Joblessness hits male vets of current wars

Since December, the rates have been reported a lot higher for young veterans and how they return without jobs. Some can't find work because of the economy. Some can't work because of what combat hit them with. Whatever the reason, it seems as if they do not just suffer when they are risking their lives. They suffer after because they risked their lives.

Saturday, December 12, 2009
Unemployment for young vets surpasses 20%

Friday, March 12, 2010
Young Iraq and Afghanistan veterans hit 21.1 percent unemployed

Friday, April 2, 2010
One in three young vets now unemployed

One in three young vets now unemployed

By Rick Maze - Staff writer

Posted : Friday Apr 2, 2010 15:12:51 EDT
Disturbing new statistics from the Labor Department show that one in three veterans under age 24 is unemployed — and that the unemployment rate for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans has jumped to 14.7 percent, half again as high as the national employment rate of 9.7 percent.The March unemployment rate of 30.2 percent for veterans aged 18 to 24 is a big jump from February’s figure of 21.7 percent, although it may be partly the result of a small sample used by the Labor Department in determining unemployment, said Justin Brown, a labor expert for Veterans of Foreign Wars. (Click links above for the rest of these.)

Joblessness hits male vets of current wars

By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Unemployment for male Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans has tripled since the recession began, rising from 5% in March 2007 to 15% last month, Labor Department statistics show.

More than 250,000 of these veterans were unemployed last month. An additional 400,000 have left the workforce to attend college or raise children, or because they have stopped trying to find a job, Labor Department economist Jim Walker says. The overall national unemployment rate is 9.7%.

"It makes you almost want to go out and rip off all the 'Support Your Troops' bumper stickers," says Joe Davis, a spokesman for the 1.5-million-member Veterans of Foreign Wars. "If you want to support your troops, give them a job."


Reasons behind the joblessness:

•Veterans are having a difficult time translating military skills — initiative, leadership and coolness under pressure — into job-application language that civilian employers can grasp, says Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. She has been meeting with unemployed veterans while on recess from Congress.

"These guys are disciplined. They're great workers, and we should be getting them jobs," says Murray, who is sponsoring legislation to improve résumé training, expand the G.I. Bill to include apprenticeship programs and assist veterans starting small businesses.
read more here
http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2010-04-06-vets_N.htm

Madigan hospital expands PTSD screening to 12,000

Madigan hospital expands PTSD screening

By Scott Fontaine - The News Tribune
Posted : Tuesday Apr 6, 2010 10:21:58 EDT

TACOMA, Wash. — As some 12,000 soldiers from three Stryker brigades return to Joint Base Lewis-McChord from war this year, Madigan Army Medical Center will temporarily expand its staff and implement new screening programs to catch mental health issues.

Hospital staff will pay special attention to 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, which has lost a reported 35 soldiers and has seen frequent combat since it deployed to southern Afghanistan last July.

"It's no surprise the Army is searching for the right answer for this: How do you take care of soldiers and families during this whole cycle?" said Col. Mark Thompson, the hospital's deputy commander for clinical services.

Before each brigade returns to Lewis-McChord, platoon leaders and platoon sergeants will complete a questionnaire on each soldier that looks for potential mental health concerns.
read more here
Madigan hospital expands PTSD screening

Iraq war veteran gets probation, treatment

This is what can happen when justice is not blind. This is what happens when the courts understand that you cannot suddenly become someone willing to die for the sake of this nation into a regular "criminal" without cause. It is not a "get out of jail free card" but considers that there could be a chance to help a veteran recover from what happened to them. It's a chance.

Iraq war veteran gets probation, treatment
By Kathleen Kreller - kkreller@idahostatesman.com
Published: 04/05/10

If veteran George Nickel complies with strict requirements and supervision from Fourth District Judge Deborah Bail, he's spent his last night in jail.

Nickel, 38, will on Tuesday enter weeks of residential treatment for alcohol abuse and post traumatic stress disorder at the Veteran's Administration hospital in Boise.

Nickel has been in the Ada County Jail since a July incident when he pointed a gun at police after firing shots into neighbors' apartments.

Nickel has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. Nickel was of 100 Idaho Army Reservists with the 321st Engineer Battalion who spent a year in Iraq hunting and disarming roadside bombs. He was the only man in a group of four to survive the explosion of a roadside bomb.

Police say Nickel was looking for his dog in his apartment building July 28 when he used an AR-15 rifle to try to shoot the locks off two different doors.



Read more: Iraq war veteran gets probation, treatment

Is the DOD just renaming same kind of failures?

I've been reading, and reading, and reading about different programs the Army claims will work better than the other programs they've had. What I'm not reading is that they have learned anything new. This all boils down to just one more program that will replace another program that didn't work. When the DOD comes up with any kind of understanding of why some end up with PTSD and why some don't that's when I'll have some kind of hope for the soldiers. Until that day comes, plan on the numbers for PTSD go up every year along with attempted suicides and suicides. Too many years as these numbers rise but to this day, they have not shown they understand PTSD any better than they did after Vietnam. Who is in charge over these programs anyway? You can call a cat a "dog" all you want but at the end of the day, the cat will still meow instead of bark and instead of warming your feet, he'll bite them.

No waiting: New Army program puts rescue before the crisis

Enemy fire isn't the only occupational hazard of military service. Whether it's one deployment or four, those who fight face an elevated risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, suicide and a host of other disruptions to their lives.

This week the Army deployed another weapon against one of the biggest adversaries - stress. It's called Master Resilience Training.

The program, initiated at Fort Jackson, S.C., focuses on helping soldiers maintain psychological as well as physical health, rather than on treating those who have already been tripped up or knocked down.

The emphasis is on positive thinking, but the training isn't an endless recitation of Norman Vincent Peale's greatest one-liners. In fact, it isn't the rank and file who will be trained at Fort Jackson. These "trainees" will be sergeants and young officers taught to mentor soldiers both before and during deployments.
read more here
http://www.fayobserver.com/Articles/2010/04/06/988889

Families of 25 killed in West Virginia mine blast need your prayers

Please pray for the 4 others still missing as well.

25 killed in West Virginia mine blast
By the CNN Wire Staff
April 6, 2010 6:52 a.m. EDT
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Death toll stands at 25
Four miners remain unaccounted for
Rescue efforts suspended due to hazardous conditions underground
Officials think some of the trapped miners may have breathing devices
Montcoal, West Virginia (CNN) -- The death toll from the massive explosion at a sprawling coal mine in West Virginia rose to 25 early Tuesday, making it the deadliest U.S. mining disaster in 25 years.

Crews halted their efforts to reach four miners still unaccounted for at the Upper Big Branch Mine following the blast Monday afternoon.

Concentrations of methane and carbon monoxide inside the mine made it a safety risk for crews to proceed, said Kevin Stricklin of the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration at a 2 a.m. briefing to reporters.

Officials planned to drill bore holes from the surface 1,200 feet into the mines to help ventilate it and to collect samples. However, they will first have to use bulldozers to clear a path to reach the part of the mine where they can drill.
read more here
25 killed in West Virginia mine blast

Deadlines, Dismissals and Disabled Veterans

The following is a great example of what is really going on. In the cases of veterans with "mental" problems, the vast majority are harder than hell to get to seek help. Then there is the issue of expecting them to be able to fight the system to have their claims approved at the same time they are expected to make doctors appointments and show up for the testing that has to be done. Should they make a mistake on their claim because they cannot really understand it, then their claim gets turned down. They have to file an appeal within a certain amount of time and should they dare not do it in time, they lose retroactive pay if and when their claim is finally approved.

Some veterans have a family member helping them, standing by them and doing the Lord's work taking care of them. (Most of the time it takes a Saint to do all that comes with this.) That is in a perfect world however, the majority of the veterans have no one to fight for them. Families surely love them but they have no ability to understand what's going on and they trust the system, so they assume the VA is right and their family member is looking for excuses to act the way they do. These rules are abusive to the veterans.

“It is the veteran who incurs the most devastating service-connected injury who will often be the least able to comply with rigidly enforced filing deadlines,” Judge Mayer wrote.

Deadlines, Dismissals and Disabled Veterans
By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: April 5, 2010
Three years ago, the Supreme Court said there are some filing deadlines so rigid that no excuse for missing them counts, even if the tardiness was caused by the erroneous instructions from a federal judge.

The vote was 5 to 4, and Justice David H. Souter wrote a furious dissent. “It is intolerable for the judicial system to treat people this way,” he said, adding that he feared the decision would have pernicious consequences.

He had no idea.

The court’s decision concerned a convicted murderer who had beaten a man to death. But now it is being applied to bar claims from disabled veterans who fumble filing procedures and miss deadlines in seeking help from the government. The upshot, according to a dissent in December from three judges on a federal appeals court in Washington, is “a Kafkaesque adjudicatory process in which those veterans who are most deserving of service-connected benefits will frequently be those least likely to obtain them.”

The Supreme Court will soon consider whether to hear an appeal from David L. Henderson, who was discharged from the military in 1952 after receiving a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. He sought additional government help for his condition in 2001, and he was turned down in 2004.

read more here

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/us/06bar.html

Body of LAPD SWAT officer and Marine reservist returns home

U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Major Robert J. Cottle (left) and Lance Cpl. Rick Centanni, both from Yorba Linda, were killed March 24 in Afghanistan. (Courtesy Rick Centanni Memorial Fund)

Second OC Marine’s body returns home
By Staff, City News Service
Monday, April 5, 2010



LOS ALAMITOS — The body of LAPD SWAT officer and Marine reservist Sgt. Maj. Robert J. Cottle, who was killed March 24 in a roadside bombing in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, arrived at the Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training Base today.

Cottle, 45, who leaves behind a wife and a 9-month-old daughter, died alongside a fellow Southern California Marine, Lance Cpl. Rick J. Centanni, a 19-year-old light armored vehicle driver from Yorba Linda. Centanni, whose body arrived at Los Alamitos Friday, would have turned 20 on Saturday.

A large contingent of Marines and LAPD personnel were on hand at Los Alamitos as Cottle’s flag-draped coffin arrived at the base.



Read more: Second OC Marines body returns home

Dog eats police car and goes to doggie jail

Police-Car-Eating Dog Is Back Home -- But On Probation
by Helena Sung
A dog in Tennessee who chewed up a police car and landed in doggie jail, has been released and is back at home with his family after nearly two weeks in the custody of the local animal control shelter, reports the Chattanooga Times Free Press. The Chattanooga Police Department released astonishing video of Winston, a pit-bull mix, on his vehicle-chomping spree, flattening tires and ripping the fiberglass cover off a police-car fender.

"I try not to watch the video," Winston's chagrined owner, Nancy Emerling, tells Paw Nation. Cited for owning a "potentially dangerous dog," Emerling was ordered to appear in court.

Last month, Winston had initially started chewing the tire of a police car, and, when the officer got out and sprayed the dog with pepper spray, Winston moved on to front bumper. Even a Taser didn't stop him. The tires of a second patrol car, as well as the tires of two cars trying to pass through the area, also succumbed to Winston's powerful jaws.
read more here

Police-Car-Eating Dog Is Back Home

Is it time for VA Home Refinancing

Never a Better Time for VA Home Refinancing, says Mortgage Investors Corporation
With rates at record lows, veterans can enjoy government-guaranteed assistance at home.
(PRNewsChannel) / March 29, 2010 / Washington, D.C. / At a time when home foreclosures dominate the day’s headlines, Mortgage Investors Corporation wants veterans to know they’ve got their backs.
Mortgage Investors Corporation says the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs offers veterans and soldiers on active duty a VA home loan program—one that enables military personnel to refinance a home. Known as a VA Streamline Home Loan Refinance, the program also benefits spouses of those veterans and active soldiers.

While the government does not act as a lender, the Veterans Administration guarantees the money loaned through VA-approved lenders like Mortgage Investors Corporation in St. Petersburg, Fla. Veterans receive the (no hassle) benefit and a lower interest rate.

Mortgage Investors Corporation remains one of the nation’s largest VA loan providers, and has a reputation of helping veterans transition from serving their country to living in it comfortably. Mortgage Investors Corporation assists veterans with refinancing a VA loan and saving hundreds of dollars on monthly payments.

The Dept. of Veterans Affairs’ Loan Guaranty program does not impose a maximum amount an eligible veteran may borrow. Certain county limits, however, are used to calculate VA’s maximum guaranty amount. For example, this year’s VA limit for Pinellas County, Fla. is $425,000, while the District of Columbia is $768,750 and in some locations over $1-million.

“The VA makes sure these brave men and women shouldn’t have to worry about how to pay for their homes once they return to the United States,” says William Edwards, chairman and chief executive officer of Mortgage Investors Corporation. “We guarantee them the best deal when refinancing a VA loan.”

For more information about VA refinancing options available from Mortgage Investors Corporation, please visit: www.mortgageinvestors.com or phone 1–800–891–6678.

Asbestos and toxic exposure risk low for troops in Haiti

Burn pits and contaminants in the water of Iraq were also not supposed to be a problem, just as Agent Orange use in Vietnam. Is this one more problem that will arise years later for the troops?

Toxic exposure risk low for troops in Haiti
Officials say samples show contaminants below hazard levels
By Seth Robson, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Sunday, April 4, 2010

Air, water and soil samples taken from places where U.S. troops have been operating in Haiti do not contain high levels of toxic substances, according to the U.S. Southern Command.

The U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine tested the hundreds of samples for some 200 contaminants, including silica and asbestos.

“Everything we have been able to analyze so far has not presented a risk that is expected to be long-term, short-term or one we can’t mitigate,” said Lt. Col. Eric Milstrey, SOUTHCOM’s public health officer.

Teams from the Army, Air Force and Navy collected the samples from sites where U.S. military personnel have worked in Haiti since January’s deadly earthquake. Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division, who provided security for earthquake rubble removal in Port-au-Prince, have reported sore throats and coughing that they blame on dust inhaled on the job.

The Army’s preliminary results suggest that asbestos levels found in dust from the Haiti earthquake are low enough that it would have been safe for soldiers to work without masks. The only place where a significant quantity of asbestos was detected in Haiti was at an AIDS clinic used by the U.S. Public Health Service, where an asbestos ceiling tile was discovered, Milstrey said.

Furthermore, testing of 14 wells used to supply shower water to troops in Haiti turned up quite a few contaminants, including harmful bacteria, that could be a health risk if the water was untreated, Milstrey said.

read more here

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=69140

Air Force captain dies after damaged tire explodes in her lap

Air Force captain dies after damaged tire explodes in her lap
By Geoff Ziezulewicz, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Saturday, April 3, 2010
RAF MILDENHALL, England — An England-based Air Force officer died Thursday from injuries sustained last week when a damaged car tire exploded in her lap during a trip to Scotland.

Capt. Jenna Wilcox, and her husband, Capt. Scott Wilcox, pulled into a garage at about 6 p.m. March 27 in Dalkeith, just outside of Edinburgh, after changing a tire on their BMW Z3 approximately 100 miles earlier, according to Inspector David Muir, a spokesman for the Lothian and Borders police in Scotland.

Jenna Wilcox was in the passenger seat and had the damaged tire on her lap when it suddenly exploded, blowing out the car’s windows and roof, he said.

She was taken to Western General Hospital in Edinburgh, where she succumbed to her injuries Thursday, Muir said. She was 27.
read more here
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=69121

Vietnam-era photo hanging in a cafe unearths memories

Vietnam-era photo hanging in a cafe unearths memories, emotions
By Chris Vaughn, McClatchy Newspapers
Stars and Stripes online edition, Sunday, April 4, 2010



FORT WORTH, Texas — War has a way of surfacing at the most improbable times and unlikely places.

The hostess and waitresses at the West Side Cafe can attest.

Not long ago, on an ordinary, crowded Thursday morning, a man visiting from Ohio came in for a plate of bacon and eggs, saw a photo on the wall and dissolved into tears, unable to speak.

The small portrait, just a few steps from the cash register, was of Army Sgt. John E. Miller, a man he had fought to save in a battle in South Vietnam nearly 44 years ago.

Within the span of a few minutes, Galen Taylor's spring break visit to Fort Worth had transformed from seeing the kids and grandkids to reuniting with Miller's family. The process unearthed distant memories and raw emotions — not all of them exactly welcome.
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Vietnam era photo hanging in a cafe unearths memories

Killing somebody in combat more likely produce PTSD symptoms

Of nearly 2,800 soldiers surveyed, 40 percent reported killing or being responsible for somebody’s death in Iraq.

“Those who acknowledged killing somebody in combat were more likely to have PTSD symptoms, anger, relationship problems,” said Maguen, a staff psychologist at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Study finds troops risk emotional toll for taking enemy life in combat
By Tom Vanden Brook, USA Today
European edition, Sunday, April 4, 2010
WASHINGTON — Army Capt. Grant Speakes had lived through the worst the Iraq war has unleashed: He had heard the screams of a soldier burned to death in a roadside bomb strike, stanched the bleeding of a soldier cut down by a sniper and killed an insurgent himself. He returned home haunted by the memories.

While riding in cars, he jumped when other vehicles pulled next to his. He drank too much. One night at his parents’ home, his father, retired Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes, found his son sitting awake at 2 a.m., rocking back and forth alone in a chair.
One night he finally crumbled.

“My dad had been calling, leaving messages asking why I didn’t return his phone calls,” Grant Speakes said. “I just broke down and told him all the stuff I was dealing with. I was crying outside Hooters on the phone in Killeen, Texas. That was a low point for me.”

Soldiers such as Grant Speakes, who say they killed enemy troops in combat, are at greater risk of suffering combat stress and having emotional problems, a new study shows.

read more here
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=69149

New school at Fort Jackson to aid in fighting stress

New school at Jackson to aid in fighting stress

By Susanne M. Schafer - The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday Apr 4, 2010 12:00:54 EDT

FORT JACKSON, S.C. — Army officials are hoping to better arm soldiers to fight the stress that comes from repeated deployment to war zones in an effort to stem record suicide rates.

The military branch on Monday plans to officially open a new school aimed at teaching soldiers how to think positively to help deal with emotional, social and psychological stress. The work being done at Fort Jackson, the Army’s largest training base, has been offered in some trial courses already.

“It helps you deal with the bruises, the bumps, ways to cope with adversity,” said Staff Sgt. Jose Sixtos, a 29-year-old from Tanasket, Wash., who has served for nine years. “It gives you some better models, some ways to cope with the grim stuff in your life.”

The school will train sergeants and young officers who mentor other soldiers during training and deployments. Those superiors will work with soldiers informally, passing on the tips and techniques they learn in the classroom, participants said.
read more here
New school at Jackson to aid in fighting stress

AZ Senate hopeful accused of faking his military past

AZ Senate hopeful accused of faking his military past
Arizona Daily Star

A Vietnam veteran and state Senate hopeful from Tucson is being accused of embellishing his service record by a national group that exposes military fakes.

J.D. "Duke" Schechter, 63, is trying to collect enough signatures to run as the Republican candidate in Legislative District 27. He has been besieged for weeks on his Facebook page by critics who have dubbed him "the Milli Vanilli of the Marine Corps," a nod to the lip-synching 1990 Grammy winners.

Schechter ran for state House of Representatives in the same district in 2008 and captured more than 10,000 votes - about 17 percent of ballots cast by voters on Tucson's West side.

A copy of his military service record, obtained by the Star under the Freedom of Information Act, shows that Schechter, who calls himself a Marine sergeant, was in fact discharged as a lance corporal, two ranks lower.

Schechter, who served from 1966 to 1970, said he feels entitled to use the higher rank because he briefly was a sergeant before being demoted - twice - for misconduct.

They include claims that he posed as a recipient of the Silver Star - the nation's third-highest award for combat valor - and of five Purple Hearts. He didn't earn any of those honors, his service record shows.

A photograph of Schechter, which he posted on several Web sites including Classmates.com, a high school reunion site, shows him wearing a white waistcoat with several rows of medal ribbons on his chest.

read more here

AZ Senate hopeful accused of faking his military past
Arizona Daily Star