Triple Amputee Gets Keys to New Home and Future

Triple amputee veteran receives home through Gary Sinise Foundation

Oregon Live

Samantha Swindler

August 12, 2017

As the ceremonial unveiling of his new home concluded Friday, retired U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Wade Mitcheltree exited the stage with his wife and two sons. He paused at the stairs, decided against them, and instead sat on the raised platform.

Sarah SilbigerTriple amputee veteran receives smart home in TigardU.S. Army veteran Wade Mitcheltree and his family are presented a new smart home from the Gary Sinise Foundation Friday morning in Tigard. The home is specially designed to accommodate Mitcheltree's needs as a triple amputee. (Sarah Silbiger/Staff)

He used his left hand and his right prosthetic arm to scoot to the edge, lifted his legs, rolled on his side, and in one fluid motion planted two prosthetic feet on the ground below.

"Improvise, adapt and overcome!" someone called from the crowd.

That's what Wade Mitcheltree, a triple amputee veteran, has been doing his whole life, but the work just got a bit easier thanks to the specially-designed, wheelchair accessible, 3,000-square-foot Tigard home he and his family received through the Gary Sinise Foundation.

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Vietnam Veteran Dying Dream Up in the Air...In Huey

WV Vietnam veteran receives dream

WDTV News

Jay Martin

August 11, 2017

MAIDSVILLE, W. Va. (WDTV)- If you saw a military helicopter flying over Morgantown Friday you saw Billy Kinsley.

Billy is a 69-year-old West Virginia Vietnam army veteran. He worked as an aircraft mechanic primarily on Huey helicopters. Billy currently has terminal lung cancer and had one last request to ride in a Huey with his four kids and reminisce about his time in the army. With the help of The Dream Foundation and Amedisys Hospice they made his dream a reality.

"This is our first dream here in our region, specifically for our care center in Morgantown. So we are extremely thrilled that we were able to make Billy's dream a reality," said Heidi Chickerell, volunteer coordinator at Amedisys Hospice.

With all the excitement Billy was thrilled to get up in the air...

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First Responders Still Struggle With Stigma of PTSD

Study: Many first responders face PTSD

KSLA News

Jeff Ferrell

Reporter

August 11, 2017

"When in reality, being able to be in control of your emotions, be aware and have insight about your emotions, is actual strength," added Davis.

SHREVEPORT, LA (KSLA) -

A startling new study is shedding light on the pressures facing first responders in this country. It found that 85% of them report experiencing symptoms related to mental health issues.

The results of the recent Harris Poll survey conducted for the University of Phoenix comes as no surprise to many crime fighters.

It shows that more than a third of all first responders in this country have received a formal mental health disorder diagnosis, 10% for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, better known as PTSD. 

"Part of the symptoms of PTSD is, you know, having trouble sleeping, hypervigilance, avoiding stimuli, depression, anxiety, irritability," described Clint Davis.

Davis speaks from experience, not just as a licensed professional counselor specializing in PTSD, but also as someone who suffered from the disorder, after returning home from a tour in Afghanistan as an Army Sergeant.

That's why he was not surprised to hear such a high number of first responders struggle with PTSD.

"Every human, no matter how much resiliency they think they have, when they experience trauma it affects their brain," explained Davis.

Despite the fact a majority of first responders across the country have access to mental health services according to that Harris Poll, Davis understands why 39% fear negative repercussions for seeking help.

Those fears range from their supervisor treating them differently to co-workers seeing them as 'weak.'
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Bet You Didn't Know Majority of VA Hospitals Use Holistic Therapies

Majority of VA hospitals offer holistic therapies, alternative to opioids, study finds

Washington Times

Laura Kelly

August 11, 2017

“In addition, some of the mind/body practices can be effective for the reduction of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. A patient might not want to admit they have PTSD, but they may be persuaded to take a yoga class,” she said.

This Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013, file photo shows hydrocodone pills, also known as Vicodin, arranged for a photo at a pharmacy in Montpelier, Vt. Leftover opioids are a common dilemma for surgery patients; a study published Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2017,

Nearly 80 percent of military medical facilities are offering alternative medicines for pain management and psychological treatment instead of opioids when possible, according to a study published Thursday by the nonprofit RAND Corp.

Over 8.9 million veterans are treated at 1,233 veteran health facilities each year, according to the Department of Veteran Affairs.

The study said there were about 76,000 alternative therapy patient visits per month treated by 1,750 providers. Services include acupuncture, yoga, relaxation therapy, among others, and responding physicians said patients often express interest and openness to the treatments.

“Patient visits for [complementary and alternative medicine] make up a small but nontrivial portion of total outpatient [military treatment facilities] visits,” the authors wrote.

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Marine's call-to-action about honoring fallen veteran goes viral

Houston area Marine's call-to-action about honoring fallen veteran goes viral

By Amanda Cochran - Social Media Producer

Posted: 4:09 PM, August 11, 2017
HOUSTON - A Marine has issued a touching call-to-action to service members and the public in the Houston area to honor a fallen veteran at his funeral services next week.

Lance Cpl. Ruben Vega Jr. died in California in a car accident last Friday at the age of 22, but his funeral will be held in Houston on Tuesday.

Chris Blanco posted a video about Vega’s death on his Facebook page, urging more service members to attend after he learned that only about 20 people would be able to attend his services.
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Marine Platoon Escorting "Brother" to Final Assignment

Fallen Iowa Marine’s family raising money to fly his platoon in for the funeral

WQAD News 8

Christina Lorey

August 9, 2017

ELDORA, Iowa-- Lance Corporal Cody Haley was just 20-years-old when he died Friday. Now, his family in Iowa is doing everything they can to bring his Marine family back to his home state for the service.

Haley's family hit their goal Wednesday, raising $35,000 to bring his Marine family to Haley's funeral.

Haley died in a freak accident, when a tree landed on him during a training exercise at Camp Pendleton. In response, his fellow Marines set a cross on a large hilltop in California and held their own wake, where they sang and played guitar.

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"Cause When Depression Starts to Win," We Fight Back For Them

What Are You Willing To Do For Love?
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
August 12, 2017

"People talking without speaking. People hearing without listening." That is our life. That is the life for millions of lovers. The rest of the people read about it in news stories online or Facebook posts and they think they know what it is like for us. But they don't.

Disturbed - The Sound Of Silence [Official Music Video]



They "walk in restless dreams" and we awake in lonely rooms. We look in the mirror, getting ready for our day, and remember when we knew we were loved by them. Then we wonder what happened to make them turn from our hearts.

Kisses become a thing they do out of habit. Tender touches replaced by coldness. Making love ends up being more like an act out of anger. We think it is our fault. We lose weight, change our hair style and buy new clothes, but they never notice. They just keep pushing us away right we we're sure they need us the most. We're lost. Confused by what family members and friends say, telling us to walk away, when all we want to do is stay. 

When those darkest days were what we lived with when no one was talking about any of it, we suffered in silence. I couldn't talk about it with coworkers. They were too busy complaining about their husbands, apparently being destroyed by such trivial things, they'd never understand what true destruction of love was like.

In the darkest days that became all we knew, we fought our battles alone. No internet to find others like us, we found them within the groups our husbands joined. We found some solace in opinion pieces in our local newspapers when other wives tried to explain the war came home to them.

None of us signed up for it. None of us knew what we were getting into when all we wanted to do was build a future on promises as the quicksand of PTSD was dragging us into oblivion.

We knew our Dads had problems but our Moms never talked about it. They knew their Moms had problems, but did not dare do more than what they had to do from one moment to the next. It took our generation to stand up and say no more silent suffering. 

The only way we were able to do that was to stop being ashamed of our husbands and ourselves. The only way to do that was to learn about a part of them we never experienced with them. The only way to do that, was to find the experts researching it long before we ever knew what it was like to live with someone after they survived combat.

We not only respected what they had to teach us, we made sure we learned from it. After all, we knew this was our fight to win for them and our families, we needed every weapon we could get our hands on.

For me it was sitting in a library with a pile of clinical books and a dictionary. After I understood it enough, I opened my mouth because I knew it wasn't just me. Others were suffering and hoping someone would break the silence. None of us knew, others already had done just that. Vietnam veteran wives disturbed by the silence we thought we had to live with, decided to destroy it.

This is from For The Love of Jack, His War My Battle with a poem I wrote after a monument dedication back in 1984.

One of the vets said, “It boggles your mind to think about what happened.” The poem started out with that thought.

IN THE NAME OF GLORY
The things I’ve seen and done would boggle your mind.
I’ve seen the death and destruction created by mankind
in the living hell that I walked away from but could not leave behind.
It all comes back to haunt me now and makes peace impossible to find.
The ghosts of the past that find me in the night
make me wonder if my life will ever be right.
I have tried to forget what I have done,
and now there is no place left to run.
All this in the name of glory!
There is no end to this horror story.
It still does not make sense even now that I am older,
why, when I was so young they made me a soldier
and why I had to be a part of that war
when I didn’t even know what we were there for.
At eighteen I should have been with my friends having fun
not patrolling through a jungle with a machine gun.
I did my part just the same, just for my country
and stood helplessly watching my friends die all around me.
I felt a surge of hate engulf my soul for people that I did not know
and saw children lose their chance to grow.
All this in the name of glory!
There is still no end to this horror story.
There was no glory for guys like me
only bitter memories that will not set me free.
I can never forget the ones who never made it home
some of them dead and others whose fate is still unknown
and the stigma that we lost what was not meant to win
most of us carry that extra burden buried deep within.
All this in the name of glory!
Will there ever be an end to this horror story?

I am not a veteran but I listened when they decided they were safe enough to talk. It was their words, heard by a breaking heart. It was heard by a woman in love, with a man with painful eyes.

The thing is, if you are newly arrived in our world, then you better decide if the veteran you love is worth fighting for or not, because if you walk away, the questions will follow you.

Every time you read about a veteran committing suicide, it will haunt you. Every time you read about the body of a homeless veteran being found, it will gnaw at you. Above all that, every time you read about veterans and their spouse sticking it out and fighting back as survivors, you'll wonder what could have happened if you stayed.

Next month is our 33 anniversary. We went through the worst of it but I was not willing to let PTSD win. I was not going to give him back to Vietnam. It lost and I won, not just for his sake, but for mine and our daughter. My weapons were love and knowledge. His will to fight back was the fact he refused to be a victim of anything. He survived combat in Vietnam, so the will to fight was already there. All he needed was the support that came from me and what I was willing to do for him.

What are you willing to do for love? 

Right By Your Side
(Remastered Version)
Eurythmics

Give me two strong arms
To protect myself
Give me so much love
That I forget myself
I need to swing from limb to limb
To relieve this mess I'm in
'Cause when depression starts to win
I need to be right by your side

When Tomorrow Comes
Eurythmics
Do you want to save their lives after they were willing to die for the sake of others? Then learn what they live with!

Honor Flight, Living Proof Vietnam Veterans Are Worthy of Tribute

Vietnam Veterans Moved to Tears on Honor Flight to D.C.

FOX Insider

August 11, 2017

"When I look at those names, they're not names to me," Medal of Honor recipient Gary L. Littrell said in front of the memorial. "Those little 18, 19-year-old faces, they come back to life temporarily in my heart, my soul, my eyes."

Vietnam veterans who got few thanks for their service since the controversial war were finally appreciated on an honor flight to Washington, D.C. to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

The 107 veterans of the Vietnam War were treated to a plane decked out in patriotic trimmings. In D.C., they headed to spend time looking at the 58,318 names carved into the memorial wall.

"We all know we didn't get a whole lot of pats on the back, didn't get a lot of thank yous," said Army veteran Bruce Farris. "Well, as of today, that changes."

Old Glory Honor Flight flies World War II, Korean War and Vietnam War veterans out to D.C. to visit the memorials of their wars.

---

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If you think you don't matter to the people of this country, I dare you to watch the video without having to wipe your eyes!

Let me know if you were not touched by all the people there to welcome this group of Vietnam veterans home!

White House Finally Gets Veterans Want to Talk to Veterans?

VA staffing new White House VA Hotline Principally with Veterans
08/11/2017 05:59 PM EDT

Today the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced that the two-month pilot phase of the new White House VA Hotline that began in June has demonstrated that Veterans calling the hotline respond best when their calls are answered by fellow Veterans and others with first-hand experience on their issues.

As a result, VA announced that it will target highly qualified Veterans to staff the hotline going forward, instead of contracting the service to a third-party vendor, and is hiring additional VA personnel to complete the planned move to a 24-hour operation.

“The message we’ve heard loud and clear is Veterans want to talk to other Veterans to help them solve problems and get VA services,” said VA Secretary David J. Shulkin. “We’re taking steps to answer that call.”

This decision will delay the full-time stand-up of the 24-hour service by two months, to no later than October 15, in order to ensure the hiring and training processes are complete.

Until that time, the hotline’s current pilot program service is available to receive calls from Veterans from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday.

He said what? What about the Veterans Choice Act sending them to private doctors instead of fixing the VA?

What is at the heart of Palm Beach VA problems?

Veterans struggle to get heart care at Palm Beach VA, report finds
Sun Sentinel


Skyler Swisher
August 9, 2017

Nearly 1,000 veterans seeking treatment at the West Palm Beach VA Medical Center for their heart conditions faced multiple canceled appointments and delayed care, according to a report released Wednesday by the agency’s Office of Inspector General.

Investigators attributed the delays to “unexpected staff departures and challenges in recruiting cardiologists,” along with inadequate training and supervision of schedulers.

The probe examined 32,000 cardiology appointments from Oct. 1, 2014, to Feb. 26, 2016, finding that about 15 percent were canceled. That’s higher than the Department of Veterans Affairs’ national average of 11 percent.

David Knapp, co-chair of the Palm Beach County Veterans Committee, said he has heard mixed reviews about VA services in South Florida.

Knapp, 64, a Vietnam veteran living in West Palm Beach, said he uses the VA system exclusively to treat his diabetes, post-traumatic stress disorder and other health issues. He said he has been pleased with the care he has received.

“You are going to hear good and bad," he said. “That’s unfortunately the way it goes. That VA takes care of a lot of people, and that VA was not built to handle the number of veterans that come through there.”
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