Tenth Anniversary of For the Love of Jack, His War/My Battle

Tenth Anniversary of For the Love of Jack, His War/My Battle

Ten years ago I self published For The Love Of Jack, His War/My Battle about living with Combat PTSD. I wanted to help other veterans and their families by talking about what was still a secret war going on when men and women came home from war.

It was finished and I was looking for a publisher when September 11th came. I rushed to have it self-publised. You can read more about this on the above link. To make a long story short, there is so much we knew back then that there are no excuses for what is not being done today. When you read it, you'll know what I mean.

I hope it helps you to understand a few things.

First, it is not hopeless and it does not have to win.
Families can stay together and help each other heal.
Older wives like me can help the younger generation learn what it took us 40 years to understand, in my case, 30 years.
That family members need just as much support living with Combat PTSD as the veteran does. Families are on the front line of this and it is up to us to fight for them when they come home.
Above all this, the need for spiritual healing since PTSD is a wound to the soul.

I don't just study PTSD and report it on my blog. I live with it everyday. I've seen the darkest days losing hope but I've also seen my wonderful husband come out on the other side of darkness. Sadly as you'll read in the book, his nephew did not make it and took his own life. His death was one of the reasons I decided to fight even harder to make sure there were more healing and less dying.

With the reports of 18 veterans suicides per day and an average of one military member committing suicide, it breaks my heart knowing none of this had to happen and I couldn't get anyone with the authority to do anything about it to listen.

For all the talk about June being PTSD Awareness Month, it seemed only right to release this work at the end of the month.

Some veterans hired on spot at job fair

Some veterans hired on spot at job fair
June 29, 2012
By Michael Martinez
The Detroit News


Ivy Scorzelli grudgingly came to Detroit's Veteran Job Fair Wednesday at the urging of her husband, John. They both left Thursday overjoyed — and ready to move to Texas for her new job.

The couple, who both served in Afghanistan in the Army Reserve, have been without work since they returned in March. But now the 26-year-old is ready to start a position in human resources for the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs in Austin, and she couldn't be happier.

"I love the uniform, but I'm ready to take it off and look cute for work," she said.

Scorzelli was part of a fortunate group who found employment on the spot at the three-day job fair at Cobo Center. While final numbers were still being calculated, 10,000 total veterans were expected to walk through Cobo's doors for approximately 25,000 jobs nationwide.

The event, billed as the "mother of all hiring fairs," attempted to put a dent in Michigan's 11 percent veteran unemployment rate.

The roster of local employers included Detroit's Big Three automakers, online home lender Quicken Loans Inc., Big Boy restaurants and Two Men and a Truck, a Lansing-based moving company. National companies included General Electric, Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Sears, Home Depot and Edward Jones.

The Veterans Affairs department and Aaron's furniture store were two entities that were able to hire on the spot.
read more here

Veterans speak out about PTSD, suicide

Veterans speak out about PTSD, suicide
Posted: Jun 29, 2012
Elizabeth Vowell
BATON ROUGE, LA
WAFB)

E5 Sgt. Matthew Davis has been in the military for 10 years and spent a total of 40 months in the theater of the Iraq War. He's one of thousands of soldiers who suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

"I'm still dealing with it," said Davis. "It's something that I'm going to be dealing with the rest of my life. It's not just an on and off switch. So, I'm learning to cope with it."

The transition from military to civilian life has been difficult for him and coping with PTSD is a constant struggle.

"I don't like to go out in public, really. I no longer hang out with friends. I have lots of nightmares. My wife told me that I rolled over, told her crazy things," Davis added.

To help manage his PTSD, Davis receives counseling each week at the New Orleans Veterans Affairs. A few weeks ago, he took another step to recovery. Inspired by Ron Zaleski, an ex-Marine who walked cross-country barefoot to raise awareness about veteran suicide, Davis started walking from his home in Houma all the way to the heart of Baton Rouge. All the while, he carried a sign with a chilling fact: 18 veterans a day commit suicide.

"It's too much for someone to deal with," said Mike McNaughton, VA director of veteran outreach. "We've got to find other ways to take care of them."

McNaughton is a veteran of Afghanistan, where he lost a leg and some fingers after stepping on a land mine. He has his own experiences with PTSD and uses that knowledge to help fellow military members.

"These are our sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, everybody and we have to take care of them," McNaughton said.
read more here

Database of Veterans’ Medals Cited as Alternative to ‘Stolen Valor’

Database of Veterans’ Medals Cited as Alternative to ‘Stolen Valor’
By JAMES DAO
June 28, 2012

In his opinion striking down the Stolen Valor Act on Thursday, United States Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy offered an alternative solution for defending the military’s award system against fakers, one he said would not infringe on First Amendment rights.

“The government could likely protect the integrity of the military awards system by creating a database of medal winners accessible and searchable on the Internet, as some private individuals have already done,” Justice Kennedy wrote. “Were a database accessible through the Internet, it would be easy to verify and expose false claims.”

“Some private individuals” might have been a reference to Doug Sterner, a Vietnam veteran who for more than a decade has been painstakingly logging military award citations into a public database, a task the Defense Department has declined to take on.

So far, Mr. Sterner said on Thursday, he has logged more than 104,000 award records, including every recipient of the top two tiers of military honors: the Medal of Honor, the highest military award, and the Air Force Cross, the Navy Cross and the Distinguished Service Medal. (The Congressional Medal of Honor Society also maintains a database of all Medal of Honor recipients.)

Mr. Sterner says he has done all that data entry himself, helped on the technical side by Militarytimes.com, which hosts the database, known as the Hall of Valor. He asserts that for a few million dollars, he could hire a team of data entry workers and, within three years, log every military valor award ever awarded by the United States military.

“I’ve done this much by myself,” he said. “Imagine what I could do if I had a team.”
read more here

PTSD Awareness is everyday here

PTSD Awareness is everyday here
by
Chaplain Kathie
Wounded Times Blog June 30, 2012

Here at Wounded Times Blog PTSD awareness is everyday. There are no days off. There are no slow news days. It doesn't take a day off and deserves attention everyday, not just one. People need to pay attention to the men and women suffering from Combat PTSD more than anyone else if researchers will ever really be able to come up with plans of actions that will work.

There is a huge difference between what civilian survivors of trauma suffer from and what veterans end up with. Police come close to this type of PTSD but in all these years, I've read few reports from experts pointing out there is a difference.

This is the last day of PTSD Awareness month and it took a lot of restraint to avoid highlighting it. There were some posts about this month just as the last couple of days a few mentioning the "day" that was set aside for it.

This is how the bill reads from California

Filed Secretary of State May 31, 2012.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
ACR 107, Eng. PTSD Awareness Day.
This measure would recognize June 27, 2012, as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Awareness Day.
DIGEST KEY
Fiscal Committee: no
BILL TEXT
WHEREAS, Throughout our nation’s history, the men and women of the United States Armed Forces have preserved our freedom, protected our security, and upheld our democratic values; from the battles of the American Revolution through the crucible of two world wars to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan today, our men and women in uniform have stood proudly in defense of the United States and the cause of liberty; and
WHEREAS, The brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces, who proudly serve the United States, risk their lives to protect the freedom of the United States and deserve the investment of every reasonable resource to ensure their lasting physical, mental, and emotional well-being; and
WHEREAS, The incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in members of the military is rising as the United States Armed Forces conducts two wars, exposing hundreds of thousands of soldiers to traumatic life-threatening events; and WHEREAS, The federal Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that as many as 95 percent of veterans returning from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan have some form of PTSD; and
WHEREAS, Symptoms include nightmares, feeling numb, having difficulty experiencing love or closeness with others, feeling jittery or overly alert, having difficulty sleeping, experiencing anger or irritability, having difficulty concentrating, substance problems, and having feelings of despair or hopelessness; and
WHEREAS, Although the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs have made significant advances in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of PTSD and the symptoms of PTSD, many challenges remain; and
WHEREAS, According to the National Institute for Mental Health, PTSD is an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened; and
WHEREAS, The Secretary of Veterans Affairs and the Secretary of Defense should continue to work to educate service members, veterans, the families of service members and veterans, and the public about the causes, symptoms, and treatment of PTSD; and
WHEREAS, It is important to all citizens of the State of California, that those who served our country in the military are aware of the symptoms of PTSD and are able to seek help; now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Assembly of the State of California, the Senate thereof concurring, That the Legislature pause in its deliberations to memorialize Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr., and to proclaim June 27, 2012, as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Awareness Day in the state, fully confident that such procedure mirrors our shared commitment to preserve, to ensure, and to yet effect that patrimony of freedom which is our American Heritage; and be it further
Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.

There is a difference and if we forget that, if we still have not been able to understand that, then all the research and money in the world will not stop the suicides of the combat survivors.

How can the anyone in the general public understand this, understand the men and women coming home, if we are still not making them aware how very different Combat PTSD is from a one time event in the general public?

This is the last day of "PTSD awareness" month and there are still 19 needless funerals everyday of the month. Looks like awareness is not always a good thing when they are made aware of failures passing off as a treatment.

Soldier kills officer in Fort Bragg shooting

Soldier kills officer in Fort Bragg shooting
Staff reports
Posted : Thursday Jun 28, 2012 17:17:55 EDT
A battalion commander at Fort Bragg, N.C., was shot dead and two others were wounded, Army officials said in a news release.

The shooter, said to be an E-4, reportedly shot the officer and then turned the gun on himself. The shooter was reportedly injured and is in custody.

Initial reports that the shooter was dead are incorrect.

The two soldiers were with the 525th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade. The shooting occurred during a unit-safety brief near 18th Airborne Corps headquarters around 3:30 p.m.
read more here

Veteran paints mural to raise awareness of Combat PTSD

Mural painted in SF alley to honor Iraq War soldiers, raise PTSD awareness
Thursday, June 28, 2012
KTVU.com and wires

SAN FRANCISCO — A mural project got under way in San Francisco Wednesday honoring the nearly 5,000 U.S. soldiers to die in the Iraq War.

The names of the 4,484 soldiers began being painted Wednesday morning on a mural in "Veterans Alley," located at Geary and Shannon streets near the city's Tenderloin neighborhood, according to Amos Gregory, who conceived the project.

Gregory, who is a veteran from the Persian Gulf War-era, said painting all the names could take as long as two months and is part of a larger project to transform the alley, which he said was a popular place for drug use among homeless veterans.

"They call it 'Crack Alley,'" he said. "There's a lot of drug use, a lot of trauma."

Gregory said he got permission from the owners of four of the six buildings in the alley to paint murals there, including the 76-by-30-foot mural with the Iraq War soldiers' names.
Veteran paints mural to cope with and raise awareness of PTSD

Twenty States File Settlement To Shut Down Veterans Services Website

Twenty States File Settlement To Shut Down Veterans Services Website
June 27, 2012
by Daniela Perallon
WHNT News

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) – Twenty states, including Alabama, will be reaping the benefits of the $2.5 million settlement filed against QuinStreet, Inc. on Wednesday.

The company runs GIBill.com, a website aiming to help veterans make sense of their benefits, but is accused of misleading and deceiving users by directing them to for-profit clients.

“It’s really tragic that organizations would intentionally be deceptive and take advantage of veterans,” said William Webb, a spokesperson for Still Serving Veterans in Huntsville.
read more here

Veterans comfort dying Vietnam vet

Veterans comfort dying Vietnam vet
Posted: Jun 27, 2012
By Bob Hallmark
GREGG COUNTY, TX
(KLTV)

A small group of Vietnam veterans gather every Wednesday in Longview to be with a fellow veteran, in the final days of his life with an effort they call the Donut Club.

He was a staunch advocate of Vietnam veterans issues in Gregg County for decades, but life has taken mobility away from Navy Vietnam veteran Brad Bemis.

"Its very frustrating, I used to love working in my yard, now its full of weeds I can't even mow my own yard. I can't walk more than about 20 feet before being out of breath," Bemis says.

A 20 year Navy veteran, Bemis is visited twice a week by the Donut Club, his fellow Vietnam vets.

Bemis has stage four emphysema, and is tethered on oxygen 24/7.

These gatherings mean everything to him.

"Means the world to me," he says.
read more here

Orlando VFW Medal Ceremony

Orlando VFW Medal Ceremony

With the help of Senator Nelson's office, the Orlando VFW was able to get medals to veterans they had not received when they should have. A WWII veteran and others were presented their awards including a Vietnam Veteran getting two Bronze Stars! The ceremony had to be moved because the fire department wouldn't let people inside the post after smoke was detected on June 23, 2012.