Responders Haunted By Pulse One Year Later

Basic Instinct to Save Lives Haunts Them After Pulse
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
June 11, 2017


Most humans are programmed to run from danger. The need to stay alive is a basic instinct. Some humans are programmed to run toward the danger. The need to help others stay alive is just as much an instinct within them.

A year ago it happened during a time when on man decided to kill as many others as possible at the Pulse Nightclub.

USA Today has a section devoted to the survivors and responders from DearWorld, like Eatonville Police Officer Omar Delgado.

Most of the people at that nightclub were running for their lives and trying to find their friends. All of the people rushing to the unknown horror awaiting them, were on a mission to save as many strangers as possible.

What makes people like Officer Delgado do such a thing? Not just during one horrifying event, but to choose to do it as a job?

We have far too many placing such a value on others lives, to the point where they were prepared to die for them, turning into someone who can no longer value their own lives.

“Each memory stings sharper than a slap, how can there be a healing of the heart?” Peter Meinke

As we approach one year since the Pulse nightclub shooting … 90.7 reached out to Florida’s Poet Laureate, Peter Meinke to see if he’d write a poem to mark the occasion. And he did.

Pulse six months It is an anniversary no one wanted to have.

Definition of anniversary
1: the annual recurrence of a date marking a notable event a wedding anniversary; broadly : a date that follows such an event by a specified period of time measured in units other than years the 6-month anniversary of the accident
2: the celebration of an anniversary

A remembrance is not always something someone wants to have either.

Definition of remembrance
1: the state of bearing in mind
2 a : the ability to remember : memory b : the period over which one's memory extends
3: an act of recalling to mind
4: a memory of a person, thing, or event
5a : something that serves to keep in or bring to mind : reminder b : commemoration, memorial c : a greeting or gift recalling or expressing friendship or affection

Let all that sink in for a moment. Ready to sacrifice their own lives for total strangers ending up not being able to find something worth living for? What happened?

That question is asked all the time when we have men and women coming home from combat doing a job that they knew could cost them their lives. It is asked of current military members when they continue to do it knowing the price they too many have to pay.

We hardly ever ask that when police officers, firefighters and other first responders suffer for doing those jobs.

Why? Aren't they just as human as the rest of the people the majority of the humans depend on for their own lives?

We were stunned when regular people put their lives on the line to save their friends. Even more so when they stopped to help strangers they could have simply ran by but did everything possible to help them get to safety. We were not so stunned by the police officers and firefighters doing their jobs.

Have we become so hardened that we think "Oh well. They get paid to do it" instead of being able to simply be in awe of what they decided to do with their own lives? After all, they could have chosen any other profession that would not be do dangerous.

The most difficult thing for me to understand, or accept, is the simple fact that they valued life so much, they were willing to die, but did not value their own enough to find what they needed to recover from those jobs.

How is this possible? This is PTSD Awareness Month which began seven years ago and the 27th is PTSD Awareness Day. Yet for the people who put their lives on the line, are still unaware of what PTSD is, why they have it, or what they can do to heal. Most do not even know they can heal!

How about tomorrow we send our responders that message? Let them know we will help them heal and how much they do mean to us! They do not have to suffer alone. 

This is a day that will haunt them for the rest of their lives and they need help to kick the crap out of the ghosts and stop the sound of the cell phones from ringing in their dreams!

Joseph P. Dwyer Peer Support Program Spreads Healing PTSD

Local veterans are finding help through peer support
OUR MILITARY: Joseph P. Dwyer Peer Support Program aims to help PTSD, depression sufferers
Lockport Union Sun Journal
BY TIM FENSTER
June 10, 2017

"I just picked myself up off the floor of the Humvee and continued to do my job," Greg Conrad

Joed Viera/Staff Photographer

Members of the Joseph P. Dwyer Peer Support Program enjoy a recent afternoon together at a local stable

When Greg Conrad thinks back to his two tours in Iraq, he sees a striking image that summarizes his experiences at war — a bomb going off.

While serving with the U.S. Army in overseas in 2007-08 and 2009-10, Conrad was involved in five separate enemy attacks using improvised explosive devices. He managed to avoid injury from the bombs themselves, but the attacks took a severe toll on his mind and body.

"My battalion commander lost his legs (in an IED explosion)," he said. "It's one of those things that just stays in your brain. It brings up crazy emotions."

In another attack, on a summer night, he was standing in the turret of a Humvee when a roadside bomb went off. The driver pulled off the road to evade further enemy ordnance, and drove into a raw sewage ditch alongside the road. Conrad was thrown forward into the turret ring, injuring discs in his back. But, like with so many other injuries he suffered during the war, he never stopped and gave his body the rest and recuperation it needed.

In 2015, Conrad was connected to the PFC Joseph P. Dwyer Peer Support Program. Unlike traditional mental health programs that involve trained counselors and psychologists, the Dwyer program connects veterans with other veterans.
read more here

Retired Firefighter Learns to Take Back HIs Life From PTSD

PTSD treatment works — the VA has helped me and it can help others
Herald and News
By DEWAINE HOLSTER Guest Writer
June 11, 2017

After my retirement from the fire district I was looking for things to do. I considered many ideas; while I was exploring the idea of helping the VA with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) soldiers, I discovered a link for first-responders.

June is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder awareness month.

I was diagnosed with “Chronic PTSD” June of 2016. I served as a first-responder for near 35 years. To date I have spent 10 months in counseling.

I have learned many things about PTSD and have made it a personal goal to share my journey, educate and to minimize the stereotyping of PTSD victims.

I responded to over a couple hundred incidents involving death. Some were extremely horrific and graphic. Deaths were of all ages, genders, people we knew and those we didn’t know. The ones we knew were obviously more difficult to manage emotionally because we knew them and / or their families. Deaths involving children were always more emotionally troubling.
read more here

Afghan Soldier Killed Two US Soldiers

UPDATE

Pentagon: 3 US soldiers killed, 1 wounded in Afghanistan

Two US troops killed by Afghanistan army soldier, Afghan officials say
The Guardian
Sune Engle Ramsmussen
June 10, 2017

Attack comes shortly after US airstrike killed two Afghan border police, according to Helmand governor, as Trump considers sending more troops

An Afghan soldier has killed two Americans in an apparent insider attack in the highly contested Nangarhar province, according to Afghan officials.

The attack happened less than a day after a US airstrike in Helmand killed at least two members of the Afghan border police in a joint US-Afghan operation, according to the Helmand governor.

The incidents occurred at a time of intensified violence in Afghanistan, and when the Trump administration is considering sending more US troops to Afghanistan.

In Nangarhar, the governor’s spokesman, Attahullah Khogyani, told the Associated Press that two US soldiers had been killed and two others wounded in the attack. He said the attacker was killed.

The insider attack took place in Achin, a district partly controlled by militants loyal to Islamic State. This is where, in April, the US army dropped its largest conventional weapon ever used on a complex of cave used by Isis fighters. Since the Moab strike, US and Afghan forces have been engaged in ground fighting, assisted by regular airstrikes, to clear the area.
read more here

Veterans go "deep in the fields" looking for homeless veterans

Why so many more homeless vets in LA?
KPCC 89.3
Dorian Merina
June 09, 2017

"We call it the search and rescue," said Gonzalez, 41. "It's very similar to the military where we go out into these types of areas, under bridges, in parks, deep in the fields of homelessness."

Sandy Conner, 50, a Navy veteran, hopes to apply for a HUD-VASH voucher to help get him into housing. He currently lives by a ravine where the busy 605 Freeway meets the 10 Freeway in El Monte. DORIAN MERINA/KPCC

Despite recent gains in the fight to end veteran homelessness, a sharp rise in the numbers living on the streets of Southern California has prompted veterans and advocates to call for more action and to question whether the problems at the root of the crisis are being adequately confronted.

The number of homeless veterans hit 4,828, a 57 percent increase over the previous year, according to the Jan. 2017 homeless count released by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority last month.

That's a strong indication that efforts are not getting to veterans early enough, said Nathan Graeser, a researcher at the Center for Innovation and Research for Military and Veteran Families at USC's School of Social Work.

"We don't have a lot of help for people when they reach out before they are in crisis and before they are homeless," said Graeser.

And though progress has been made in helping some veterans find jobs and getting them mental health care, he said, it should start even before service members leave the military.
read more here

Scam of VA Budget Needs to be Castrated!

If we fail to honor the promise this country made the men and women who risked their lives, then we do not deserve to enjoy the freedom to whine about what offends us! 

"I will not be the guy to allow the administration to chip away at VA health care," said Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, the top Democrat on the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, pointing to a proposed VA budget that would give double-digit increases to outside care while funding for VA programs remains mostly flat. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., referring to proposed pilot programs that could lead to the closing of VA facilities, pledged to "fight them with everything I have."

This is not about Congress telling us they have no obligation to fix healthcare for our sake. It is not about Congress telling us that they have no intention of taking care of anything when the leaders are more interested in destroying everything the non-rich need to survive. 

This is about the men and women who loved this country so much, they were willing to die for it!

The same politicians telling us that the healthcare programs are terrible, want to send our veterans into that mess! Are they out of their fucking minds! Veterans are not civilians. They pre-paid for their benefits and it has been under the control of the House and Senate since 1946. Who the hell do they think they're fooling? Time to castrate this clusterfuck!

This President's budget is a cut to veterans and an increase into the pockets of private healthcare providers. What makes all of this even worse is the percentage of the compensation cut hitting senior veterans and families is going toward paying for what THEY ALREADY PAID FOR WHEN THEY SERVED! A VA that works for their sake. 

Looks like the only promise veterans can trust is that sooner or later, they'd be screwed by politicians! These are disabled veterans we're talking about!!!!

So when exactly does the rest of the country stand up and fight for our veterans? They are dying to know that one!

First Responders to Pulse Searching For Healing

Pulse survivors share memories, messages
USA TODAY , KHOU
Rick Jervis
June 09, 2017

“I don’t care how rich or important you are, when you have a problem, you’re going to dial those three little numbers. But when we need the help, who do we call?” Omar Delgado

More than anything else, Omar Delgado remembers the phones. Dozens of them, he said, ringing incessantly and spinning in pools of their owners’ blood, the only sound in an otherwise quiet nightclub.

Delgado, 45, an Eatonville Police officer, was one of the first responders to the June 12, 2016, Pulse nightclub shooting. As he entered the club through a patio door that night, he saw bleeding and bullet-torn bodies strewn across the dance floor, many of them slumped on top of one another, their phones ringing next to them.

“I knew it was a loved one trying to reach that person and they were never ever going to pick up that phone again,” Delgado said in an interview with USA TODAY. “It was horrific.”

A year ago Monday, gunman Omar Mateen opened fire inside Pulse, a popular LGBT club in Orlando, with a semi-automatic rifle and a 9mm Glock pistol, killing 49 patrons and injuring 53 others in one of the deadliest shooting sprees in U.S. history. Mateen was shot and killed by police after a three-hour standoff.
read more here

Stray Kitten Saved Soldier and More!

Pet Tales: A kitten saves a soldier's life
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
By Linda Wilson Fuoco
June 10, 2017

After suffering a brain injury in Iraq, Army Sgt. Josh Marino “was in a really, really bad place. I did not want to deal with it anymore.”

Exhausted from his struggle with the “invisible wounds” of post-traumatic stress disorder, he planned to end his life one night in 2008 at Fort Riley in north central Kansas.

“I took out one of my knives ... I wrote a letter on my computer” and went outside to smoke one last cigarette.

Then he heard a soft “meow,” and a small black-and-white kitten emerged from the bushes.

“I broke down crying.... He saved my life ... I stopped thinking about all my problems and started thinking about his problems and what I could do to help him.”

Mr. Marino recounts his story in a 6½-minute-film, “Josh and Scout,” featured on mutualrescue.org, the website of a non-profit organization whose mission is “revealing the impact people and animals have on one another.”

Mr. Marino, 37, is a native of Turtle Creek who now lives in Brookline with his wife, Becky, and their daughter, Penelope, who was born Feb. 24. They have three cats and three ferrets.

After eight years of service, he was medically discharged from the Army in July 2009. He moved back to Pittsburgh, got married in September 2010, and earned a master’s degree in clinical rehabilitation and mental health counseling. He now works in the Human Engineering Research Laboratories, a program operated by the University of Pittsburgh and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“It was an honor to serve,” Mr. Marino said. “I am still serving. I am just serving in a different uniform.

“I love my job. I work with people with disabilities every day.”

His counseling includes telling veterans about the kitten who saved him. He directs them to Humane Animal Rescue shelters in Homewood and the North Side to look for animals who need a home.

read more here
Mutual Rescue

Josh and Scout, a Mutual Rescue™ Film

Problems With the VA, What Congress Knew--And Let Happen

There are a lot of stories in the news lately that make it all seem like new problems. None of them are new and here's just a sample of proof to let you know that none of this was taken care of when it needed to be, so it all got worse for our veterans.

2007 Veterans-Suicide and What Congress Knew

The hearing was prompted in part by a CBS news story in November on suicides in the veteran population that put last year’s number of veteran suicides at over 6,000. VA officials refuted that number, questioning its validity. But a VA Inspector General report released in May of 2007 found that as many as 5,000 veterans commit suicide a year—nearly 1,000 of whom are receiving VA care at the time.

2007 PTSD VA Claims and What Congress Knew

The senators also requested a detailed report on how the military monitors other psychological injuries. Recent media accounts indicate that the number of service members seeking care for PTSD from the Veterans Administration (VA) increased 70% over a 12-month period, or an increase of some 20,000 cases. In addition, reports of the total number of cases of PTSD treatment at the VA since 2001 – 50,000 cases – far exceed the number of wounded documented by the Pentagon.

2008 Backlog of Claims and What Congress Knew 

Bush had to sign the act by Jan. 18, or VA would have lost the promised extra funding, which will be used to hire and train people to process the backlog of more than 600,000 benefits claims, said Dave Autry, spokesman for Disabled American Veterans. Some of the money also will go toward medical research for conditions such as traumatic brain injuries.

And this which ties into the claim about the VA and DOD linking up data.

Peake wants to reduce wait times from roughly 180 days to 145 days by the start of next year. He cited aggressive efforts to hire staff, noting the VA will have 3,100 new staff by 2009. VA also is working to get greater online access to Pentagon medical information that he said will allow staff to process claims faster and move toward a system of electronic filing of claims.
Peake promised to “virtually eliminate” the current list of 69,000 veterans who have waited more than 30 days for an appointment to get VA medical care. Such long waits runs counter to department policy, and a group of Iraq war veterans have filed a lawsuit alleging undue delays. He said VA plans to open 64 new community-based outpatient clinics this year and 51 next year to improve access to health care in rural areas.
“We will take all measures necessary to provide them with timely benefits and services, to give them complete information about the benefits they have earned through their courageous service, and to implement streamlined processes free of bureaucratic red tape,” Peake said in testimony prepared for a House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing Thursday. 

2008 Deaths at VA Hospitals and What Congress Knew

The VA will help affected families file administrative claims under the VA's disability compensation program, he said. Families also could sue.
...........The VA investigation found that at least nine deaths between October 2006 and March last year were "directly attributable" to substandard care at the Marion hospital, which serves veterans from southern Illinois, southwestern Indiana and western Kentucky.
Kussman declined to identify those cases by patient or doctor, though Rep. Jerry Costello, an Illinois Democrat, said those nine deaths were linked to two surgeons he did not name.
Of an additional 34 cases the VA investigated, 10 patients who died received questionable care that complicated their health, Kussman said. Investigators could not determine whether the care actually caused the deaths.

2008 Female Veterans and What Congress Knew

“Women who served this country in uniform -- whether veterans of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, the current Global War on Terror or peacetime service -- have earned our respect and thanks,” said Dr. James B. Peake, Secretary of Veterans Affairs. “They have also earned the full range of VA programs offered by a grateful nation.”
Secretary Peake also announced the Fourth National Summit on Women Veterans Issues to be held from June 20 – 22 in Washington D.C. The Summit will offer attendees an opportunity to enhance future progress on women veterans issues, with sessions specifically for the Reserve and National Guard, information on military sexual trauma and readjustment issues, after the military veteran resources and many more programs and exhibits.

By the way, if any member of Congress dares to suggest sending veterans away from the VA, remind them, if they cared, they would have done their jobs in the first place. Or actually, second place, considering veterans did their jobs first and ended up disabled risking their lives!

85 Year Old Veteran Died After Robbery and Beating!

Carson veteran, 85, dies after beating in robbery, weeklong coma
Eyewitness ABC 7 News
June 08, 2017

CARSON, Calif. (KABC) -- An 85-year-old veteran from Carson who was viciously beaten in a robbery last week as he was walking in his own neighborhood died from his injuries Wednesday, sheriff's deputies said.

Frank Hernandez was walking in his neighborhood near the corner of 220th and Dolores streets last week when he was punched in the face and robbed.

The attack left him in a coma with head trauma for more than a week before he succumbed to his injuries Wednesday at 4:27 p.m., the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said.

Investigators are still searching for the suspect.
read more here