Vietnam Vet Wins $12 Million Malpractice Settlement From VA Hospital
CBS Chicago
December 3, 2013
CHICAGO (CBS) — A Chicago-area Vietnam veteran will get a $12 million medical malpractice settlement from the federal government.
John Johnson was a Vietnam Veteran and heart patient.
He went in for oral surgery at the Hines V.A. Hospital in 2007, went into cardiac arrest and suffered brain damage as a result.
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Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Marine vet finds purpose in the cage
MMA: Marine vet finds purpose in the cage
UT San Diego
By Dennis Lin
DEC. 2, 2013
It might seem an unusual pairing: PTSD and MMA.
Yet both have become part of Shane Kruchten's reality, their indelible connection written in ink.
On the Marine Corps veteran's back are the names of 19 fallen soldiers. Fifteen of them died in 2004, during the battle for Fallujah, Iraq. Every time Kruchten steps into the cage, he is a walking, fighting memorial.
"I deal with a lot of survivor's guilt," Kruchten said, "so I wanted them to know, they had my back, I'll always have theirs. I never want people to forget the price of freedom."
Kruchten, 29, discovered the cost of war more than a decade ago. The Oshkosh, Wis., native graduated high school early and, acting on a lifelong sense of duty, enlisted in the Marines at 17. Stationed at Camp Pendleton, he dreamed of serving for 20 years.
That dream was cut short at three. In 2004, an IED blast left him with a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.
read more here
UT San Diego
By Dennis Lin
DEC. 2, 2013
It might seem an unusual pairing: PTSD and MMA.
Yet both have become part of Shane Kruchten's reality, their indelible connection written in ink.
On the Marine Corps veteran's back are the names of 19 fallen soldiers. Fifteen of them died in 2004, during the battle for Fallujah, Iraq. Every time Kruchten steps into the cage, he is a walking, fighting memorial.
"I deal with a lot of survivor's guilt," Kruchten said, "so I wanted them to know, they had my back, I'll always have theirs. I never want people to forget the price of freedom."
Kruchten, 29, discovered the cost of war more than a decade ago. The Oshkosh, Wis., native graduated high school early and, acting on a lifelong sense of duty, enlisted in the Marines at 17. Stationed at Camp Pendleton, he dreamed of serving for 20 years.
That dream was cut short at three. In 2004, an IED blast left him with a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.
read more here
Paralyzed soldier defies odds to become father
Paralysed soldier defies odds to become father
METRO UK
Sunday 1 Dec 2013
A soldier who was paralysed from the waist down by a sniper’s bullet has defied his doctors’ diagnosis by becoming a father for the first time.
Cpl Tony Williams was told he would never walk again and would not be able to father children after he was shot in the groin and spine in Afghanistan.
But three years on, the 29-year-old has taken his first steps – and discovered his fiancée is six months pregnant.
‘It’s a miracle,’ said Cpl Williams. ‘It’s almost made the three years of agony worth it. Life for me now is pretty sweet.
‘If there are such things as guardian angels, I definitely have one.’
read more here
METRO UK
Sunday 1 Dec 2013
A soldier who was paralysed from the waist down by a sniper’s bullet has defied his doctors’ diagnosis by becoming a father for the first time.
Cpl Tony Williams was told he would never walk again and would not be able to father children after he was shot in the groin and spine in Afghanistan.
But three years on, the 29-year-old has taken his first steps – and discovered his fiancée is six months pregnant.
‘It’s a miracle,’ said Cpl Williams. ‘It’s almost made the three years of agony worth it. Life for me now is pretty sweet.
‘If there are such things as guardian angels, I definitely have one.’
read more here
Female veterans fighting for benefits
Female Veterans Battle for Benefits at Home
Chicago Tribune
by Annie Sweeney
Dec 02, 2013
When Xatavia Hughes, the granddaughter of a military man, went to serve in Iraq, she was prepared to prove herself to the male soldiers.
"My grandfather was tough and strong. That is how I was brought up: 'Don't let it get to you. Show them,'" the 28-year-old mother of two said.
And she did. It was only after she returned from a war zone to Chicago in December 2010 that Hughes began to feel tested.
A month after returning, Hughes found herself in an improbable spot: living in a dorm room at the Pacific Garden Mission, the sprawling homeless shelter on the city's West Side, shielding her two sons from addicts and criminals.
"Often when I was in shelter there was a bunch of veterans," Hughes said of her six months of homelessness. "When we get out, I thought we were supposed to be taken care of. And I was like, 'Wow, this is how our life is going to be?' I never felt that I would do so much good and then have to be pushed aside."
Hughes was like so many women over the past decade who stepped up to serve as the country launched two wars. They saw it as a way to get ahead in life and forge a different future.
Women have become the fastest growing segment of the veteran population, a trend that is expected to continue. Their return has posed several new issues for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Many are single moms. They have been adversely affected by the scandal of military sexual trauma that affects one in five women who serve. They report higher rates of mental health illnesses and homelessness. Many don't feel comfortable in the male-dominated VA.
read more here
Chicago Tribune
by Annie Sweeney
Dec 02, 2013
When Xatavia Hughes, the granddaughter of a military man, went to serve in Iraq, she was prepared to prove herself to the male soldiers.
"My grandfather was tough and strong. That is how I was brought up: 'Don't let it get to you. Show them,'" the 28-year-old mother of two said.
And she did. It was only after she returned from a war zone to Chicago in December 2010 that Hughes began to feel tested.
A month after returning, Hughes found herself in an improbable spot: living in a dorm room at the Pacific Garden Mission, the sprawling homeless shelter on the city's West Side, shielding her two sons from addicts and criminals.
"Often when I was in shelter there was a bunch of veterans," Hughes said of her six months of homelessness. "When we get out, I thought we were supposed to be taken care of. And I was like, 'Wow, this is how our life is going to be?' I never felt that I would do so much good and then have to be pushed aside."
Hughes was like so many women over the past decade who stepped up to serve as the country launched two wars. They saw it as a way to get ahead in life and forge a different future.
Women have become the fastest growing segment of the veteran population, a trend that is expected to continue. Their return has posed several new issues for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Many are single moms. They have been adversely affected by the scandal of military sexual trauma that affects one in five women who serve. They report higher rates of mental health illnesses and homelessness. Many don't feel comfortable in the male-dominated VA.
read more here
Medal of Honor recipient fights to remove stigma of PTSD
Medal of Honor recipient fights to remove stigma of PTSD
The Denver Post
By Austin Briggs
POSTED: 12/01/2013
A therapist usually isn't on the list of people someone gives thanks to in an acceptance speech.
The acknowledgment is even more striking when it comes from a Medal of Honor recipient whom President Barack Obama called "as tough as they come."
For 33-year-old Army Staff Sgt. Ty Carter, it seemed only natural to thank his support group, including mental health professionals, which helped him cope with psychological wounds he suffered after surviving one of the most intense firefights in the Afghan war.
Carter was a guest speaker at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1 114th annual Founders Day Banquet on Sunday evening at the Brown Palace Hotel. In an interview before the banquet, Carter spoke about his work in removing the stigma associated with post- traumatic stress disorder.
He has toured the country and spoken to countless media outlets since Obama placed the medal around his neck Aug. 26. He wants to see the D removed from PTSD.
"Because by calling it a disorder, individuals believe that 'if I have this, then there's something wrong with me,' " Carter said. "With PTS you just had a bad experience and you're trying to learn from it and trying to reintegrate how you live your life with it, because that trauma will never go away."
In the battle that earned him the nation's highest military honor, an outpost in Afghanistan's Nuristan Province was surrounded by almost 300 insurgents who opened fire with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades the morning of Oct. 3, 2009. Fifty-three Americans were stationed there; eight were killed in battle, and 25 were wounded, including Carter, who suffered hearing loss, shrapnel injuries and a concussion.
read more here
The Denver Post
By Austin Briggs
POSTED: 12/01/2013
Staff Sgt. Ty Carter, a Medal of Honor recipient, is pictured at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver, where he spoke Sunday at the VFW Post 1 Founders Day Banquet. Carter earned the nation's highest military honor in Afghanistan.
(Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post)
A therapist usually isn't on the list of people someone gives thanks to in an acceptance speech.
The acknowledgment is even more striking when it comes from a Medal of Honor recipient whom President Barack Obama called "as tough as they come."
For 33-year-old Army Staff Sgt. Ty Carter, it seemed only natural to thank his support group, including mental health professionals, which helped him cope with psychological wounds he suffered after surviving one of the most intense firefights in the Afghan war.
Carter was a guest speaker at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1 114th annual Founders Day Banquet on Sunday evening at the Brown Palace Hotel. In an interview before the banquet, Carter spoke about his work in removing the stigma associated with post- traumatic stress disorder.
He has toured the country and spoken to countless media outlets since Obama placed the medal around his neck Aug. 26. He wants to see the D removed from PTSD.
"Because by calling it a disorder, individuals believe that 'if I have this, then there's something wrong with me,' " Carter said. "With PTS you just had a bad experience and you're trying to learn from it and trying to reintegrate how you live your life with it, because that trauma will never go away."
In the battle that earned him the nation's highest military honor, an outpost in Afghanistan's Nuristan Province was surrounded by almost 300 insurgents who opened fire with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades the morning of Oct. 3, 2009. Fifty-three Americans were stationed there; eight were killed in battle, and 25 were wounded, including Carter, who suffered hearing loss, shrapnel injuries and a concussion.
read more here
Monday, December 2, 2013
Korean Vet held by North Korea visited by Swedish Ambassador
MERRILL NEWMAN, AMERICAN DETAINED IN NORTH KOREA, REPORTEDLY IN GOOD HEALTH
Fahima Haque
Dec 2nd 2013
Associated Press writers Foster Klug and Eun-Young Jeong, and Eric Talmadge in Tokyo contributed to this report.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The family of an elderly U.S. tourist detained for more than a month in North Korea said Saturday the Swedish ambassador has seen the man and found him to be in good health.
Merrill Newman's family in California said in a statement that the State Department told them that the Swedish ambassador to North Korea had visited the 85-year-old at a Pyongyang hotel.
"We were very pleased to hear that the Ambassador was allowed to pay this first visit to Merrill," the statement said. "As a result of the visit, we know that Merrill is in good health. ... Merrill reports that he is being well treated and that the food is good."
An Obama administration official called for his release, urging North Korea to consider his age and health conditions.
Sweden handles consular issues for Americans in North Korea as the U.S. and North Korea have no diplomatic relations.
Newman's family said the ambassador's visit eased their concerns about his health, and pleaded with North Korean authorities to take his health and age into account and let him go as an act of humanitarian compassion.
read more here
Fahima Haque
Dec 2nd 2013
Associated Press writers Foster Klug and Eun-Young Jeong, and Eric Talmadge in Tokyo contributed to this report.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The family of an elderly U.S. tourist detained for more than a month in North Korea said Saturday the Swedish ambassador has seen the man and found him to be in good health.
Merrill Newman's family in California said in a statement that the State Department told them that the Swedish ambassador to North Korea had visited the 85-year-old at a Pyongyang hotel.
"We were very pleased to hear that the Ambassador was allowed to pay this first visit to Merrill," the statement said. "As a result of the visit, we know that Merrill is in good health. ... Merrill reports that he is being well treated and that the food is good."
An Obama administration official called for his release, urging North Korea to consider his age and health conditions.
Sweden handles consular issues for Americans in North Korea as the U.S. and North Korea have no diplomatic relations.
Newman's family said the ambassador's visit eased their concerns about his health, and pleaded with North Korean authorities to take his health and age into account and let him go as an act of humanitarian compassion.
read more here
Right-wing evangelist biblical PTSD 'cure' sparks outrage
Right-wing evangelist biblical PTSD 'cure' sparks outrage
Digital Journal
By Yukio Strachan
Dec 2, 2013
For years the military has spent billions researching Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but according to mega-church televangelist Kenneth Copeland the cure for PTSD can be found in the Bible.
Copeland,76, a former night club singer, is known as the "godfather" of the so-called prosperity gospel, which holds that God wants Christians to prosper spiritually, physically and financially.
On a special Veteran's Day broadcast of the "Believer's Voice of Victory," Copeland along with self-taught Christian "historian" David Barton said this promise includes combat veterans with PTSD. PTSD, a complex anxiety disorder that can occur after experiencing a traumatic event such as war, sexual assault or disaster, emerged in 1979 in the aftermath of the Vietnam War among military veterans.
Over the years, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense have spent billions in PTSD research and treatment.
According to Copeland, the cure for PTSD is right in the Bible.
read more here
This is the video
Saw this one coming.
OMG! Preachers blame veterans for PTSD on Veterans' Day
OK, this article is close to the billions but it isn't just the DOD spending the money. Congress is putting out a lot more money and so are other government agencies but that isn't the biggest issue. The issue is this crap has done more damage than most people know. I track the reports everyday and even knowing a lot of information on what they have been pulling off, it still took me months of research to write The Warrior SAW Suicides After War.
The "comprehensive soldier fitness" that was adapted for all branches was from a research project that was designed to help school aged children with self-esteem issues. Yep a research project. When it produced more suicides, they didn't end it but they just pushed it even harder.
Now these guys are screwing up the one thing that does work and that is spiritual healing done the right way.
If veterans are taken care of properly, mind, body and spirit, then they heal. If not they are just getting numb and PTSD gets stronger.
If you want to know why so many don't go to church anymore just listen to these guys and you'll know why.
VA prescribes opiates to patients not seen
Report: VA prescribes opiates to patients not seen
San Francisco Gate
Aaron Glantz, Center for Investigative Reporting
December 2, 2013
Doctors at the San Francisco VA Medical Center regularly renewed prescriptions for highly addictive narcotic painkillers for veterans they had never seen, according to a new report by the Department of Veterans Affairs' inspector general.
The report also documented seven cases of opiate overdose among patients at the hospital and determined that doctors "did not consistently monitor patients for misuse."
The auditor's review comes at a time of heightened scrutiny of the VA's painkiller prescription practices.
In September, the Center for Investigative Reporting revealed that VA prescriptions for four opiates - hydrocodone, oxycodone, methadone and morphine - surged 270 percent from 2001 to 2012. That far outpaced the increase in the number of VA patients and contributed to a fatal overdose rate that the agency's researchers put at nearly double the national average.
read more here
San Francisco Gate
Aaron Glantz, Center for Investigative Reporting
December 2, 2013
Doctors at the San Francisco VA Medical Center regularly renewed prescriptions for highly addictive narcotic painkillers for veterans they had never seen, according to a new report by the Department of Veterans Affairs' inspector general.
The report also documented seven cases of opiate overdose among patients at the hospital and determined that doctors "did not consistently monitor patients for misuse."
The auditor's review comes at a time of heightened scrutiny of the VA's painkiller prescription practices.
In September, the Center for Investigative Reporting revealed that VA prescriptions for four opiates - hydrocodone, oxycodone, methadone and morphine - surged 270 percent from 2001 to 2012. That far outpaced the increase in the number of VA patients and contributed to a fatal overdose rate that the agency's researchers put at nearly double the national average.
read more here
VA chaplain tormented by boss
VA chaplain says boss tormented her
ABQ Journal
By Colleen Heild
Journal Investigative Reporter
December 2, 2013
A chaplain at the Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center in Albuquerque contends in a federal lawsuit that her supervisor chaplain improperly accessed her medical records and used information from her psychological profile to torment her.
Kathleen Waltz contends that Ronald Cok used his VA credentials to obtain information about mental health treatment she received for sexual trauma she suffered while serving in the U.S. Armed forces from 1969 to 1976.
After she complained about a violation of federal privacy laws, Waltz contends in the lawsuit that both the VA Medical Center and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services confirmed a privacy violation occurred.
Yet VA officials allowed Cok to continue supervising Waltz and ultimately moved her away from her colleagues into a crowded and unsuitable office, depriving her of the “resources necessary to perform her duties as Chaplain,” her lawsuit alleges.
read more here
ABQ Journal
By Colleen Heild
Journal Investigative Reporter
December 2, 2013
A chaplain at the Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center in Albuquerque contends in a federal lawsuit that her supervisor chaplain improperly accessed her medical records and used information from her psychological profile to torment her.
Kathleen Waltz contends that Ronald Cok used his VA credentials to obtain information about mental health treatment she received for sexual trauma she suffered while serving in the U.S. Armed forces from 1969 to 1976.
After she complained about a violation of federal privacy laws, Waltz contends in the lawsuit that both the VA Medical Center and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services confirmed a privacy violation occurred.
Yet VA officials allowed Cok to continue supervising Waltz and ultimately moved her away from her colleagues into a crowded and unsuitable office, depriving her of the “resources necessary to perform her duties as Chaplain,” her lawsuit alleges.
read more here
Brothers work to put a face to every NC name on Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Brothers work to put a face to every NC name on Vietnam Veterans Memorial
The (Raleigh, N.C.) News and Observer
By MARTHA QUILLIN
Published: December 1, 2013
RALEIGH, N.C. — After the Army drafted him and got him ready to work as a combat medic, Charles Allen Collins must have looked like a lot of the other 2.5 million troops who served in Vietnam: a lanky young man in a uniform.
But what did he look like up close — before he left his hometown of Holly Springs, N.C. — sitting across the dinner table from his family or at a desk in a classroom? Did he have dark hair? Glasses? Did he look handsome in a half-smile and a suit, like the Charles Allen Collins on Page 362 of the 1963 Agromeck, the N.C. State yearbook?
Could that be Charlie, who spent just a year in service before he was killed by small-arms fire during a major battle in November 1965, when he was 23?
"I'm betting it is," said Jim Reece, of Wilmington, who wants to put the faces of people such as Collins in a place where relatives and the world at large can see, and perhaps remember them. That place would be in an addition to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C..
read more here
The (Raleigh, N.C.) News and Observer
By MARTHA QUILLIN
Published: December 1, 2013
RALEIGH, N.C. — After the Army drafted him and got him ready to work as a combat medic, Charles Allen Collins must have looked like a lot of the other 2.5 million troops who served in Vietnam: a lanky young man in a uniform.
But what did he look like up close — before he left his hometown of Holly Springs, N.C. — sitting across the dinner table from his family or at a desk in a classroom? Did he have dark hair? Glasses? Did he look handsome in a half-smile and a suit, like the Charles Allen Collins on Page 362 of the 1963 Agromeck, the N.C. State yearbook?
Could that be Charlie, who spent just a year in service before he was killed by small-arms fire during a major battle in November 1965, when he was 23?
"I'm betting it is," said Jim Reece, of Wilmington, who wants to put the faces of people such as Collins in a place where relatives and the world at large can see, and perhaps remember them. That place would be in an addition to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C..
read more here
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