Vietnam veterans still have to fight for justice on PTSD

Whenever I tell OEF and OIF veterans none of what they are going through is new, they have a hard time believing me. They think that the government would have done the right thing by now for older veterans, especially the Vietnam veterans that came home and fought the government to make sure every generation of veterans was treated for PTSD.

Well, now you know that when it comes to PTSD, they still have to fight for justice.

Vietnam veterans sue military in Conn. over PTSD
By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN
Associated Press
December 3, 2012

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — The military has failed to correct the wrongful discharges of thousands of Vietnam veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, an advocacy group says in a federal lawsuit.

Vietnam Veterans of America on Monday joined a proposed class action lawsuit in Hartford against the Army, Navy and Air Force. The lawsuit, first filed last year by a veteran, says the Vietnam veterans suffered PTSD before the condition was recognized and were discharged under other-than-honorable conditions that made them ineligible for disability compensation and other benefits.

The lawsuit says the military has refused to review or upgrade the discharge statuses of thousands of Vietnam War-era veterans with service-related PTSD.

‘‘People did not understand PTSD during the Vietnam era,’’ said John Rowan, national president of Vietnam Veterans of America. ‘‘Now that we do, these service members must not be denied the recognition and benefits they long ago earned.’’

The U.S. attorney’s office, which is representing the military in the lawsuit, said it’s reviewing the matter and will respond in court. A Department of Defense spokeswoman said the agency is highly committed to addressing concerns related to PTSD and has taken numerous steps, including conducting PTSD assessments of service members at military treatment facilities at least once a year.
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Man linked to 8 murders found dead in Anchorage jail

Alaska Barista Murder Suspect Found Dead, Linked to 7 Other Killings
ABC News
By ANTHONY CASTELLANO, CHRISTINA NG and KEVIN DOLAK
Dec. 3, 2012

A man charged in the death of an Alaska barista was found dead in his Anchorage jail cell after an apparent suicide, according to police, who also linked him to a series of U.S. homicides.

Israel Keyes, 34, had been facing a March trial in Anchorage federal court for the killing of 18-year-old Samantha Koenig, who was abducted from a coffee kiosk in the city in February.

Authorities wouldn't say how Keyes killed himself, only that he was alone in his cell. An autopsy will be conducted.

After announcing Keyes' apparent suicide at a Sunday news conference, local authorities and the FBI said they believed Keyes was a serial killer linked to at least seven other possible killings in three other states.

Keyes owned a construction company in Anchorage. According to the website for Keyes Construction at the time of his arrest, Keyes worked in Washington State in the mid-1990s and then served three years in the Army infantry, stationed in Fort Lewis, Fort Hood, and Sinai, Egypt. According to the site, he then worked from 2001 to 2007 for the Makah Tribal Council in Neah Bay, Wash., before moving to Alaska.
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Hero Wyoming college instructor fought son in arrow attack

Police: Hero instructor fought son in arrow attack
By MEAD GRUVER
The Associated Press
Sunday, December 2, 2012

CASPER, Wyo. (AP) — Gravely wounded by an arrow fired into his head, a Wyoming college instructor still managed to wrestle with his 25-year-old son who carried out the attack and give his students time to flee the classroom, say police who hailed the actions as heroic.

More grisly details of the horrific murder-suicide in Wyoming came to light Saturday, a day after the younger man killed his father's live-in girlfriend and then barged into his father's computer science class and shot him in the head with a high-powered bow and arrow.

As James Krumm, 56, then fought with son Christopher Krumm of Vernon, Conn., during Friday's attack, the handful of students in the Casper College classroom escaped.

Christopher Krumm had just stabbed to death 42-year-old Heidi Arnold at the home she shared with James Krumm two miles away.

When police arrived at the classroom, they found Christopher Krumm bleeding from self-inflicted knife wounds and taking his last breaths.

James Krumm was dead, Casper Police Chief Chris Walsh said.

"I can tell you the courage that was demonstrated by Mr. Krumm was absolutely without equal," he said, adding that the instructor's actions could offer some measure of comfort to those affected by the killings.
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CNN Heroes has Veterans

Mary Cortani, Operation Freedom Paws help war veterans train their own service dogs in northern California.

Jake Wood
COMMUNITY CRUSADER
Iraq war veteran Jake Wood started Team Rubicon, a nonprofit that brings military veterans together to help communities hit by natural disasters. Since 2010, the group has grown to 1,400 volunteers and carried out 14 missions around the world.



Lyrics to Heroes by Ne-Yo
Never doubt never doubt
Here for you, here for me
Worry not, I'll be there
Strength when you feel weak
In the dark when you can't see
Guiding light I will be
All I need all I need
Is for you to do the same for me
Cause

Even heroes need heroes sometimes
And even the strong need someone to tell them it's all right
Even heroes need heroes sometimes
Will you be my hero tonight?


Just above, up so high
Just above you is where I fly
But if I fall from the sky
On you, can I rely
I'll protect you from the world
Whenever I can
But will you do the same for me
Now and again

Even heroes need heroes sometimes
And even the strong need someone to tell them it's all right
Even heroes need heroes sometimes
Will you be my hero tonight?

Come to my, my rescue
Do for me as I do for you
Be my eyes when I am blind
'Cause no one can be strong all the time

Even heroes need heroes sometimes
Will you be my hero tonight? (will you be my hero?)

Even heroes need heroes sometimes (will you be my hero?)
And even the strong need someone to tell them it's all right (will you be my hero?)
Even heroes need heroes sometimes
Will you be my hero tonight? (will you be my hero?)
Will you be my hero tonight?

New Theory of PTSD and Veterans? Not new and not theory

New Theory of PTSD and Veterans? Not new and not theory
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
December 3, 2012

The biggest problem with PTSD is reporters don't have a clue what was known before they discovered something.

Tony Dokoupil wrote a piece in the Daily Beast and said the Moral Injury connection to PTSD was "new" and used "theory" as if was the truth. It is not new and is not a theory. He picked the title that made my jaw hurt from clinching my teeth. Had Dokoupil used what he later wrote "Moral injury is as old as war." as the title then I would not have taken issue with this otherwise great article.

A New Theory of PTSD and Veterans: Moral Injury
The Daily Beast
Author Tony Dokoupil
Dec 3, 2012

Soldiers are supposed to be tough, cool, and ethically confident. But what happens when they have seen and done things that haunt their consciences? New studies suggest that the pain of guilt may be a key factor in the rise of PTSD.

They called themselves the Saints and the Sinners, a company of Marine reservists from the Mormon land of Salt Lake City and the casino shadows of Las Vegas. They arrived in Baghdad a day before Iraqis danced on a fallen statue of Saddam Hussein, and as they walked deeper into the city, they accepted flowers from women and patted children on the crown. Then their radio operator fell backward, shot in the head.

Last month Lu Lobello, a machine gunner with the Saints and the Sinners in 2003, traveled to Washington, D.C., to speak to a panel at the Newsweek and The Daily Beast Hero Summit. To an audience of mostly civilians in business casual, he revived his memories of that battle in Baghdad. By way of introduction, the moderator, Wolf Blitzer, said that Fox Company had killed three civilians in the crossfire. “Well,” said Lobello, “first off, there were about 20 innocent civilians, not three.” He then limned the rest of the raw story: many of the cars in the intersection held families, not fighters. When the Marines realized this, they tried to help, but often it was too late. Another car would come, and they would shoot it, because what if this one was the enemy. “We were shooting at civilians,” his superior officer explained to a reporter in 2008. “We were taking out women and children because it was us or them.” The image that stays with Lobello is one of the first from that day, of a fellow Marine walking in tight circles, talking to himself. “We shot a baby!” he screamed, turning to Lobello. “Lobello, we shot a baby!”

Moral injury is as old as war. It is recognizable in the Iliad and the Odyssey, and in the oldest surviving play of Sophocles. It’s hidden in the private thoughts of soldiers from every prior American war. It was perhaps first used in the journals of Mac Bica, a Vietnam vet turned philosophy professor. In the 1990s two more Ph.D.s popularized the idea, describing the “the psychological burden of killing” and the Homeric betrayal by leaders. The common thread is a violation of what is right, a tear in what some people freely call the soul.
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I left this comment.

While you have done some research, this points to how little research you did. You mentioned "It is recognizable in the Iliad and the Odyssey, and in the oldest surviving play of Sophocles" but did not manage to discover that Jonathan Shay wrote a book about PTSD and the moral wound in Achilles in Vietnam in 1994 and then followed it up 2002 with Odysseus in America. Had you researched this enough you would have never used the term to say it is "new research" and that is the biggest problem when reporters take the easy way out. All the research done after Vietnam veterans came home and fought for it to be done has been forgotten about. If they used what we already knew we wouldn't see so much suffering and a lot more healing going on.

Was it a matter of getting an attention grabbing headline? If it was too many people will walk away with that thought and not allow the number of years research in PTSD has been done preventing the possibility of them walking away furious with the fact that all of this was known so long ago.

When I got into all of this the web was not available for home use. I had to use the library and could only find clinical books on what Vietnam veterans came home with. Not much fun to read and even less support for me as a wife trying to learn what I could do for my husband and myself. Later on self help books didn't provide me with much until I read Achilles in Vietnam. It was then obvious that to heal the warrior, their soul had to be treated above all else that was done.

Medications can only numb. Physical endeavors only work for so long. If we do not tend to the place where the wound lives, we do not heal them.

The story he wrote about the Marines is not new either. I've written numerous times about the same type of event only with a National Guardsman being the one pulling the trigger.

They were on patrol in Iraq one night when a car was approaching them too fast. He tired to get the car to stop at a safe distance. He opened fire, a family was dead and he blamed himself. The image of the family in the car with children became frozen in his mind and he thought he was evil. What he had forgotten about was what he tried to do to prevent it from happening. He fired warning shots in the air, threw rocks, screamed, prayed and then screamed some more. All he could think about was too many were blown up by suicide car bombers and this car just could be one more on a suicide mission to kill his brothers.

Once he was able to see the whole event, he was able to forgive himself for what he had to do.

The help I was able to give him came after a tremendous price he had to pay. By the time he came to me after his Mom contacted me, he had tried to commit suicide twice, lost his family, his job, his home and was sleeping on whatever sofa his friends were willing to let him sleep on. Years of suffering when all it took from me was about 5 phone calls.

What if he had gotten what he needed as soon as he came home from Iraq? How many lives do you think could have been saved if they had the proper help to heal?

New theory? In 1984 Point Man International Ministries started addressing the spiritual aspect of combat. It works to heal them from where they hurt the most. Maybe if reporters would start to take this more seriously, the general public would no longer have the false impression that all of this is somehow new to OEF and OIF veterans. Had they been paying attention all along then I wouldn't have to be writing a book about military suicides so families can stop blaming themselves.

PTSD Is Not God's Judgment

Retired Generals and Admirals want gun law changed to prevent military suicides

Aside from this, what became obvious many years ago is that guns are not the only problem. They find other ways of doing it. The issue here should not be just about how they do it but more about why they do it!

They are not getting proper help for PTSD and their families are still clueless what it is or what they can do to help. The reason they commit suicide should be a hell of a lot more important. After 40 years of research on PTSD, hundreds of millions spent on programs that don't work they ended up with higher suicide rates yet instead of discussing who should have been held accountable, they battle on the how instead of the why.

Retired military officers’ letter seeks to amend gun law to help battle suicides
By Steve Vogel
Published: December 2

A group of senior retired generals and admirals are calling for Congress to amend a recent law that they say “dangerously interferes” with the ability of commanders to battle the epidemic of suicides among members of the military.

Legislation added to the 2011 defense authorization bill at the urging of gun-rights advocates prohibits commanders from collecting any information about weapons privately owned by troops.

Critics say the law prevents commanders from being able to talk to service members about their privately owned weapons — such as encouraging the use of a gunlock or temporary storage away from their homes — even in cases when the commanding officer thinks the service member is at risk for suicide.

“The law is directly prohibiting conversations that are needed to save lives,” states a letter sent last week to members of Congress by a dozen retired officers, including former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Dennis J. Reimer and former surgeons general for the Army, Air Force and Navy.

“It unnecessarily hampers a commander from taking all possible practical steps for preventing suicide,” one of the signers, Army Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik, said Saturday.

Dubik commanded the Multi-National Security Transition Command in Iraq in 2007 and 2008.
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Report finds Madigan's head did not influence PTSD diagnoses

Army report backs Madigan leader
Finds Col. Dallas Homas did not use position to influence PTSD diagnoses
ADAM ASHTON
Staff writer
Published December 03, 2012

An Army investigation glowingly endorses the Madigan Army Medical Center commander who temporarily lost his post this year amid complaints about inconsistencies in the hospital’s post-traumatic stress disorder diagnoses.

The report found that Col. Dallas Homas “did not exert any undue influence over PTSD diagnoses, and that he acted appropriately enforcing standard medical guidelines,” according to a summary The News Tribune obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

The Army relieved Homas from his command from February until August as part of its investigation into the forensic psychiatry program at the Army hospital south of Tacoma.

Madigan’s forensic team had the last say on behavioral health diagnoses in disability evaluations, and patients couldn’t understand why the team’s psychologists sometimes changed other doctors’ PTSD diagnoses to other conditions.

Concerns about the program reached Homas’ level in part because one doctor in a staff meeting suggested psychologists be mindful of long-term costs to the government in making their diagnoses. PowerPoint slides from the briefing estimated the cost of a diagnosis at $1.5 million over time.

The Army has since given fresh PTSD diagnoses to 150 patients who had passed through the Madigan team over the past four years; all those patients previously were given a clean bill of health or a different diagnosis. Others who want their cases reviewed still can get new opinions.
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Pennsylvania’s Oldest Living Marine From WWII Celebrates Her 97th Birthday

Pennsylvania’s Oldest Living Marine From WWII Celebrates Her 97th Birthday
December 3, 2012
By Kim Glovas

Grace Ricci Bergman is Pennsylvania’s oldest living Marine from World War II. (Credit: Kim Glovas)

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Pennsylvania’s oldest living Marine from World War II is celebrating a milestone today. She — yes, she — is marking her 97th birthday.

Grace Ricci Bergman of Blue Bell served in the Marines at a time when women had limited options in the services. Bergman’s fiance and brother were serving in the military at the time, and she decided to join as well, unbeknown to her parents. When Bergman was accepted, she told her parents she had a new job. Bergman eventually told them what that job was, and off she went.
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Marines and Bikers Toys for Tots run in Dallas

Bikers and Marines host Toys for Tots - slide show
TOYS FOR TOTS
Examiner.com
DECEMBER 2, 2012
By Sharon Smith

Dallas area Bikers and Marines hosted a toy run in McKiney, TX at VFW Post 2150 Saturday, December 1st.

Toys for Tots is a program that U.S. Marine Corps Reserve have been executing to supply Christmas Toys for disadvantaged children for 65 years and partner with local biker groups to push their event over the top.

Texas weather cooperated with temperatures that almost hit 80 degrees with a slight cloud cover which produced the attendance to several hundred bikes and a lot of motorcycle thunder. An impressive ‘pack’ of bikers rode slightly over 47 miles before gathering at the VFW location at Church St in McKinney for hamburgers, drinks, ‘Definitely Maybe’ band (which included strings, brass and vocals).
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Connecticut veterans getting new ID card for serving

Wallingford veteran's ID idea to become reality
Posted: Saturday, December 1, 2012
Laurie Rich Salerno

WALLINGFORD — About a year and a half ago, resident John Anzidei approached his elected officials with an idea: What if the state issued special identification cards for veterans who might not otherwise have easily accessible military identification for store discounts and other services?

Next year, the retired Army colonel’s concept, amended slightly, will become reality when Connecticut veterans will be able to apply for a special American flag insignia for their driver’s licenses and state ID cards, indicating that they served in the military. Some stores’ representatives said recently that they may not immediately accept the new symbol, but advocates are hoping that will change.

The introduction of the insignia “makes me very happy,” Anzidei said.

Though he has a military ID because he retired from an Army career, many non-career veterans he knows have nothing but discharge papers to prove that they served.

“I’m pretty much covered, but my son, my brother, my sister, different people that I know served in the military and because they didn’t retire and are not still active, they don’t have an ID card,” Anzidei said. Discounts were what gave Anzidei the initial idea for the ID, because his brother, Dominick, could not get the same discount he could at home improvement stores.
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