LT deployed to Afghanistan, hears of family in Haiti

Kirsty Wigglesworth / The Associated Press Lt. Ramses Brunache, attached to the 97th Military Police Battalion out of Fort Riley, Kansas, was born in Haiti and is trying to get redeployed to assist in the earthquake-torn country.

Haiti native in Afghan war wants chance to help

By Heidi Vogt - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Jan 18, 2010 8:29:39 EST

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Haitian-American Lt. Ramses Brunache was supposed to be the one in danger in Afghanistan. Now his sister is dead, his homeland is broken and he’s trying to return to help save Haiti.

Brunache found out about Tuesday’s earthquake in a 3 a.m. phone call from his wife at the base where he’s stationed in dusty Kandahar province, the Taliban’s southern heartland. He’s been here since July as a communications officer with the 97th Military Police Battalion out of Fort Riley, Kansas.

“She told me something happened in Haiti and my sister is not going to make it,” he said.

His wife lives in Atlanta and the only information she had at that point was from a text message saying that his sister, Immacula, and her three young daughters had been inside their house in Port-au-Prince when it collapsed. Her 12-year-old son was the only one who made it out.

Brunache went straight to the base’s Internet cafe and spent hours scouring news sites for details. He watched the death toll rise from hundreds to thousands from the magnitude-7.0 quake.

read more here

Haiti native in Afghan war wants chance to help

Balad burn pit harmed troops living 1 mile away

Balad burn pit harmed troops living 1 mile away

By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Jan 18, 2010 16:10:11 EST

As Wendy McBreairty hiked up a 20-foot bluff in her hometown of Cheyenne, Wyo., her thigh muscles felt heavy, as if she had been climbing for hours.

She breathed deeply, trying to fill her lungs but, as usual, she felt as if she could not get enough of the clear, cold air. Fatigue overwhelmed her, just as it does every other day of her life.

The 32-year-old Air National Guard staff sergeant sat on a rock, leaned toward the setting sun, and pondered her future.
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Balad burn pit harmed troops living 1 mile away

Haiti Relief Workers Risk Their Minds, Experts Say

How do I know these things?

Sunday, January 17, 2010

With humanitarian missions into Haiti, they will carry memories of combat with them

Experience mostly and too many years of studying it. It is also one of the things crisis workers train for the most. When you respond to a crisis, usually you are responding to take care of the caregivers and this is done for a reason. If they fall apart, the people they trained to help will not be helped the next time. The responders need to be cared for because of all they encounter with survivors.

Each time I go to a conference or training session, we focus on responders knowing they will be drained of everything they have and no amount of training can prepare them for everything. We end up getting drained as well and some of us burn out but we are dealing with a totally different type of person. We are dealing with the caregivers instead of the victim/survivors. Some Chaplains do train to work with the survivors as well with each one following where they are called to be. This is done because we finally understand the price paid by the responders to disasters caused by nature and traumatic events caused by man.

No matter where we come from or language we speak, no matter what our income is or the color of our skin, we are all humans and our bodies, our minds, all work the same way with the same basic needs. We are all human and it is the basis for the outpouring of aid for the people of Haiti. We all see the human face of all they are going thru and most of us, well, we know how we would feel if we were going thru the same.

My greatest concern is for the responders, especially the men and women in the military after what they are carrying with them from Iraq and Afghanistan. For many, it will be healing but for too many they are not prepared for what is to come on this humanitarian mission.

What is very heartening about this report is that the media acknowledge this considering the days of reporting on the people of Haiti, they found time to report on this aspect few ever see.

Haiti Relief Workers Risk Their Minds, Experts Say
Even Aid Workers May Be At Risk for Mental Issues After Witnessing Destruction
By LAUREN COX
ABC News Medical Unit
Jan. 18, 2010
As more medical and rescue teams arrive in Haiti , mental health experts say these volunteers and soldiers may be risking not just their safety, but the sanctity of their own minds in the earthquake-shattered capital Port-au-Prince.

Stefano Zannini, head of mission Doctors Without Borders said the streets of Haiti are crowded with people looking for help. "They're trying to find their families or their friends. I can see thousands of them walking the stress asking for help." At night, they sleep on the streets covered with blankets or plastic bags.

As of Friday, Zannini expected more people would be pulled from the rubble alive. But as the citizens of Haiti search for family members, for food or for medical care, the government of Haiti has already sent trucks around the city to pick up dead bodies.
read more here
Haiti Relief Workers Risk Their Minds, Experts Say

Wrongly convicted GI likely to get $7.5 million

Wrongly convicted GI likely to get $7.5 million

The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Jan 18, 2010 11:20:11 EST

MANHATTAN, Kan. — A former Fort Riley soldier who served 10 years in prison for a rape he didn’t commit will receive a $7.5 million settlement, if the defendants approve the proposal.

Eddie James Lowery was convicted in 1982 of raping an Ogden woman. He served 10 years in prison before DNA testing proved he did not commit the crime. He was paroled in 1991.
go here for more
Wrongly convicted GI likely to get 7.5 million

Police need help:Road rage leaves two year old girl shot

2-year-old girl shot in Tacoma road rage incident
By KOMO Staff
TACOMA, Wash. - A 2-year-old girl was shot in the leg during a road rage incident Sunday afternoon in southeast Tacoma.

Emergency personnel were called to the 600 block of E. 56th Street after 2 p.m., said Tacoma Fire Department spokesperson Jolene Davis.

Tacoma police spokesman Mark Fulghum said the driver of a black Ford Explorer became embroiled in a road rage incident with another vehicle that had a family inside.
go here for more
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/81934212.html

Local church to cops: 'We have your back'

Here is something every community should do as well.

Local church to cops: 'We have your back'
By Ray Lane
MILL CREEK, Wash. - A Snohomish County church dedicated its Sunday service to those who serve. It was a chance to honor the fallen officers - and salute those who are still on the streets.

The Rev. Dan Kellogg of Gold Creek Community Church says he got the idea after he learned that the morale of officers in his own congregation was low.

The killing of five police officers and a sheriff's deputy in a span of less than two months had taken its toll - so many funerals, so much heartbreak.

"There's this atmosphere where there's a target painted on officers' backs," Rev. Kellogg said. "And it just seems like we should not have that in our community. This should not be, and we can do something about it."
read more here
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/81937947.html

Soldier guilty of cruelty and maltreatment in Iraq

Soldier guilty of cruelty and maltreatment in Iraq
By JoANNE VIVIANO Associated Press Writer
Posted: 01/18/2010 08:34:16 AM PST
Updated: 01/18/2010 10:39:12 AM PST


COLUMBUS, Ohio—A military panel in Kuwait convicted a U.S. soldier of being cruel and mistreating fellow soldiers, a case undertaken after an Army private from Ohio committed suicide in Iraq.
Staff Sgt. Enoch Chatman, of West Covina, Calif., was convicted Wednesday on two violations of the cruelty and maltreatment article of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, said Lt. Col. Kevin Olson, a military spokesman in Iraq.

Chatman was one of four soldiers accused of mistreating others in their platoon in Iraq through verbal abuse, physical punishment and ridicule of other soldiers.

The investigation was prompted by the August death of Pvt. Keiffer Wilhelm, who grew up in Willard in northwest Ohio.

Wilhelm, 19, was in Iraq with his new platoon for just 10 days before he killed himself. His family believes he was treated so badly that he took his own life, but the military has determined there was no direct evidence the four soldiers' misconduct caused the death.
read more here
Soldier guilty of cruelty and maltreatment in Iraq

We weep at Agent Orange, laugh at reporter

A Vet's Story -- Part II
We weep at Agent Orange, laugh at reporter


By Randy Hollifield

As told to daughter Landdis

Published: January 17, 2010

Editor's note: This is the second of a three-part, first-person story about Randy Hollifield's experiences in the Vietnam War and at a recent reunion. Randy told the story to his daughter, Landdis, who wrote this account. Randy hopes to bring the Traveling Vietnam War Memorial to McDowell County. In part one of this story, which appeared Friday, Randy told of arriving in Vietnam on his first wedding anniversary and also his first day at the reunion decades later.

The next day's events started out the same way. Breakfast was served and then we all gathered back together to share more stories. Eventually those stories led to us talking about something we had all seemed to avoid up to this point -- what Agent Orange had done to so many Vietnam veterans. Agent Orange was a chemical that was used in Vietnam to kill plants and foliage so that the enemy could be more clearly detected. It was commonly applied to large areas of land via tanker plane, and Camp Carroll received some of the heaviest concentrations of the chemical during the Vietnam War.


It was about a reporter who had arrived at the Gio Linh Firebase during late March 1967. He had arrived by Huey chopper and seemed very out of place among us soldiers. He was lanky, soft spoken and redheaded. He was a war correspondent on his first assignment, and he wanted to see what was happening firsthand. As usual, at dark our camp began to get fired on by incoming artillery and mortar rounds. The attack that night was especially heavy with more than 750 rounds coming in intermittently all night. Needless to say this young reporter was ready to get the heck out of Dodge by daybreak.

He had seen all he needed to see and was ready to head any place south. It was obvious the young reporter had alternative reasons for leaving other than to file his story. We told him just to stay a while and see what was really going on. We helped him send his story through a secure communication system, giving him no excuse to leave so fast. Little did we know that the redheaded reporter who had filed his first story from a Fire Direction Control Bunker would go on to be ABC anchorman Ted Koppel. The story had lightened the mood and ended the evening on a happy note. We had all laughed remembering back to that day when the reporter had arrived. No one would have realized that this scared young man would one day be an anchor on a major network.
read more here
We weep at Agent Orange, laugh at reporter

Vietnam Vets Honored With 'Order Of Silver Rose'

Vietnam Vets Honored With 'Order Of Silver Rose'

To Those Affected By 'Agent Orange'

BY BILL JONES

STAFF WRITER

Two Vietnam War veterans were honored at the St. James Community Center on Friday night with the Order of the Silver Rose, a medal that recognizes veterans who have developed medical problems as the result of exposure to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam.

Friday night's recipients were retired U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer Dale Neas, of Old Newport Road, Greeneville, and the late U.S. Army and Tennessee Army national Guard Sgt. 1st Class Ledmond "Huck" Huckleby of Silvan Circle, Greeneville.

In making the medal presentations, Bill Thomason, a retired U.S. Army master sergeant who lives in Parrottsville and coordinates the Order of the Silver Rose program for Northeast Tennessee, noted that Vietnam veterans are dying at a rate of about 290 each day, many from the effects of exposure to Agency Orange, a herbicide that was sprayed from the air onto jungle vegetation to deprive the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese of cover.
read more here
http://www.greenevillesun.com/story/307649

Haiti aid mission uses lessons of war

Haiti aid mission uses lessons of war

By Jim Michaels - USA TODAY
Posted : Monday Jan 18, 2010 6:53:51 EST

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — This is not war, this overwhelming humanitarian effort. But after eight years of dealing with counterinsurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, the lessons learned there — getting into the communities to understand the people’s needs — apply here to the job of distributing food and water and providing medical help.

“Those skills are transferable,” said Army Col. Chris Gibson, commander of the brigade from the 82nd Airborne Division that is getting established here.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers and Marines have learned to seek out local leaders and learn gritty details about sewage, electricity and water. They’re doing the same thing here, but no one is shooting at them.

Lt. Col. Mike Foster’s unit established a position at the Pétionville Club, adjacent to more than 10,000 refugees living on its golf course.

Families are lying on the ground, shielded from the sun by sheets or blankets held up by wooden poles. Some are injured and waiting for medical help. Most are waiting for adequate food and water.
read more here
Haiti aid mission uses lessons of war

New Hampshire doing what needs to be done to prevent suicides

NH group updates suicide prevention plan

By Jillian Jorgensen
jjorgensen@eagletribune.com

A state group has revised its plan for suicide prevention, bringing together public agencies and private organizations in an effort to raise awareness and help prevent suicide in New Hampshire.

Suicide is the second-leading cause of death, after accidental injury, among New Hampshire residents younger than 34. It is the fourth-leading cause of death in adults 34 to 55.

"You can have people sit in an office and write a great document, but if it's not carried out, it's not worth the ink that it's written in," said Elaine de Mello, supervisor of training and prevention at National Alliance on Mental Illness New Hampshire and a member of the Suicide Prevention Council. "The revision shows that people are looking at it, and thinking about it."

This is the first revision to the plan since it was created in 2004. The plan updates were made by the state's Suicide Prevention Council, made up of representatives from state agencies and nonprofit groups, as well as politicians, medical professionals and others.

Funding for the council's initiatives come from grants and from the agencies that make up the council and follow the plan's guidelines for dealing with and preventing suicide.

The plan's goals include reaching out to agencies from corrections facilities to schools to help officials around the state be more prepared to deal with suicidal people or the aftermath of a suicide. Many of those organizations have representatives on the council.
read more here
NH group updates suicide prevention plan

Familiar face answers the call for veterans

Familiar face answers the call for veterans
Ruth Gonzalez, formerly of Governor’s Outreach Center, to aid vets as volunteer.
BILL O ’ BOYLE boboyle@timesleader.com


The Veterans of Vietnam War and Veterans Coalition have a new person, but hardly a trainee, helping out in a volunteer capacity.


FRED ADAMS/FOR THE TIMES LEADER

Ruth Gonzalez, formerly of the Governor’s Outreach Assistance Center, is donating her time at the office on the Pittston Bypass to do what she does best – help veterans.

A Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam era, Gonzalez said she wants to finish what she left incomplete when the outreach assistance center closed because of state budget cutbacks.

“Suddenly, with little notice, I had to leave my office, and in my eyes, abandon all the veterans that I always took care of – the veterans who came to me for help,” Gonzalez said.

“They came to me one after another for all the problems and issues facing today’s American veteran, whether they be World War II, Korea, Vietnam, peacetime and especially -- our new young brave veterans of today -- our veterans who’ve been coming home from multi-tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
read more here
Familiar face answers the call for veterans

Marine's walk for DAV worth $180,000, so far

He's marching for disabled veterans
Retired Marine Richard Hunsucker is on a 2,650-mile journey across the country
By JENNIFER LATSON
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Jan. 17, 2010, 10:52PM


As marathon runners began their 26-mile tour of Houston on Sunday morning, Richard Hunsucker set out on a quieter trek of his own, east of the city.

A few miles outside Liberty, Hunsucker pulled on a no-frills pair of white Nikes and hoisted a flagpole over his right shoulder. Then he set out on Highway 90 for a 17-mile leg of his 2,650-mile journey.

Hunsucker, a 52-year-old ironworker and retired Marine from Green Bay, Wis., is walking across the southern United States to raise money for disabled veterans. He started in Jacksonville on Veterans Day and expects to finish in San Diego on Memorial Day.

Lunchtime on day 68 found him crossing the Trinity River in Liberty, 849 miles down and 1,801 to go. The bridge rumbled underfoot as traffic hurtled past at 70 mph. Wearing jeans and a red Marine Corps T-shirt over white long underwear, Hunsucker marched at a determined pace along the shoulder. The blue Disabled American Veterans flag whipped in the wind. A trio of motorcyclists waved as they passed.

Hunsucker came late to Vietnam, serving with the Marines from 1974 to 1976 in Okinawa, which had been a key American staging point in the Vietnam War. His older brother served in the war, as did several of his friends. Helping veterans is a cause close to his heart.

The flag draws curiosity and offers of help. Benefactors have given him regular meals and occasional offers of shelter for the night. Above all, they've given donations to his cause, the nonprofit organization Disabled American Veterans. He's gotten $180,000 in pledges so far, he said.

read more here

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6820947.html

Florida DCF, Red Cross help 180 Haiti evacuees arriving at Sanford airport

DCF, Red Cross help 180 Haiti evacuees arriving at Sanford airport

By Susan Jacobson and Anika Myers Palm

Orlando Sentinel

2:55 a.m. EST, January 17, 2010


Dr. Manoucheka Vieux doesn't know if she'll ever see her husband again.

A police inspector in Haiti, he never came home after Tuesday's devastating earthquake, and she hasn't been able to reach him since.

Fearful that disease from decomposing bodies in Haiti would harm their 10-month-old son, Chrys Valin, Vieux, a general practitioner, fled to Central Florida on Saturday with her baby. She was one of 180 people who landed at Orlando Sanford International Airport just after 5 p.m. on a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport airplane.

More than six hours later, Vieux was settling into a room at the Renaissance Orlando Airport Hotel and recounting her ordeal. Her immediate plan was to fly to South Florida today to stay with her sister. Beyond that, "I don't know," an exhausted Vieux said. "I just want to see my baby safe. I'm living with hope to see my husband again."

Vieux and the other passengers received free hotel stays courtesy of the state Department of Children and Families, which also helped them connect with family and friends in the U.S. The American Red Cross was among the other agencies that assisted the evacuees, including a handful of people who left the airplane in wheelchairs.
read more here
180 Haiti evacuees arriving at Sanford airport


also
Exclusive Haiti Earthquake Video
Sunday, January 17, 2010 10:50:29 AM
ORLANDO -- Central Florida got a unique view of the deadly earthquake in Haiti from right in the middle of it all.

News 13’s Christine Webb and the Orlando-based New Missions outreach group were stranded in the country after the quake hit Tuesday.

A New Missions videographer caught the quake as it was happening. The video was taken at the New Missions headquarters in Haiti southeast of Port-au-Prince.

The group, which also included several high school students from The First Academy, evacuated Haiti Friday, and flew into Orlando International Airport just after midnight Saturday. Christine and her fellow mission volunteers said they were grateful to be home.
Exclusive Haiti Earthquake Video

Bigger Army necessary

During all other wars up to the Vietnam War, when the nation's leaders said "go to war" everyone had to do their part. So how is it with two long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there has not been a massive push to at least get more to enlist if they do not want to start the draft again? If they are waiting for a crisis, they missed it a long time ago. These wars are not the wars of the American people when most have not been paying attention to either one. The risks, the issues, the price being paid, have not been personal to any of us as fewer and fewer news reports come out. The burden is not shared by the rest of us and they have to pay the price for what we ask of them.

Bigger Army necessary

Editorial
Posted : Sunday Jan 17, 2010 8:51:00 EST

The Army on three occasions over the past five years has increased active-duty end-strength to meet ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Lesson learned: The Army was too small to simultaneously fight on two fronts. That took an incredible toll on troops and their families, who endured multiple war tours of up to 15 months at a stretch. Others paid for it by being forced to serve on “stop-loss” beyond their terms of obligated service. Meanwhile, getting the Army closer to the right size cost billions and took years.

The addition of a total of 65,000 soldiers resulted in today’s authorized end-strength of 547,400 in uniform. In July, Congress has authorized yet another temporary increase, of 22,000 troops.
read more here
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/01/army_casey_011710w/

Casualties of war and PTSD

UPDATE
The moderator of Spouse Calls left a comment on this post to clear up any misunderstanding. The following comes from an Army Wife named Sheryl.

It is a powerful statement of what we do not think about when we think of how much is asked of the men and women serving especially when we ignore their families. When I read stories like this, I wonder if the marriage could have been saved if the spouse had the understanding as well as support to live with what the war did her marriage. I know how difficult it was for my family to stay together, even though I knew what PTSD was. I cannot imagine what it would have been like if I did not have the tools to help my husband heal, to forgive him because I knew why he did the things he did or how to help myself heal as well.

None of this has to happen but until the DOD understands what PTSD is, what has to be done, educate the families, it will keep happening just as the suicides keep going up. None of this has to happen.

Spouse calls:
Casualties of war and PTSD
By Terri Barnes, Special to Stars and Stripes
Stars and Stripes Scene, Sunday, January 17, 2010
On the Spouse Calls blog:


As I watched the towers fall, I knew our lives would change. My heart ached for the people in the towers and their families, and then I got a cold shiver and knew my life was about to change, too.

That day I knew we were going to war and my husband was going to go … I just didn’t know that it would mean that I would lose my husband and our family, too.

Forward to mid-tour homecoming from Iraq: The man I picked up at the airport was not my husband. After all of those months, he hugged me and patted me on the back. He didn’t embrace our children. His eyes were cold. In fact you, could see right through them and the sparkle that was once there was gone.

Forward to the Iraq homecoming: Again, he got off of the plane. The excitement to see me wasn’t there. He was trying, I know he was, but they left my husband and what he was in Iraq, never to return.

We were the couple that everyone thought would be together forever — never gave it another thought. Now we are separated and going through divorce.
read more here
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=140&article=67291

Stolen Valor, Norfolk VA veteran pleds guilty

Va. veteran guilty of false claims
A veterans group alerted authorities to a Norfolk man's false claims about his military honors.
By Mike Gangloff The Roanoke Times

Correction: An earlier version of this article confused which veterans group tipped federal authorities to Barnhart's claims. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jake Jacobsen credited the Web site www.pownetwork.org with alerting investigators.


Even as he pleaded guilty to inflating his military record, Thomas James Barnhart insisted he'd received a Purple Heart.

"I was given a Purple Heart with no paperwork in Vietnam, so it was as if I had made up the award myself," Barnhart, 58, said Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Roanoke.

Barnhart also improperly sought benefits. In 1991 and 2005, Barnhart told Veterans Affairs interviewers tales of combat missions and a pilot dying in his arms. He said he'd been nominated for the Medal of Honor, the highest award for valor.

But investigation showed only that Barnhart earned a medal for offshore duty during the Vietnam War. There was no record of combat or combat awards.

Barnhart pleaded guilty to violating federal Stolen Valor legislation by falsely claiming to have been awarded medals. He also pleaded guilty to a felony embezzlement charge tied to $13,923 in disability payments for supposed post-traumatic stress disorder.

Doug Sterner, a Vietnam veteran from Colorado who was a leading advocate for the 2005 Stolen Valor legislation, said Barnhart's case shows the need for Congress to push the military to keep better records of medals such as Purple Hearts.

"There are literally tens of thousands of people who were given awards that never made it to paperwork," Sterner said.

read more here

http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/232116

This is a very true problem for a lot of veterans. Paperwork errors have caused awards to end up in someone else's file because of a mistake on a social security number. The reason to save paperwork after discharge escaped many veterans and they simply tossed them out so they wouldn't be reminded. When errors were made, the veteran was left to either have to prove what they were saying was true, showing their own copies of documents, or they ended up with a lax case worker ready to believe anything. In our case, we were not so lucky until the error regarding my husband's award reached the ear of a general.

When we sent his aid the copies of the award along with some other documents we had, the record was corrected, the Bronze Star Award was finally in his file and he received a new award document to hang on the wall. That document is tucked away in a draw because the one with the wrong social security number on it is the one he was given in Vietnam and it is the one that meant the most to my husband. I often wonder what would have happened if my husband had not saved everything he was given. How could he prove what he was saying was true when the other paperwork must have been in someone else's file? How can any veteran prove anything without their own copies? With all he went through trying to have his claim approved, there are many more trying to do the same thing legitimately but we have to read stories like this about frauds trying to get what they didn't earn at the same time veterans are unable to receive what they already paid for in real life. Just doesn't seem fair at all.

Make sure you keep your records because you never know when they might be the only copies there are of what you need to prove yourself yet again.

With humanitarian missions into Haiti, they will carry memories of combat with them

With humanitarian missions into Haiti, they will carry memories of combat with them
by
Chaplain Kathie

The Haitians could have had a better chance of recovering from the earthquake had there been relief ready for them. This was impossible considering how far spread the destruction was. Many of them found themselves being helped by total strangers in their time of need. The aid given offered hope, showed them they matter to someone and they were not alone. For some, they encountered selfish people and they will need more help to recover from this natural disaster because of what people did following it.

Latest Haiti news
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With Katrina, the trauma was compounded by what people did and did not do as they waited for help, for medical care, food, water and shelter. Some had someone there to help them and this offered the restoration of hope, belief that they mattered as the kindness of strangers reached out to them. For other survivors, they had to survive the aftermath compounded by neglect.

When you look at your own life, you will find many times of trouble and grief related to traumatic events. A car accident will leave you more nervous driving as you are not able to trust other drivers. While this may ease in time, there is always that memory in your mind. The next time you see another accident, you remember your own.

Surviving a natural disaster is easier to recover from until the next time a tornado, hurricane, storm or earthquake comes. It is harder to recover from if the help you need is delayed in coming and even harder if the actions of other people further place your life in danger.

With September 11th, that was an event other people did. We all think twice when flying about the other people on the plane. Crimes will end up having us constantly on guard until the sense of security returns again. Fires have us worrying about it happening again as we become obsessive with smoke alarms, fire extinguishers and our own personal safety especially if someone died in the fire we survived.

We are all only human.

Each one of us have experienced different types of trauma. Some of us recovered with the memory of the event sleeping peacefully until the next reminder comes and we have to recover from the trauma all over again. We have a time of "normal" a time of peaceful living and we find ourselves returning to wholeness with memories at rest. For the men and women in the military, their deployments can be filled with traumatic events and complicated by whatever events they faced from previous ones.

Feuds grow over reaching victims in HaitiPORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — A flood of food, water and U.S. troops flowed toward Haiti on Saturday as donors squabbled over how to reach hungry, haggard earthquake survivors still trying to claw others from ruined buildings before the dying became the dead.

The U.S. Southern Command said it now has 24 helicopters flying relief missions — many from warships off the coast — with 4,200 military personnel involved and 6,300 more due by Monday.

Read More

If the previous deployment was filled with traumatic events and the emotional needs were not taken care of, they carry those events into the next deployment so that even if the deployment was less traumatic, they may experience an emotional meltdown over something they would have normally been able to recover from more easily had the other past events not happened. They may have trapped out the memories of the other times but those memories feed the one they hang onto. Until all events are addressed, they pay the price with the next one and the next one cutting them deeper.

With humanitarian missions into Haiti, they will carry memories of combat with them as they try to aid the Haitians. We will assume they will have no problem recovering from what they will see because we want to avoid the history of what these men and women have already gone through. If they saw the bodies of children in Iraq or Afghanistan and did not recover from that, see more in Haiti, then even if they know the cause of death was by earthquake, the deaths they saw during combat will be resurrected.

There is an assumption humanitarian mission are healing for all but they are only healing depending on what they have taken with them and what they encounter while doing the aid work. If they are handing out food, water, evacuating the wounded or building shelters, then it can be very healing for them, but if they are filling mass graves, pulling bodies out of the rubble or picking them up off the streets, all of this can feed the pain they are already carrying. This can be the turning point for the better for some but we have to be aware it can also be the turning point for the worst.

Military leaders and Chaplains along with mental health professionals need to be aware of this so they can address it all properly instead of just passing it of and knowing that while these current traumatic events are in their life right now, it is what they have not addressed in their past that will do the most damage. It's called a secondary stressor. It is the event that hit them the hardest because they were already wounded by the other events they tried to put away and get over. If they only address the current event and not the real pain behind it, then it will do no good at all leaving the root of the pain still in place to claim more of their soul and mind.

Suffering goes on and claims of learning fall flat

As hard as it is to get these men and women into treatment in the first place, what they get when they do seek it provides one more road block to healing for them. This is not the first time they have talked about the fact that when they finally go for help to heal from PTSD, they are provided with medications usually first and very little therapy if they receive any therapy at all.

One-third of veterans diagnosed with PTSD receive minimally adequate services
07 January, 2010 10:29:00 Kathlyn Stone

About 33 percent of U.S. military veterans diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) receive minimally adequate treatment, according to a study published in the January issue of Psychiatric Services.

Investigators at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Minneapolis, Minn., and the University of Minnesota analyzed records of 20,284 U.S. military veterans who had received a diagnosis of PTSD at Veterans Affairs facilities.

Approximately two-thirds of those diagnosed with PTSD, all of whom were out-patients, initiated treatment within the first six months after diagnosis. Fifty percent received a psychotropic medication, 39 percent received some counseling, and 64 percent received either medication or counseling.
read more here
http://www.fleshandstone.net/healthandsciencenews/1733.html

Admiral Mike Mullen wants to do a better job but even he admits they have no idea exactly how many men and women have committed suicide. They are doing a better job trying to find out but they are far from achieving full accountability. The truth is, it is not just a matter of the suspected suicides not being proven, or the fact that each branch of the military will do their own reporting, or the fact you have the additional National Guards and Reservists in the mix, or even the fact the VA does not account fully for all in the VA system, the truth is there is a dark hole they drop into between the military and the VA systems have the ability to track them at all.

And I don’t know how else to get at this except leadership – and figure out who’s at risk, understand it, train to it. Back to this study, I was also struck – and these were five of the leading individuals in our country on suicide from East Coast to West Coast who were leading this. And I was also struck at how from their perspective, how little national attention is paid to this issue and the tens of thousands of suicides every year; it doesn’t generate the kind of interest and effort to get at the causes across the board in America. And so this study is really part of what I would call really a landmark study upon which we are greatly dependent.

And these experts explained that they really hadn’t been able to do anything like this in the past. So I am encouraged by that as well. Like so many things, we’re trying to solve these very difficult problems while we’re in two conflicts. We’re trying to release the pressure, build resilience, understand how we identify at-risk people and then extend the web. Deb will comment here very shortly: We also find it extending into families and into children.

So how do you extend the web? How do we know as an institution? We don’t track suicides longer than 120 days after somebody is ETS. So how do we really know what’s happened to those who have served so well, who aren’t necessarily connected to the VA?
DoD/VA Suicide Prevention Conference

http://www.jcs.mil/speech.aspx?id=1314
As Delivered by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Mrs. Deborah Mullen , Hyatt Regency, Washington, D.C. Wednesday, January 13, 2010

What did they learn from other years if the numbers kept going up?

Veteran Suicides: How We Got The Numbers - CBS News
Nov 13, 2007 ... How The CBS News Investigative Unit Got The Statistics

Press Releases/Advisories - 2008 DoD Suicide Prevention ...
The 2008 Department of Defense Suicide Prevention Conference concluded April 24, 2008

DOD suicide prevention conference under way
Jan 13, 2009 ... DOD suicide prevention conference under way. More than 750 gather for the 2009 Department of Defense/Veterans Affairs

This is the part that should have all of us really concerned. Numbers rising with nothing being done to address it would make sense but the number still going up after so many attempts have been made to address suicides should have all of us demanding answers.

They didn't have the suicide prevention line but the numbers were lower.

Dr. Jan Kemp* , VA's National Suicide Prevention Coordinator, has been presented with the 2009 Federal Employee of the Year Award on September 23rd at the prestigious Service to America Medals annual gala at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C. Dr. Kemp is being recognized for her role in the development of the Suicide Prevention Hotline in July of 2007.

Since its inception, the Suicide Prevention Lifeline has directly saved more than 5,000 lives from suicide and provided counseling for more than 185,000 Veterans and their loved ones at home and overseas.
http://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/suicide_prevention/

Many groups started their own suicide prevention efforts but the numbers went up anyway. So what's going on? While there are more veterans now than there were a couple of years ago as they tried to address this, there are also supposed to be more people working on this than ever before.

The DOD came out with programs to train the brains of the servicemen and women so they would not become wounded by PTSD and then they said the reason for the suicides was because of other problems before they had to admit it went far beyond a broken relationship. As bad as it is the numbers have gone up, what should give all of us a clue they don't know what to do is the number of graves filled and nearly filled because they still don't understand what works and what has been proven to have been failures.

Looking at history of warfare we had suicides of Vietnam veterans rise as well as the stunning figures coming out from Australia looking at the suicide rate of children of Vietnam veterans.

Massive Suicide Rate for Vietnam Veterans’ Children
Media Release - 7 August 2000
Today, the Minister of Veterans Affairs, the Hon Bruce Scott released the long-awaited report into the incidence of suicide in children of Vietnam Veterans. The report confirms that children of Vietnam veterans have three times the suicide rate of the general community.

The government responded in the May 2000 Budget after it was established in an earlier report released in December 1999 that rates of death by accident and suicide in children of Vietnam veterans were significantly elevated when compared with other Australians. The response included a 32.3 million dollar package over four years to expand existing programs and to provide additional support services mainly through the Vietnam Veterans Counselling Service.

http://www.vvaa.org.au/media12.htm

Over the years we've learned a lot when it comes to this and we knew there were more casualties after war than during it, but we have yet to find the key to stopping this from happening. If the DOD and the VA keep making the same mistakes they've been making since Vietnam, then there isn't much hope of the numbers going down. We've seen the reports as they claim they have learned from mistakes of the past but there is very little evidence they have learned the right lessons.

After Vietnam we knew that it would take the entire family being involved in the healing of not just the veteran but the family as a whole. Support groups and veterans centers opened their doors across the nation. Almost every VA hospital had support groups for the veterans and then even more for the spouses. They knew the families had to be included in on therapy because most of these men and women were reluctant to open up about what was really going on within their relationships. The spouse usually had to set the record straight that the veteran was still having nightmares and flashbacks, that they didn't talk, laugh or even come close to the way they were before. This we knew worked best along with the fact the spouse received some support to cope with the changes as well as help them to understand these changes and responses had nothing to do with them and the few responses that were in direct response to their own actions, well, they learned how to change the way they acted as well. Everyone was learning and working together to heal, now there are more and more sites online showing up trying to make a difference however, as we see the numbers keep going up on suicides and attempted suicides, drunk driving and drug related criminal issues so much so there has to be veterans courts established, divorces going up just as claims are rising, there should be a clear alarm bell sounding across the nation that while it all could be worse without these groups stepping up, it should be a lot lower if they were all working properly.

There is hope because they are trying but if they keep trying the same things that have been proven to not have worked, things that could work will never be tried. Time to step out of the box and instead of trying to make the brains of our troops change, it's time to change the approach they take when the evidence shows it does more harm than good.

US vets return to see grim legacy of Vietnam War

US vets return to see grim legacy of Vietnam War

By BEN STOCKING
The Associated Press
Saturday, January 16, 2010; 1:08 PM

DONG HA, Vietnam -- A piece of shrapnel sliced Jerry Maroney's right leg. A bullet pierced Peter Holt's neck. Les Newell took a shot in the rump.

These old American soldiers recovered from the physical scars of combat long ago. But last week, they visited a place where people still have fresh wounds from the Vietnam War, which ended nearly 35 years ago.

They came to Quang Tri Province, which is still littered with landmines and unexploded ordinance that routinely kill and maim people trying to scratch out a living in the rice fields. Their visit was organized by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, which built the Washington, D.C., monument that commemorates the lives of the 58,000 Americans who died in Vietnam.

VVMF sponsors Project RENEW, a non-profit organization that helps Quang Tri residents like Pham Quy Tuan, 41, whose left hand and right arm were blown off by a leftover American projectile he found in a rice paddy four months ago.

"When I realized I'd lost my hands, all I could think about was how much I love my wife and kids, and how I would become a big burden to them," said Tuan, who also suffered severe burns and remains in chronic pain.

The VVMF delegation was led by Barry R. McCaffrey, a retired four-star general who served as President Clinton's drug czar and now appears as a military analyst on NBC news. Also participating were family members of fallen soldiers and Vietnam veterans making their first trip back to Vietnam, several of whom had personal missions.
read more here
US vets return to see grim legacy of Vietnam War

VA Claims:Prove it or suffer on your own

Reading something like this is infuriating but even more so when you think about the number of times we've read about phony heroes managing to get claims approved even though they have never been in the combat they claimed to have been in, or the other fakers never in the military at all. Yet when you have a veteran of so many combat missions and wars, what is happening to him is so beyond wrong, there are no words.

How many years does it take to serve before whatever health issues they have are considered to have occurred during service at least even if not caused by it? We assume if they become ill while serving, their medical needs would be tended to even if not caused by a combat wound. We assume wrongly. There are thousands of veterans suffering from Agent Orange, Gulf War Syndrome, toxic exposures in Iraq and Afghanistan as the list grows longer and longer. The fact is, if these men and women did not deploy, did not enter into these combat situations, they would not have been exposed to that which may in fact kill them as sure as the enemy tried to.

This is wrong but this is not unusual. The question is, if you worked for a company as a civilian and later found out they jeopardized your health by what they did, you would sue to make sure your needs were taken care of and your family provided for because you could no longer do it for them. You would sue to make sure it did not happen to someone else. In the case when your employer happens to be the military, you can't sue and you must through yourself at the mercy of the people reviewing your case while they have a set of rules they have to go by. Don't we owe them at least what is equal to workman's comp?

The order of the ill: What doesn't kill you
Government waits for proof - sometimes for decades - before caring for sick veterans
Health care » The VA requires former service members to prove an illness was caused by military service.
By Matthew D. LaPlante

The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated: 01/15/2010 02:32:05 PM MST

Editor's note: First in a three-part series.



In Vietnam, Jim Ogden flew through clouds of Agent Orange. In Desert Storm, he hovered past burning oil fields. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, he worked near a thick black plume of burning plastic, metals, chemicals and medical waste.

Along the way he took injection after injection and swallowed pill after pill. He breathed in herbicides and pesticides. And he never questioned whether all of those drugs, toxins and poisons might someday do him harm.

Not until he lost his eyesight.

Now the former Marine and master helicopter mechanic can't help but wonder what, if anything, was to blame.

The diagnoses were terrifyingly specific; the causes were maddeningly unclear. No one could tell Ogden what had gone wrong. But in between medical appointments, unable to do many of the activities he had planned for his retirement, the 67-year-old man had a lot of time for speculation.

Perhaps it was the Agent Orange, a toxic defoliant used by the U.S. military to destroy enemy jungle hideaways in Vietnam, linked to more than a dozen diseases and suspected of contributing to dozens more. Or maybe it was the bromide pills he took during his first trip to Kuwait in the early 1990s. The tablets were supposed to help increase survival during a chemical weapons attack, but are suspected of contributing to a slew of conditions known as Gulf War Illness.

Or possibly it was the putrid fumes and thick black smoke that wafted over the largest U.S. military base in Iraq from a 10-acre trash heap that was set ablaze in 2003 and, in subsequent years, burned all manner of toxic garbage. Some veterans and their families believe the Balad Air Base burn pit -- and similar operations scattered throughout Iraq and Afghanistan -- are to blame for numerous respiratory, neurological and cancerous conditions.

"It could be any of that or it could be nothing at all," Ogden conceded. "I don't think there is anyone out there who has the answers."

Because he can't prove that his illness is connected to his service, Ogden doesn't qualify for VA care. "We're fortunate that we have other means," said his wife, Kathy. "But we've tried to find someone from the VA who might be interested in looking at him, just to see if there's anything they can learn about him that could help other people. No one is interested."

read more here

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_14182249

Humanitarian mission to Haiti can be healing for battle scared

What we have been witnessing reported coming out of Haiti has been horrifying at times when you see people desperate for food and water as well as medical attention, taking to the streets with machetes. As bad as those images are, the people are also showing great compassion for others even with their own pain to carry.

We've seen this when they lost members of their own families but still manage to climb onto the rubble piles using their bare hands to save someone else. They carry the bodies of strangers to the streets and cover them out of respect. Hundreds of thousands of people lost everything but retained their compassion.

Strangers from other nations rush in supplies, search and rescue teams, hanging onto hope they will reach yet one more in time to save their lives. People donated from around the world simply because they felt compassion.

And then we have the military, returned from combat, now deploying on humanitarian missions.

82nd Airborne troops headed to Haiti for quake aid
Thu Jan 14, 8:55 am ET
WASHINGTON – More U.S. forces are getting under way as the military ramps up its mission to help earthquake victims in Haiti.

An advance group of a little over 100 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division will leave Fort Bragg in North Carolina Thursday. The Army says the group will find locations to set up tents and other essentials in preparation for the arrival of another several hundred from the division on Friday.

The soldiers come on top of some 2,200 Marines also on their way as the military prepares to help with security, search and rescue and the delivery of humanitarian supplies.

More than a half dozen U.S. military ships also are expected to help, with the largest, the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, also arriving Thursday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100114/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_us_haiti_troops

22nd MEU Marines Depart Camp Lejeune for Haiti Relief Operations
22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit Public Affairs
Story by Master Sgt. Keith Milks
Date: 01.15.2010
Posted: 01.15.2010 10:31

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. -- Less than six weeks after returning home from a seven month deployment to the European and Central Command areas of operation, the Marines and sailors of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit found themselves once again bidding farewell to family and friends.

On Jan. 13, less than a day after a devestating earthquake ravaged the Caribbean island nation of Haiti, the 22nd MEU was ordered to prepare for deployment to head to Haiti to support President Barack Obama's pledge of assisting the Haitian people. By the 15th, the embarkation of personnel, vehicles and equipment was in full swing.

According to Capt. Clark Carpenter, spokesman for the 22nd MEU, the Marines expect the deployment to last at least 30 days, but emphasized that the Marines will remain in Haiti until such time as their service is no longer needed.
read more here
http://www.dvidshub.net/?script=news/news_show.php&id=43928

There are others deploying as well after having been involved with some of the worst conditions man can inflict on man, they are deploying with their hearts filled and heavy.

When you talk to any serviceman or woman trying to heal after combat, they will say how healing it was to try and help someone else. Their level of compassion so great, that even with their own pain they find healing by doing something for someone else.

The suffering in Haiti will grieve their hearts and trouble their minds but after they will know they made a difference in the lives of Haitians, other humans in need of help.

When you consider the motivating factor they have to serve this country, that sense of defending and helping will be fed as they work to restore services necessary for survival and in turn, feed that within them necessary to restore the inner peace of doing for someone else. As they help strangers, they will be helping themselves to heal.

Ancient Greek Tales of War Evoke Modern Catharses

Ancient Greek Tales of War Evoke Modern Catharses
By John J. Kruzel
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Jan. 15, 2010 – After 2,500 years of retirement, a former general has been hired as a military consultant to help troops cope with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Sophocles, an ancient Greek general and 5th century B.C. dramatist who penned tales of war and the lives of those affected by it, now speaks from the grave, as a modern interpretation of his works is read at military facilities and hospitals before audiences with ties to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Theater of War,” a brainchild of director Bryan Doerries that intends to bridge the past and present, represents what military officials describe as one of the more innovative public health efforts to amplify the dialogue about a psychological injury borne by an estimated 20 percent of troops returning from combat.

“I think the military naturally distrust film quite a bit, but I think theater is pure,” Doerries, the son of two psychologist parents, said this week in an interview at Walter Reed Army Medical Center here during a performance’s intermission. “I think there’s something about the felt emotion in the presence of others that changes your relationship to material like this, so that all of a sudden you’re not coming at it from your head. You’re coming at it from your heart.”

The two-part performance staged within an auditorium on the hospital grounds was minimalist fare: it featured only a long table with four microphones and chairs for the performers. Enter stage right, three graduates of the venerable Julliard School, and prominent actor Isiah Whitlock Jr., who is best known for his performance as Sen. Clay Davis on HBO’s gritty urban drama “The Wire.”

read more here

Ancient Greek Tales of War Evoke Modern Catharses

Blind side of the military

Blind side of the military
by
Chaplain Kathie

(Sandra Bullock) Leigh Anne Tuohy saw a huge teenager walking down the street, alone, cold, clearly heading nowhere. (Quinton Aaron) Michael Oher was a giant. Leigh Anne managed to see that he was also gentle and in need of some TLC. She saw past his size and saw him with her heart. The family took him into their home and he became a part of the family.

Oher was strong and showed great courage in this true story of a real life. He could have taken out anyone on the football field with ease but it took Leigh Anne to get him to see past the fact he was not trying to hurt anyone as much as he was trying to defend his new family of football players just as he wanted to take care of his new real family in the Tuohy house. Then he shined.

Oher's life had been hard with a life in poverty, surrounded by drugs and violence, yet Oher maintained his compassion no matter what came into his life. This is a movie leaders in the military should see so that maybe once and for all, they would understand the men and women they command.

Synopsis
Taken in by a well-to-do family and offered a second chance at life, a homeless teen grows to become the star athlete projected to be the first pick at the NFL draft in this sports-themed comedy drama inspired by author Michael Lewis' best-seller The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game. Michael Oher was living on the streets when he was welcomed into the home of a conservative suburban family, but over time he matured into a talented athlete. As the NFL draft approaches, fans and sports radio personalities alike speculate that Oher will be the hottest pick of the year. Sandra Bullock stars in a film written and directed by John Lee Hancock (The Rookie, The Alamo). - Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
http://www.moviefone.com/movie/the-blind-side/37685/synopsis

Bravery and courageous acts are not defused by compassion. They are fed by it. Tuohy had to point out to Oher that his team was his family and he had to watch their backs the same way he watched their backs. He didn't want to harm but he strongly wanted to defend. This is what the men and women in the military have within them. They have a strong desire to defend their country and their buddies in battle and beyond.

The enemy our troops face, much like during the Vietnam war, have shown very little compassion for their own people. Their lust for blood and revenge has placed their own innocent countrymen, women and children into insignificant collateral damage categories. Blowing up as many as possible no matter who is paying the price, is not what noble people do no matter how much they want to justify doing it. Compassion allows are troops to hold back on what revenge would have them do. With the numbers of troops in and out of Iraq as well as Afghanistan, very few instances have been reported of them snapping or going on a shooting rampage. Why? Is it just the rules of engagement preventing them from turning into machines?

In those moments when they have to decide to allow rage to control them or their humanity, most rely on their humanity. Does this stop them from being courageous? No because it takes a lot more courage to stop shooting than to run out of bullets hitting every human in the area.

Does the military understand what PTSD is or why it strikes some instead of others? No and it looks as if they are no closer to understanding this. They train men to kill and they train women to use the same weapons just in case they are faced with an enemy attack but they are not trained to fully engage the enemy as the men are. This is a huge problem with urban warfare unfolding in the streets of Iraq as well as the villages of Afghanistan. There are no safe jobs to have, no safe zones out of harms way and no one to really put trust in among the locals. In the process of training them to kill, they fail to notice they are not able to train them to stop being human or to stop being the person they were since birth.

Qualities we want most in people in civilian life is within them, naturally at different levels just as each one of a group will have different levels of compassion, mercy, love and patience, they come into the military with their own levels of each. This level and the experiences they encounter predict who will be wounded and who will walk away with limited "cuts" to their soul. This is also predicted by the number of times the events strike them. It is why the Army had issued a warning years ago stating clearly the re-deployments increase the risk of PTSD, much like the last straw broke the camels back, it is a matter of one too many times piled on many other times. Sooner or later the cuts on top of cuts penetrate too deeply.

In a perfect world, they would all be able to talk to someone after a firefight or after a bomb blew up, just as civilians have the ability to talk to someone after traumatic events shattering their peaceful life. This is not a perfect world and few people are available to deployed forces. As it is, there are Chaplains untrained to address PTSD, crisis management or intervention, with even fewer trauma trained mental health professionals deployed to respond. The responders that are trained are vital to heading off more damage.

When a soldier or Marine is severely, physically wounded, the mental wound is assumed and they receive help by doctors and nurses right away. They receive it from other patients. They receive it from their families. It is assumed they will need help to "get over it" and deal with the wound they will carry for the rest of their lives, but when the body is whole there is the assumption of wholeness of the person because no one wants to see with their hearts as easily as they see with their eyes.

For some people this wound is as obvious as any flesh wound. There are clear signs of it in their actions, facial movements, eye movements and reactions. Some will develop twitches. Some become hostile when they had shown no signs of hostility within them before. Some will stop acting as if they care about anyone including themselves. The list of the aftermath of trauma grows as it is allowed to fester infecting more and more of the person they always used to be. The sooner they receive intervention, the lesser the damage PTSD can do to them and the people in their lives.

Oher had someone to care about him, see past the obvious, intervene in his life changing the path he was on and then changing the way he thought about things. He was a person of strength and compassion with courage to do what was necessary to defend. We have this in the men and women serving in the military but they have been on the commanders blind side for far too long. Instead of feeding the compassion and courage that caused them to enter into the military in the first place, they have been trying to beat it out of them acting as if compassion has no place in combat. To the contrary it has every reason to be in combat or there would be no rules of engagement at all.

The compassion has to be placed as an emotion of honor and then the military can use it just as Tuohy used it to get Oher to defend his family in a football game. Feeding the notion of being killing machines does no good when innocents are killed or when a friend dies in front of their eyes. Using the compassion to defend their friends and their country as well as the people they were sent to fight for, will honor that and them. Understanding that will also end the stigma of being wounded by what they were willing to do.

Malabar woman begs for return of jewelry holding husband's ashes

Malabar woman begs for return of jewelry holding husband's ashes
BY SARA CAMODECA • FLORIDA TODAY • January 14, 2010
MALABAR — Lynda Burton doesn't care about getting back the flat-screen TV, PlayStation, laptop or other things thieves helped themselves to last week.

It's the two necklace charms containing the ashes of her late husband that she really wants.

"It's just the idea that some creep has this and doesn't know what they have," Burton said. "The whole thing is, I want those charms back."

Agent Randy Holliday of the Brevard County Sheriff's Office described the South Brevard break-in as a crime of opportunity.

"Once every two to three weeks, we get a random burglary in that area," he said.

Burton is hoping that her plea -- and the description of her beloved charms, which each housed a tiny screw at the bottom -- might be enough to tip someone off. Ted Burton was a disabled Vietnam veteran who died suddenly in December 2006 at age 59.

read more here

Woman begs for return of jewelry holding husbands ashes

Decades later, war's aftermath still is deadly

Decades later, war's aftermath still is deadly

By John MacCormack - Express-News HUE, Vietnam – During the Vietnam War, American bombers dropped millions of tons of ordnance on the country, exceeding the Allied bombardment during World War II.

Artillery units from both sides fired countless rounds of heavy munitions. Massive amounts of other explosives, from land mines to mortar rounds, also were expended in the conflict.

The munitions still haunt Vietnam. Since fighting stopped more than 30 years ago, more than 100,000 Vietnamese have been killed or injured by unexploded ordnance.

“The war has never ended for them. I had no idea of the incredible amount of unexploded ordnance. It was a real eye-opener,” Army veteran George Whitehouse said.

Whitehouse and a group of Americans are on a weeklong tour of Vietnam sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.

On Thursday, they toured Quang Tri Province, which has one of the highest concentrations of unexploded ordnance in the country, with an estimated 80 percent of the land affected.

The delegation, including Spurs chairman Peter Holt and retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, saw firsthand the horrific after-affects of a bloody conflict that for United States combat forces ended in 1973.
read more here
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/81634087.html

Veteran's widow battles killer parasite from Vietnam

Veteran's widow battles killer parasite from Vietnam
Horseheads woman raises alert about cancer-causing disease
January 14, 2010, 5:45 pm
In the cruel way that war sometimes works, Vietnam killed Pete Harrison nearly 36 years after he came home.

Elusive as they were, Pete thought he knew his enemies over there. The Viet Cong. The North Vietnamese. Their sympathizers.

Nobody ever warned him about parasites in the water he drank, but they were there. Nobody ever mentioned the parasites could cause cancer, but they could. Nobody ever told him that cholangiocarcinoma might kill him some day, but it did.

Now his widow, Sheila Harrison of Horseheads, is fighting her own war -- against the disease that took her husband's life.

She does it by alerting other Vietnam veterans, and the health care workers who treat them, to check for this deadly disease. Early and often.

Cholangiocarcinoma is a rare cancer of the bile ducts, which drain bile from the liver to the gallbladder and into the small intestine.

Symptoms don't usually develop in the early stages, so the cancer often is well advanced by the time it's discovered.

"It's a miserable, miserable disease," Sheila said.
read more here
http://www.stargazette.com/article/20100114/NEWS01/1140338

Returning to Vietnam battleground tourism,

Can a thing like this heal a Vietnam veteran heal? Find peace? Release the demons within him? Could it do more harm than good? Yes, it can in some just as traveling to the Vietnam Memorial Wall can resurrect ghost of lost friends for those unprepared for the power it holds, still the Wall has managed to heal more than harm. Traveling back to Vietnam can do harm to some as well, but for many more, it can bring healing.

Putting this on a more common, personal level, there are people who will never go to a wake, funeral, never visit a grave, because they are not able to instead of being unwilling to. We all know people like that. They stop conversations when the memory of someone is brought up because they never found a way to face the pain they have over the loss. Avoiding it keeps them frozen so that more pain over the loss cannot touch them.

Pictures are taken down so they have no reminder. Personal items are sold or donated so there is no trace of the person to face. Others cherish these reminders. Others go to the cemetery. To each one, their own road is taken in order to cope, to grieve, to heal.

Veterans are no different than other humans. For some, making sure all items linked to their service are locked away, hidden from their eyes. They want no mention of their service made, no reference made to Vietnam, just as they avoid veterans service organizations and events. For others, sharing time with someone like them is vital to their survival. Some find comfort in groups while others unable to move on find denial and avoidance as a life skill. As with anything else, they need to be ready to do this, supported by someone close to them to do it and listened to after they do it. It does not matter how long they were there, it just matters they were there and never returned as the citizen they used to be. War changes everyone. Peace comes to some after depending on what they faced when they were supposed to be returned to "normal" life as a veteran.

These trips have helped many because they were ready for it just as the Wall helped heal some because they were ready for it. Do not force your veteran to try this. They will know when they are able to do it and you'll know when they are willing.

Returning to Vietnam
Battleground tourism, especially to ’Nam, has become a vibrant business. Vets find the experience powerful and, sometimes, healing. CBS’ Peter Greenberg reports for Newsmax magazine.

Peter Greenberg, CBS News’ travel editor, is the author of numerous books under the “Travel Detective” banner. The most recent is Tough Times, Great Travels. He also hosts a weekly syndicated radio program heard on many stations around the country.

Jim doyle was just six months out of high school in Fresno, Calif., when he was drafted in 1968. By January 1969 he was in Vietnam, fighting with the 1st Infantry Division northwest of Saigon.

“I had never been out of the United States,” he recalls. Within days, he became familiar with terms such as trapezoid, iron triangle, and fishhook — all military IDs for hot-fire zones, or no-man’s corridors between the Cambodian border and Vietnam.

A year later, he was shipped back out. “I left with mixed emotions,” Doyle says, adding, “I was leaving all my friends behind. But I swore one day I would come back.”

When he did go back, as part of a 16-day trip in 1995, he was overcome with emotions, including shame and relief.

“We spent so much blood, energy, and treasure trying to blow this place up, and I didn’t know any better,” he says. As his plane was flying in, “I had this yin and yang of thrill and terror at the same time. But as soon as we landed in Hanoi, as soon as my foot hit the pavement, I felt this enormous weight come off my shoulders.” He’s been back 18 times since.
read more here
Battleground tourism,

Veteran shot by police highlights PTSD problem

Vet's death highlights PTSD problem
Updated: Thursday, 14 Jan 2010, 5:58 PM MST
Published : Thursday, 14 Jan 2010, 5:43 PM MST

Reporter: Kim Vallez
Web Producer: Devon Armijo
ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - As police investigate the officer involved shooting of an Iraq War veteran, the Veterans Affairs hospital is looking into what if anything it should have done differently to help the man.

Kenneth Ellis III, 24, was shot to death Wednesday near the 7-Eleven on Eubank and Constitution.

Albuquerque police said Ellis was waving a gun. When he refused to put it down, an officer shot and killed him.

Ellis' mother Annelle Wharton said her son suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, resulting from a tour of duty in Iraq where he witnessed the death of his best friend.
read more here
http://www.krqe.com/dpp/military/vet's-death-highlights-ptsd-problem

The news about suicides in the U.S. military just gets bleaker

Being willing to die should never end up being "wanting to die", but for too many, that is where they end up. There is a noble reason most enter into the military. Having the compassion to care and the courage to act are vital pushes to enlist. They know when they do, they could very well die doing it, but they are willing to lay down their lives for the sake of the country, doing what is asked of them, pushing themselves physically and mentally for however long they are needed to do it. They don't pick which enemy to fight, which mission to go on, anymore than they pick the day they will be wounded or a knock on the door will inform their families their soldier is not going to walk thru the door ever again.

When the wound is deep within them, there was a time when no one was talking about any of it. It was a sign of being "defective" in someway. Less courageous when PTSD wounded were shot for being cowards. Less than all the others in their own minds, they tried to hide the pain allowing only anger to surface so everyone would think they were tough, above feeling, above grieving.

Those days ended a long time ago and now the only people left to feel any shame are those who stood in the way of these men and women from getting help to heal. What motivates anyone to remain so uneducated they will not understand especially when Generals have come out publicly and proudly admitting they sought help to heal? There is no shame in being human when it is their humanity that prevents the slaughter of innocents on a massive scale as was done in the ancient world.

Read about reports of warfare from the Bible and see that it was not just the enemy being killed but entire communities being slaughtered. In our own history we have Native American tribes being killed off including women and children just as they killed settlers meaning them no harm.

In recent history we have Vietnam and Mai Lai showing both sides of what humans are capable of.

Mai Lai Massacre
Like a lot of the American forces in Vietnam in 1968, Charlie Company was in a demoralized state. It had suffered casualties by sniper fire, machine-gun fire, mines and other forms of attack. Earlier that year the “Tet Offensive” had shown just how tenuous the whole concept of the war had become.

When Charlie Company entered Mai Lai they encountered no resistance from Viet Cong Soldiers, yet three hours later there were over 500 civilian Vietnamese, men, women and children, dead. Lieutenant William Calley, for whatever reason, ordered his men to kill, burn and destroy everything in the village. By late evening the American Army Headquarters was claiming a victory, with 128 Viet Cong and some civilians killed. It was to take over a year and numerous investigations before the full horror of Mai Lai was to emerge into the public domain.

Mai Lai Heroes
Later of course the American public and the world was to learn that just as the villains of Mai Lai were American soldiers, so too the heroes of Mai Lai were also American Soldiers. Hugh Thompson, Army helicopter pilot, with his door-gunner Lawrence Colburn and crew chief Glenn Andreotta came upon U.S. ground troops killing Vietnamese civilians in and around the village of My Lai. According to Chief My Lai prosecutor William Eckhardt, “When Thompson realized what was happening he put his helicopter down, put his guns on Americans, and said he would shoot them if they shot another Vietnamese.”. Both the American public and Vietnam veterans owe a debt of gratitude to these heroes of Mai Lai.

Mai Lai and its Legacy

One group, pushed by the fact there were no assured "friendly" villagers anywhere and at any moment a woman or child could turn against them, pushed them to do what normally they would never think of doing. Another group, maintaining a sense of right and wrong, stopped the slaughter. They were able to maintain their compassion as humans instead of warriors.

We see this played out over and over again in Iraq and Vietnam. The majority of the servicemen and women maintain compassion while on mission even though they are aware the people they think they can trust can turn against them. This happens with some of the people the troops tried to train as policemen in Iraq and they ended up killing the trainers. This happened in Afghanistan when people they thought they could trust ended up wanting to get close enough to kill as many as possible. What stops all of them from wanting to just obliterate everyone there? Training? Hardly. How can you train to be betrayed? It is the sense of right and wrong, the ability to feel compassion stopping them from turning into animals.

Compassion is pretty worthless without action. Being able to act out of compassion requires courage. Without it, a man will stand watching a fire destroy a home as children scream instead of being willing to rush into the home and save them. Compassion requires courage to stop someone from killing more people as a police officer with a gun facing off a criminal with a gun. If they did not care, they would not be doing what they do and the same holds true for the military and National Guards. Without compassion they wouldn't want to give up so much and without courage, all the training possible would do no good. Smart people realize this, understand this and appreciate the fact the PTSD wounded are wounded because they cared enough to feel in the first place. The deeper they are able to care means the deeper they are able to feel and as a result, the deeper they are wounded by all they have to endure.

Every family speaks of how the veteran changed into a stranger was always caring, the first person to offer help, loving, compassionate and understanding as well as being forgiving. They are also the last person to forgive themselves.

There is no shame in being wounded any more than there is shame in having a bullet or a bomb wound them. Carrying this wound is a sign that they have the courage to act on the compassion that drives them and there is nothing shameful about this at all.

Military suicide response hinges on erasing stigma against seeking help
By Bruce Alpert, Times-Picayune
January 15, 2010, 6:00AM
The news about suicides in the U.S. military just gets bleaker.

The Defense Department is expected to report today that the Army last year recorded a record number of suicides by active-duty troops. At the end of November, the number stood at 147.


'Who’s vulnerable? Everyone,' Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki said.

Earlier in the week, the Veterans Affairs Department reported that the suicide rate among 17- to 29-year-old male veterans jumped 26 percent from 2005 to 2007.

'Hiding his feelings'

Families of several Louisiana soldiers agree with research that military training that emphasizes toughness and coolness under fire fosters a mentality that soldiers shouldn’t be seeking help for “personal problems,” even when they are back home after their assignments in Afghanistan and Iraq are done.

“He definitely was very good about hiding his feelings,” Kristen Fabacher said of her husband, Luke, 35, an Army sergeant from Lafayette who took his life in 2008 after an Iraqi deployment. “The military trains them well to kind of get hold of their emotions during war, and sometimes that holds over when they return.”

Fabacher “loved the military,” his wife said, and would have signed up for another tour in Iraq or Afghanistan “if he didn’t have a wife and young child at home.” She said that when her husband did open up, he expressed guilt about the “eight friends of his that were killed in Iraq.”

“He said the loss was overwhelming. He felt guilty about it,” she said. “I knew he was depressed and I tried to nudge him to seek help, and we did go to counseling, though he really wouldn’t open up about his feelings.”

Lisa Anthony, the stepmother of Justin Treadway, 28, of Independence, who took his life in 2008 after serving with the Army in Afghanistan, said her stepson faced painful flashbacks of military battles.

“He was gong to the VA Hospital in New Orleans for treatment, but he never wanted to talk about what was troubling him,” Anthony said. “There was no doubt he was depressed.”

Vandra Jervis Brescher, whose son, Army Sgt. Keith Aaron Brescher, 28, took his own life in 2008, said he came back from his third deployment to Iraq depressed and suffering from flashbacks. Sometimes, she said, he would go through the motions of cocking his gun, as if he were still on the battlefield, instead of his home in Hammond.

read more here

Military suicide response hinges on erasing stigma

3 amphibs to leave Virginia today for Haiti

3 amphibs to leave Virginia today for Haiti

By Lance M. Bacon - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jan 14, 2010 13:50:03 EST

The amphibious assault ship Bataan and dock landing ships Fort McHenry and Carter Hall will get underway this afternoon from Hampton Roads to conduct humanitarian relief exercises in preparation for Haiti relief efforts, Navy officials said.

Together with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, the force will total more than 3,600 sailors and Marines.

Bataan is homeported at Naval Station Norfolk. Fort McHenry and Carter Hall are homeported at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story, Va.
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3 amphibs to leave Virginia today for Haiti

18,000 pay statements sent to wrong addresses

18,000 pay statements sent to wrong addresses

By William H. McMichael - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jan 14, 2010 13:39:57 EST

Pay statements containing names and sensitive information about the finances of about 18,000 recipients of a special pay for disabled retirees were sent to wrong addressees last week, the Defense Finance and Accounting Service said Jan. 14.

The statements, a page of which contained information about annual increases in Concurrent Retirement and Disability Pay, mistakenly listed data including at least a portion of another recipient’s name, their bank or insurance company name, the amount of their allotment and the allotment type, DFAS spokesman Steve Burghardt said.

DFAS said there is “no indication” that any Social Security numbers, bank account numbers or phone numbers were listed on the erroneously mailed pages, which resulted from a production malfunction at the Defense Department’s Document Automation and Production Service, which printed the statements on behalf of DFAS.

DFAS is asking recipients of the misprinted statements, all of whom live in the Norfolk, Va., area, to destroy them and says corrected forms will be reissued.
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18,000 pay statements sent to wrong addresses

Fargo police need help, Iraq vet left for dead after hit and run

Iraq vet hit by car, left for dead on ND street

The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Jan 14, 2010 11:21:27 EST

FARGO, N.D. — Authorities say a man who escaped injury during two Army tours in Iraq was struck by a vehicle on a Fargo street and left for dead.

Police and the father of Justin Bohmer are asking for the public’s help in finding the vehicle that hit Bohmer and apparently then ran him over early Wednesday.

Dan Bohmer says his son suffered head injuries, a broken arm and fractured vertebrae in his back.
Iraq vet hit by car, left for dead on ND street

VA, DoD Expand Ranks of Federal Recovery Coordinators

VA, DoD Expand Ranks of Federal Recovery Coordinators

Key Members of Team Helping Most Severely Wounded



WASHINGTON (Jan. 14, 2010)- Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K.
Shinseki announced the hiring of five new Federal Recovery Coordinators,
bringing to 20 the number of professionals coordinating care for the
most seriously injured service members.



"Our Federal Recovery Coordinators are key members of a team of health
care professionals, therapists, case managers and other specialists, who
make up VA's comprehensive care management system for returning service
members and their families," Shinseki said.



The new coordinators will be added to the following locations, with the
total number of coordinators in each location indicated in parenthesis:



* Eisenhower Army Medical Center, Ga. (3);

* San Antonio Military Medical Center, Texas, (4);

* Naval Medical Center, San Diego, Calif. (4);

* Tampa VA Medical Center (VAMC), Fla. (1);

* Bethesda, National Naval Medical Center, Md. (3);

* Walter Reed Army Medical Center, D.C. (3);

* Houston VAMC, Texas, (1); and

* Providence VAMC, R.I. (1).



The Federal Recovery Coordinators program was created in 2007 to assist
service members, Veterans and their families with access to care,
services and benefits provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs
(VA), Department of Defense (DoD), other federal agencies, states and
the private sector. Currently, the coordinators work with 419 of the
most seriously injured service members and Veterans. The program is
administered by VA and operated jointly with DoD.



The program's clients include service members and Veterans who are
receiving acute care at military treatment facilities; diagnosed with
specific injuries or conditions; considered at risk for psychological
complication; or likely to benefit from a recovery plan.

Real people, real families, real burdens come with PTSD

Sgt. Boyle's mom sent the following email out today. She is like too many other family members fighting a battle they should never have to fight so that the service given in honor is actually honored.

What the Boyle family has been going through is being repeated across the nation but we hardly ever hear their stories in newspapers, even less from the 24-7 cable news stations. We hear numbers but numbers never include the families. We hear body counts, but never hear about the actual counts of the casualties of war fallen by their own hand. We never hear about the families after left alone to carry on with their lives paying a price for the war no one ever seems to notice.

We will hear about them when they get into trouble because of PTSD, in other words, because of what they came home with embedded in their soul. We don't hear about how hard they tried to get help, tried to get someone to understand, give them hope, show them the way, open the door or even tell them how to pay their bills when they can no longer work. We don't hear about how many families have fallen apart because no one told them what PTSD is, what to do about it, how to fight this battle laid at their feet because someone they love was willing to lay down his/her life for the sake of this nation doing what few have been willing to do.

Sgt. Boyle is talking about what happened to him for one simple reason. He doesn't want anyone else to go thru what happened to him. The courage he had and still has is fed by compassion. If veterans like him did not put others first, they would not be willing to speak, to share, so that things can change. If they simply suffer in silence, nothing would change for anyone.

Read some of what they have been going thru so the next time you hear another number being released, you are fully aware behind that number, there is a soldier suffering along with an entire family. None of this should happen to any of them.

Below is a Washington Times story on my son and others suffering from combat related PTSD, traumatic brain and other injuries. Fortunately due to the Army's own military records my son was able to easily prove these injuries to the Veterans Affairs Administration and is now collecting combat related disability. However, due to how he was discharged it took several months to get the high rating he did, causing huge stress and added depression, mentally and financially. It's no wonder we have so staggering numbers of suicides and homelessness amongst fomer military service members.

It is still a struggle every day, both mentally and financially but we are all getting through one day at a time. Learning how to be a civilian has been difficult enough for someone like Adam whose whole life and dreams have been the military since his freshman year in high school JROTC. Adam will eventually receive his deserved honorable medical discharge, and all that entails, retroactively with the help of his wonderful attorney who is working pro-bono out of outrage at how our combat veterans are being treated after all thier sacrifices.

PS Ironically Adam was not aware this WT story came out until last night as he did the interview months ago. He thought the story went away; I'm grateful for others like him that it did not.
More sad stories of mistreatment of our service members and veterans, including Chuck Luther who played a valuable role in helping Adam after he was disposed of after combat, including help in connecting him with Jason Perry, along with Carissa Picard.
(THANK YOU CHUCK AND CARISSA!!!):
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/424/index.html

Military misconduct may be sign of PTSD


Navy doctor gives warning

By Amanda Carpenter



What's being done

One of the soldiers is Special Operations Command Sgt. Adam Boyle.

Sgt. Boyle was thrown out of the Army because of a "pattern of misconduct," even though he had been diagnosed with PTSD. As a combat veteran who served two tours in Iraq, Sgt. Boyle began experiencing intense pangs of guilt and anger and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder at a stress clinic in Iraq.



"I was always in the field before then," he recalled. "I did everything you can imagine from patrols to raids to capturing enemy POWs, interrogations, reconnaissance by fire. Everything you can imagine that put me in harm's way, and I was OK with it."

The bad feelings began to set in after two of his buddies were killed, one of them newly married with a child. "Those deaths haunted me, the idea of their families back home without them," he said.

After his diagnosis, Sgt. Boyle was sent to North Carolina's Fort Bragg, an assignment he resented because he thought he should be fighting the war. At Fort Bragg, he was given heavy antidepressants and sleeping aids that he said caused him to oversleep and miss formation on several occasions, a major transgression in the military.

He wanted to return to Iraq to fight, but the medications barred him from more deployments and he became miserable and agitated. Sgt. Boyle went on to spar with commanding officers who, he said, were unaware of his combat experience. He drank heavily, couldn't control his rage and ended up in trouble with the law.

He reached the tipping point when he experienced a flashback while supervising a session at the firing range at Fort Bragg.

"I was supposed to be keeping an eye on [the soldiers], keep them safe and doing the right thing," Sgt. Boyle recalled. "At one point, I went into a flashback into a firefight, and I was in Iraq. And during that flashback, I zoned out and forgot what I was doing.

"I snapped out of it and realized I missed the whole firing sequence, and it scared the hell out of me. I can't operate as a soldier if I can't concentrate on a firing range like that. That helped me realize I had to get out."

At that point, in consultation with his psychiatrist, Sgt. Boyle began seeking a medical discharge based on his PTSD. But the process was slow; he was allotted only one hour per month with his psychiatrist to plan proceedings and receive counseling for his existing problems.

Some of those problems were documented in a domestic violence complaint filed by a former girlfriend who said Sgt. Boyle assaulted her, although she never brought charges.

"His command has been contacted numerous times by myself and friends trying to get Adam's behavior under control," she said in the complaint. "I would like to see him get serious help and be removed from anyone else he could cause harm to."
read more here
Military misconduct may be sign of PTSD