GUEST POST by David Staffa

GUEST POST by David Staffa

The title of the book is:
The Afghanistan War Follies: There is no beauty in truth
David Staffa

I am David Staffa and I served in the Afghanistan War from 2010-2011 as a Special Forces Engineer. Before you read this book, there are a few things that you need to know. Number one, I was a soldier and I tell it like I saw it or as it was told to me.

Second, don’t assume that this is a book about the Afghanistan War combat because you will be disappointed. This book is about my and others experiences and what we have learned from these experiences and how it can help you understand people who have served or will serve in the Afghan War.

Although we had many rocket attacks, human wave attacks and suicide bombers, I will let others tell those stories.

Third, I do not have any political aspirations because I have no ax to grind with anyone; well maybe with a few of those people in Congress but that is another story.

Fourth, this is a book about our struggles to make the “military machine” work in our favor. In World War II, 11.2% of the nation served in four years. In Vietnam, 4.3% served in 12 years. Since 2001, only 0.45% of our population has served in the Global War on Terror.

For me, it was also a personal journey. Is the Afghanistan Army, with the help of thousands of U.S. and ISAF Forces and advisors, making any headway against the Taliban? Is the Karzai government “winning the hearts and minds of the people?” Does Karzai and his brother seem more interested in suppressing the Afghan people than in dealing with the corruption and incompetence in their government? I wanted answers to these questions by being “on the ground.”

Join the small percentage that have served recently in Afghanistan and read about military life in Afghanistan.

The names have either been redacted or changed to protect their anonymity. The events portrayed here are reality and are reflective of the author’s experience and observations and of the soldiers that I served with during my military tour in Afghanistan from 2010 to 2011.

I am intensely curious about the things which I see around me and I was the man of a thousand questions. I earned the right to ask these questions to all people in Afghanistan because I noticed no one else bothered to ask them.

These collection of stories are garnered from many personal experiences and stories related to me by U.S. military officers and enlisted men and women, DIA and CIA personnel as well as U.S. military contractors and Afghan military and civilians. Consider these observations a cross between Rambo, MASH and Hogan's Heroes. You will have first hand knowledge because there are battles on many fronts to be won as we look at who the real enemy is here.

Why Special Forces? It was intriguing to me. I am intuitively a winner and that was my appeal. Plus, I liked the free-lance, unbureaucratic, James Bond-like initiative. Humans, as a whole, have always been my initiative in getting things done rather than using hardware. Hardware is merely the tool for succeeding. This is where the conventional Army (also known as Big Army) loses over Special Forces. They lead from the top down rather than from the bottom up. Better decisions and planning always come from the people who do the work – the bottom up theory. Oh, how I wish the civilian working world would learn from this as well.

Although you will find that many things that I reflect back to you in writing seem to state that things are in disarray with everyone in Afghanistan, such is not the case. I worked with a few good civilians and military people but the point I want to make is that competent people, military or civilian, were the exception rather than the rule. As you read the stories in this book, you can see why I state this. Watching U.S. dollars being wasted in this corrupt country while the people in the United States suffer from an economic crisis was disheartening.

My travels in Afghanistan were many. Bagram, Chamkani, Gardez, FOB Curry, FOB Salerno, Shkin, Camp Clark to name a few. Conversing with civilians, government employees and soldiers from different branches of military services and governmental services gave me an entirely objective view of the war and its effects on the U.S. and Afghanistan civilians and soldiers as well. I saw myself as a plain, ordinary soldier but always intensely conscious of my rank, my position in social life as well as my gift of leading people, staff or getting the job done. I am the last person in the world that would let success go to my head because my personality is not designed as such. Eliciting groups of experts for combined judgments was always my secret of being successful and that is the secret of these stories.

Working with some of my fellow soldiers and soldiers of the units - I wasn’t sure what effect they would have on the enemy but some of our soldiers did frighten me because of their lack of competence and intelligence. Many of us “older vets” wanted to go back and join our younger brothers in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our thinking is that we can teach them how to stay alive. We want to reconnect with our youth, the thrill of battle, that adrenaline rush that you cannot get anywhere else in the world. I and my brothers wanted to be a father and or a brother to these younger guys. I was able to make this happen for myself and I remember thinking these thoughts as well prior to deployment.

What you read going forward is actually put down in writing in chronological order. This means that the soldiers’ personal experiences as well as mine were put down in writing as soon as I was able to get to my laptop. Nothing is exaggerated but is merely put down in words as I saw it or others, both civilian and military, had relayed to me in conversation.
Dave Staffa
dstaffa54@gmail.com 

Houston Shooting Suspect Served Three Tours

UPDATE
Army vet behind Houston shooting becomes third mass shooter once stationed at Fort Bliss

Friend of Houston mass shooting suspect speaks out
KVUE
Grace White
May 31, 2016

HOUSTON -- Officials still don't know what caused a man to go on a deadly shooting rampage in West Houston. However, friends who knew him say he is an Army veteran who suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

"If precautions were taken before this, even on my part, to reach out for him then it could have been prevented," said a fellow solider, who asked not to be identified.

The soldier told KHOU 11 News he served alongside Dionisio Garza III, 25, in Afghanistan.

"I would have never guessed Garza. Ever. I've seen him talk people down from PTSD moments I'm sure more than I could even count," he said.

However, he told us PTSD was something Garza struggled with too.

"I never thought he had a serious problem with it, he chose to go on a second and a third deployment and not only go, but be a leader there," he said.

Police have still not said why they believe Garza snapped or even why a man from California chose a neighborhood off Memorial Drive in West Houston.

"This is not a place where anyone expects anything like this to happen, kids are about to get out of school, it's about to be summer," said Daniel Irving, one of the pastors at Memorial Drive United Methodist Church.
read more here


Police sources identify suspect in west Houston shooting

A second man identified as Byron Wilson is no longer a suspect and was in fact a Good Samaritan trying to help in the shooting.

The Good Samaritan was shot by the suspect as he tried to help and fight back. Wilson was critically injured, but he is expected to survive.

In total, two people were killed, including the suspect, and six others were injured.

The medical examiner on Monday identified the second deceased victim in the shooting as Eugene Linscomb.

One of the survivors was saved in part by a 17-year-old Boy Scout.

Memorial Day tribute was held at VFW Post 4287

A Memorial Day tribute was held at VFW Post 4287 in Orlando.  Some Gave All panels offered a stark reminder of what this day is supposed to be all about.

Published on May 30, 2016
Today at the VFW Post 4287 in Orlando, there was a Memorial Day service. One of the special guest was a Korean War veteran about to celebrate his 95 birthday. What no one expected was that he can tap!

Navy SEAL's Brain Studied To Help Others

A Navy SEAL's last act of service: A search for the truth about brain disease and the military
The Virginian-Pilot
By Corinne Reilly
Special to The Virginian-Pilot
May 28, 2016

On the afternoon of March 12, 2014, Jennifer Collins checked her phone and found a message from her husband, Dave Collins, a retired Navy SEAL. He’d texted to say that she should pick up their son from kindergarten, and then this: “So sorry baby. I love you all.”

Hours later, two police officers showed up at their house in Virginia Beach with news that Dave, 45, had shot himself in his truck a few miles away. Although Jennifer had held out hope for any other explanation, she also knew the moment she read it what the text meant. For months, she’d watched Dave disintegrate into a man she hardly knew. She’d tried everything, but nothing had alleviated his severe insomnia, intense anxiety and worsening cognitive problems.

“I was so frustrated that I couldn’t find the answers he needed,” she remembers.

It was out of that frustration, she says, that the idea came to donate his brain to research. She was still answering a detective’s questions in her living room that night when she blurted it out: Tell the medical examiner to do whatever is needed to preserve Dave’s brain. She hoped the decision might help others struggling with what everyone believed explained Dave’s afflictions – traumatic brain injury and PTSD, the most common wounds of the post-9/11 wars.

“That’s what he’d been diagnosed with,” Jennifer says. “I had no reason to think there was anything else to find.”

In June, three months after Dave died, a letter came from the doctor who examined his brain. It left Jennifer stunned.

What had caused Dave’s unraveling was chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease best known for affecting former professional football players. Associated with repeated head trauma, CTE causes neurological decay, has no known treatment and can be diagnosed only at autopsy. It is linked to memory loss, personality changes, depression, impulsivity, dementia and suicide.
read more here

Vietnam MOH Melvin Morris Talks About PTSD

Medal of Honor recipient Melvin Morris speaks of experience
The Ledger
James Bennett Jr.
May 29, 2016

“I had a difficult time after the war; very difficult," Morris said of the mental trauma he and other soldiers go through. "I struggled with it. Post-traumatic stress is no joke. I had a point where I didn't care about my family."

Retired Sgt. 1st Class Melvin Morris, who was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Barack Obama, speaks to the congregation of the First Baptist Church of Auburndale on Sunday morning. JAMES BENNETT JR./LEDGER CORRESPONDENT

AUBURNDALE — Melvin Morris still has the Green Beret he first wore officially during a ceremony with President John F. Kennedy.

“It looks rough, but I still wear it,” the Medal of Honor recipient said Sunday at the First Baptist Church of Auburndale.

The 74-year-old retired Army sergeant first class spoke to the congregation about war, his experiences in it, about its impact on those who serve and their families, and when war should be fought.

“There are people that don't like us,” the Vietnam veteran told the congregation on the day before Memorial Day. “They hate us, they hate our religion, they hate this church. They hate the people that go to it.

"I used to think that war was bad," he said. "It's bad if it's for no reason. But to protect our country, our family, our way of life, it may be necessary. There are those that will take us out of this world in a minute without a thought. And it's scary to me.”
read more here

Military Chaplain Shaken by War

Over the years as a Chaplain trained to work with responders instead of those they help, I can tell you that it is a struggle for many of us to reach the point where we ask for help when we need it.

You would think that would be so easy since we know so many others doing the work we do. We usually have an Army behind us to turn to when it gets to be too much yet those I turn to know I am either burnt out or in crisis myself if I call them. It took a long time for me to be able to do that. After all, I am the caretaker of others.

What example would I portray to them if they saw me falling apart? That is what it took years to understand. It tells them I am just as human as they are. Since there is nothing wrong with them needing help from me, there is nothing wrong with me needing help from others.

I am unbroken now after being shattered many times. The thing is, there is no limit to the amount of healing or the number of times it is required. I have built up scars and each one reminds me of how hard it has been before but I got through it because I had help to recover from all of it.

My scars are not from combat but fighting the good fight for those who did what few others have dared to do.

Here is a great article on what Military Chaplains can go through.

What happens when the military chaplain is shaken by war
The Washington Post
Michelle Boorstein
May 29, 2016

“The chaplain is supposed to be the one that is unbroken,” Pantlitz said. “When soldiers see a chaplain is broken, they feel it’s okay for them to be broken, too. Other soldiers — okay. But a man or woman of God is not supposed to be broken.”

The pre-war Pastor Matthew Williams had gone to seminary, was ordained and thought he understood why people suffer. “God allows suffering because this world is temporary,” is how he would have put it.

Then came two deployments as an Army chaplain, one to Afghanistan and one to Iraq. Williams spent a year in an Afghanistan morgue unzipping body bags and “seeing your friends’ faces all blown apart.” He watched as most of the marriages he officiated for fellow soldiers fell apart. He felt the terror of being the only soldier who wasn’t armed when the mortars dropped and bullets flew.

This Memorial Day weekend, Williams is no longer an active-duty military chaplain nor a United Church of Christ minister. He is a guitar player on disability whose outlook on God, religion and suffering was transformed by post-traumatic stress.

The 5,000 active-duty men and women often called “Chaps” are the ones soldiers seek at all hours, under strict confidentiality, to share their darkest acts, doubts and fears — even the suicidal thoughts that could end their military careers. And yet chaplains experience post-traumatic stress, too, while carrying out their unique mission to shore up others.
read more here

Veterans With Multiple Tours of War Overseas Struggle at Home

There is a quote in the following article on New York Times that deserves attention. "The military is very good at identifying and amplifying the psychological factors that make a high-performing fighter." While they do a fantastic job of training these men and women to fight in combat, they do a lousy job of training them to fight for their own lives.

That is evident when you read more about the high rate of suicides in those with multiple deployments. When you think about the simple fact they survived all the hardships and risk to their lives, but cannot survive being home, that screams a message of how the DOD still does not understand them.

Those With Multiple Tours of War Overseas Struggle at Home
The New York Times
By BENEDICT CAREY
MAY 29, 2016

Ryan Lundeby, 32, an Army Ranger with
five deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Credit Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times

An analysis of Army data shows that, unlike most of the military, these soldiers’ risk of committing suicide actually drops when they are deployed and soars after they return home. For the 85 percent of soldiers who make up the rest of the service and were deployed, the reverse is true.

FORT WORTH, Tex. — The dinner crowd was sparse for a downtown steakhouse, a handful of families and couples lost in conversations. Ryan Lundeby, 32, an Army Ranger with five deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, took in the scene from his table, seemingly meditative beneath his shaved head and long beard.

He was not.

“He watches, he’s always watching; he notices everything,” said his wife, Mary. “Superman noticing skills, that’s what I call it. Look, he’s doing it now — Ryan?”

“He watches, he’s always watching; he notices everything,” said his wife, Mary. “Superman noticing skills, that’s what I call it. Look, he’s doing it now — Ryan?”

“That table over there,” Mr. Lundeby said, his voice soft, his eyes holding a line. 

“The guy threw his straw wrapper on the ground. I’m waiting to see if he picks it up.”

He did not. Mr. Lundeby’s breathing slowed.

After 14 years of war, the number of veterans with multiple tours of combat duty is the largest in modern American history — more than 90,000 soldiers and Marines, many of them elite fighters who deployed four or more times. New evidence suggests that these veterans are not like most others when it comes to adjusting to civilian life.
read more here

Vietnam War Memorial In Venice Desercrated

Vandals Deface Vietnam War Memorial In Venice
CBS Los Angeles
May 27, 2016

“It’s a desecration. I mean it’s very simple. There’s no sort of other way around it. It isn’t graffiti,” Francisco said.

VENICE (CBSLA.com) — Vandals defaced a memorial to Vietnam war veterans in Venice – an awful sight on this Memorial Day weekend.

Stewart Oscars welled up as he looked at the vandalized mural located on Pacific Avenue near Sunset Court. It was covered in graffiti from end to end.

“This knocked me out. So sickening. Just sadness…think of all these people. They’re gone,” Oscars said. “I remember the Vietnam war and how friends went to war, and bodies came back. Somehow, it has to be taught that this is not a good idea. This is actually stupid.”

The memorial was dedicated to service members who were listed as missing in action during the Vietnam War.

George Francisco is the Vice President of the Venice Chamber of Commerce. He also runs a nonprofit called Veterans Foundation Incorporated.
read more here

Why do veterans commit suicide?

Fueled By Compassion to Do More Than Care
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
May 29, 2016


Sunday morning before Memorial Day got me thinking about all the things no one seems to have much time to talk about. Why do veterans commit suicide? 

After all, considering the numbers have not gone down, it seems like a logical question to ask. You'd think that finding the answer after all these years and billions failing to keep veterans alive, it would have been figured out by now, but no one seems to want to talk about that. 

How does a man or women decide life matters so much they are willing to die to save someone else turn into someone not able to find a single reason to live one more day?

When they asked for help during combat, they knew it was the right thing to do to save lives.  So why is it so hard for them to know it is the right thing to do because their life is on the line because of it?

They grieve.  They get confused between witnessing evil and thinking they have become it. They question why they survived when others did not. Then when things fall apart, they wonder what all of it was for, what they are worth now that their "brothers" are not counting on them as they did in combat.  What was all of it for?

They lose hope that tomorrow will be any better than the last day was.

After reading about a veteran surviving combat and attempted suicide this morning, it got me thinking about all the conversations I've had over the years when veterans were twisting things around, forgetting how much good they did
and what they did it for.

They see such horrible things.  Things that civilians see in a movie but their movie is played over and over again streaming from their memories. They can hear the sounds, smell the pungent aroma of death and destruction and feel everything reawakened within them.

One veteran really stands out in my mind right now. He kept asking where God was when kids were being killed.  He saw so many horrible things in combat that he blamed God for all of it.  "A loving God would not just sit back and let all that happen."  

Actually God didn't. The veteran was there to help along side of his brothers because they cared.  Evil people do not grieve for someone else. Evil people do not risk their lives for the sake of someone else. 

The courage they had was fed by love and compassion. That came from the same soul that gave them the courage to do more than just care.

The bad memories become so powerful they block out all the good that happened and all the moments when compassion surrounded the veteran.  He forget when his buddy shoved him to the ground so he would not be hit by a bullet.  He forgot when he got a letter from his girlfriend saying she found someone else and his unit comforted him. Of the times when he and others risked their lives to save the wounded and grieved for those who perished.

For all the talk about raising awareness, it is reprehensible to repeat a number as if their lives didn't matter enough to do more than read a headline.  To ignore what they need to know has been deadlier than combat itself.
State after state put the number of committing suicide is double the civilian rate. The Center for Disease Control said there were over 42,773 Americans committing suicide in 2014. That means there are actually over 26,000 veterans committed suicide. Really disturbing when you acknowledge the fact veterans, unlike civilians, put their own lives on the line, were prepared to endure any hardship, did everything possible to survive, then come home and take their own lives.

Even more disturbing is the other fact no one talks about.  The vast majority of those veterans were over the age of 50. They are the largest population of veterans in this country and the largest percentage of suicides.

That study found US Suicide Rate Increases 24 Percent Over 15 Years.

Suicide rates for middle-aged women between the ages of 45 to 64 increased greatly, rising from 6 suicides per 100,000 women in 1999 to 9.8 per 100,000 -- a 63 percent increase. For men, suicide rates were highest for those over 75, with approximately 38 suicides reported for every 100,000 men in 2014, according to the report.

However, middle-aged men between the ages of 45 to 64 saw the greatest rise in suicide rates among males. That age group saw a 43 percent increase, from 20.8 suicides per 100,000 men in 1999 to 29.7 suicides per 100,000 men in 2014, according to the study.

So how does that happen? While they found reason to live during combat, it was usually about those they were with and not about themselves. The birth of the pain begins but they do not allow themselves to feel it. They push all of it to the back of their mind so they can do their jobs.  Others depend on them.  It is not until they return home and everyone is safe, they feel all of it.

Some get really busy working on their transition to living with civilians again while no longer being one of them.  The title of veteran stays with them the rest of their lives. They go to college, get jobs, start families and for a while, they are able to ignore the pain they just don't have time to feel.

If they have mild PTSD, that is easy to do for a while but life happens and other bad stuff happens. PTSD gets worse.  It gets worse into middle age when life changes yet again. Kids are on their own, retirement changes their lives, health issues, loss of family members and friends, all major life changes that are traumatic even for civilians carry more seriousness for a veteran especially when he/she has lost the ability to ignore what they carried home with them.

Curing PTSD is impossible. Healing PTSD is possible with the right information and the knowledge they need to have to know why they have PTSD and they can stop blaming themselves for it.  Believing it is any type of mental illness or because they are weak is the only reality they know because no one told them it hit them because they have such a strong emotional core, they felt it all more.

PTSD is not a wound caused by what is within but what entered into it.  It is caused by traumatic experiences and not what is considered part of normal human life.  Combat is not normal.  No traumatic experience is. Human reaction to surviving it is normal.  No one is ever the same as they were the second before but just as trauma changed them, they can change again and, most of the time, end up being a better person with the proper help to see things differently. It was all based on a courageous love they were willing to die for.

John 15:13
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Civil War Law for Veterans Not Good Enough for Trump?

Gee, wonder what Trump thinks when disabled veterans get tax breaks?

Trump’s War on Disabled Veteran Vendors
POLITICO
By M. Scott Mahaskey
05/26/16

In the 1990s, Trump had a real problem with a protected class of New York street vendors. We paid a visit to some of them today.

The fight went back to an 19th-century law that gave every veteran in New York the right to “hawk, peddle and vend any goods, wares or merchandise” throughout the state. Designed to create economic opportunities for Civil War veterans, the law has been amended a number of times at various state and city levels.

Former Marine Dan Rossi, a disabled veteran and long-time city street vendor, waits for customers outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 17. Rossi once held about 500 permits to vend throughout the city and ran a successful food cart manufacturing business. But in the early 90s, a new law restricted individuals from holding no more than one permit, and Rossi eventually lost his business. Today, Rossi operates just one cart and blames the Fifth Avenue Association for destroying his quality of life. M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO

They are as much a part of the New York City landscape as the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building and Times Square. But the presence of street vendors along New York City’s posh Fifth Avenue corridor gave Donald Trump heartburn in the early 1990s. Back then, he, along with other local business leaders, urged city and state officials to restrict vendor access to Fifth Avenue, including the space in front of Trump Tower. One target of his lobbying efforts included a special class of business operators: disabled veteran street vendors.

“While disabled veterans should be given every opportunity to earn a living, is it fair to do so to the detriment of the city as a whole or its tax paying citizens and businesses?” Trump wrote in a 1991 letter obtained by the New York Daily News. “Do we allow Fifth Ave., one of the world’s finest and most luxurious shopping districts, to be turned into an outdoor flea market, clogging and seriously downgrading the area?”
read more here

Benefits like this just from New York.

E-ZPass for Disabled Veterans The New York State Thruway Authority offers free, unlimited travel anywhere on the Thruway to certain, qualifying disabled Veterans.

Property tax exemptions Municipalities have the option to grant an alternative exemption. This provides a property tax exemption of 15 percent of assessed value for veterans who served during wartime, and an additional 10 percent exemption for those who served in a combat zone.

You can find even more on that link to what veterans do receive, which according to Trump, would also qualify "to the detriment of the city" since it is all lost revenue New York honors veterans with.