answers. It's bad enough they risk their lives with the "usual dangers" of war when bullets try to hit them and bombs try to blow them up. When you factor in things that were not delivered by enemy hands, but instead from the military itself, there are no excuses to not take care of what results from it.

Military: Burn pits could cause long-term damage to troops
By Adam Levine, CNN Pentagon Producer
December 18, 2009
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Pentagon health officials had said troops faced no long-term effects from burn pits
Military now says some troops exposed could be susceptible to long-term effects
Service members have complained of chronic bronchitis, asthma, sleep apnea
DoD and VA expanding investigations into the pits
Washington (CNN) -- The military is backing off its previous position and acknowledging that some troops exposed to the burning of refuse on military bases could be susceptible to long-term health effects.

Since the issue first arose two years ago, Pentagon health officials have insisted that, based on its analysis, troops who were near burn pits at Joint Base Balad in Iraq -- the largest base in that country -- faced no long-term health hazards. That covered most of the troops who passed through the base.

The Department of Defense found that the burn pits, which are used instead of incinerators on some bases and outposts in Iraq and Afghanistan, could cause effects in the short term -- including irritated eyes and upper respiratory system problems -- that can lead to persistent coughing. But the department said "it is less clear what other longer-term health effects [there] may be."

But one of the top military health officials, Dr. Craig Postlewaite, signaled in a recent interview with the Salt Lake Tribune that certain troops, who have other medical conditions, may be at risk for long-term effects.
read more here
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/18/military.burn.pits/