Air Force Ranch Hands May Finally Get Justice For Agent Orange

Air Force Reservists May Get Help for Agent Orange Exposure
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
by Torsten Ove
Mar 03, 2015

About 2,100 crew members, flight nurses and maintenance workers who serviced those "spray birds" here and at bases in Massachusetts and Ohio have long maintained that the C-123s were contaminated, even though the Air Force insisted they had been cleaned.

A UC-123B Provider aircraft sprays the defoliant Agent Orange over South Vietnam in 1962. A new report says the planes remained contaminated for years after the war, while Air Force Reserve units used them for medical, transport and training missions.

Michael Silverman remembers the smell.

"The first time I got on one of those planes I said, 'What stinks?' " he said. "They said this plane was used to spray Agent Orange. Everybody smelled it. It was kind of a sweet smell. It was unmistakable."

That was in 1975 when Mr. Silverman, 69, of Fox Chapel, a former Vietnam B-52 navigator and retired lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserves, began flying C-123 Provider military cargo planes assigned to the 911th Airlift Wing at Pittsburgh International Airport.

The air base had 16 of the lumbering behemoths from 1972 to 1982, five of which had been used in Vietnam to spray Agent Orange defoliant as part of what the military called Operation Ranch Hand.
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VFW Wants Action From Congress Over Sequestration

VFW Says Ending Sequestration is Top 2016 Priority
Military.com
by Bryant Jordan
Capitol Hill
Mar 03, 2015


"Everyone is against the sequester but no one has yet proposed legislation to end it," said Joe Davis, the VFW's national spokesman.
Members of the nation's oldest veterans' service organization will be lobbying to end sequestration this week when they appear before congressional committees and meetings with lawmakers in their offices.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars has a number of military- and veteran-related issues to talk up, but its top mission is to rid Washington of the automatic, across-the-board budget cuts that are scheduled to go into effect on Oct. 1 if Congress fails to pass a budget.

"Our members -- all voting constituents -- will use this face-to-face opportunity [with Congress] to demand ... an end to the sequester," VFW National Commander John W. Stroud said. With the U.S. still at war, the cuts required under the sequester will devastate military readiness, homeland security, the quality-of-life of military families and veterans, he said.

The VSO leadership and an estimated 500 members gather in Washington annually to confer on veterans and defense issues and lobby Congress for them.

VFW officials will testify before joint sessions of the House and Senate Veterans Affairs committees on Wednesday and Thursday, where they will make their case for proper benefits and healthcare funding for the Veterans Affairs Department.

The group's 2016 priorities list also seeks improved interoperability between VA and Defense Department records, continued safeguarding of the Post-9/11 GI Bill and for employment programs. The group's priorities also extend to defense and homeland security spending.

The sequester, officially the Budget Control Act, should be ended to "ensure defense funding supports quality of life programs for servicemembers and families, training and readiness, troop end strength and equipment needs," the organization said.
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Canadian Troops Learned of Suicide by Tweet

Jason Kenney's tweet confirming soldier's death sparked anger, frustration 
OTTAWA CITIZEN
LEE BERTHIAUME
Published on: March 2, 2015

“Yeah, thanks to Jason Kenney!?!?” Perry wrote. “How is he tweeting this before the (chain of command). My soldiers had to find out from CBC.”

Canadian reservist Cpl. Nathan Cirillo is pictured in an undated photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, Facebook
THE CANADIAN PRESS

Internal emails show a minister’s tweet sparked confusion, frustration and anger as Cpl. Nathan Cirillo’s comrades learned about the Canadian soldier’s death on Oct. 22 from news reports rather than through official military channels.

Cirillo was standing guard with another soldier in front of the National War Memorial shortly before 10 a.m. that morning when a lone gunman shot him in the back. The gunman then drove to Parliament Hill and rushed through the main doors of the Centre Block, where he was killed in a shootout with RCMP officers and Hill security staff.

The unprecedented attack prompted an immediate lockdown of military and federal institutions across Canada, amid fears of a co-ordinated assault on Ottawa and an absence of concrete information.

But 15 minutes later, at 1:40 p.m., then-employment minister Jason Kenney became the first to confirm that the 24-year-old reservist had died, tweeting: “Condolences to family of the soldier killed, & prayers for the Parliamentary guard wounded.” Kenney has since been named defence minister.

The minister’s comment sparked a flurry of news reports. In response, Sgt. Tim Perry of the Canadian Forces’ Ceremonial Guards emailed his commanding officer, Maj. Michel Lavigne, at 1:53 p.m., saying: “I need a padre and confirmation if Cpl. (Cirillo) is dead or not. My guys are learning from CBC on his status.”
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Iraq Veteran Marine Saved By New York Firefighter

UPDATE
FDNY BONE MARROW DONOR MEETS IRAQ VETERAN RECIPIENT FOR 1ST TIME

EXCLUSIVE: FDNY firefighter donating bone marrow to save Iraq War veteran
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
BY LISA L. COLANGELO
Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Michael McCauley had only been a firefighter for a few months when he saved a life — and he didn’t even have to run into a burning building to do it.

The 26-year-old Staten Island resident was told in 2013 that he was a match for a leukemia patient in desperate need of a bone-marrow transplant.

On Wednesday, he will finally meet the mystery recipient — Aaron Faulkner, a 33-year-old Iraq War veteran and father of two from Pittsburgh, at a special reception at FDNY headquarters in Brooklyn.

“I went a long time without hearing anything,” said McCauley, who works out of Engine 242 in Bay Ridge.

“I wasn’t sure whether or not it helped.”

Faulkner, a former Marine now studying to be a pastor, was a student at Geneva College in Pennsylvania when he started to feel pains and exhaustion.

He thought the blood test he took in March 2013 would reveal he had an annoying case of mononucleosis — not acute myeloid leukemia.
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Marine and Soldier Off to Hawaii Honeymoon

San Diego military couple wins dream honeymoon contest 
CBS News 8
By Jeff Zevely, Reporter
Posted: Mar 02, 2015

SAN DIEGO (CBS 8) - Finding the proper balance between the military and marriage can be difficult, which is one reason why a husband and wife who serve at Camp Pendleton just won a dream honeymoon to Hawaii.

Christian and Kirsten Perry met in Afghanistan. Christian's a Marine, Kirsten a soldier. Somehow they fell in love in a war zone. 

"His first question was, 'Can I get your email?' Kirsten said. "It was actually kind of like a dare… it was like, I bet you can't get her number,"

Christian said. Christian proposed on Valentine's Day last year, and wasn't sure if Kirsten would say yes. "Imagine you're about to go on stage in front of 1,000 fans or something. She's the biggest fan I've ever had," Christian said. Kirsten accepted the offer and the bling.

In order to get stationed together at Camp Pendleton, they got married in a rush two months later. read more here

Retirement PTSD Wake Up Call

I was reading an article about Vietnam veterans and it brought up a very interesting point we don't talk about much.
Retirement and the PTSD wake up call replacing the alarm clock.

Local veterans keep fighting against PTSD
By MIKE TONY
10 Central Ohio News

UNIONTOWN, Pa. (AP) — In 1965, Bill Pitts was an 18-year-old, growing up much too fast.

During Christmas of that year, he was a Naval officer providing gunfire support on a vessel in the South China Sea, bombing Da Nang Harbor.

When his service in the Navy came to an end in 1969, Pitts returned home withdrawn and unable to communicate as well as he would have liked. Now a 68-year-old Dunbar resident, Pitts recalls treating his first two wives badly and not wanting to socialize with anyone.

"I wasn't the same kid I was when I first went over there," Pitts said. "I seemed not to care who I hurt with my actions."

Kenneth Noga was a member of both the Army's 101st Airborne Division and 9th Division from August 1971 to April 1972 and was shot at in the Quang Tri province of North Vietnam. After retiring from Sensus following 41 years with the company in Nov. 2013, the Uniontown resident found himself with more time alone dealing with haunting memories of his time in Vietnam. The flashbacks got particularly bad from January to April of last year.

"I was afraid to go to sleep because I knew where I was going," Noga said.

So every Thursday, Noga, Pitts and 60 to 70 other local veterans go to counseling sessions led by Joel Smith of the Veterans Affairs-run Morgantown Vet Center at the Hopwood Amvets. Smith discusses with veterans how to understand everything from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to the psychology of humor and the value of patience with their spouses and other loved ones.

Click the link and read the rest especially if you are a Vietnam veteran. The problem is as more and more Vietnam veterans retire they feel as if their lives suddenly fell apart.

I am about 10 years (or more) younger than most of my friends. I have about 10 years left before I can stop working but they are retiring and not as happy as they thought they'd be. After 20 or 30 years in the military and another 20 some odd years with jobs to go to, they are waking up with memories they thought they managed to escape, and frankly, they are shocked.

It isn't that PTSD was not already in them but they were just too busy to acknowledge it. It happened to Korean War veterans and WWII veterans just as it will happen to the newer veterans when they reach retirement age. God willing it won't be the same for them since how much Vietnam veterans were able to teach them ahead of time.

As with combat, you didn't allow yourself to feel pain. It wasn't a priority. You had to stay alive and keep as many of your buddies alive long enough to go home as well. Then it was getting jobs or going to school, getting married, having kids and doing what everyone else was doing.

You stayed so busy as if everything you did was a mission to complete. Ok, so you did the service time and the employment time. Now what? This is supposed to be your time to relax. It isn't because you didn't take the time to heal after you came home from combat.

Most of you didn't have a clue back in the 60's or 70's. It wasn't until then that research was finally able to understand what combat did emotionally as well as physically.

Now you have time but seem to be in shock that everything that happened so long ago is fresh in your mind. Don't be. You are far from alone.

This is what was known in the 70's.

That came home with you. Now is the time to treat it and heal it. Yep! You can heal it. There is no cure for it but that doesn't mean you're stuck feeling like you just entered into the Twilight Zone.

For all the VA got wrong that made the newspapers lately, they got a lot right.

They are doing things like Yoga and Tai Chi

Veterans Health Administration
Training Veterans to Care for Themselves
by Hans Petersen, VA Staff Writer
Monday, April 15, 2013

Kristi Rietz helps Veterans living with chronic conditions — pain…illness…stress — to put healthy things back into their lives and not make their illness the center of their life.

She is an occupational therapist in the Wellness Program at the Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital in Madison, Wis.

Kristi explains, “Wellness is approaching people as a whole person. What do they think would be a satisfying full life? We help people gain the skills they need to be able to do that. It’s approaching people from the perspective of what do they want out of life?”

Her Wellness Program calendar is full, with options for Veterans like the Eight-Week Wellness Series which includes Tai Chi Fundamentals), Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, Positive Psychology and Wellness Recovery Action Planning where Veterans make a personal plan for their wellness and recovery. Wellness Programs Help Relieve Stress

The outpatient Wellness Program provides training in natural stress relief and health improvement practices for Veterans and their families. Classes offer education and practice in stress management techniques that build focus, attention, and memory, as well as improved sleep, decreased stress, overall health, and increased well-being.

They do "VA Telehealth Services Served Over 690,000 Veterans In Fiscal Year 2014" and most still have face to face peer support groups although a lot of them have been stopped. There is a battle going on to have them brought back, not just for the veterans but for the families as well.

There is so much available for you because your generation fought for all of it. It is time for you to start using it and healing. After all, there is a lot more you can do with your time now, like getting better and then helping other veterans get there too!

The "Killer Was a Veteran" And Reporter Is Confused

This explains it: The killer was a veteran 
San Francisco Chronicle
By Jon Carroll
March 3, 2015

So this happened. I was up at the local mom-and-pop store, which is run by Omar, who is sort of the energy center of the entire shopping district, a just-fooling-around sort of guy who gets involved in the community in many ways and orders all sorts of organic gluten-free whatevers when his customers request it.

I’m pretty sure he recognizes everybody; I know he recognizes me. A few times ago, he said to me, sort of randomly, “Are you a veteran?”

I said I wasn’t.

“OK, dude, you just looked like a veteran.”

I mumbled thank you, got my change and my groceries, and walked out. It took me halfway home to realize I wasn’t sure whether I liked being called a veteran. Not because I’m all about peace and love, but because, well, veterans have kind of a bad image.
read more here

I tried to leave this comment but didn't want them to take over my Facebook and Google links.

I'm confused. Are you trying to explain veterans or insult them? I'm married to a Vietnam veteran and spend most of my time with veterans. I just don't get how people say things like you just did. Most of the veterans I know have PTSD but work jobs, have marriages that last decades and relationships with friends that have lasted almost as long. They spend their time supporting each other and then doing all they can for a lot of charities, including the veteran/biker groups polite folks just don't want around. As for the "most veterans are not damaged" that is insulting to veterans with PTSD. They are not "damaged" but folks would rather accept a civilian with PTSD than a veteran.

Why Are We Denying Purple Hearts to Veterans With PTSD?

Why Are We Denying Purple Hearts to Veterans With PTSD?
Huffington Post
Gene Beresin
Posted: 03/03/2015

I have seen Arthur for psychiatric care for over 20 years. He suffers from severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following his two tours of duty in Vietnam.

Arthur attended the University of Massachusetts, and graduated in 1969. Although he was drafted upon losing his student waiver, he chose instead to enlist as a volunteer. Soon he was training to deactivate bombs and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in the field.

Although he proved to be quite talented, and ultimately succeeded in saving countless lives, he also experienced failure. No one can detect and suppress every device in the jungle.

Each and every death he witnessed felt like a terrible personal failure. He still dreams of the horrifying scenes he lived through in the war.

To this day, Arthur suffers from PTSD and profound survivor's guilt. While better in many ways, he qualified for total disability based on his diagnosis, and sees me on a regular basis.

Arthur received two Purple Hearts for physical wounds incurred in 1970 and 1971, but was denied Purple Hearts for his traumatic brain injury and PTSD because they were not considered obvious physical wounds at the time.

I appreciate the profound impact PTSD has had on his life--his daily flashbacks, impaired sleep, obsessions over what he could have done to save more lives, extreme vigilance to protect the ones he loves. Not a day goes by that he doesn't question himself.

It defies me that he has not earned Purple Hearts for these long-lasting effects of PTSD--awards to stand beside the two Bronze Star Medals for Valor he received.
read more here

My comment

Great job on the question and calling attention to this subject back up again.

Until people understand that there are different types of PTSD and combat PTSD is different, they will never see it as anything other than an illness. Civilians get PTSD from a long list of traumatic events in their lives but as with different levels, their treatment needs to be based on the cause. The cause of Combat PTSD is military service and it is complicated by the deep connection servicemen and women have to others they serve with. This carries into their lives as veterans.

What we know about PTSD in the civilian world was knowledge gained by veterans coming home from Vietnam and fighting for the research to be done. Strange how they are the last to receive the benefits they obtained for everyone else.

I've read the best experts over the last 30+ years and they point out the differences few others even think about. When folks get that this PTSD is caused by combat, they would have no problem with the Purple Heart any more than they would have issues with TBI caused by service as well. It isn't an illness that was caused by them but something inflicted upon them. There is so much that is done wrong because people still don't know what they should have known years ago. Veterans want healing more than anything else but they can't get it while there is still so many mistakes being made disguised as "doing something" when what works is ignored.

Florida Veteran Seeking Others to Fight ISIS?

This story doesn't add up. Hope they do a followup to explain it.

Florida man recruiting veterans to fight ISIS
First Coast News
THV11 affiliate
March 2, 2015

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (March 2, 2015) - A U.S. veteran is putting out a call to other veterans to come together to fight the Islamic State on their turf.

"There has been strong support and numerous veterans who are interested in going."

According to THV11 affiliate, WTLV, eight-year military veteran Sean Rowe launched the website, Veterans against ISIS.

He's recruiting veterans to fight the terror group in places like Iraq and he's asking for four years of military experience.

"So, I will be talking with them and screening them. I want to keep it small and simple," said Rowe.

From kidnappings to beheadings, the violence unleashed by ISIL continues, and Rowe says he's had enough.

"I'm not scared of these guys. They can come for me if they want but I am going to take the fight to them," said Rowe.
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Sailor's Dogs Stolen From Car Include PTSD Service Dog

Thieves steal service dog from sailor's car
ABC 10 News
Robert Santos
Mar 2, 2015

A sailor visiting Southern California had two of her dogs stolen out of her car. One of them is her service dog, which she desperately wants back.

Sandy Roberts shared her story with 10News anchor Robert Santos, hoping to help police track down the thieves.

Roberts thought something was strange when she returned to her car Saturday morning and did not hear her dogs.

"They're usually very, very excited to see me," said Roberts.

This time, her two dogs, which were left in the front seat, were gone, including her service dog Lola.

She helps with Roberts' overall mental health, including coping with post-traumatic stress disorder.

"I really need her back," said Roberts.
read more here