Be as resolute to heal as you were to survive

If you think you have been wounded by PTSD because you are weak, you have already determined your destiny. On Criminal Minds last night Agent Rossi (Joe Mantegna) said "Scars are a reminder of where we've been but they are not dictator of where we are going." PTSD is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign that you are a survivor. You have survived traumatic events that would bring even the most strongest person you know to their knees. PTSD does not have to destroy you if you understand it and be resolute to heal.

Main Entry: 1res·o·lute
Pronunciation: \ˈre-zə-ˌlüt, -lət\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin resolutus, past participle of resolvere
Date: 1533
1 : marked by firm determination : resolved
2 : bold, steady

synonyms see faithful
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/resolute

The sooner you seek help to heal the sooner PTSD stops getting worse. PTSD is much like an infection. It feeds of itself. It gets stronger while everything you knew about yourself becomes infected. We all know infections get worse and spread without the intervention of medical help so that your body's own built in defenses can have help to overcome the infection. PTSD works the same way. Medical intervention aids your minds ability to overcome the horrors trapped inside your memory. The sooner you begin getting help, the less PTSD is allowed to claim of the person you were before the trauma happened.

Don't let the scar you carry dictate how you spend the rest of your life.

Vietnam Recognition Day speaker under investigation

Officials investigate guest speaker at Vietnam veteran recognition ceremony
April 27, 2010 5:00 PM
HOPE HODGE
Marine officials are investigating the guest speaker at a Vietnam veterans’ recognition day who critics said never went to Vietnam.

Michael Hamilton, who says he’s a former Marine colonel, gave an emotional keynote speech at Saturday’s Vietnam Recognition Day, held at Jacksonville’s Vietnam Memorial. Each event attendee received a copy of Hamilton’s impressive biography, showing a rapid rise from the rank of private first class to colonel between 1961 and 1969 while also accumulating 80 medals and ribbons, including two Navy Crosses, four Silver Stars and eight Purple Hearts.

But, local Vietnam veterans say, none of it is true.

John Cooney, the adjutant of the Beirut Memorial Chapter of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, said veterans attending the ceremony had their doubts even before Hamilton began to speak.

“Nobody is decorated that much,” Cooney said. “We’re positive that everything is bogus that is in that bio.”

Hamilton’s name appears in the Phonies Index at the website www.pownetwork.org. According to the listing, “Claims that his records were redacted and that he has been trying for 24 years to prove that he was in the incident … Military records so far show NO OVERSEAS DUTY, NO COVERT OR TACTICAL COMBAT TRAINING.”

Where his name doesn’t appear is in the Hall of Valor database, maintained by www.militarytimes.com. That site contains the names of all recipients of distinguished awards, including the Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross and Silver Star.
read more here
http://www.enctoday.com/news/vietnam-77705-jdn-officials-guest.html

PTSD Affects Soldiers Adjusting to Life after War

As the wife of a Vietnam veteran, I can personally testify that knowing what PTSD was and why it was haunting my husband, not only held this family together, it helped him to heal. Even with all the passing years between Vietnam and receiving help from the VA, he is living a life again instead of dying a very slow death. I've seen too many veterans abandoned by their families simply because no one told them what PTSD was or what they could do about it. Therapists avoided including the family in the healing process and no one was offering them support, excluding them when they needed to be included. They ended up making PTSD worse simply because they didn't understand.

It became my mission to correct this. While I work with veterans so that they move past the stigma and seek help, it is equally important for the families to be informed so they do not make the same mistakes unknowingly making PTSD worse. I've been married for over 25 years, so I know first hand families do not need to fall apart and veterans can heal even if they cannot be cured.

Here's a link to my book, For the Love of Jack . It's about 18 years of living with PTSD. It's for free but please consider making a donation so that I can continue this work.

Here's one of the first videos I made so that everyone can understand what it took me years to learn. Wounded Minds. Over on the sidebar, there are even more videos on PTSD. Please use them and pass them on to anyone you think may be helped by them. These are also for free but again, please consider making a donation to support my ministry of helping them heal.

Wounded Minds, PTSD

Posted to Great Americans by NamGuardianAngel on September 19, 2009

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Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome Affects Soldiers Adjusting to Life after War
Corinne Hautala

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Although police have accused Spc. Kip Lynch in the slayings of his wife and baby daughter, they have not explained what led up to the horrific deaths Monday.

But psychologists say many soldiers face challenges when they return from a combat zone. It is not uncommon to see soldiers suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome when they return home from a deployment, said Cindy Alderson, the director of Military and Veteran Programs and Services at University of North Florida.

Alderson, a Navy veteran, knows personally the struggles of returning home after a long deployment.

She said loved ones can help service members by spotting the signs of PTSD and then encouraging them to seek help.
read more here
Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome Affects Soldiers

Vietnam veteran donates so Mount Olive Memorial Day parade can go on

Vietnam veteran donates $3,000 so Mount Olive Memorial Day parade can go on
By MEGHAN VAN DYK • STAFF WRITER • April 28, 2010


MOUNT OLIVE — The Mount Olive Memorial Day parade is back on, thanks to a donation from a Flanders business owner.

John Post, president of Lamtec Corp., plans to donate $3,000 to cover the cost of the parade, which has been running in the township for 25 years. The parade was canceled in light of planned staff cuts to keep a lid on Mount Olive's municipal budget.


"It struck a nerve when I heard it was being canceled," said Post, of Tranquility Township. "Memorial Day is an important day to honor veterans, particularly those that never made it back."


While Post has never even attended the parade in Mount Olive, the Vietnam War Army veteran said Flanders is still his community. His manufacturing company, which produces facings for insulation, has operated at its Bartley Chester Road location since 1982, he said.
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Vietnam veteran donates so Mount Olive Memorial Day parade can go on

Does CNN care about PTSD at all?

If you watched any of the news reports from Iraq, you would have seen the changes in Ware along with seeing the kind of courage it took to stay there and then go back so many times. If he needs to heal then CNN should give him all the time he needs to do it along with all the support it takes. Above that, CNN should take it personally that one of their own is suffering because he was dedicated to his job in a combat zone. Ware reported on the conditions in Iraq but he also reported on the troops. He cared. CNN could have gone a long way in helping the soldiers heal as well if they bothered to report on it as much as they do report on celebrities and gossip.

Michael Ware On Leave From CNN
Huffington Post
Danny Shea
Foreign correspondent Michael Ware, the face of CNN's coverage of Iraq, is on leave from the network.

The network says that Ware, who has been conspicuously absent from CNN, is on leave to write a book.

"Michael is currently on a leave of absence writing a book," a CNN spokesperson told the Huffington Post. "We don't discuss individual contracts."

AllThingsCNN, a blog covering the network, speculates that Ware will not be returning to CNN ever after the network denied his request for more time off to write his book and deal with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Ware was the subject of a haunting, must-read Men's Journal profile in December 2008 that brought readers into his tortured world. Titled "CNN's Prisoner of War," the story by Greg Veis quoted Ware as saying of his return from Iraq, "I am not the same fucking person. I am not the same person. I don't know how to come home." click link above for more

"Crazy Nam Vets" vindicated by today's wars

"Crazy Nam Vets" vindicated by today's wars

If you ever judged Vietnam veterans, protested against them, called them names or regarded them as "crazy Nam Vet" here's your chance to apologize to them. When they came home, no one cared. No one was talking about treating the traumatized veterans differently than the general population that never once did anything like they did, went where they went, risked their lives facing what they faced, but now we know better. We see the men and women we send into combat as different from the rest of us for a reason. We know that justice demands their tours of duty be taken into consideration in deciding prison time or therapy. This is good but the fact remains in a perfect nation, they would never come home without the help they need waiting for them.

Incarcerated Veterans

In January 2000, the Bureau of Justice Statistics released a special report on incarcerated veterans. The following are highlights of the report, "Veterans in Prison or Jail":

Over 225,000 veterans were held in U.S. prisons or jails in 1998.

Among adult males in 1998, there were 937 incarcerated veterans per 100,000 veteran residents.
1 in every 6 incarcerated veterans was not honorably discharged from the military.
About 20% of veterans in prison reported seeing combat duty during their military service.
In 1998, an estimated 56,500 Vietnam War-era veterans and 18,500 Persian Gulf War veterans were held in state and federal prisons.
Nearly 60% of incarcerated veterans had served in the Army.
Among state prisoners, over half (53%) of veterans were white non-hispanics, compared to nearly a third (31%) of non-veterans; among federal prisoners, the percentage of veterans who were white (50%) was nearly double that of non-veterans (26%).
Among state prisoners, the median age of veterans was 10 years older than that of other prison and jail inmates.
Among state prisoners, veterans (32%) were about 3 times more likely than non-veterans (11%) to have attended college.
Veterans are more likely than others to be in prison for a violent offense but less likely to be serving a sentence for drugs.

About 35% of veterans in state prison, compared to 20% of non-veterans, were convicted of homicide or sexual assault.
Veterans (30%) were more likely than other state prisoners (23%) to be first-time offenders.
Among violent state prisoners, the average sentence of veterans was 50 months longer than the average of non-veterans.
At year-end in 1997, sex offenders accounted for 1 in 3 prisoners held in military correctional facilities.
Combat veterans were no more likely to be violent offenders than other veterans.
Veterans in state prison reported higher levels of alcohol abuse and lower levels of drug abuse than other prisoners.

Veterans in state prison were less likely (26%) than other state prisoners (34%) to report having used drugs at the time of their offense.
Nearly 60% of veterans in state prison had driven drunk in the past, compared to 45% of other inmates.
About 70% of veterans, compared to 54% of other state prisoners, had been working full-time before arrest.
Incarcerated veterans were as likely as non-veterans to have been homeless when arrested.
http://www.nchv.org/background.cfm#incarcerated

We locked them up, let them end up homeless, let them be brought to the point where after surviving combat they didn't want to live longer back here in the states and then we topped that off with not wanting to give them jobs. History is repeating itself but at least more people in this country know about what is going on.

But we also let them end up homeless too.

Veteran-specific highlights from the USICH report include:

23% of the homeless population are veterans
33% of the male homeless population are veterans
47% served Vietnam-era
17% served post-Vietnam
15% served pre-Vietnam
67% served three or more years
33% were stationed in war zone
25% have used VA homeless services
85% completed high school/GED, compared to 56% of non-veterans
89% received an honorable discharge
79% reside in central cities
16% reside in suburban areas
5% reside in rural areas
76% experience alcohol, drug or mental health problems
46% are white males, compared to 34% of non-veterans
46% are age 45 or older, compared to 20% non-veterans

Service needs cited include:

45% need help finding a job
37% need help finding housing

How many homeless veterans are there?

Accurate numbers community-by-community are not available. Some communities do annual counts; others do an estimate based on a variety of factors. Contact the closest VA medical center's homeless coordinator, the office of your mayor, or another presiding official to get local information.

PTSD is finally becoming a common term. When you think of how far we've come when it comes to OEF and OIF veterans, we have to acknowledge that we owe the debt to the Vietnam veterans who came home and fought for all there is today for PTSD. We still have a very long way to go. Now there are Veterans Courts but they are not all over the country. This is one more example of what the need is.

From War to Prison: Veterans Caught in the Criminal Justice System
Tim King Salem-News.com
Documentary highlights conflicts between returning PTSD Combat Vets and a criminal justice system that often fails to consider their unique situation.


(LOS ANGELES) - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the impact this complex and misunderstood problem had on a young American's life is the subject of a hard driving documentary debuting online today called From War to Prison: Veterans Caught in the Criminal Justice System.

Nathan Keyes served two tours in Iraq during his 8 years in the U.S. Army. But when he came home from the war suffering from PTSD, everything went terribly wrong, and now this soldier is serving three years in prison.

His mom Jamie Keyes, says in his military service, her son followed in the footsteps of his grandfather and uncle; they both served in the military.

When Nathan came home from the war suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Jamie says didn’t know what to do for him.

"These boys don’t come home with an instruction booklet – how to deal with them, how to respond to them, and I knew almost nothing about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder," Keyes said in a report published by C. Peterson with Barrow County News in Georgia.
read more here
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/april282010/in-their-boots.php

Soldier suspected in double homicide of wife, baby

Soldier suspected in double homicide of wife, baby

By DAN JOLING
The Associated Press
Tuesday, April 27, 2010; 6:39 PM

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Alaska police say the person responsible for killing a 19-year-old woman and her 8-month-old daughter likely was the woman's husband, a military policeman who returned from Afghanistan two months ago.

The bodies of Racquell Lynch and Kyirsta Lynch were found Monday morning in their Anchorage apartment.

Military police had gone there looking for 21-year-old Spc. Kip Lynch, who had not shown up for duties at Fort Richardson Army Post.
go here for more
Soldier suspected in double homicide of wife, baby

Ian Deutch survived a recent tour of duty in Afghanistan but killed as a cop in Nevada

National guard commander sees tragic irony in Nevada deputy's slaying after Afghanistan tour


KEN RITTER

Associated Press Writer

April 27, 2010 5:35 p.m.


LAS VEGAS (AP) — Ian Deutch survived a recent tour of duty in Afghanistan, identifying Taliban targets for artillery strikes. But he didn't make it through his second day back on the job as a rural Nevada sheriff's deputy.

Deutch was gunned down Monday by a man wielding an assault rifle in a casino parking lot about 60 miles west of Las Vegas. The death of the decorated Nevada Army National Guardsman and law enforcement veteran left those who knew him stunned Tuesday.

"The irony of spending a year overseas in a combat zone and then to come back and have this happen is, you know, tragic," said Lt. Col. Scott Cunningham, a Las Vegas resident and commanding officer of Deutch's guard unit.

Deutch, 27, a staff sergeant, and his older brother, Richard Deutch, a master sergeant, were among 752 soldiers with the 1st Squadron, 221st Calvary who returned home in March. Some members of the Wildhorse squadron suffered casualties but none was killed during their assignment in Afghanistan's Laghman province.



Ian Deutch was a meritorious service medal winner, a squad leader and a forward artillery observer who identified Taliban targets for artillery strikes outside combat outpost Nagil, Cunningham said.

"He's one of those guys, his full-time job is a police officer and his part-time job is a soldier," Cunningham told The Associated Press. "He's always been out there trying to help people and make a contribution to society.
go here for more
National guard commander sees tragic irony

PTSD I Grieve

Posted to Great Americans by NamGuardianAngel on September 11, 2009

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Seroquel fine to be paid but what about the rest of the story?

AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals took advantage of the government and has agreed to pay a fine. The problem is, the FDA, another branch of the government, did not approve Seroquel for "uses that were not approved by the FDA as safe and effective (including aggression, Alzheimer’s disease, anger management, anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, bipolar maintenance, dementia, depression, mood disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and sleeplessness)." Why isn't anyone asking the VA why they used them without checking to see if the company was telling them the truth or not? It's great to hold the companies accountable, but who is holding the VA and other agencies accountable?

Pharmaceutical Giant AstraZeneca to Pay $520 Million for Off-label Drug Marketing

AstraZeneca LP and AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP will pay $520 million to resolve allegations that AstraZeneca illegally marketed the anti-psychotic drug Seroquel for uses not approved as safe and effective by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services’ Health Care Fraud Enforcement Action Team (HEAT) announced today. Such unapproved uses are also known as "off-label" uses because they are not included in the drug’s FDA approved product label.

The Wilmington, Del.-based company signed a civil settlement to resolve allegations that by marketing Seroquel for unapproved uses, the company caused false claims for payment to be submitted to federal insurance programs including Medicaid, Medicare and TRICARE programs, and to the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program and the Bureau of Prisons.

The United States alleges that AstraZeneca illegally marketed Seroquel for uses never approved by the FDA. Specifically, between January 2001 through December 2006, AstraZeneca promoted Seroquel to psychiatrists and other physicians for certain uses that were not approved by the FDA as safe and effective (including aggression, Alzheimer’s disease, anger management, anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, bipolar maintenance, dementia, depression, mood disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and sleeplessness). These unapproved uses were not medically accepted indications for which the United States and the state Medicaid programs provided coverage for Seroquel.

read more here

AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals

More vets eligible for service dog benefits

More vets eligible for service dog benefits

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Apr 27, 2010 13:33:37 EDT

Disabled veterans with sight, hearing and mobility limitations who might benefit from having a service dog at their side are being encouraged by a major veterans service organization to apply for government reimbursement of some dog-related expenses.

While veterans will need help from a Veterans Affairs Department caseworker to complete the form to request a service-dog benefit, VA officials are promising to respond to every request within 10 days of receipt, said Christina Roof, national deputy legislative director of AmVets, a group with more than two decades of experience with service dog policies.

“If you were ever turned down for a service dog or if you filed a request before February and haven’t heard anything, you should apply or reapply,” Roof said, because new guidelines make it easier to qualify.
read more here
More vets eligible for service dog benefits

Mental health patients turn to each other

Mental health patients turn to each other
Mental health patients turn to each other for strength, advice

By John Keilman

Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO — Jim Bina was feeling good. And that made him nervous.

The Naperville, Ill., man had struggled with depression for decades, and he had learned to distrust happiness as an illusion that masked an approaching crisis.

It might sound like an unusual problem, but when he mentioned it one recent night in a hospital conference room, most of those listening nodded in recognition.

Bina, 54, had come to a support group for people with mental illness, run by people with mental illness. It offered them a chance to discuss and maybe get help for problems that, all too often, their friends, families and even therapists didn't seem to understand.

How do you feel comfortable at social gatherings when everyone there knows you tried to kill yourself? Should you abandon your religious faith if you're prone to thinking that you're God? How do you handle your illness when your child has it, too?

"A doctor can read about it but he doesn't know it firsthand," Bina said later. "Here, they get it. You're preaching to the choir. They know exactly what you're talking about."
read more here
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/living/2011706627_mental27.html

Vets still giving back and donate settlement money to charities

Vets donate settlement money to charities
Published: April 27, 2010 at 11:01 AM


NEW YORK, April 27 (UPI) -- Military veterans who settled an identity-theft lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs said they will donate $13 million to veterans' charities.

John Rowan, 64, of New York, a Vietnam veteran and plaintiff in the class-action suit, and about 20 million other veterans settled with the VA for $20 million, the New York Daily News reported Tuesday.

The veterans sued the VA after an employee's laptop with veterans' personal data was stolen in 2006. The veterans said the VA didn't do enough to protect them after finding the sensitive information was missing, the newspaper reported.

The veterans said they will donate the money to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund and the Fisher House Foundation, New York charities that help families of killed and wounded soldiers.
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Vets donate settlement money to charities

For Delilah Washburn, 'every day was Veterans Day'

For Washburn, 'every day was Veterans Day'
Retired sergeant helped to found local VA clinic
By Judith McGinnis
Posted April 27, 2010 at 12:01 a.m.
Delilah Washburn, who fought fearlessly for the rights of veterans, particularly women vets, lost her own battle with cancer Sunday.

Services will be at 10 a.m. Thursday at Floral Heights United Methodist Church. Visitation will be from 6 to 8 p.m. at Hampton-Vaughn Funeral Home. Washburn will be buried at the Dallas National Cemetery.

Born Aug. 5, 1952 in Blue Ridge, Ga., Washburn’s mother, Geraldine McGee, says Delilah, an only child, began talking to military recruiters by the time she was 15.

“They told her to come back and see them when she came of age,” McGee said. “Six days after she turned 18 she was in the Air Force, headed for Lackland (Air Force Base).”
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For Washburn, every day was Veterans Day

Afghanistan veteran, deputy sheriff killed second day back on the job

Nevada deputy sheriff shot and killed in domestic dispute 60 miles west of Las Vegas

By Associated Press

April 26, 2010 11:53 p.m.


PAHRUMP, Nev. (AP) — A deputy sheriff who was shot Monday while responding to a domestic disturbance report about 60 miles west of Las Vegas has died.

The Nye County Sheriff’s Office says when deputies arrived at Terrible's Lakeside RV Resort in Pahrump, the suspect pulled a rifle out of his vehicle and opened fire without warning. The officers returned fire and killed the suspect.

The sheriff's office says one of the deputies was shot several times and was taken to a Las Vegas hospital, where he underwent surgery but died.

His name and that of the suspect were not released.

Nye County Sheriff Anthony DeMeo told KLAS-TV that the deputy was 27 years old, had recently returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan and it was his second day back.
Nevada deputy sheriff shot and killed