Tracking the life of a free spirit Sauk Valley Andrea Mills January 19, 2018
STERLING – Charles Payne is a true child of the Sixties: He’s a Vietnam veteran still struggling with the after-effects of the war, a multimedia artist, and a witch (of the white, or good, variety).
“A Vietnam veteran straightened me out. Survival guilt: If my buddies could come out of the grave, they’d kick my butt up between my shoulder blades for letting their deaths screw my head up. They didn’t die for that.”
It’s the latter two aspects of his life – the artistry and the spirituality – that have helped Payne cope the past 50 years with the former.
“I wasn’t wounded by bullets, but by Agent Orange,” the impish 73-year-old said. “And then here I am. Still plugging away. My eyes are deteriorating, but my spirit isn’t.”
The former California resident, who also battles PTSD, has been a free spirit all of his life, even before volunteering for the Army in October 1967.
read more here
Hundreds say goodbye to North Ogden mayor ahead of Afghanistan deployment Good4Utah Rosie Nguyen January 19, 2018
NORTH OGDEN (News4Utah) - Hundreds of residents lined the streets of North Ogden to show their appreciation and wave goodbye to Mayor Brent Taylor Friday morning.
North Ogden Police escorted Mayor Taylor and his family around town before he headed to the airport. The schools he stopped by included Bates Elementary, North Ogden Elementary, Green Acres Elementary, North Ogden Junior High, and Majestic Elementary.
Madilyn Erekson, a 5th grader at Bates Elementary got the chance to meet the mayor for a school project. She calls him a hero.
"I was happy for him, but I was kind of upset because we won't be able to see him for a year," said Madilyn.
One week after he was sworn into office for a second term, Mayor Taylor announced on Facebook Live that he would be training the Afghan Commando Battalion. City officials said this is the first known time in Utah history that a mayor deploys for wartime service. read more here
In a Facebook post Saturday afternoon, the Florida National Guard said Spc. Luis E. Garcia, from the 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team's Company G Forward Support Company was killed in the crash.
Florida National Guard soldier killed in chain reaction crash, 5 others injured in Sebring WFLA 8 NBC News By Corey Davis and WFLA Web Staff Published: January 19, 2018
SEBRING, Fla. (WFLA) — A Florida National Guard solider is dead and five others were injured after a chain reaction crash involving military vehicles in Sebring, according to officials.
The Sebring Police Department was called to the intersection of US 27 and Hammock Road shortly before 1 p.m.
A preliminary investigation revealed three Palletized Load System (PLS) vehicles, which are assigned to a National Guard unit out of Miami, collided in a chain reaction crash, according to officials.
Officials said the convoy was traveling north on the highway when the third vehicle failed to stop for a red light in time and hit the second vehicle, officials said.
The driver of the third vehicle sustained fatal injuries, according to investigators.
Officials said the passenger had to be extricated from the damaged vehicle.
According to officials, the passenger and four others were taken to area hospitals. Police said they suffered non-life threatening injuries. read more here
VA Begins Using Expedited Hiring Authority to Fill Array of Critical Positions Government Executive By Eric Katz January 18, 2018
VA hired a total of 40,000 people in 2017, but due to attrition and turnover the department saw a net gain of just 8,300 employees. While Secretary David Shulkin praised VA for that onboarding total, it is actually slightly below the number of net employees it gained annually over the last five years and the department maintains 35,000 vacancies.
The Veterans Affairs Department is opening up an array of job vacancies to a more expedited hiring process, using a new authority to fill longstanding openings.
VA has received approval to move forward with direct hiring for 15 occupations deemed critical, the department’s secretary told senators at a hearing on Wednesday. He received authority to do so when President Trump signed the 2017 VA Choice and Quality Employment Act in August, which tasked VA with using the quicker hiring process for positions with a “severe shortage of candidates.” The department has since worked with the Office of Personnel Management to approve the 15 positions.
Those are: accountants, biomedical equipment support specialists, boiler plant operators, general engineers, specialists for the veterans crisis line, health technicians, histopathology technicians, human resources assistants and specialists, information technology specialists, personnel security specialists, police officers, realty specialists, utility systems operators and repair specialists. The direct hire authority applies to those positions throughout the country.
read more here
Fort McMurray firefighter battling little-known condition brought on by extreme trauma Doctors accused Nathan Koops of faking his seizures before it was finally diagnosed as PNES CBC News By David Thurton Posted: Jan 19, 2018
Nathan Koops would convulse violently in front of his wife, their five-year-old son and newborn daughter.
One seizure struck while Koops was walking home with son Owen from the grocery store. It left him paralyzed on the sidewalk as Owen ran home to get help.
"Everything in my body wanted to move inwards," Koops said. "My arm would move in. My arm would curl in and the muscles would contract. My leg would do the same thing. My body would arch. And it felt like it would be pushed past its bounds."
Along with these sudden seizures, Koops had begun to be tormented by panic attacks, night terrors and head jerks.
The 32-year-old was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but a therapist suspected he also suffered from a condition not known to many professionals — PNES, or psychogenic non-epileptic seizures.
read more here
VA therapist helps dying Veteran complete bucket list VAntage Point
US Department of Veterans Affairs Jill Atwood January 18, 2018
The sky is the limit
With help from VA Recreation Therapist Lili Sotolong, left, Veteran Kenneth Augustus was able to scratch skydiving from his bucket list.
Army Veteran Kenneth Augustus loved adventure. He loved to rock climb, and scuba dive, and always had a longing for falling hundreds of feet per second from an airplane.
VA Salt Lake City Recreation Therapist Lili Sotolong knew skydiving was a lofty goal considering his condition, but she was determined to make that dream come true.
“I got a call out of the blue to come work with this Veteran,” Lili said. “I was told he only had a few months to live but when I got there he was beyond positive, and so easy to work with. He had made peace with what was happening to him and was really preparing himself for the inevitable; he just had some things he wanted to experience first.”
Lili made several calls and finally arranged the jump through two very generous community partners: Skydive Utah and the Elks Lodge. It was go time!
“He got to jump with his brother and his son, and they wanted me to do it with them! We had a group hug and were all fist-pumping in the plane prior to the jump. It really was an extraordinary experience.”
read more here
Trump appointee, former Navy SEAL, resigns after deriding military veterans with PTSD
The Washington Post
By ELI ROSENBERG
Published: January 18, 2018
An appointee of President Donald Trump has resigned from the federal agency that runs AmeriCorps and other service programs after remarks he made disparaging blacks, Muslims, gays, women, veterans with PTSD and undocumented immigrants surfaced in the news media.
Carl Higbie lasted less than six months as the chief of external affairs in the Corporation for National and Community Service.
*******
In other audio unearthed by CNN, Higbie, a former Navy SEAL, derided military veterans with PTSD as having "a weak mind," and said he thought a large majority of people with PTSD were being dishonest.
"I'd say 75 percent of people with PTSD don't actually have it, and they're either milking something for a little extra money in disability or they're just, they honestly are just lying," he said on another talk radio show in 2014.
*******
Nonetheless, he was appointed to the position at the CNCS, which runs AmeriCorps and other volunteering initiatives, and has programs dedicated to rebuilding after natural disasters and supporting veterans and their families, including helping them transition once they return home.read more here and check back later on this
From CNN aside from the other sickening things he had to say, which are too many to list here, this is more of the above report from CNN, with audio, if you can stand to hear the words out of his mouth. Reading them were bad enough, but listening to him was even worse.
"Yeah I'm a gonna go out on limb here and say, a lot of people are going to disagree with this comment," Higbie said on Sound of Freedom in February 2013. "But severe PTSD, where guys are bugging out and doing violent acts, is a trait of a weak mind. Now things like (military member) Brandon, where he was legitimately blown up and a loud noise makes him on edge -- completely understandable, but when someone performs an act of violence that is a, it is a weak mind. That is a crazy person, and the fact that they're trying to hide it behind PTSD makes me want to vomit.""I'd say 75% of people with PTSD don't actually have it, and they're either milking something for a little extra money in disability or they're just, they honestly are just lying," Higbie said in August 2014, as a guest on an Internet radio show. "Twenty-five percent legitimately do have problems. They have bad dreams. They can't cope. They have problems with noises and things like that. And I really think there are people that cannot deal with the stress of combat and some people can."
Associated Press
Published on Oct 3, 2016
Donald Trump is drawing criticism after he appeared to suggest that veterans who suffer from PTSD might not be as strong as those who don't. Trump made the reference while discussing his desire to improve mental health services for veterans. (Oct. 3)
Guess he didn't know the number changed...the reported number anyway.
VA Conducts Nation’s Largest Analysis of Veteran Suicide
July 7, 2016, 09:56:00 AM
WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has undertaken the most comprehensive analysis of Veteran suicide rates in the U.S., examining over 55 million Veteran records from 1979 to 2014 from every state in the nation. The effort extends VA’s knowledge from the previous report issued from 2012, which examined three million Veteran records from 20 states were available. Based on the 2012 data, VA estimated the number of Veteran deaths by suicide averaged 22 per day. The current analysis indicates that in 2014, an average of 20 Veterans a day died from suicide.
Considering there are Medal of Honor Heroes, other Generals, Navy SEAL, Green Berets, Special Forces from all generations, saying they have PTSD...doubtful any of these men would be willing to look one of them in the eye and tell them they were not tough enough to take it!
It is stunning what comes out of some articles that you think may have absolutely nothing to do with veterans and then discover something like this!
"At the time, some mental health professionals were questioning the ministry's efforts to recruit hundreds of Iowa military veterans to participate in an unproven treatment program for post-traumatic stress disorder. “Operation Zhero” used unlicensed, volunteer counselors to provide free-of-charge counseling to soldiers who returned home from the war with PTSD."
The San Diego Union Tribune took a look at that group in 2016. The headline question was "Can faith help cure PTSD? The answer to that question is, it can help them heal but not cure them. If I did not believe that, I would't have been invested in it for over 35 years. Point Man International Ministries would not have been invested in it for almost as long. It does work but only if it is done right. The question in my mind right now is why would so many groups pop up around the country, claiming to be doing what has been done, and honestly, done right, for all these years? Especially when Point Man has been doing it with all generations of veterans and not like this...
"What he (Chad Robichaux)credits with saving him is faith. Now, his Temecula-based nonprofit group is part of a nationwide circle of Christianity-based programs focused on post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, as a generation of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans suffer the aftermath of combat."
Maybe if they knew the majority of the veterans the VA knows about, were not OEF or OIF veterans, but over the age of 50, they would have done things differently.
Senators call out Shulkin on VA’s unfilled top jobs STARS AND STRIPES By NIKKI WENTLING Published: January 17, 2018
WASHINGTON — Why four top jobs within the Department of Veterans Affairs remain unfilled nearly one year after President Donald Trump took office drew the attention of members of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee on Wednesday as they questioned VA Secretary David Shulkin about the state of the agency.
VA Secretary David Shulkin raises his hand to take an oath before the start of a Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs hearing on Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2018, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. CARLOS BONGIOANNI/STARS AND STRIPES
The VA, the second-largest federal department, is operating without permanent leaders for its benefits administration and large health care system. Also missing are its IT leader and the assistant secretary for the agency’s new accountability and whistleblower protection office. The leadership void came up at the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing, where Shulkin gave testimony on the “State of the VA.”
“One thing that concerns me deeply is the four positions that remain unfilled in the department,” said Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., the committee chairman. “I know you’re trying, but this is one of those things where an ‘A’ for effort isn’t enough.”
The job of undersecretary for benefits has been vacant since October 2015, when then-undersecretary Allison Hickey resigned after being implicated in a government watchdog report for helping two VA employees manipulate the department hiring system.
The VA created a commission last spring to choose a new undersecretary. Shulkin told senators Wednesday that the commission sent three names to the White House. Their first choice for the job withdrew, Shulkin said, and Trump’s administration is now vetting the second choice.
read more here
Naval Base Uses Unique Strategy to Combat Suicides, Stress: A Dog Fox News By Terace Garnier 18 Jan 2018
There are only 29 dogs across the country with this ability, according to Kim Hyde, a manager with Southeastern Guide Dogs.
Sr. Chief Brad posing for the camera on Joint Base Andrews. (Fox News)
Every day, Senior Chief Brad greets sailors and Marines as they enter a military clinic for their regular doctor's appointments. Throughout the day, he makes his rounds and visits patients sitting in the waiting area, cuddling with them briefly. If he senses they are down, he takes action.
But he's no medical professional. He's a golden retriever yellow lab mix initially trained as a seeing-eye dog, a post-traumatic stress disorder therapy dog and, now, a stress dog.
As suicides across the military have steadily increased since 2013, according to the Department of Defense (DOD), a naval clinic on Joint Base Andrews in Maryland has found a secret weapon to sniff out military members dealing with extreme stress -- a dog.
When Senior Chief Brad senses someone is down, he instantly alerts his handler, Chief Bobby Long. Long, a medical technician, counsels the patient to figure out if they need professional help.
"People that need a little extra attention or are maybe showing signs of irritability, stress, depression, whatever it could be; he will really focus in on that person and then he wants my attention," Long said. "Some of the science behind that shows that dogs can pick up on pheromones that people emit when they are highly stressed and some science points to body language, cues that people leave." read more here
