Veteran Carries Skeleton and Burden of Suicide

Veteran carries skeleton around to raise awareness to veteran suicides
WTEN
Published: October 8, 2016

“Anything we deem burdensome were going to internalize and hold in our core until it rots us”

WATERVLIET, N.Y. (NEWS10) – A New York veteran is walking through Capital Region carrying a skeleton.

His picture has been viewed almost 40,000 times on Facebook. That’s because the skeleton represents another one of his brothers in arms who took their own life.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In John Newcomb’s case, it’s worth tens of thousands.

“You are never too heavy, I will carry you.”

The mission of this army veteran from Watervliet is going viral.

8News sister station, NEWS10 ABC, caught up with him walking past the Albany VA carrying a 40-pound pack and a skeleton draped over his shoulders.

He’s spreading a powerful message that too many veterans are killed by suicide.

“Most of it was on compulsion. I just lost another one from my company.”

He’s traveled through Troy, Watervliet, and Latham and plans on walking across the country, hoping to make a difference.
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Brig. Gen. Donald C. Bolduc Opens Up About His Own Battle With PTSD

A General’s New Mission: Leading a Charge Against PTSD
New York Times
The Saturday Profile
By DIONNE SEARCEY
OCT. 7, 2016

“The powerful thing is that I can use myself as an example. And thank goodness not everybody can do that. But I’m able to do it, so that has some sort of different type of credibility to it.”
Brig. Gen. Donald C. Bolduc

Brig. Gen. Donald C. Bolduc, commander of American Special

Operations Forces in Africa, tells soldiers that it is all

right to get help for brain injuries and mental health problems.

Credit Andrew Harnik/Associated Press

STUTTGART, Germany — It might have been the 2,000-pound bomb that dropped near him in Afghanistan, killing several comrades. Or maybe it was the helicopter crash he managed to survive. It could have been the battlefield explosions that detonated all around him over eight combat tours.

Whatever the cause, the symptoms were clear. Brig. Gen. Donald C. Bolduc suffered frequent headaches. He was moody. He could not sleep. He was out of sorts; even his balance was off. He realized it every time he walked down the street holding hands with his wife, Sharon, leaning into her just a little too close.

Despite all the signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, it took 12 years from his first battlefield trauma for him to seek care. After all, he thought, he was a Green Beret in the Army’s Special Forces. He needed to be tough.

General Bolduc learned that not only did he suffer from PTSD, but he also had a bullet-size spot on his brain, an injury probably dating to his helicopter crash in Afghanistan in 2005.

Other high-ranking officers have come forward to talk about their struggles with post-combat stress and brain injuries. And in recent years, Special Operations commanders have become more open about urging their soldiers to get treatment.
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He is not alone in talking about having PTSD. Other Generals came out as well so that they could actually care for the men and women they commanded.

Brig. General Gary S. Patton and Gen. Carter Ham have both sought counseling for the emotional trauma of their time in the Iraq war.

Texas Female Veterans Celebrated on Honor Flight to DC

Texas' First All-Female Honor Flight Takes Off From Austin
TWC News
By LeAnn Wallace
Saturday, October 8, 2016

AUSTIN, Texas - An honor guard and an appreciative crowd are symbols of respect that go with every well-deserved honor flight.

But this trip was different.

It was the first all-women’s veterans honor flight in Texas and the third ever nationally.

"It feels wonderful. I never thought I'd be honored at my age, 93," said B.J. Garner, a WWII veteran.

For others, the honor flight brings back powerful memories, such as “Clark Air Base, triage, blood (and) bullets” for Frankie Dawson who was a Vietnam War medic.

The women are all World War II, Korean and Vietnam War veterans. They're off on an all-expenses paid trip to see the war memorials in Washington DC.
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Details of Police Shooting Brandon Simmons Coming In

Man shot dead by police at CU-Boulder was former Marine discharged under questionable circumstances
The Denver Channel
Blair Miller, Sally Mamdooh
Oct 7, 2016

BOULDER, Colo. – The University of Colorado Police Department named the two officers involved in the fatal shooting of a man wielding a machete on campus Wednesday as it came to light the man was a former Marine.

Brandon Simmons, 28, of Thornton, allegedly threatened a sports medicine patient with a machete at CU-Boulder Wednesday before police confronted him and eventually shot him dead.

Friends of Simmons’ on Friday told Denver7 he was a former Marine who was discharged earlier this year after around a decade of service. Simmons had two children and an ex-wife, who all live in California, where Simmons used to be stationed.

Friends say he recently moved in with his father in Thornton after the divorce.

Simmons had been a drill instructor during his time in the Marines. A friend of his said he was the "epitome" of what a good drill instructor should be and called the incident and Simmons' death "shocking."

A photo of Simmons posted to Facebook publicly by a friend shows Simmons in his Marines dress uniform, with sergeant bars on his sleeve.
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"We did what had to be done" in combat

Once in a while someone says something completely stupid about PTSD. While they may care about the troops and our veterans, it becomes obvious they did not care enough to learn much about them.  

When folks lined up to start repeating "22 a day" and how they were raising awareness, I'd argue with them about the numbers and what the VA report actually said. That was when I'd hear the words that made me hang up the phone. "Its just a number" they said defending their use of someone else's anguish.

So how is it they survived combat but could not survive when they were back home? 

We may see them as heroes, but they say they were just doing their jobs. We may see them as victims, but they see themselves as survivors. We may see them as someone to feel sorry for but they discovered the truth and found the power within all they still had to give.

From Residual War, Something Worth Living For by Kathie Costos DiCesare

FIRST NIGHT
LEVERAGE’S ROOM

Alarm clock shows 3:15 near the window where she is standing looking out.


The soldiers were in their rooms.

Michaels paces the floor
Alvarez is sleeping with his machine gun by his side.
Franklin is sitting on the side of the bed. Elbows on knees, head down in his hands. 
Daniel's room was empty
Shultz is in bed with glow of cell phone on his face.
Bean and Murray are sleeping in the same bed. Bean has arm around Murray as his legs are moving and he is whimpering.
Daniels is walking around as if on patrol.
Faith is in fetal position, shaking with tears coming out of his eyes.

The next day all of them were talking about how they ended up at Fort Christmas. Each one of them had proven themselves as heroic and human. They had heard all the rumors about PTSD but they survived the causes while idiots spread gossip.

"So you see ma’am every one of us did something for the right reason without thinking about what the consequences would be because it had to be done."

"It had to be done" and it was done over and over again. They did it because everyone they served with in Afghanistan and Iraq were worth dying for. The trouble was, none of them had found something worth living for until someone else proved to them their own worth.

Vietnam Veteran Gives Living History Lesson in Worcester

Vietnam vets relive war for students with straight talk at park
Worcester Telegram
Brad Petrishen
October 7, 2016

“We tell them, ‘Your questions are our therapy,’” Mr. Polaski said as Friday’s crop of students – 170 eighth-graders from Lowell – pulled up in four buses. “All’s we do is hope somebody remembers it.”

WORCESTER – “What was it like to kill your first person?” the first student asked Phil Madaio as the morning sun shone on the chiseled slabs of stone that forge the state’s Vietnam memorial.

“Not good,” the Vietnam veteran replied in a deep, gravelly voice. “But you can’t think about that long or you’ll be laying there next to him.”

Grim truths abounded Friday as four veterans shared their experiences at Green Hill Park. The sessions are not always easy, but the men, part of a local group called Vietnam Veterans for the Community, know that while granite lasts forever, they will not.

“It’s living history,” Casey Polaski, 68, told a collection of students gathered in front of the memorial’s seminal structure, a ring of granite slabs bearing the names of the 1,547 dead or missing soldiers from Massachusetts.

Dedicated in 2002, the memorial this summer was approved for $200,000 in repairs and $50,000 in annual maintenance. Mr. Madaio, Mr. Polaski and their friends are always shocked at how many people don’t know it exists; they offer tours here often, speaking for men who cannot, and sharing a burden they will always carry.
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Stunning Photo Florida National Guard Headed Into Storm While Others Evactuated

We survived yesterday, a very long, long day behind boarded up windows. It was the 4th hurricane to hit Central Florida since we moved here. Today is clean up day and trying to get back to normal. We got lucky but folks on the coast were not lucky at all.

National Guard begins operations in Florida as Hurricane Matthew pushes north
STARS AND STRIPES
By COREY DICKSTEIN
Published: October 7, 2016

This photo from a Florida Department of Transportation traffic camera, which has become a hit on the internet, shows National Guard vehicles heading south to prepare to help residents in Hurricane Matthew's wake as evacuees move in the opposite direction. Florida Department of Transportation

WASHINGTON – National Guard troops in Florida began initial search-and-rescue operations Friday in the southern parts of the state as powerful Hurricane Matthew moved up the East Coast toward Georgia and South Carolina.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott activated some 3,500 National Guard troops, who began aerial and ground-based search-and-rescue operations in the state’s southeast as the Category 3 hurricane moved slowly north along the coastline, said Air Force Maj. Gen. J.C. Witham, the National Guard Bureau’s operations director. In addition, thousands of Florida Guardsmen were on standby to deploy, if needed.
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This is from Jacksonville
You can also see what happened in Daytona Beach

Mystery Marine Mario Kletzke Laid to Rest by Community After Suicide

Community Comes Together for Funeral of ‘Mystery Marine’ in Stafford County
NBC 4 News Washington
By David Culver and Chelsea Cirruzzo
October 6, 2016

A Virginia community came together on Thursday to say farewell to a local veteran known as the “Mystery Marine.”

Cpl. Mario Kletzke ran up and down Route 610 in Stafford County carrying the American flag in one hand and a POW flag in the other on every Fourth of July for the past three years.

Kletzke was nicknamed the Mystery Marine on social media after most residents struggled to identify the runner. There’s even a Facebook page called the “Stafford County Mystery Marine,” with photos of Kletzke in his green Marine shorts

“How didn’t I know?” family friend Janet Martel said of the true identity of the Mystery Marine. Kletzke took his own life last week after suffering from PTSD. He was 23.

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The Fault in Battle Against Veteran Suicides

There was a time when I avoid any mention of an Opinion piece but shockingly enough, I started to notice that the writer was actually paying attention. Reading the headline of "The VA’s Faltering Battle Against Veteran Suicide" by Robert M. Morgenthau on The Wall Street Journal, there is a lot that he got right.

"The most dramatic manifestation of PTSD among veterans now is a suicide rate approximately twice that of the general population."

We can quote all the numbers we want as many times as we want but the truth is, these reported numbers have remained pretty much unchanged with a casual look. In 1999 it was 20 a day and again, this year, the VA sets the reported number at 20 a day. 

What is not mentioned is that back in 1999 there were about 5 million more veterans in the country than there are now.

"It is time for Congress and the administration to take ownership of this issue."

For all the hearings and claims made by politicians, all the money spent, it is actually worse now than it was when the press failed our veterans and did not want to publicize what families like mine were going through. We suffered in silence, not by our own choice, but because the American public was not able to hear us.

Congress has just blamed the VA yet within the numbers the fact remains that veterans receiving treatment from the VA are less likely to commit suicide than those who are not turning to the VA. Instead of spending money on what does work, funding programs that were learned and proven over the last 4 decades, they push repeated failures.

And what veterans do not agree with.

Similarly, we need to face frankly that current efforts to combat PTSD and suicide have been inadequate. To supply crucially needed mental health services, Congress and the administration need to act immediately to provide veterans access to civilian mental-health services, and need to improve treatment by dramatically expanding public/private partnerships. This must be a priority.

They do not want to go to a civilian doctor simply because they are civilians. They cannot begin to understand a veteran back from combat he/she left the night before in their dreams. As for those still in the military, they are not included in on any of the quoted numbers but are included in on the suffering.

Jimmy Stewart Haunted by PTSD

EXCLUSIVE: How Jimmy Stewart's agony in It's a Wonderful Life came from extreme PTSD he suffered after he lost 130 of his men as fighter pilot in WWII
Daily Mail
Dan Bates
October 6, 2016

Actor Jimmy Stewart was haunted by his memories from his time in the Air Force and suffered from PTSD when he returned from World War II
Stewart wrestled with the guilt of killing civilians in bomb raids over France and Germany and felt responsible for the death of his comrades
Stewart never talked about his struggles and bottled up his emotions
But they came out when acting parts he chose when he returned to Hollywood
He tapped into his emotional distress during filming of It's a Wonderful Life, where his character George Bailey unravels in front of his family
Stewart's anguish is laid bare for the first time in Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the fight for Europe by author Robert Matzen

Actor Jimmy Stewart, pictured in 1945 after World War II combat

ended, was haunted by his memories from his time in the Air Force

Jimmy Stewart suffered such extreme PTSD after being a fighter pilot in World War II that he acted out his mental distress during 'It's a Wonderful Life'.

Stewart played George Bailey in the classic movie and channeled his anger and guilt into the scenes where he rages at his family.

Stewart was haunted by 'a thousand black memories' from his time as an Air Force commanding officer that he took with him back to Hollywood after the war.

Pilots who flew with him said that became 'Flak Happy' during World War II, a term to describe what is now known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD.

Stewart wrestled with the guilt of killing civilians in bomb raids over France and Germany including one instance where they destroyed the wrong city by mistake.
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Matzen's book, Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe, hits bookstores on October 24 and is available for order on Amazon