PTSD Awareness Day:More soldiers seeking help for PTSD

by
Chaplain Kathie

This is PTSD Awareness Day. This is also post number 12,000! While I had high hopes this day would come there were many times I thought that nothing would do any good. How is a person supposed to find hope with reports of suicides and attempted suicides going up all the time? How does anyone find hope after reading about Marine Clay Hunt's suicide not counted after he did everything that experts said had to be done in order to save their lives? Too many reports over the years and I've been reading them for almost 30 years now. While this blog is less than 4 years old, I began in 1982 when PTSD became part of my life. I fell in love with a Vietnam Veteran. Hard to believe after all we've been through, we're still in love, still married, but above all that, he's living a better life. With therapy and medication, he finally reached the point where he is unashamed of what Vietnam did to him. Knowing that all is not hopeless because I have seen it with my own eyes has been torture, grieving for families suffering the loss of someone they loved. The worst emails I receive are from families when it is too late to help their veteran heal.

Defeating the stigma of PTSD is step one in overcoming it. Knowing what it is and what it is doing to their lives helps them understand they are not "defective" or "crazy" or anything else but a person who cared enough to risk his/her life for the sake of someone else. Brave? You bet or they wouldn't have been able to do anything more than sit it out like the majority of the people in this country. Beyond the bravery is compassion. They cared deeply about other people and that opened the door to the pain they came home with.

After reading the following report, it seems as if the enemy called "stigma" is losing this battle for their lives and that's a wonderful thing.

More Lewis-McChord soldiers seeking mental help
Officials at Joint Base Lewis-McChord believe they're making progress against the stigma that keeps some soldiers from getting help for mental-health issues.

By The Associated Press

JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD — Officials at Joint Base Lewis-McChord believe they're making progress against the stigma that keeps some soldiers from getting help for mental-health issues.

More soldiers and military families are reaching out for mental-health care at the base, and post-traumatic stress diagnoses and prescriptions for common antidepressants are on the rise at Madigan Army Medical Center, The News Tribune of Tacoma reported.

What's not clear is how much of that increased pace is the result of distress caused by combat and long separations, and how much is the result of the sheer numbers of soldiers returning to the base from overseas. More than half of the base's 40,000 service members were gone from mid-2009 to mid-2010.

"I think we're actually starting to win this battle on stigma," said Madigan's commander, Col. Dallas Homas.
More Lewis-McChord soldiers seeking mental help

Community comes together for Staff Sgt. Kyle Malin

Thanks all around, as Army Staff Sgt. Kyle Malin and family show gratitude to Lakeville community
By Rachel Wedlund

When Army Staff Sergeant Kyle Malin is thanked for his military service, he responds as many veterans do - with humility.

At a homecoming party Saturday night for Malin, 28, at Lakeville's VFW Post 210, he told a grateful Vietnam veteran, "Hey, all I did was step in the wrong spot."

Malin's parents planned the party not for people to thank Malin, but for him and his parents to express their gratitude to the community for its help after his injury in the line of duty.

Malin's life changed forever last summer in the pomegranate and grape fields of the Afghanabad Valley in Afghanistan. The Lakeville native and father of two was a month into a tour with the Army's 101st Airborne Unit on that July day. His team was coming to the aid of a wounded soldier when Malin stepped on an improvised explosive device He ended up losing both legs.

"I remember hearing a really loud noise and being thrashed into a sandstorm," Kyle Malin said. "The next thing I knew, I was waking up in Walter Reed (Army Medical Center)."

Jon Malin, Kyle's father and high school wrestling coach, said the support of family, friends and community - who raised more than $50,000 for the Malins with a golf benefit last fall - has helped Kyle and his family stay strong during Kyle's recovery.
read more here
Thanks all around

Bars offer vets more than drinks

Bars offer vets more than drinks
The Los Angeles Times
DALE CITY, Va. — The minute one of her regulars comes into VFW Post 1503, Dori Keys starts to pour. Rich gets a Captain Morgan and Diet Coke. Sam drinks Old Crow on the rocks. Bruce likes Miller Lite.

The men she serves have one thing in common: They are American combat veterans. After seven years of listening from behind the bar, she knows a lot more about them than what they drink.

For instance, Bruce Yeager, 62, came in one day complaining about a sore on his foot that wouldn't heal. A former Army medic in Vietnam, he knew what was wrong. But it took Keys to persuade him to see a doctor. She even drove him. His gangrenous leg was amputated a few weeks later, the result of diabetes linked to his exposure to Agent Orange.

“I listened to Dori because she is a real good person,” Yeager said. That's about all he can put into words before his eyes mist up.

When it comes to dispensing health care, war veterans are a hard group to reach — and a growing group, thanks to ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Combat vets came up in a military system that rewards toughness and discourages complaints, particularly concerning psychological problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

A researcher in Ohio thinks bartenders like Keys might be part of a solution.

“In social work, you try to meet the clients where they are. If that happens to be a bar, then that's where the first line of help needs to be,” said Keith Anderson, an assistant professor of social work at Ohio State University. He is lead author of “The Healing Tonic,” a report on a pilot study that explored the family-like relationships between bartenders and vets at VFW canteens around Ohio.

The results suggest the women behind the bar — most of them happen to be women — could be an untapped resource for steering vets in crisis toward professional help.
read more here
Bars offer vets more than drinks

Britney Spears meets YouTube Marines

Britney Spears Marine Spoof (Video) Meets The Youtube Marines!
by Jack Ryan
Britney Spears has met the HMLA-169 and VMM-266 REIN Marines who did a spoof of her song "Hold It Against Me." The spoof video was shot in Afghanistan. It featured members of the Marines dancing and lip synching to her new audacious hit single.

The popstar met the marines on Friday before her show in Anaheim, California. She wrote on her twitter: "So honored to meet the marines of HMLA-169 'Vipers' who made that amazing HIAM video." She posted a photo of her and the marines who did the video.
read more here

Former Iraq POW looks back

Former Iraq POW looks back
20 years ago, Mike Roberts was shot down and captured by Iraqi troops
Jun 26, 2011
COLUMBUS -- The colonel in the olive drab flight suit picks up a remote control lying on his desk, aims it at the television mounted to his office wall and pushes play. The screen flickers on to a crude black and white video overlaid with numbers and symbols.

On the screen, from this bird's-eye view, jets careen through a morbid and magnificent fireworks display as rockets race up from below. The horizon tilts sharply as just ahead, a rocket finds its target. "Stroke One took a hit! Stroke One took a hit!" says an adrenaline-laced voice that transports the colonel in the flight suit back 20 years into the cockpit of his F-16 fighter jet. A moment later, another missile finds its mark.
read more here
Former Iraq POW looks back

Fallen soldier returns home as "everyone's son"

A fallen hero becomes everyone's son when he returns home for the final time
By GREG JAFFE The Washington Post

Publication: The Day

Many in Woodstown, never knew the soldier killed in Afghanistan; but for a few moments, they pause their lives to think of him - and that distant war

Woodstown, N.J. - The silver hearse rolls out the main gate of Dover Air Force Base, where America's war dead return to U.S. soil.

"He's coming," yells John Davis, a 73-year-old retired electrician and Vietnam veteran. He and about 20 other bikers scramble for their Harleys.

Davis has a droopy gray mustache, a small soul patch and trifocals. He swings an artificial knee over his bike, drapes an ice pack over the nape of his neck and fires up his black motorcycle. The bikers pair off, forming a line leading away from the base. The hearse falls in behind them.

At 1:15 p.m., the convoy is heading north on Route 1 out of Delaware, toward the soldier's home town. The guttural rumble of the Harleys, softened by the hum of highway traffic, fills the air.
Most of the bikers don't even know the name of the soldier in the hearse.

Sixty miles away, in Woodstown, N.J., the three local employees of the John M. Glover Insurance Agency wonder why the police have posted temporary "no parking" signs on South Main Street. They check the borough of Woodstown's Web site to see whether there are plans to trim the trees in town. Then they notice the firemen hanging a big American flag between the ladders of their two trucks.

One of the agency employees, William Seddon, calls his son, a volunteer firefighter, to ask what is happening.

"The body of a soldier is going to come down the street later in the afternoon," his son tells him.

A fallen hero becomes everyone son

Duckworth stresses women's service history

Duckworth stresses women's service history

Sun, 06/26/2011
Dave Hinton

Even today, Tammy Duckworth says she gets questions about whether women belong in combat.

"Where do you think I was?" she responds. "In a bar fight?"

Duckworth lost both legs and partial use of one arm when the Black Hawk helicopter she was co-piloting was shot down during a 2004 mission in Iraq.

A major in the Illinois National Guard, she now serves as assistant secretary for public and intergovernmental affairs at the Department of Veterans Affairs — a position for which she was nominated by President Barack Obama.

She recently resigned the latter post and is rumored to be planning a run for U.S. Congress. Appearing Saturday at the annual Women With Wings event at Chanute Air Museum, Duckworth said she cannot speak about any potential run for Congress yet.

Duckworth said women serving in the military are becoming increasingly common. But she said many people forget that women's service started many years ago, citing the World War II service of the Women's Army Corps.
Duckworth stresses women's service history

Vietnam Veteran with PTSD finds peace in Oregon's coast

Ron Cronin: A photographer with an obsession for the Oregon coast
Published: Saturday, June 25, 2011
By David Stabler, The Oregonian

Ron Cronin
You can look at Ron Cronin's photographs and not know humans exist. "What I want is comfort, being in the moment, something that goes directly into the soul of the viewer."

Ron Cronin hoists a 70-pound pack onto his surly back and scrambles over rocks the size of filing cabinets to a spot 25 feet from the heaving surf. One big one and he'd be sucked into the cold churn, but after decades of visits, he knows the waves here, as well as the tides, temperatures, wind and light.

This rock shelf at Boiler Bay is Cronin's favorite spot on the coast, where power and fury drown out his demons for a few hours.

Out of his backpack come his tools: a tripod, a large-format camera, a lens, glass slides, a light meter and a black cloth. Cronin assembles his gear and ducks under the cloth, waiting for the perfect wave.

Maybe this one. Or this one. He watches the waves like a surfer, looking for signs of chaos and harm.

"I'm a power junkie. I absolutely love storms," he says. "It's hypnotic and mesmerizing. It may be because I'm a Vietnam veteran."

After his Ecola days, he came back to Portland, married an opera singer, Maria Novak Cronin, had a son and found ways to cope. Years later, he was diagnosed as 50 percent disabled with PTSD, he says.

"I knew I could never work with people or in a corporate office. I was unemployable, so I created my own occupation.

read more here
A photographer with an obsession for the Oregon coast

Iraq Veteran died in a psychiatric hospital in El Paso

Elgin man dies after serving in Iraq

By Elena Ferrarin
A 21-year-old Elgin man died Tuesday in Texas after suffering from traumatic brain injury resulting from an Army training exercise accident last year, his family said Saturday.

Timothy John “T.J.” Hansley died in a psychiatric hospital in El Paso, said his mother Trish Hansley. “We don’t know what happened; they can’t find the cause of death,” she said.

read more here
Elgin man dies after serving in Iraq

Veteran in Westboro case looks to move beyond his legal troubles

Veteran in Westboro case looks to move beyond his legal troubles

BY TIM POTTER
The Wichita Eagle

Ryan Newell is resting on his three-wheeler in a row of motorcycles in a Wichita garage, its door open to the steamy weather.

Just sitting there, it's hot enough to sweat, but the 26-year-old looks comfortable, calm, wearing his ball cap backward and smiling.

The garage is a refuge for the Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran. Just being there with his friend and fellow veteran Tony Sparling among the shiny, powerful machines boosts Newell's morale after what he's been through — disabling war wounds, PTSD, and a run-in with a controversial Topeka church that got him in trouble with the law and drew national attention.

People still call him Sgt. Newell even though he's no longer in the Army. He was a sergeant returning from a mission in Afghanistan in 2008 when an improvised bomb detonated.

"We lost everybody in the Humvee that day except for me," he says.
read more here and see video report
Veteran in Westboro case looks to move beyond his legal troubles