Florida Military and Veterans Assistance Program to Protect Protectors

Florida's military, veterans getting more protection against scammers

Attorney General launches 'Military and Veterans Assistance Program'

By Jodi Mohrmann - Managing Editor of special projects

Posted: 12:35 PM, May 17, 2017

“Florida has more than 90,000 active duty and reserve military members and more than 1.5 million veterans,” said Bondi.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Service members, military veterans and their families are often targeted by scammers, and now Florida's Attorney General is doing something new to help protect all of them.

Today, Attorney General Pam Bondi launched the Military and Veterans Assistance Program or MVAP. It's a new consumer protection program that will directly assist the military and veteran communities with consumer protection-related issues.

More Military Headlines

• Veterans beware of scam Choice Program phone line
• Service members, veterans often targeted in ripoffs

“Florida has more than 90,000 active duty and reserve military members and more than 1.5 million veterans,” said Bondi. “To the men and women who have put on a uniform to protect our country, we will continue to do everything we can to protect you from these scammers. As Memorial Day approaches at the end of this month, I am honored to have the opportunity to assist the heroes who lay their lives on the line to keep us safe.”

Members of Bondi’s MVAP team will provide resources and information to base JAG officers, county veteran service officers and other organizations across the state to help service members and veterans learn how to protect themselves from scams and file complaints.

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Vietnam Veteran Helping Others When They Have No Home

Vietnam medic now heals lives of fellow vets
CNN
By Kathleen Toner
May 18, 2017

Wheaton, Illinois (CNN)As a medic with the U.S. Marines, Bob Adams put his life on the line for his men in some of the most intense battles of the Vietnam War.

After returning home, he faced another devastating fight.

CNN Hero Bob Adams

"The war followed me home," Adams said. "I began to drink more heavily and use drugs. And that would help sometimes with what I didn't know I had, which was post-traumatic stress."

Adams struggled for more than a decade -- enduring a stretch of homelessness -- before he got sober in 1985. By the mid-90s, he was a clinical social worker specializing in PTSD. He started feeding the homeless in Chicago and realized that many of the people on the streets were veterans.

"I began to see signs: 'Vietnam veteran. Will work for food,' " Adams said. "It was pretty clear that something had gone very, very wrong."

"Marines do not leave anyone behind. ... To see that code being broken shocked me into action."

Adams developed a plan to help, and his efforts gained momentum in 2004 when he met Dirk Enger, a U.S. Marine and Gulf War veteran who shared his passion. In 2007, they opened the Midwest Shelter for Homeless Veterans in a clapboard, single-family home that accommodated five veterans.

Today, the nonprofit provides nearly 400 veterans a year with free assistance, including housing and counseling.

The group's transitional housing program helps veterans for up to two years. Residents do chores, attend 12-step classes and spend four hours a day seeking employment or acquiring job skills. The five residents become a squad of sorts.
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Suicidal Call For Help Leaves Afghanistan Veteran Dead

Afghanistan Veteran, husband, Dad, friend and now dead after over a decade of folks running all over the country making veterans aware they are committing suicide. Trouble is, they forgot to actually mention to them how they can heal. 

If you are still supporting suicide awareness after reading this site, please stop reading. If you haven't gotten the message yet, you never will understand that you've been part of the problem.

Man shot, killed by Tustin police after standoff was Army veteran who struggled with PTSD, friend says
Orange County Register
By CHRIS HAIRE and ALMA FAUSTO
PUBLISHED: May 16, 2017

“This is something he was battling for three years,” she said Wednesday. Fuentes, who lived in Tustin and had a wife and a young son, served with Cannon’s husband and became like family.

TUSTIN A man fatally shot by police Tuesday night after a two-hour standoff was identified as 24-year-old Edwin Fuentes, who, a close friend said, served in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan and struggled with PTSD.

At about 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 16, there was a call of a suicidal man in the 16200 block of Main Street in Tustin, near the Santa Ana Zoo and Prentice Park. Officers found Fuentes sitting in a car in an alley behind an apartment complex, Tustin Lt. Bob Wright said.
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Veteran Suicide Press Released Removed Truth!

More BS with the number!! Who did it come from? A Vietnam veteran!

“Veterans are returning from combat and committing suicide at a rate of 22 per day!” Delate emphatically declared. “Awareness and prevention is key, and I am doing everything I can to educate veterans and civilians alike to make a difference.”

Educate veterans and civilians on a fabrication?

So many people running around the country taking about veterans committing suicide without a single clue, yet reporters just let them talk as if it is fact. Will folks ever get it right?

Did he bother to read the report to know that is not true?

MEMORIAL DAY is an intimate portrayal of a veteran suffering from the wounds of war and on the verge of suicide who, through his story and numerous characters, experiences a transformation and redemption that offers hope and promise to new and old veterans and civilians alike. Delate wrote the theatrical version, which has been performed in New York, Los Angeles, and Hanoi.

Local Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial Day Addresses PTSD and Suicide press release didn't bother to mention that the majority of the veterans committing suicide are over the age of 50! Yep, that's right. But had anyone bothered to actually read the report, they'd know that. Save guess that had this been actually an important enough topic, they would have actually read the report!

Take a look at this and then tell me how all this "awareness" has done any good?

Family Lost Veteran Dad Then Lost Mementos to Thief

Mourning Merced family asks thief to return mementos of veteran father who died this weekend
ABC 30 News
By Nathalie Granda
Tuesday, May 16, 2017

MERCED, Calif. (KFSN) -- A family mourning their father is pleading for help after their final memories of him were stolen.

Lawrence Sarginson died Saturday, and his family says several mementos were stolen from their car just a few days later.

The Merced County Sheriff's Department says they're still looking into the incidents but no arrests have been made yet. The family said several items were stolen from the vehicle, but the only ones they want back are the last few memories of their father.

The Sarginson family should be planning a funeral for their father, but the family had to deal with a theft shortly after he died.

"It twists the knife a little, but more from what already is a difficult situation," Lawrence's son Kevin Sarginson said.
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Billy Ray Cyrus to Honor Vietnam Veteran During Rolling Thunder Ride for Freedom

Billy Ray Cyrus Owes His Career to a Vietnam Veteran
FOX News
By PopZette Staff
May 16, 2017

'Weston Lee died serving our country, and we should all be forever grateful for his service,' said the singer

Billy Ray Cyrus says he owes his success to a Vietnam veteran.

Cyrus will perform on May 28 in Washington, D.C., during the Rolling Thunder Ride for Freedom. It’s an annual motorcycle rally that ends at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and honors fallen servicemen and women.

He will perform the tune “Some Gave All,” which is about serving in the military.

“This is a full-circle moment, because a week after ‘Some Gave All’ came out, I stood at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall during Rolling Thunder with Don Von Tress, who is not only the writer of ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ but also a Vietnam veteran. That man and that song changed my life,” Cyrus said in a press release.
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Tampa Homeless Veterans Relocated After Invasion of Bedbugs

Veterans moved out after bedbug infestation hits Tampa homeless shelter 
Tampa Bay Times 
Howard Altman Times Staff Writer 
Tuesday, May 16, 2017

TAMPA — Nearly three dozen veterans staying at a north Tampa homeless shelter have been temporarily moved to other facilities because of a bedbug infestation, according to the shelter and Department of Veterans Affairs officials.

The outbreak was discovered May 9, according to Ed Drohan, a spokesman for the James A. Haley VA Medical Center, which has a contract with the New Beginnings of Tampa charity to house 33 veterans at 1402 E Chilkoot Ave.

Hospital staff worked with New Beginnings to relocate all the veterans who wanted other local accommodations, Drohan said. A few have elected to stay at the shelter. Relocated residents' clothing and other possessions were treated to prevent pests from being transferred to the other facilities.

The veterans who were moved should start returning Wednesday, according to Tom Atchison, founder and chief executive of New Beginnings.

The decision to move the veterans was made by Haley leadership as soon as they became aware of the scope of the problem, Drohan said.
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Vietnam Veterans Still Fighting For Justice For All Generations

"Vietnam Veterans of American called the GAO report “immensely disturbing” and again called on President Trump to pardon affected veterans." From GAO report on The Hill

But fighting for justice is something Vietnam veterans know all too well. In 2014 the Hartford Courant reported that there were 70,000 Vietnam veterans with PTSD also kicked out. It was because of Conley Monk fighting for justice that then Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel decided to do something about it. In case your wondering, Monk fought for 43 years!!!!

GAO: Thousands discharged for military misconduct had mental health diagnosisThe HillBY REBECCA KHEEL05/16/17

The top government watchdog said Tuesday that nearly a quarter of U.S. troops discharged for misconduct were given other-than-honorable discharges despite previously being diagnosed with a mental health condition.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) in its report faulted branches of the Department of Defense (DOD) for having policies inconsistent with — or poor enforcement of — official Pentagon rules for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI) or sexual trauma. 

Such discharges haunt veterans for the rest of their lives, advocates say, by denying them veterans benefits and casting a stigma that can affect civilian life, such as finding employment.

According to the GAO, 57,141 of the 91,764 troops separated for misconduct from 2011 through 2015 had been diagnosed with PTSD, TBI or another condition at least two years before their discharge.

Of those with a diagnosis, 13,283, or about 23 percent, received other-than-honorable discharges.

Among the inconsistencies found by the GAO, the Navy does not require a medical exam for certain sailors being separated in lieu of court-martial to determine whether a PTSD or TBI diagnosis is a mitigating factor in the misconduct. Such an exam is Pentagon policy.

The Army and Marine Corps, meanwhile, may not follow to their own screening, training and counseling policies, according to the GAO.read more here

Well then, I guess that is supposed to say it all, but not even close to covering how many veterans served, were wounded and then betrayed. You know, the ones members of Congress have known about all along.

Translation: they got kicked out of the military without an Honorable Discharge.

According to data obtained by KPCC from the Defense Manpower Data Center, more than 615,000 Army, Navy, Marine, and Air Force veterans were discharged with less-than-honorable discharges from 1990-2015.

When Will We Stop Paying For PTSD Lab Rats?

Gee do you think if they stop studying rats they may actually learn something about humans with PTSD? It is a hell of a lot more complicated than fear!

“This study, done using a mouse model, expands our understanding of how associative fear memory for a relevant context is encoded in the brain,” said Cho, the lead author of the study and a member of the UCR School of Medicine’s Center for Glial-Neuronal Interactions, “and could inform the development of novel therapeutics to reduce pathological fear in PTSD.”

read more of this here

PTSD Meds May Increase Dementia Risk?

With all this "awareness" going on, most do not know this part, 

A deeper look at PTSDPost traumatic stress disorder encapsulates multiple symptoms related to a traumatic event. The National Institute of Mental Health noted that PTSD can be both acute and chronic. However, the NIMH noted that individuals must have symptoms including flashbacks of a traumatic event, avoidance and mood changes for up to one month for it to be identified as PTSD. When these symptoms last for a shorter amount of time, it can be acute stress disorder.

but now you do and it may help understand why some folks claim they were "cured." Reminder, if the symptoms after traumatic events do not subside or go away, get professional help as soon as possible AND HEAL.


How PTSD medication can increase the risk of dementia Medication may increase the likelihood of dementia in older patients.
by Interim HealthCare
Published: Monday, May 15, 2017

A new study from the American Geriatrics Society may have identified another risk factor that could increase the likelihood of dementia. Individuals taking medication to cope with post-traumatic stress disorder could increase their risk for dementia later in life.

A closer look at the study
Researchers looked at over 3 million participants aged 56 and older. The study focused on individuals working with veterans. According to NPR, there continues to be a stigma for individuals who have seen combat seeking out treatment for PTSD. However, the stigma of seeking out treatment for PTSD is beginning to dissipate.

The study tracked patients since 2003 over nine years. The results found that individuals taking medication to cope with PTSD, including selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and antidepressants, were more likely to suffer from dementia later in life than individuals who didn't take these medications. While researchers noted the connection between these medications and dementia, they acknowledge that more research is needed to learn about the relationship.
read more here