Crackdown on corrupt Iraq contracts yields record caseload

Where were the Tea Party folks when all of this was happening to the troops and our tax dollars were being ripped off? Where were the Republicans in office screaming about supporting the troops and the President as the Commander-in-Chief because we were at war? Where were the Democrats during all of this? Trying to hold hearings and get to the bottom of all of this while the GOP refused to allow them to hold hearings other than in basement rooms.

Crackdown on corrupt Iraq contracts yields record caseload

By Matt Kelley, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — A federal crackdown on corruption involving U.S. contracts in Iraq produced a record number of criminal and administrative cases last month — including the largest bribery case.

The flurry of activity resulted from investigations overseen by a Justice Department task force set up last fall to target corruption in the $44.5 billion Iraq reconstruction program.

Corruption in Iraq — dubbed the "second insurgency" by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) — has been the target of numerous congressional hearings critical of the slow pace of prosecutions. Pentagon auditors have questioned $4 billion in contractors' bills for work in Iraq. So far, 29 people have been charged or convicted, seven in July.

"We're going to see some real results this year in many of the cases SIGIR has over at the Justice Department, as well as the work of this task force," said Stuart Bowen, the inspector general, in a phone interview from Baghdad.

Investigators accounted for four arrests in the last week of July alone, including those of Army Maj. John Cockerham, his wife and sister for allegedly taking $9.6 million in bribes. They have pleaded not guilty.
read more here
Crackdown on corrupt Iraq contracts yields record caseload

All sides need to demand a full accounting of all the money and how they treated the troops.

When the Veteran You Love Commits Suicide Anyway

Right after 9-11 I contacted Jonathan Shay, well known author and working with veterans for the VA in Boston. He was trying to help me get my book, For the Love of Jack, His War/My Battle by Kathie Costos published without much luck. I wrote it during a time when my husband still thought he had anything to be ashamed of. I called Jonathan because I saw what was coming in our veterans, especially Vietnam veterans. The secondary stressor that would send mild PTSD into full-blown PTSD. Jonathan saw it coming too and that is when we discussed self-publishing my book to get it out there before too many would find their lives changed without knowing what hit them.

This powerful piece by Lily Casura on Healing Combat Trauma is about this very fact I feared the most.

PTSD Enters

At about the 12 year point in our relationship, a new entity/force entered the picture. This was an uninvited presence, unrecognized at first – but the behaviors it produced and the unwanted consequences it set in motion seemed to have a life of their own.

On September 11, 2001, when the planes crashed into the towers in New York, and the war ensued with Iraq – for Denny, this was the final unleashing of his own, internal war. He had been battling this war privately for years, but now, his inner battles consumed him. At this time, “our” war with PTSD began in earnest. PTSD was the new entity in our marriage, and 9/11 was the trigger.

Within two weeks after 9/11, Denny was in a mental hospital due to suicidal ideations. I had never even heard that term, “suicidal ideations,” before, but my vocabulary education was just beginning.

Too many gone too soon because of the enemy within them but taking pieces of their families with them.

Intimate Survival: When the Veteran You Love Commits Suicide Anyway
by
Lily Casura
Healing Combat Trauma

Today is the 12th annual "National Survivors of Suicide Day." It's also a day of healing for survivors of suicide loss around the world.

Every day 18 veterans take their own lives; every 36 hours, an active duty soldier does. The pain is immeasurable, not only for the one who cannot bear it anymore and takes his or her own life, but also, importantly, for the ones they leave behind. They wait for time to heal those wounds; but it's almost impossible for time to do that; the loss is so great, particularly where there was also great love.

Because of how many veterans die each year at their own hand, affecting so many others in suicide's wake, we wanted to honor these relationships by asking a wonderful woman to tell the deeply true and deeply painful story of her own loss of her love to suicide. By telling the truth about these stories, and bringing this sadness into the light that truly so many share, we can embrace one another in the courage and compassion it takes to carry on. Marilyn has graciously shared her story, below. We are blessed to have her presence here.

"The Language of Suffering and Healing: Lessons Learned from Loss and Life with a PTSD Vet"

Suffering has its own language. Old words take on new powerful meanings, and some words that formerly brought up feelings of joy now are redefined with fear and terror.

When you live with and love someone with combat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, you develop a new vocabulary related to the disorder/the suffering. The word “anniversary” used to be one associated with dressing up, going out to dinner, exchanging cards and gifts of love. Then it came to be associated with the anniversary dates of horrible, tragic events from the war -- i.e. the day a buddy was blown out of the air in his helicopter during a mission. The word “trigger” has a common definition referring to a part of a gun -- now it referred to a smell, a sound, a sight, a verbal exchange, a situation that could set off rage, depression, anger, or isolating.

My late Vietnam vet husband, Denny, suffered with severe combat-related PTSD. Truthfully, we both suffered from his PTSD. Even though technically I wasn’t a soldier in Vietnam, it seems for a time, during the final ten years of our marriage, I became a prisoner of that war.

Please read more here
When the Veteran You Love Commits Suicide Anyway

How far we've come from those dark days of suffering in silence

I was 23 when PTSD came into my life. I met a Vietnam Vet and wondered why he was so different. The day we met, my life changed. It had become my life's mission to make sure that veterans were taken care of and that families had what they needed to stay by their sides. We met in 1982. All these years later, countless hours spent doing what I had to do and now I finally see how far we've come from those dark days of suffering in silence.

Families join battle

Young adults, spouses play role
Jim Steinberg, Staff Writer
Posted: 11/20/2010 09:49:14 PM PST

After returning from Vietnam, people said Juju Sands' father was a changed man.
For the little girl who was born after her father returned from heavy combat in the steamy jungles, he was nothing short of a monster.

"I thank my father for showing me hell on Earth," said Sands, who now lives in Rancho Cucamonga with her husband and two children. "It catapulted me to strive to be better. It's given me a positive view of life."

Sands' experience is one of many shared by the families of veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. It was a relatively foreign concept to those coming home from Vietnam and earlier conflicts, but is now something being examined in servicemen and women coming home from battle in

Iraq and Afghanistan.
Such awareness has caused the Veterans Affairs Department support network to evolve.

It now offers classes for family members so that they can better understand the journey of their returning sailor, soldier, airman or Marine.

"Veterans are part of a system, meaning the family, and they need to be educated not only to help them, but to increase treatment benefits of the veterans," said Nancy Farrell, staff psychologist with the Jerry L. Pettis Memorial Veterans Medical Center in Loma Linda.

The world of PTSD

The wounds of war can be psychological as well as physical. Fear triggers split-second changes to prepare the body to enter a "fight-or-flight" mode.

But sometimes this survival-based reaction results in alterations of brain function. Survival instincts designed to protect the species begin to malfunction, causing destructive behaviors, which can tear into a family like shrapnel from a land mine.

Most often, the behaviors improve over time. Sometimes they get worse. This is the world of PTSD.

Veterans were often misdiagnosed. Or worse, they were left to deal with life-altering behaviors and lose productive years to rage, drug or alcohol abuse and avoidance of people - including families.

Sands' father - a drug addict - died alone on the streets of Los Angeles.
read more here
Families join battle

We as a nation send them to do our battles but we as a nation forget about them soon after. Wounded and forced to wait for care, not just from medical facilities but waiting for this nation to really care about what happens to them after they come home. We talk about the veterans forgetting about their families being on the front lines and we leave them alone as well.

The spouse shows up at work, clearly tired, but no one knows why they spent yet another night with little sleep.

A kid shows up in class with a sadness in their eyes that kids shouldn't have and no one knows they just spent yet another night of hearing their Dad or Mom screaming in the middle of the night because of one more terrible dream.

PTSD is not just about the veteran but about the entire family. They are on the front lines getting the veteran help and they need support to do it but they also need to know they have not been forgotten about.

Uncle says nephew " died at his battlefield here at home, in his head"

Family: Battle 'in his head' killed vet

By TIM BUCKLAND
New Hampshire Union Leader

GRAFTON – Family members are mourning the loss of a 24-year-old veteran of the Iraq war who came home two years ago a changed man suffering the after-effects of a traumatic war experience.

Daniel E. Duefield, who served two tours in Iraq before being honorably discharged following injuries he sustained in an explosion, was found dead at his home in Grafton on Wednesday, his mother, Ruth Duefield, said Friday.

"I really am heartbroken," she said.

An autopsy is being performed to determine the cause of death, said his uncle, Frederick Duefield. Ruth said Daniel suffered a seizure at about 3 a.m. Wednesday. She said he'd had several seizures in recent months from complications due to the lingering effects of a traumatic brain injury suffered in the explosion.


Ruth and Frederick said the family has not ruled out suicide, as Daniel was suffering from the effects of posttraumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and may have taken as many as 70 methadone pills in a two-day period.

"He died at his battlefield here at home, in his head," Frederick said.
read more here
Battle in his head killed vet

War veteran barred from CCBC campus over war essay?

War is brutal, bloody business. With the detachment from war, other people in this country forget we are in two campaigns losing men and women everyday by enemy hands as well as their own. How can it be that a veteran of Iraq wrote about what he was thinking and ended up told he had to stay away from his classes until he had a psychological evaluation? Did he threaten anyone? Did he ever do anything that would cause anyone to fear him other than the officials? His professor didn't seem to be worried about him when this veteran received an A on his essay and it is clear the editorial board didn't seem afraid or they wouldn't have published his paper. So what is this all about, really?

Yes, there have been attacks on students in college, high school and even elementary schools across the country, but other than Timothy McVeigh, these have been committed by civilians never knowing what it was like to risk their lives for the sake of someone else in service to the rest of this nation. Is this about a school worried about the safety of the students or is it more that he wrote what was not something the majority of the veterans would have to say? When do they give up their right to have their own views, use their own words to express what they feel or think?

He is in counseling and takes medication but that must not be good enough for college. It sends a wrong message, not just to veterans but to the students, that honesty in pain has no place there. It tells them that this minority needs to fit back in with polite society where these kinds of things are hidden from view. It also tells other veterans who may be thinking the same things at one time or another that they have something to feel ashamed of instead of acknowledging the fact that wars have been account for throughout history and it took some to write it all down. What are they teaching at that college anyway if history does not matter?

War veteran barred from CCBC campus for frank words on killing
After publishing essay on addiction to war, Charles Whittington must obtain psychological evaluation before returning to classes

By Childs Walker, The Baltimore Sun
12:09 p.m. EST, November 20, 2010


By writing the paper, Charles Whittington thought he would confront the anxieties that had tormented him since he returned from war.

He knew it wasn't normal to dwell on the pleasure of sticking his knife between an enemy soldier's ribs. But by recording his words, maybe he'd begin to purge the fixation.

So Whittington, an Iraq veteran, submitted an essay on the allure of combat for his English class at the Community College of Baltimore County in Catonsville. He called war a drug and wrote that killing "is something that I do not just want but something I really need so I can feel like myself."

Whittington's instructor gave him an A and suggested that he seek publication for the piece. The essay appeared in the Oct. 26 edition of the campus newspaper.

Two weeks later, the former infantryman was called to a meeting with high-ranking college officials, who told him he would be barred from campus until he obtained a psychological evaluation. "We all believe in freedom of speech, but we have to really be cautious in this post- Virginia Tech world," says college spokesman Hope Davis, referring to the 2007 massacre of 32 people by a student gunman.

But Whittington, 24, says that he has his violent impulses under control with the help of counseling and medication and that the college is unfairly keeping him from moving forward with his life.

"Right now, that's all I have left," he says of his classes.
read more here
War veteran barred from CCBC campus

Number of Army Suicides Already Surpasses 2009 Total

November 20, 2010 posted by Chaplain Kathie

This is what we knew after Vietnam with most being deployed once.

This was published by the DAV stating clearly we already had 500,000 in Readjustment Problems Among Vietnam Veterans, The Etiology of Combat-Related Post Traumatic Stress Disorders by Jim Goodwin, Psy.D. It hangs on the wall of my office, old and worn out, to remind me everyday of how much of what we already knew has been ignored. With one deployment we had huge numbers of veterans with PTSD, over 300,000 ended up homeless and two studies put the numbers of suicides between 150,000 and 200,000, topped off with the latest studies putting the figure of veterans committing suicide at a rate of 18 a day.

Number of Army Suicides Already Surpasses 2009 Total

By Sara Sorcher
Friday, November 19, 2010 | 6:30 p.m.

Despite a rapidly expanding effort to improve the mental well-being of its soldiers, new Army data suggest that the service’s suicide epidemic shows little sign of improvement, with more troops taking their own lives so far this year than ever before.

The data released by the Pentagon on Friday indicate that there were 25 potential suicides for both active-duty and reserve service members. Two by active-duty troops were confirmed. In a separate document from the Army, five suicides of reservists have been confirmed. The rest are all under investigation.

As of today’s numbers, at least 172 soldiers committed suicide this year—surpassing last year’s total of 162 for all of 2009.

Suicide is the third-leading cause of death for soldiers, trailing only combat deaths and accidental deaths from drug overdoses and drunken driving, the Army’s Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli said in the foreword to a report on military suicide issued in July. Chiarelli, a four-star general, has made a personal commitment to suicide prevention.

The military has invested tens of millions of dollars in a crash effort to combat the ever-increasing suicide rate, hiring more mental-health professionals, installing video-teleconferencing centers to allow soldiers on remote bases in Afghanistan to communicate with stateside mental-health professionals, and distributing laminated cards for soldiers to better recognize signs of depression or suicidal thoughts.

With that in mind, here's a visit back to the medication issue that will blow your mind.

Prescription drugs were involved in almost one-third of the service’s active-duty suicides, the Army’s suicide-prevention task force said in its July report.

National Journal reported in October that the number of psychiatric-medication prescriptions filled for customers ages 18 to 34—the age range of most active-duty troops and their spouses—soared by 85 percent between 2003 and 2009, according to the military’s health insurance system.

read more here
Number of Army Suicides Already Surpasses 2009 Total

Fort Drum Doctor calls PTSD “behavioral health condition"

Fort Drum Doctor calls PTSD “behavioral health condition”
November 19, 2010 posted by Chaplain Kathie · 1 Comment (Edit)


Sounds bad to start off with but it ended up getting worse.

Hammond mother fights to get son treated for PTSD
When Rene Schwappach’s son Gerald (“Jerry”) left for Iraq in 2007, she never imagined he would come back “somebody different.”
By: Ashley Halladay, New Richmond News

When Rene Schwappach’s son Gerald (“Jerry”) left for Iraq in 2007, she never imagined he would come back “somebody different.”

As Veterans Day has recently passed, Rene says her son and many other soldiers at Fort Drum in New York are not getting the help and medical treatment America’s soldiers deserve.

“You think if they come back in one piece, everything is going to be all right,” she said. But she said Gerald’s post-traumatic stress disorder has left him anxious, angry and suffering from nightmares nearly every night.

Gerald has been stationed at the Fort Drum New York 10th Division 38th Brigade Warrior Transition Unit since Jan. 12 and feels he is not getting adequate medical care.

After receiving depressed and suicidal phone calls from her son about his treatment and the staff at Fort Drum, Rene flew to New York on Oct. 1 to see what her son was experiencing. She stayed at Fort Drum for 15 days and said she was disgusted with what she saw.

Upon leaving, Rene said, “I never cried so much in my life.”

read more here
Fort Drum Doctor calls PTSD behavioral health condition

Staff at Tampa VA learn to not wake up PTSD patients

Staff at Tampa VA learn to not wake up PTSD patients
November 19, 2010 posted by Chaplain Kathie · 9 Comments


This has been fairly big news down here in Florida. A wounded 22 year old veteran out of Cape Coral wanted to recover closer to home, so he was transferred from Walter Reed to Tampa VA, A. James Haley Hospital. It was a move that made it worse for him. One of the biggest issues was that this soldier was suffering physically and from PTSD but staff members were still waking up PTSD soldiers in the middle of the night.

read more here
Staff at Tampa VA learn to not wake up PTSD patients

MOH Salvatore on Colbert Report

Last night Steven Colbert struggled to interview the first living Medal of Honor hero since the Vietnam War. Giunta struggled to respond to being called a hero as he said he did not fight alone, did not serve alone and that the award belongs to all serving. If you want to know what kind of men and women we have serving today, watch this clip, then come back.

Thursday November 18, 2010
Salvatore Giunta
Salvatore Giunta gives credit to all the unsung heroes who didn't receive a Medal of Honor for bravery in Afghanistan


Salvatore Giunta MOH

Why is it that we never seem to grasp this one simple fact? They do not serve alone but they end up going from an Army of one to being a veteran alone. They are forced to fight a battle the rest of us are supposed to be fighting for them. The battle to heal after combat.

Here is one example of this. I posted this on Veterans Today about a wounded Afghanistan soldier and how he was treated.

Congresswoman Kathy Casto went to Tampa VA after Private First Class Corey Kent had been transferred from Walter Reed to recover closer to home but ended up getting worse then had to fight to be transferred back to Walter Reed.

Staff at Tampa VA learn to not wake up PTSD patients
November 19, 2010 posted by Chaplain Kathie

* They plan to educate their staff on PTSD to ensure they take into account the unique issues facing these patients and adjust their treatment accordingly. They indicated to me that they understand your concern with having a care provider come into his room in the middle of the night and shake his bed as inappropriate for someone suffering from PTSD.
read more here
Tampa VA

"They plan to educate their staff on PTSD" which means what? They have not done this yet? How many years are we into PTSD research? No, not since the troops were sent into Iraq or even Afghanistan, but going all the way back to the 70's when Vietnam veterans came home and fought to make it happen. Educating staff now is about 40 years too late. How could they have ignored something as simple as not waking up combat veterans with physical wounds? A bomb wounded Kent yet staff had to be told that waking him up by shaking his bed was not a good thing to do?

This happens all the time as the troops come home across the country and it is even worse for the National Guards and Reservists coming back home home to their civilian lives. It is almost as if the military says, "Hey, thanks for showing up but now you're on your own."

Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta received the Medal of Honor for saving two lives and being a hero in battle but after listening to him last night, this man will end up saving a lot more because of what he said. He did not do it alone and maybe, just maybe, no one will allow them to come home and end up being a veteran alone.

UK Special forces veteran and author found hanged after PTSD battle

Special forces veteran found hanged after being tormented by post-traumatic stress
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 11:25 AM on 19th November 2010


A special forces veteran and author hanged himself after suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, an inquest heard.

Peter Mercer, who wrote Dirty Deeds Done Cheap and Not By Strength, By Guile, had been haunted by memories of his time in the Special Boat Service, the Royal Navy's special forces unit. He also served in the Balkans and Northern Ireland and worked as a private security guard in Iraq.
Mr Mercer, 39, was found in Clevedon near Bristol in April having struggled with alcoholism and the emotional impact of his military service.


Read more: Special Forces veteran hanged himself