God has called us for this reason

My dear friend Lily Casura over at Healing Combat Trauma sent this.

Ministering to the military and their families
Karen.Herzog@bismarcktribune.com
Posted: Thursday, February 18, 2010


“Being in boots overseas is an awful lonely time,” said Maj. David Johnson, a chaplain with the North Dakota National Guard. And when veterans return from deployments, he said, they are “forever changed.”

Johnson, along with other Guard chaplains, met with local clergy and pastoral ministers Thursday at Lord of Life Lutheran Church for Clergy Day 2010, spending the morning offering guidance as to how ministers can help military men and women and their families.

With North Dakota soldiers and airmen serving in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa, and closer to home during floods, snow emergencies and other natural disasters, clergy and congregations can serve as a source of comfort and support during difficult separations and after returning home, Johnson said.

"For some of our military members, their church is their bedrock and faith plays an instrumental role in their lives. It is essential that area clergy understand some of the unique challenges and stresses placed on today's military members and their families," he said.

In 2009 alone, more than 900 North Dakota soldiers and airmen deployed overseas.

Chaplain Bill Ziegler, the state chaplain for the Guard in the state, said that the Guard wanted to give pastors tools to minister to military families, who often live in “a different world” because of their loved one’s service.

There also is a need for more military chaplains, he said, particularly Catholic priests. Clergy Day 2010 also hopes to find clergy who feel God is calling them to do more in this arena, Ziegler said.

Currently, four chaplains serve about 1,000 members of the Air Guard, with a fifth coming on board soon, he said. The more than 3,000 members of the Army Guard are served by four chaplains, with five candidates coming up, he said. There also are roles for chaplains’ assistants, he said.

“We’re not there to bless bombs and bullets,” he said, “but to be with the soldiers and airmen in all the challenges they face.”

Like hospital chaplains, military chaplains are trained in “psychological and spiritual first aid.”
read more here
Ministering to the military and their families

Reading it is a a mixture of hope and frustration for me. It's wonderful that the military chaplains are calling on communities to get involved in PTSD. What is not so wonderful is there is a resource in the communities that is not being used because they are not the right kind of Chaplains.

I belong to the International Fellowship of Chaplains. We are trained, certified, insured and fully invested in working with people after traumatic events. We are also fully invested in restoring the spiritual relationship between God and man. We live the life of Chaplains 24-7. Some work within police departments and fire departments. Good enough for these service members but not good enough for the military or the veterans needing help to heal from traumas of combat. We work with civilians after traumatic events but not good enough to work with families of veterans or military families. How is this possible given the fact that PTSD is a wound to the soul?

I've worked with veterans since 1982, have taken more training and certification classes than my office wall has room to hold the certificates, yet I'm not good enough. I live with PTSD everyday in my home, yet managed to stay married for over 25 years, but I'm not good enough to work with families so that they can have what they need to not only cope, but thrive.

My videos have been used by military, psychologists, therapists, you name it, but no matter what I do, no matter what I know including tracking PTSD everyday on this blog, I am not good enough.

I'm not the only one being left unused. The IFOC trains Chaplains all over the country and some of us are in rural areas where help for the veterans is hard to get. We are in big cities where the numbers are staggering. Just because we do not have a degree from a seminary we are not welcomed yet when you talk to a Chaplain you can fully understand that when it comes to knowing what is in the Bible, we live it. Not only living it, but walking the walk side by side ready to help others through their own "shadow of the valley of death" just as most of us have. Our faith was not tested by passing a test on paper, but tested by passing day to day life facing more horrors than most people will ever know willingly putting ourselves into dangerous circumstances, hearing stories the best horror writer could never contemplate and then seeing the restoration of hope in their eyes.

We see a family fall apart when they find out someone in their home will not be walking thru the door ever again. We see them after a car accident has taken away someone they love in one single blow. We see them when firefighters and police officers have fallen in the line of duty just as we see them when they are taken to the hospital. Over and over again when tragedy strikes, we are there willingly but over and over again, we are overlooked when the need is greater than the workers.

Matthew 9:37-38
37 Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest indeed is plenteous, but the laborers are few.

38 Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he send forth laborers into his harvest.

God has called us for this reason.

IFOC Chaplain Army

Posted to Great Americans by NamGuardianAngel on September 13, 2009

Click to Play View Details

We are not in competition with the "acceptable" Chaplains, but fill in the need when they cannot simply because most of them have not been trained in crisis intervention. Can you imagine anything more in need of crisis intervention than servicemen and women returning from combat after multiple traumatic events? There are few Chaplains to go around as it is and most admit they don't know anything about PTSD.

When you think about Christ picking His disciples, we think about the twelve but not the over seventy He sent out or the many more spreading the Good News around the world willing to die for His sake. What if they were treated as not good enough to spread the messages Christ delivered? Romans were putting them to death but they were still willing to face any threat in order to serve God willingly putting themselves into harms way for nothing more than the glory God would reward them with after their life was over. They expected hardship in order to be of service to others.

The importance of having Chaplains fully involved in healing the troops and veterans cannot be emphasized enough. PTSD is a spiritual wound and needs to be healed with addressing the same kind of understanding as psychologist treat it but again, with those experienced with and specially trained to treat it for what it is instead of mental illness from other causes. PTSD only enters the person after trauma so treating it like any other mental illness will not work and has not worked. It needs to be treated with the soul in mind and not just the mind of the soul.

They need to use all Chaplains trained in crisis and not just the ones with a degree.

This is what an IFOC Chaplain can come up with along with about 30 more.

PTSD I Grieve

Posted to Great Americans by NamGuardianAngel on September 11, 2009

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Denying PTSD does not heal it

Denying PTSD does not heal it
by
Chaplain Kathie

Fewer than 10%? The program is there. They were diagnosed. So what's the problem? Is it that the program is not what they are looking for? Is it because they want to just get over it on their own? As if that worked before~

PTSD gets worse without treatment. They can try to cover it up with alcohol and street drugs all they want, but that is just covering it up, not healing it, and as a matter of fact, making their lives worse. Their answer is to self-medicate more, latch onto the latest bright idea they have of making themselves happy and then finding out none of that is working either.

They are in such denial they think they are not going down the same road the veterans before them did when there were plenty of excuses to hide behind. After all, very little was being done to help them heal before the Gulf War. Even now with a history of suffering needlessly, they still try to "get over it" and get on with their lives. Some hide behind the stigma in their own minds as a reason to not get help. Others have lost the ability to trust anything or anyone attached to the government they just finished risking their lives for at the same time when asked, they would deploy all over again.

What is the answer? A massive ad campaign? Better programs? Civilian support? Veteran's Centers? How about all of them? How about having more Vietnam veterans speaking to the newer veterans and letting them know what wasted time cost them between combat and healing? How about following that up with what happened when they did start to heal? There is so much that can be done. After reading the following, it is clear that more HAS to be done.

Military veterans still not getting PTSD care
Many military veterans in the U.S. are still not getting the treatment they need for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Dr Karen Seal from the San Franciscon Veteran Affairs Medical Centre lead a team studying this issue. They found that between 2002 and 2008 nearly 50,000 veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars received a diagnosis of PTSD. However, fewer than 10% of them completed the recommended treatment of 10-12 weekly sessions within four months of being diagnosed, and even after a year only 30% had. Men, veterans under the age of 25, those who lived in rural areas and those who got their diagnosis at primary-care clinics were less likely to receive recommended care.
You can find out more about this issue at
http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=news&id=125952&cn=109

Military embraces mourning families at Dover Air Force Base

Military embraces mourning families

By HOWARD ALTMAN

haltman@tampatrib.com

Published: February 19, 2010

Greg Reiners stood on the flight line at Dover Air Force base early Monday.

It was cold and silent, save for the sound of soldiers' footfalls and the whine of the C-17's generators keeping the lights on in the bay of the big cargo plane ahead of them.

Reiners, flanked by daughter-in-law Casey Reiners and his ex-wife, Ronna Jackson, waited with the families of two other soldiers killed when a suicide bomber on a motorcycle drove into their patrol in southern Afghanistan last Friday.

They listened to the chaplain say a prayer. Then the caskets were rolled down the cargo ramp.

John Reiners' was first.

Casey Reiners and Ronna Jackson started crying.

"I got weak in the knees, too," Greg Reiners said. "But I had to stand strong."

He embraced his daughter-in-law. He embraced his ex-wife.

"I held them tight," he said. "I let them know I was there for both of them."

For Reiners, the experience was deeply moving and greatly appreciated.

In April, the Obama administration instituted a policy that pays for up to three family members to fly to Dover, the sprawling Delaware base where Americans killed in action are brought home. The change came at the same time the administration allowed the media to attend the ceremonies if given the permission of the families.

"If not for this program, I would not have been able to experience this," said Reiners, who is from Lakeland.
read more here
Military embraces mourning families

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Awareness Day in New Mexico

It would be great to have this in every state!

Memorial sets day for PTSD awareness
Sun-News report
Posted: 02/19/2010 12:00:00 AM MST
SANTA FE - April 28, 2010 will be designed as "Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Awareness Day" in New Mexico under a memorial sponsored by Rep. Nathan Cote, D-Las Cruces and passed by the Legislature.

"April 28th provides veterans, health-care providers and others to prepare awareness projects and publicity in regards to PTSD," Cote said. "Our population suffering from PTSD continues to grow because of the nature of the illness. Those inflicted may go underground and not seek treatment or may find themselves in trouble with the law. Let's all learn to recognize the nature of this illness."


http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-news/ci_14431680

State cuts medical services for veterans

Message to any state wanting to balance their budgets off the backs of Veterans:
Stop acting as if the veterans are disposable! If you don't treat them right, then don't expect them to answer when the nation decides to get into another war.

What the hell is wrong with the people controlling the budgets when they decide to take a hacksaw to the veterans? Do they think because they are a minority in all states they are easy to take away from? It's more likely they have no conscience at all.

That's the biggest problem when men and women come home after serving the country, some after serving a lifetime of putting the country's needs so far above their own that they do it until they get too old to do it. What then? Do they suddenly become such a burden they are disposable and more of a problem than an obligation? Why is it they seem to be the ones always paying the price for what the rest of the nation gets to enjoy?

We get workman's comp but they have to not only wait in line for months or years to have their claims honored, and we just don't seem bothered by it at all. Yet we are still the ones waving the flags and letting congress shell out hundreds of billions of dollars to fund the war machine while the war weary fall into the abyss. We are also the same people screaming because the same members of congress what to cut things off that matter to us, knowing what it feels like to have what we need taken away, without ever once understanding we did nothing more than pay our share of taxes but they did that too and put their lives on the line as well.

State cuts medical services for veterans.
Reported by: Karen Hopkins
Monday, Feb 15, 2010 @10:23pm CST


People are outraged over putting a price on veterans’ lives.

The people, who put their lives on the line for the safety of our country, are losing medical services because of Louisiana state budget cuts. But a battle is brewing to keep the care our veterans say they so desperately need.

Nbc 6 reporter Karen Hopkins spoke with people outraged over putting a price on our veterans' lives.

“How can you put money over lives?" Nikki Hayward says state budget cuts could put her best friend's life at risk. Ruth stone is one of 147 residents at the Northwest Louisiana War Veterans home.

She served 21 years active duty army. After suffering a double stroke, she has no voice.
“That could be me in there, and then I’d be looking to someone else to talk for me."

Louisiana faces nearly a billion dollar budget shortfall.
A state streamlining committee looked at the efficiency of all agencies and made recommendations on cuts. In response, the Department of Veterans Affairs eliminated in house pharmacies and nurse practitioners in the state's 5 veteran homes to save $1.5 million. “The family members are concerned of all the changes, the pharmacy is a big issue,” Northwest Louisiana War Veterans home administrator Byron Hines says.

The pharmacy closed last week. The shelves are already empty. If veterans need emergency medication, they'll have to order from a local pharmacy at a high price. “For Ruth it's not too bad, but for others it could be devastating. They might not have the money."
read more here
State cuts medical services for veterans

Veterans say 'The Hurt Locker' gets a lot right and wrong

I'm staying out of this for two reasons. First is that I still have not seen the movie but the biggest reason is that I was not there, so I'll take the word of veterans who were there any day.

Veterans say 'The Hurt Locker' gets a lot right and wrong

By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
Explosives specialists who disarm the roadside bombs of Iraq and Afghanistan say the mental zone they enter to defeat these devices is like a narcotic. They describe a state of heightened senses that comes only from death being just a detonating click away.
So it rings true, they say, when the words "war is a drug" flash on screen in the Academy Award-nominated Iraq war movie, The Hurt Locker.

"When you put on the bomb suit, your life's really simple — don't die," says Army Sgt. 1st Class Andrew Graham, 33, an explosive ordnance disposal, or EOD, specialist who has done three tours of combat in Iraq and disarmed more bombs than he can remember.

"Your sense of awareness of what's going on around you, and how clearly you focus on something is pretty extraordinary," Graham says. "That's what's addictive."

This war-is-drug premise animates the film's lead character, an EOD team leader who finds meaning only in the mission he loves: defeating bombs that can kill him in an instant. It is part of what movie reviewers have said makes The Hurt Locker a tour de force as a contemporary vision of combat.
read more here
Veterans say The Hurt Locker gets a lot right and wrong

Plane crashes into Northwest Austin building

UPDATE

Austin plane crash was deliberate, officials say
February 18, 2010 4:17 p.m. EST

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Pilot appears to have burned his house, then crashed his plane into intentionally
A message on a Web site registered to pilot appears to be a suicide note
Austin mayor downplays any terrorism links to crash
Witnesses described an infernal scene that shook nearby buildings
(CNN) -- An Austin, Texas, resident with an apparent grudge against the Internal Revenue Service set his house on fire Thursday and then crashed a small plane into a building housing an IRS office with nearly 200 employees, officials said.

Federal authorities identified the pilot of the Piper Cherokee PA-28 as Joseph Andrew Stack, 53.

Two people were injured and one person was missing, local officials said. There were no reported deaths.

A message on a Web site registered to Stack appears to be a suicide note.
go here for more
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/18/texas.plane.crash/index.html?hpt=T1

Plane crashes into Northwest Austin building
by KVUE.com

Plane crashes into Northwest Austin building

Posted on February 18, 2010 at 10:14 AM

Updated today at 10:41 AM


A small single-engine plane crashed into a building in Northwest Austin Thursday morning, sparking a fire.

The crash happened near MoPac and Highway 183.

Smoke could be scene pouring from the a building in the Echelon complex on traffic cameras and in photosgraphs send in by KVUE viewers and reporters.

KVUE’s Noelle Newton reports most of the windows are blown out. People were evacuated. There is so far no word on how many people have been injured. A witness told KVUE that it didn't appear the plane was having any trouble before it crashed.
read more here
Plane crashes into Northwest Austin building

Stress claim denied for Conn. cop who shot chimp

Police officer, Frank Chiafari, not only had to see what happened to the woman attacked by the Chimp, he was also attacked by it. "The animal is covered in blood, it's just raging out of control," and going after him. Think of what that would do to any other human. Think of what that did to his mind after. To deny him workers' compensation after going thru something like this is wrong. He put his life on the line to stop this huge animal from attacking anyone else and his life was in danger because of it.

Stress claim denied for Conn. cop who shot chimp
By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN (AP) – 19 hours ago

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A police officer who shot and killed a chimpanzee last year after it mauled a woman has been denied a claim for workers' compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder because state law only applies to police shootings of people.

State Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford, introduced legislation Tuesday — the one-year anniversary of the attack — designed to help the officer get workers' compensation coverage. His bill would change the law to allow claims for mental or emotional impairment when officers are required to use deadly force on animals that attempt to injure them.

"This officer was placed in a very dangerous situation, and he displayed tremendous bravery and control in those circumstances," McDonald said. "He put himself in harm's way for the people of Stamford, and I think the system that was designed to help police officers in such circumstances should be modified to help this officer."

The 200-pound chimpanzee named Travis went berserk after its owner asked her friend, Charla Nash, to help lure it back into her house. The animal ripped off Nash's hands, nose, lips and eyelids.
read more here
Stress claim denied for Conn. cop who shot chimp

Moms Caring About Someone Else's Wounded Soldier

Moms Caring About Someone Else's Wounded Soldier
By Justin Foss, Reporter
By Justin Foss

Story Created: Feb 17, 2010 at 6:54 PM CST

Story Updated: Feb 17, 2010 at 6:54 PM CST

TODDVILLE – A hospital is never a good place to be lonely. For that reason, two mothers from Eastern Iowa are planning a trip to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C.

Lori Shebetka, 47, Shueyville, spent weeks looking after her son Kain Schilling after insurgents shot him in Afghanistan. While she was there, she saw soldiers who didn’t have a support group.

"We'd see somebody and ask if they need anything and everyone would say, ‘Nope, I'm good.’ They're in a wheelchair, missing a leg or an arm saying nope, I'm good,” said Shebetka.

Michele Albert, 43, Toddville, spent weeks at Walter Reed looking after her son Jonathon, 24, Toddville. The two families bonded and now the mothers are sharing their caring hearts with soldiers who are still recovering.

"That's a big message to send,” said Michele. “Maternal instinct - I'm pretty sure plays a part of it. But it's just letting them know that we care.”
read more here
Moms Caring About Someone Elses Wounded Soldier

3 Fort Hood Soldiers committed suicide last month alone

What will it take for Fort Hood commanders to listen to someone like me? What would it take for anyone in charge anywhere to listen? After all, I don't have a Ph.D., so what do I know? They have high paid experts. I work for free depending on donations to pay my bills, which leaves me behind on making payments and taking jobs as a temp at places like Bed Bath and Beyond for a minimal paycheck just above minimum wage and grateful for the week I had the job. In the view of society, I am a failure because money talks. Someone even once said about me that if I were any good at what I do, I wouldn't have to ask for financial support or for someone to help me find it. Imagine that! So getting anyone in charge to listen is really impossible. To them I am no one from no where.

It doesn't matter that I've been taking all of this very seriously before a lot of these people were out of high school. 27 years of my life have been fully invested in finding out what can be done to help veterans heal from what we sent them to do. I've read just about every clinical book but above that, hundreds of emails over the years, talking to more veterans face to face than I can remember and living with it 24/7. I watched as it changed my husband and nearly killed him. I watched and fought to keep him alive and hold my family together. Then I wanted to do whatever I could so that no other family had to feel the way I did, totally alone.

Over the years, experts made mistakes, just as I did in my marriage. Over the years, researchers made tremendous gains, just as I did in my marriage. Now I sit here wondering what good any of this did when we are still losing more and more servicemen and women because of combat instead of during it.

I read about how many veterans called the suicide prevention line and how many they proudly say they saved, but watch as the numbers in need go up with no one understanding what this means. They still fail to realize that with the number of veterans reaching the point where suicide seems to be their only option, they have a growing problem they are no where close to fixing.

I read about all the efforts the DOD and the VA are making trying to fix the problem when they come up with programs they fail to understand has added to the problem instead of fixing it. How can they be so blind when the numbers keep going up? If these programs worked, the numbers would go down and not up! While it's great they are no longer dismissing it, when they do more harm than good, it's time for them to start thinking like a human instead but they have also failed to understand the cause of PTSD, why it strikes some but avoids others anymore than they have managed to understand there are different levels of PTSD, different types of it due to different events, dormant PTSD, mild PTSD, full blown PTSD, secondary stressors and secondary PTSD.

While I read so much about what they claim they are doing, I have to read something like this screaming they don't know what they're doing!

Fort Hood, home to III Corps headquarters, had three suicides in January, and the Army as a whole reported 27.

Fort Hood, Army still seeing suicide problem
By Sig Christenson - Express-News Fort Hood had more suicides in January than any other installation as the Army searched for solutions to a baffling mystery.

Despite a series of programs designed to tackle the problem at the post and throughout the Army, the service's January suicide mark still came close to matching the one from the same month last year — 29.

Three of the 27 suicides reported Wednesday occurred on Fort Hood, which has sent soldiers to combat since the 2003 Iraq invasion.

The chief of the Army Suicide Prevention Task Force talked of the service's efforts to counter the problem rather than discussing the latest numbers, which picked up where a grim 2009 left off.

“We've made significant changes in our health promotion, risk reduction, and suicide prevention programs, policies and initiatives,” Col. Christopher Philbrick said. “Now in 2010, we're going to move from a floodlight to a laser light — identifying our most effective programs, so we can target and reinforce what's working and fix what isn't.”

Last year was the worst for suicides among active-duty soldiers since the Army began tracking those deaths in 1980, with 160 GIs killing themselves at home and in the war zone. That was up from 140 in 2008.

read more here

http://www.mysanantonio.com/military/84644547.html

I attend a lot of training conferences, hearing from experts and wonder why they are not in charge of most of the programs. Then I hear other experts, wondering how they could be considered "expert" in any of this as they are clearly juvenilely "educated" not ready to treat anyone but have a degree because they seemed to have understood what they read in a book.

Major Hasan is a great example of this. He was trained and in position to treat the soldiers but clearly no one really trusted his ability to treat them properly. What resulted was not as obvious as the fact he decided to obliterate the lives of 13 soldiers and wound many others. We don't know how many he treated as a "psychologist" or how much harm he did intentionally or otherwise. Has anyone really looked at what his actions spawned? He took away the Fort Hood soldiers last safe place where their families lived, shopped, kids went to school and they walked around unarmed. This also ended up putting doubt into every solider's mind about the security on their own bases as well as what the hell was the military thinking promoting someone like Hasan and putting him in position to do what he did.

While the cause of PTSD is always and only traumatic events, there are many types of events. They cannot assume they can treat PTSD in a witness the same way they can treat someone participating in the event like the one pulling the trigger. They cannot treat someone with PTSD after they lose a limb the same way they treat someone after they have obliterated a family of civilians that ended up getting way too close to a convoy. They wouldn't treat a POW the same as they would treat a guard after a riot. Yet they end up doing just that because the military does not think like humans, they think like Soldiers, Marines, Airmen, they think like Sailors.

This is why their programs like Battlemind do not work! They forgot how the human would hear the message at the same time they were being trained on how to be able to kill well.

Ask the DOD why they think some end up wounded by PTSD and you'll see them scratching their heads. Ask them what makes others walk away getting "over it" while others end up being eaten up by it and they'll stumble for excuses. So we get to read repeated versions of what they are doing at the same time we see clearly they are not doing it right because the numbers keep going up. But what do I know? I'm not a college trained "expert," in this. I've just been doing it over half my life while I wait for them to figure out what life has taught me.

The experts they need to be listening to are the people taking all of this very personally because someone in their life has been living with it. The best therapists have PTSD but they are not listened to. It's time for the DOD and the VA to think outside of the box since they've already used everything in it and none of it has worked.