Tuesday, June 26, 2012

New University of South Florida therapy may ease PTSD

New University of South Florida therapy may ease PTSD
By HOWARD ALTMAN
Tampa Tribune
Published: June 25, 2012

TAMPA — For University of South Florida researchers studying the effectiveness of a new therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder, these are promising times.

They've just published the results of an initial study that indicates the treatment, accelerated resolution therapy, seems to work. The Department of Defense and the university have just given approval to test active-duty service members, a major restaurateur has kicked off a fundraising campaign and a Navy reserve station in Las Vegas now will serve as a satellite study center.

It all comes at a time when Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta says research into suicide prevention is one of the Department of Defense's main weapons in the fight against suicide, which kills more troops than the Taliban.

"With all of these things coming together, it looks like we are that much closer to getting a more efficient evidence-based treatment into place that will actually eliminate the traumatic response to memories and bring relief to the troops and their families," said one of the researchers, Carrie Elk, a psychologist and military liaison for the USF College of Nursing, which conducted the initial therapy studies.
read more here

Ft. Lewis Soldier Says Poor PTSD Treatment Forced Him AWOL

Brook Thomas Lindsey: Ft. Lewis Soldier Says Poor PTSD Treatment Forced Him AWOL
By Keegan Hamilton
Mon., Jun. 25 2012
Categories: Military

An Iraq War veteran stationed at Ft. Lewis says struggles with PTSD and a lack of responsiveness to his condition by Army doctors forced him to go AWOL.

The soldier, 26-year-old Sgt. Brook Thomas Lindsey, met with members of the media on Friday at Coffee Strong, a non-profit organization, headquartered across the street from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, that advocates for military mental health treatment reform. Lindsey recounted why he decided to leave the base without permission on March 26.

"I'd go over to Madigan (Army Medical Center), right across the street and I'd tell them, 'I'm having suicidal thoughts,"' Lindsey says. "They would just tell me to breathe. They'd talk me down. The next day I'm still feeling the same way, but they'd return me to duty, tell my leaders everything was fine."

Wearing a baseball cap and a grey shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal several skeletal, military-themed tattoos on his forearms, Lindsey says he enlisted at age 19 because he felt it was his patriotic duty. He says he was deployed in Iraq for 22 months, and that he was an exemplary soldier prior to his return to the military base just south of Tacoma. Greg Wilson, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, says he served in Iraq with Lindsey in 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry, 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, and was always impressed with his fellow soldier's resolve.
read more here

Double-Whammy: PTSD and Substance Abuse

MILITARY MENTAL HEALTH
Double-Whammy: PTSD and Substance Abuse
By MARK THOMPSON
June 25, 2012

Battleland contributor Bingham Jamison, a Marine who saw action in Iraq and came home the worse for wear, is the subject of a new video by Veterans Healing Initiative.

That’s a nonprofit group dedicated to getting veterans treatment for substance abuse and PTSD. “VHI offers support to veterans from all conflicts, of all ages, men and women, regardless of military status or medical insurance coverage,” says Bingham, a member of VHI’s military advisory board.
Read more

IamVeteran wants you to get what you earned

Earlier this month I went to a job fair for veterans and met a lady, Annie Artis, doing all she can to help veterans. She runs IamVeteran
IamVeteran was created to assist Veterans with transitioning from military life to civilian. Given the large number of veterans and soldiers exiting the military, the high rate of veteran unemployment and the lack of resources, IamVeteran was designed to be a one stop resource for veterans and their spouses.

IamVeteran will assist you with relocation, finding your local Veteran’s Representative, identify your local community service in all 50 states.

As a one stop resource IamVeteran will identify job fairs, virtual job fairs and provide job leads to top companies across the United States that desire to hire Veterans.


Yesterday while talking to Annie she told me about a video she created to help veterans fill out a form for non-service connected pensions. These forms can get people confused, so she walks you through how to do it.

Application to apply for VA Pension for Non-Service Connected Disability.



Annie mentioned to me a lot of female veterans need help but do not want to talk to a male, especially when they are healing from being raped.
The Orlando DAV Chapter 16 has female service officers they can talk to, highly trained and work for free as volunteers of the Disabled American Veterans.

Central FL Chapter 16 Service Officer Hours are currently two days a week. Our certified Service Officer Staff will now have hours of operation on Tuesday and Thursday every week. Opening from 9am to 1pm. This is a free service, all Service Officer


2040 W Central Blvd
Orlando, FL 32805
Phone: 407-843-3722

Monday, June 25, 2012

For soldier's family, heartache without end

For soldier's family, heartache without end
A soldier's blood from an iconic photo is permanent not only for his widow, and for a daughter he never saw, but touches the Oklahoma City tragedy

June 25, 2012

NOBLE, Okla. — Catherine Alaniz wasn't prepared for the sight. Three months after she buried her husband and one month after she gave birth to their daughter, the 19-year-old widow saw his blood on the cover of Parade magazine.

The Associated Press photograph became world-famous instantaneously and was published in newspapers and magazines around the world as a symbol of war's devastation.

In one of the most iconic battlefield images ever captured on film, two wounded Operation Desert Storm soldiers in an evacuation helicopter have just learned who's in the bloody body bag at their feet. It's their friend and Catherine's high school sweetheart, Andy Alaniz.

The photo eventually helped Catherine learn the truth about how her husband died and that the government had lied to her about it.

Throughout the ordeal, her parents were her support staff. She and Andy were married so briefly and he was deployed to the Middle East so quickly, they didn't have a chance to get their own place. So she lived with her parents and moved with them from Texas to Oklahoma City when her father got a promotion.
read more here

Army Times wants to know if the DOD is doing enough about suicides

Don't even get me started on this but it is a good place to let someone know what you think. Tell them the truth and then maybe finally something will change.

Tell us: Is enough done to deter suicides?
Staff report
Posted : Monday Jun 25, 2012

The suicide toll among service members has surpassed the number of troops who have fallen in combat. This year, suicides among troops average one a day, according to the Pentagon.

The Army struggles with the problem of soldiers killing themselves, yet the rate is about 20 a month.

Tell us what you think: Has the Army done enough about it? Is there more that leaders and buddies can do for them? Are soldiers themselves doing enough to seek help when they need it?

Send your opinion to armylet@gannettgov.com and use the word “suicide” in the message line.

Your response may be printed in an upcoming issue of Army Times.

Florida Marine has been killed in Afghanistan

Florida Marine killed in Afghanistan
The Associated Press
Published: Monday, Jun. 25, 2012

MIAMI -- Officials say a Florida Marine has been killed in Afghanistan.

The Department of Defense reports that Pfc. Steven P. Stevens II, 23, of Tallahassee, died Friday while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

Stevens was assigned to the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.

Doctor kept working for VA after medical license was suspended

Suspension doesn't stop VA doctor from practicing
By COLLEEN HEILD
Albuquerque Journal, N.M.
Published: June 24, 2012

ALBUQUERQUE — Dr. Frank Allen Zimba has been practicing medicine for 31 years, is board certified in neurological surgery — and has a disciplinary history in two other states of operating on the wrong part of his patients’ spines.

The 57-year-old Texas native was hired at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Albuquerque last August, even though disciplinary proceedings that resulted in a suspension of his Oklahoma medical license were pending.

The VA in Albuquerque isn’t saying whether Zimba has had any problems on the job so far — claiming it would be a personnel matter. But even if there have been, the state Medical Board has no jurisdiction to investigate.

That’s because under federal law Zimba is not required to be licensed in New Mexico, unlike most other physicians who work here. He only needs to be licensed in one state in the country, and he has licenses in Oklahoma, New York, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

That left Zimba — who, through a VA spokeswoman, declined to be interviewed for this story — able to work at the Albuquerque VA Hospital during the six months his Oklahoma license was suspended.
read more here

Heroic soldier says "It was only one day" in his career

A soldier's story: It was only one day in his military career
By TIM TRAINOR
The Montana Standard, Butte
Published: June 24, 2012

Fueled by anger, suffering from a serious back injury and with no feeling in his legs, Nick Keene fired 2,800 rounds into a group of Taliban fighters.

Then he picked up a machine gun and emptied that. He put seven or eight clips into his own personal weapon and did the same until the pain was too much and he lost consciousness.

He woke up in a hospital somewhere. Kandahar maybe, Germany. There were generals gathered around his bed. He wasn’t wearing a shirt so they pinned a Purple Heart to his blanket before he fell back into unconsciousness.

Keene, 24, a 2006 graduate of Butte High School, spent five dramatic and violent months in the Panjwayi District in Afghanistan, known as the “birthplace of the Taliban.” Located in the southeastern part of the country along the Pakistan border, it has been home to some of the most sustained fighting in the now decade-long war.

Yet, it is a place Keene was not looking to leave so soon.

“I wish I could have stayed longer,” he said. “It was hard to think that while my guys were sweating, bleeding in the mud, I’m sitting on a couch doing nothing.”

Commendations

It was only one day in his military career, but Keene’s actions resulted in a Purple Heart and an Army Commendation Medal with valor. He may have saved the lives of each of those soldiers lying prone on the roadside and his injured lieutenant, who was able to be transported from the fight with shrapnel wounds from which he recovered.

Nick will never be the same. Discs and vertebrae in his back were more than broken — they disintegrated and were ground into sand and chalk. It took months for doctors to confirm they did not need to amputate, but even then Keene thought he would be confined to a wheelchair. After months of painful physical therapy he learned to walk with the help of a cane that he will use for the rest of his life. He cannot climb steps and he has a lifetime of surgeries ahead of him, some of which carry the possibility of paralysis if one of the already-frayed nerves is severed.
read more here

Norton blocking Blog pages

If you are having a hard time getting onto this site, Norton has it along with other blogs as "fraudulent" so there has to be a glitch somewhere.  I was just on my laptop and it uses Norton.  I couldn't get right on my page without having to go through the warning. Just wanted to let you know if you manage to get that message.

Orlando News Producers should be ashamed of themselves

As many suggested, they love it when I rant so they are in for a real treat right now. I am about to blast the media again!

Yesterday I went to another event for veterans. There were four reporters running their cameras and stayed for the whole event. As always, they were interested, showed they cared and were very professional. Considering we have over 400,000 veterans in Central Florida and well over a million in the state there is always something going on. I want to get to every event but I am only one person, so there are events I can't cover. When that happens, I turn to the media sites so that people know what is going on.

Just like yesterday when the news crews show up, veterans expect to see their story on the stations sending the reporters. It breaks their hearts when they discover they were just not important enough to watch it on the news.

It isn't the reporters fault. After all they show up and spend their time filming these events. It it up to the producers to put it on or not. Here's a piece of advice to producers. If you are not going to show it, don't show up at these events.

Veterans are giving up on Florida's news stations. It hurts them when you don't send anyone but it hurts them more when you do but it is never on the news.

They go home, call their families and friends telling them they were on the news and then watch for hours along with searching the Internet hoping to find the link. Every think about how that feels to these veterans?

Sure you manage to make sure that when one of them gets into trouble, you cover it and play it over and over again but when they are honored or do something wonderful, they are replaced by something else.

SHAME ON YOU! What the hell is wrong with you when you just can't fit them in? Ever hear of a thing called YouTube? Other stations can do it and so do small newspapers. Put the footage you don't have time for on YouTube so at least they can find it with the help of their kids and grandkids if they can't use a computer.

I am with them almost every weekend and often at events during the week. I keep seeing the station's vans that I will not mention here but I wanted you to know that you may get a few more viewers or hits on your site while they search but in the end, they don't want to bother with your station after you don't bother to show what you sent someone to film.

If you wonder why so many veterans don't want to talk to reporters when they do show up, you have your answer. They don't trust your motives when you have proven they are not "newsworthy" enough to put their stories on TV or even on your website.

UPDATE

Here's the video from the Orlando VFW Medals Ceremony. Notice how many news crews were there.

Military's suicide prevention plan too late for Sarasota family

Military's suicide prevention plan too late for Sarasota family
By HOWARD ALTMAN
The Tampa Tribune
Published: June 25, 2012

Friday afternoon, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told the Department of Defense/ Department of Veterans Affairs suicide prevention conference that "we can do more. We must do more. And together we will do more to prevent suicide."

The next day, on a rainy afternoon in Sarasota, Luzdary Yepes cried and, over the phone, told me she wishes they did do more.

Two years ago. Before her son, Giovanni Andres Orozco, a 20-year-old veteran of the Iraq war, held his friends at gunpoint and then turned the weapon on himself June 10, 2010.

Yepes said that when her son came home from Iraq, he had a week to "detox" in New Jersey.

"A week is not enough when they see the kind of crap we don't even know about," she said. "They train them so well to fight, but they don't train them to come back. It's almost like when you train a dog to bite, and then you have to bring them to where little kids are and let them loose. It is not right."

Speaking at the conference in Washington, Panetta unveiled a four-track suicide prevention plan. It calls for increased responsibility by military leaders, especially junior officers and NCOs; improved quality and access to health care; elevated mental fitness and increased research into suicide prevention.
read more here

Disabled Iraq veteran was attacked in a road rage incident

Disabled Iraq veteran punched by teenager
12:04 AM, Jun 25, 2012
Written by
Mike Lyons

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A disabled veteran was attacked in a road rage incident on the Westside Saturday and a teenager was arrested on battery charges.

50-year old Robert Dodd lives in Baker County. The single father of two walks with a cane, injured by mortar attacks while in the Navy in Iraq in 2004. He was driving his pickup east on Normandy Blvd. near Yellow Water Road when a young driver pulled out in front of him and he had to slam on brakes.

Dodd says he almost ran into the small car that pulled out in front of his pickup while he was driving just under 60 miles per hour. He said if he would have hit the car with his pickup, the driver could have been seriously hurt. Dodd said he then tried to go around the car.
read more here

Rain and fire department didn't stop Orlando from honoring heroes

Yesterday I went to the Orlando VFW Post on Edgewater Drive. After finally finding a place to park in the pouring rain, when I got out of the car, I heard the fire alarm. People were getting back into their cars. The VFW Band was waiting outside and no one knew what was going on. It didn't take the heads of the heads of the VFW long to figure out a plan of action. They began directing people to the pavilion so everyone could stay dry while they waited for the fire department to come. Sure enough, they came fast and figured out what the problem was. There was a problem with the air conditioner from what I was told. The planned ceremony had to be canceled but they gave the awards out and honored these veterans.

Local vets to be awarded medals, ribbons at Orlando VFW Post
June 23, 2012
By Orlando Sentinel

A group of local war veterans will receive medals and ribbons that they are entitled to in a ceremony at an Orlando VFW Post on Sunday.

Veterans from the first Gulf War, Vietnam, Korea and World War II who never received the awards they were entitled to will get them in a 4 p.m. ceremony at VFW Post #2093 located at 4444 Edgewater Dr.

One Vietnam vet will receive 32 ribbons from his three tours of duty; another will receive his Bronze Star. Korean War veterans will receive their Korean Defense Service Medals and several Purple Heart medals will be awarded.
read more here


I'll have the video up on this later. As usual several news stations showed up but I haven't been able to find any reports. If you find them please leave the link in the comment section of this post.