Iraq Veteran's Life Changed After PTSD Service Dog

Veteran sees life improvement after he gets service dog
FOX 10 News
December 27, 2016

HOENIX (KSAZ) - It is no secret that many veterans require help, and Patriot Paws is one but many organizations that train service dogs for disabled veterans.

The training process can be difficult for both the veteran and the dog, but some might ask the question: does the veteran choose the dog, or the other way around?

The answer, quite possibly, may be a little bit of both, at least for Justin Ross.

"I came back in 2005 from Iraq," said Ross. He served the Army for eight years, and he was also hit by an IED.

"Even my buddies, they don't know how I survived," recounted Ross. "My shadow, my footprint, the bottom of my boot, was burnt to the ground. I just got lucky."
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Taylor Swift Surprises Oldest "Swifty" WWII Veteran!

Taylor Swift Surprises 96-Year-Old Veteran with Home Visit and Performance
PEOPLE
BY DAVE QUINN
POSTED ON DECEMBER 26, 2016

Taylor Swift is known for surprising fans with one-of-a-kind experiences — showing up at weddings, bridal showers, and even inviting them over for dance parties at her house. And on Monday, she continued the tradition — surprising a 96-year-old World War II veteran with a visit to his Missouri home.

Cyrus Porter had made headlines for being the oldest “Swifty” — telling Ozarks First that he’s been to multiple Swift concerts, using his love for the 27-year-old singer to bring him closer to 20+ grandchildren.

“I’ve been to two concerts,” he said. “Memphis and St Louis. Look what she does… she puts on a show no one else puts on. I just enjoyed going to see ’em and her. I would as soon go see her right now as anybody!”
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Brussels Airport Caused Loss, Recovery Followed

Air Force family recovers after loss
ALTUS Times
By Senior Airman Chip Pons
Air Education and Training Command Public Affairs
December 26, 2016

As his prior-enlisted medic training kicked in, Martinez, who had suffered the brunt of the blast, desperately searched for his family amidst the bodies and gore. When he found his wife and saw the stillness of her body, he knew instantly he had lost his soul mate, his best friend and everything went dark.

From left, Gail Martinez and her husband Air Force Lt. Col. Melchizedek “Kato” Martinez during a family vacation to Venice, Italy, before she was killed in a bombing at the Brussels Airport on March 22

JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-RANDOLPH, Texas — Nine months ago, Air Force Lt. Col. Melchizedek “Kato” Martinez, a career tactical communications officer, was welcomed home from another combat deployment, a constant in the Martinez family. His wife, Gail, and their four children, planned a family retreat to their second home, the one place that, no matter what was going on within their family, would center them – Disney World.

With bags packed, the family of six made its way to the Brussels Airport in Zaventem, Belgium, en route the happiest place on earth, and anxiously waited in line to check in for the flight to Florida.

That’s when the first bomb detonated.
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DOD: Private Healthcare Providers Saw 795,000 Under Tricare?

Navy aims to mimic Wal-Mart, Delta to get more sailors choosing military health care
The Virginian-Pilot
By Brock Vergakis
Dec 25, 2016

The military has achieved a 97 percent survival rate for wounded personnel during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he doesn’t want to see those numbers drop in future conflicts.

By comparison, the survival rate was about 80 percent in World Wars I and II, and about 84 percent during the Vietnam War, according to various studies cited by the Navy.

The Navy’s top doctor wants more sailors, Marines and their families to get their health care from the military so its medical personnel will be well-trained for the next conflict, and he’s eyeing private-sector methods to achieve his goal.

Vice Adm. Forrest Faison, the service’s surgeon general, said in a recent interview at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center that he’s working to make accessing care more convenient, to improve patient experiences and to leverage technology in an effort to appeal to young people.

He said about three of every four sailors were born after 1986, making them digital natives who are changing expectations of how health care should be delivered.

“We’ve got to adapt to that,” Faison said, mentioning videoconferencing and mobile apps.

Sailors, Marines and their family members are allowed to use the federally subsidized Tricare health program to seek treatment from private providers, and Faison is on a quest to recapture some of those patients.

Throughout the Defense Department, military facilities saw 250,000 inpatient admissions in the 2015 fiscal year; private facilities in the care network had more than three times as many – 795,000.

Faison said the Navy needs a variety of patients at home so its doctors, nurses and hospital corpsmen are prepared for anything that comes up during a deployment.
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Veteran Chaplain-Priest Removed For PTSD?

Where is Fr. Robert? Archdiocese owes an explanation 
Poughkeepsie Journal
Dennis Maloney December 26, 2016

Where is Father Robert Repenning? On July 1, the Archdiocese of New York removed Father Robert, pastor of Holy Trinity in Poughkeepsie, because they learned he suffered from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder as his reward for serving his country as Army chaplain. 

He, unlike most, served in active combat and is a decorated veteran.

He never hid his PTSD and sought treatment for it at the Veterans Affairs upon homecoming. Not good enough for the Archdiocese! 

They wanted him to go to St. John Vianny, where they send pedophiles to “evaluate” his PTSD by them. Don’t they trust the VA?

Five months after removing him for evaluation, they have not done it! Why?

It’s not important to them that he brought new life to a dying parish. It’s obvious they want to punish him for daring to become a Chaplain!
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BACKGROUND: Priest with PTSD fights to stay at Holy Trinity Church

BACKGROUND: Priest with PTSD serves last day — for now — at Holy Trinity

PARISHIONER'S VIEW: Repenning did right by church, but still got ousted

Female Soldier Proved Doctors Wrong And Did the Unxpected

A soldier's story of trauma, triumph and tomorrow
WCSH 6 NBC News
ELLE OUSFAR
December 23, 2016

Gardner has proven wrong every doctor who told her it couldn't be done. While in rehab Gardner started playing sled hockey and eventually made the USA women's Sled Hockey team.

LEWISTON, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- Army Sergeant Christy Gardner was injured in the line of duty while serving overseas as a military police officer. She suffered skull and facial fractures as well as a spinal cord injury that left her without the use of her legs.

Since then, Gardner, a native of Lewiston, Maine has been through 22 surgeries. Her doctors gave her a three-page list of things she would never do again. “They said I'd never live alone or be independent,” Gardner said. “They said I wouldn't walk or ride a bike or even be able to bathe alone.”

But Gardner was on a mission. Beneath the shock and anguish, she was determined to live her life to the fullest, no matter the challenge.

“I'm highly competitive and there was no way I was going to settle for my wheelchair and sitting on the couch."

After years of physical and speech therapy, Gardner’s medical team decided it would be in her best interest to have her legs amputated. She had the left removed in the summer of 2015, and her right leg the next year.
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Nitty-Gritty-Pesky Facts Skipped on PTSD Reporting

Yet One More Infomercial on PTSD Program
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
December 26, 2016

This is the claim being made. "A ground-breaking program hopes to help soldiers with PTSD like no one has ever has done before." Ok, well then I guess everyone in this for the last four decades did not exist. That is when all the real "ground breaking" started. Since then, it has been more like digging a hole in the ground and veterans falling into it.

Just a reminder, I wrote about the "collateral damage" being done to our troops and spawning the suffering of millions of veterans right along with their families back in 2015. It got into the nitty gritty pesky things called facts and historical reports tying most of the results to the deplorable "resilience training" our troops were receiving. 

The number of enlisted was higher, yet the number of suicides were lower before they started this. There were also two full-force wars being fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. Top that off with the fact the DOD kept saying most of the suicides happened with non-deployed troops taking their own lives. Yep, after getting the same "training" everyone else got.

The geniuses thought it would work on combat forces deployed multiple times when it didn't even work for stateside folks? But they kept doing it anyway. As the number of enlisted went down and the number of suicides went up, they pushed the training harder.

But the press never bothered to investigate why any of this was happening or the fact that Congress kept writing FUBAR bills that simply repeated what had already failed. Well, BOHICA on yet one more case of the press not doing their jobs with this latest report. It leaves so many questions it is hard to know what the goal of this was.

Packers Don Barclay hopes to spread word of his uncles’ ground-breaking PTSD therapy program
ABC News
By Aisha Morales
Published: December 23, 2016

Green Bay, Wis. (WBAY) – A new program and the only one of its kind is hoping to change the way veterans and active duty military members with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other mental health struggles are treated.

It’s a four-week intensive program based in Virginia created by Doctor Tim Barclay, uncle of Don Barclay of the Green Bay Packers.

Dr. Tim Barclay has seen the issue up close and personal and thinks it’s time to make a change.

“In treating veterans I’ve always been frustrated that not being able to deliver the type of care that is actually needed to treat like traumatic brain injury, PTSD, depression, and anxiety, and common things that they struggle with, simply because of insurance benefits are so limiting,” said Dr. Barclay.

This passion was the start of Collateral Damage Project, a non-profit program that will survive solely on donations.

“We’re hoping to launch our first group of participants in the Spring, so we’re just in our intensive fundraising mode to get all the things that we need to get in place,” said Dr. Barclay.
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Specialized Intensive PTSD Programs (SIPPs) already exist.

SIPPs provide PTSD treatment services in an inpatient or residential setting. Length of stay varies across programs and is based on the needs of the Veteran. SIPPs include:

Evaluation and Brief PTSD Treatment Units (EBPTUs)
PTSD Residential Rehabilitation Treatment Programs (PTSD RRTP) and PTSD Domiciliary Programs (PTSD DOM)
Specialized Inpatient PTSD Units (SIPUs)
Women's Trauma Recovery Programs (WTRPs)

The Miami VA has something that is "intense" therapy for PTSD

Inpatient PTSD Programs include four basic types of services conducted while veterans reside in hospital units providing 24-hour nursing and psychiatry care:

Specialized Inpatient PTSD Units (SIPUs) provide trauma-focused evaluation, education, and psychotherapy for a period of 28 to 90 days of hospital admission.

Evaluation and Brief Treatment of PTSD Units (EBTPUs) provide PTSD evaluation, education, and psychotherapy for a briefer period ranging from 14 to 28 days.

PTSD Residential Rehabilitation Programs (PRRPs) provide PTSD evaluation, education, and counseling, and case management emphasizing resuming a productive involvement in community life. PRRP admissions tend to be 28 to 90 days.

PTSD Substance Use Programs (PSUs) provide combined evaluation, education, and counseling for substance use problems and PTSD. PSU admissions range from 14 to 90 days.

Yet, there were problems with this program.

A drug abuse rehabilitation program at Miami’s Veterans Affairs hospital failed to monitor patients, provide sufficient staff, control access to the facility or even curb illicit drug use among patients — culminating with the death of a combat veteran in his 20s who overdosed on cocaine and heroin, according to a federal report.

So, back to the claim being made. How is it that a program that hasn't even started get a headline like this? You read how they are looking for funding and want to find ten patients to do it in the spring. Where is the evidence? What exactly is different about this? The interview video is about looking for psychologist on top of everything else. Shouldn't the headline be more like, "Yet one more group jumps onto the bandwagon" for Heaven 's sake?

Our troops and veterans committing suicide after surviving combat should be an important enough topic that they merit real reporting instead of an infomercial.

Gang Dresses Up as Soldiers, Gets Confronted by Real Veteran

UK Fake Soldiers pretend to be with Invicted Foundation after they said "Invictus" 

'YOU ARE NOT EX-FORCES' Shocking moment war veteran confronts a gang of ‘conmen dressed in army uniform pretending to be from a homeless charity’

Ex-para Colin Eastaway confronted the men after he spotted them collecting money in Nottingham city centre

VIDEO

The Sun

BY COREY CHARLTON

25th December 2016

THIS is the shocking moment an ex-para confronts a gang of youths dressed in army uniform apparently posing as a charity helping homeless veterans at Christmas.

Colin Eastaway – who served with Parachute Regiment in Afghanistan – spotted the lads dressed in camouflage collecting coins in a bucket in Nottingham city centre.

But he claims they were not serving soldiers, making it an offence to wear the colours, and bamboozled them with questions about their military history, IDs and charity permits. 

Colin recorded the angry exchange on his phone as the youths become aggressive when told them: “You’ are not ex-forces,” in front of stunned passersby.

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WWII Veteran No Longer Feels Forgotten with Thousands of Birthday Cards

WWII veteran gets birthday surprise thanks to viral post
by KATU News
December 24th 2016

"Oh, God there's thousands of cards here," said Hardey. "I would never get them all read."

HILLSBORO, Ore. — A WWII veteran, feeling forgotten all these years, got the birthday surprise of a lifetime thanks to the help of an Instagram post that went viral.

Jack Hardy, 99, receives thousands of letters for his birthday.

Birthdays mean another year, and another couple of cards just from family and friends, but this year, when Jack Hardey turned 99, people around the world celebrated with him.

This soldier became and internet sensation thanks to a family friend who posted a message online encouraging people to send Hardy a card for his birthday this year. More and more posts were shared on social media and soon thousands of people responded.
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Marine Gets Home For Christmas As Gift From Gold Star Family

Gold Star Family Helps Holland Marine Get Home For Christmas To See Sick Mother
CBS Boston
December 24, 2016

“It just wouldn’t have been Christmas,” his mother said.

HOLLAND (CBS) — The smiles were never-ending after Marine Lt. Josh Peloquin arrived home early Saturday morning.

“I almost toppled him over and I started bawling my eyes out,” said Josh’s mother, Tonya Olsen. “I just didn’t want to let go.”

His coming home was more important than ever this year, because Olsen is very sick.

“This year has been such a hard year,” she said. “We lost my father, his grandmother, and we found out I have pulmonary fibrosis.”

Josh is stationed off the coast of Africa. Two weeks ago, he was told he was going back to the US for Christmas.

But he couldn’t afford the trip home to Holland, Massachusetts.

“My mom is really sick, and I had to make the tough decision to save my money,” he said.

A Gold Star family from the Cape who had lost their son in combat heard about Josh’s family and plight–and they paid for his plane ticket home.
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