There has been a lot of great reporting on PTSD over the years. Veterans coming forward, sharing their stories, pieces of their lives to help other veterans falling apart. There has been great reporters taking the time to listen and get it all down so that the stories can be shared with the world.

This is one of them. It was reported back in 2006 and the Boston Globe still has the links working. If you want to know how change the outcome, learn what contributed to all the suffering in the first place. Then help them heal!

The war after the war

Boston Globe
By Thomas Farragher, Globe Staff
October 29, 2006

The squad mates paused for a snapshot before their patrol on the night of the roadside bomb attack in Baghdad. From left to right: Jeremy Regnier, Dustin Jolly, and Andy Wilson.

They were an Army of Three — fun-loving, young, courageous, afraid. And when the bomb went off outside Baghdad, killing New Hampshire's Jeremy Regnier, the survivors of the squad found their lives upended. What they suffer has a name — post-traumatic stress — but a label can't describe it. This is a story of a death and its descendants.

It was circled on his calendar, a day he'd looked forward to for months. But as Andy Wilson stood on the wind-swept airfield and the chartered plane glided out of a leaden Texas sky, he was anything but upbeat.

An unsettling cocktail of emotions swirled inside. The balloons and marching bands, the confetti and welcome-home banners were not for him, though they could have been. Should have been.

As a noncommissioned officer, Wilson had sworn to stick by the men he led in combat, no matter what. And to bring them all home.

But after that night in Baghdad when the bomb went off and his friend and comrade slumped against his shoulder, Wilson's war was over.

He left Iraq on leave in late 2004, his mind and spirit broken, and never returned. Doctor's orders. "It gnaws at me," he said.

Three months later, as the troops he served with stepped off the plane at Fort Hood after a year at war, the emotional torque of it all bore down on him again.

The grapevine had carried the whispers from the war zone: Wilson's lost it. Wilson's a coward. And when some of the returning officers refused his outstretched hand or grabbed it limply with looks of disappointment or disdain, he knew who the whisperers were.

But for now, it didn't matter.

As the troops lined up to return their weapons, their gas masks and the other gadgetry of warfare, Wilson searched the crowd for a single face.

Dustin Jolly was the only other soldier who really knew what happened that night in October 2004 when Jeremy Regnier, the cocksure gunner from Littleton, N.H., died.

Like Wilson, Jolly had felt the blast and seen the unspeakable injury -- and knew how easily that memory reel could unspool.

But unlike Wilson, who sought help and went home, he had bottled up his demons and gone back out on patrol.

And so as Jolly -- near the front of the line -- stepped into view, the reunion sequence was anything but certain. Wilson held his breath.

"I saw him," Wilson said, "and once he gave me that dumb-ass Jolly look, I knew he was OK."

The men hugged and smiled and shook hands. They made promises to drink beer and catch up.

"It made me feel good," Wilson said. "It made me feel proud. It made me still feel loved, I guess."

In the months to come, what the two men shared, the darkness and the love, would come to mean everything.

The war after the war had begun.
read more here

It is a condition with an off-putting, antiseptic name -- post-traumatic stress disorder. It is as old as warfare and as new as yesterday's casualty list. Yet, remarkably little is known of why it afflicts some and exempts others, why its symptoms can be so insidious and so adamant. 

Wilson only knew what he felt -- possessed, immobilized, ashamed. He had left Iraq early, and he believed his superiors now considered him damaged goods. The soldier who ran when others stayed. The commander who swapped places with Regnier minutes before the bomb tore him apart.

"I take nothing away from anybody who has lost limbs -- nothing at all because they deserve more than just a Purple Heart," Wilson would later explain. "Maybe they should come up with something for us crazy guys. I don't know. But we have wounds that we're going to carry with us for the rest of our lives. I sit alone in my house sometimes and I cry like a big baby because of what happened."

read more from Nothing's Wrong With You 

 PART ONE: The war after the war

 PHOTO GALLERY: "Welcome to Hell"

 PART TWO: 'Nothing's wrong with you'

 PHOTO GALLERY: "I should have died."

 PART THREE: A 'select club' struggles on

 AUDIO SLIDESHOW: Isolation, withdrawl, and hope

 PHOTO GALLERY: "A penny for your thoughts"

 PART FOUR: 'I need to blaze my own trail'

 AUDIO SLIDESHOW: In uniform, a sense of family

 PHOTO GALLERY: "The consolation prize"

President Bush "Congratulations on receiving your wings of gold,"

Ailing George H.W. Bush Did a Last 'CAVU' Favor for Pence's Marine Son

Military.com
By Richard Sisk
December 3, 2018

Vice President Mike Pence recalled Monday how he asked a last favor from an ailing George H.W. Bush in August on behalf of his son, Marine 1st Lt. Michael Pence -- never expecting that the former president would be able to comply.

The young Pence had just made his first tailhook carrier landing on the aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush, earning his wings as a Marine pilot. Could the former president please autograph a photo for his son?

Pence said Bush's staff replied that he was no longer signing autographs, so he thought that was the end of it. But within a week, a handwritten letter and a signed photo from Bush arrived.

"Congratulations on receiving your wings of gold," Bush wrote to Pence's son. "Though we have not met, I wish you many days of CAVU ahead" -- a reference to the Navy acronym meaning "Ceiling and Visibility Unlimited" that he adopted as his motto in public service.

Pence told the story upon the arrival of Bush's casket at the Capitol as an example of the former president's basic decency and humility. Even in death, Bush performed another public service in the form of a brief respite from the partisan infighting and mudslinging of the warring factions of the White House and Congress.
read more here

Sully will go to Walter Reed after President Bush's Funeral

"Sully went to work with Bush this summer after former first lady Barbara Bush passed away earlier this year."

Washington (CNN) Sully, a yellow Labrador service dog who worked with late former President George H.W. Bush, is accompanying his master one last time by traveling to Washington with Bush's casket.

In a photo tweeted by Jim McGrath, Bush's spokesman, Sully can be seen sitting directly in front of Bush's casket at a Texas funeral home Monday morning, his head bowed in unison with the Bush family members that surround him.

A highly trained service dog, Sully will now go back into service to help other veterans and is going to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, former President George W. Bush wrote in an Instagram post.

#TakeBackYourLife and live!

Suicide rate up 33% in less than 20 years, yet funding lags behind other top killers

USA Today
Anne Godlasky and Alia E. Dastagir
Dec. 2, 2018

More than 47,000 Americans killed themselves in 2017, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday, contributing to an overall decline in U.S. life expectancy. Since 1999, the suicide rate has climbed 33 percent.

Americans are more than twice as likely to die by their own hands, of their own will, than by someone else's. But while homicides spark vigils and protests, entering into headlines, presidential speeches and police budgets, suicides don't. Still shrouded in stigma, many suicides go unacknowledged save for the celebrities – Robin Williams, Kate Spade, Anthony Bourdain – punctuating the unrelenting rise in suicide deaths with a brief public outcry.

And research suggests our ways of living may be partly to blame, in ways that don't bode well for the future read more here

*******

When I wanted to die, there was nothing anyone could say or do to change my mind. Our daughter was only 8 months old. The infection I had after giving birth was killing my body. PTSD was killing everything else. 

I knew what PTSD was and what it was doing to my husband, just as much as I knew what it was all doing to me. Hope evaporated. That is why I can assure you, dear reader, that is the only reason people commit suicide. Hope is destroyed.

I remember the nurse saying that I was fighting for my life, but the truth is, I was praying to die. It was not until I came out of the fever long enough to open my eyes, saw my husband holding our baby daughter, and I knew I did not want to leave her.

I was the only one with the power to find hope again. I thought about everything I had been through, all the times I faced death and all the other times when I thought tomorrow wouldn't be any better. And then, then I knew, that after all I had been through, there was no way I was going to be defeated.

We have become a society where "normal" is what we see on TV. Happiness is great pictures on Facebook with people we know surrounded by other people having fun. Only good news is shared as if no one wants anyone to know what is really "normal" for their own lives. We communicate with text messages instead of talking. 

We do not speak out of fear that someone will jump down our throats and "put us in our place" when we are the only ones who surrender power for them to do that to us.

OK, so, here is the best advice I can give. Be YOU! Be true to who you are inside, to your own thoughts and beliefs. Then be free to take control over your own life. Do not give power of your life to anyone else, especially to people you do not really know.

I do not care what other people think of me, or even if they think of me at all. It is my life and I am the only one with the power to enjoy it! I am old now but there was a time when I was much, much younger, foolish enough to think that my happiness was dependent upon other people. Then maturity came and I knew what I would get out of life depended on what I was willing to give it.

So, if you find that someone is not listening to  you, find someone who will. If you find that you are lonely, find other lonely people. If you think you are not important, become important to yourself.

Be true to who you are and how you are will change, instead of the other way around. Most people get bullied at one time or another, but power comes from knowing they really have no power over you. If they do not care about you, then why the hell should anything they think matter to you? They do not belong in your life, so why put them in a position where they can change your life?

When you hear someone say they are raising awareness about suicides, remember, that only helps them. It does not help those fighting to find hope. Be the hope they need to stay here by letting them know you were hurting too, but kicked the crap out of what did not belong in your life so you could #TakeBackYourLife and live! 

This is also how you communicate

How's your mental health? Ending the suicide epidemic begins by caring for ourselves.

USA Today
Barbara Van Dahlen and Talinda Bennington, Opinion contributors
Dec. 1, 2018

My husband died by suicide, having lost sight of the love available to him. But his death won't be in vain if it changes our culture of mental health.

The number of lives lost to suicide is shocking and the impact on survivors is devastating. Indeed, friends and family of those who take their lives often struggle for years trying to make sense of the loss — sometimes blaming themselves for not saving their loved one.

And the children of those who die by suicide are at increased risk for mental health challenges themselves, given the trauma and confusion they experience when a parent seemingly “chooses” to abandon them.

We tend to accept some suicide as unavoidable and inevitable. Many people believe that mental illness, depression and addiction are conditions that cannot be prevented, addressed or effectively treated. But mental health conditions and substance use disorders can be treated even if we can’t always prevent them. People can — and do — heal, recover and live productive lives despite the challenges. It’s time to normalize the need to care for our mental health. Suicide can be prevented.
read more here

Pete Davidson gets emotional about online bullies, being suicidal

USA TODAY
Anika Reed
Dec. 3, 2018

Pete Davidson took to Instagram to address his online bullies in an emotional post that touched on his borderline personality disorder and suicidal thoughts.

In a statement on the social media platform on Monday, Davidson opened up about what the past nine months have been like for him. During that time, Davidson had a whirlwind romance with pop superstar Ariana Grande that ended with a broken engagement.

"I've kept my mouth shut. Never mentioned any names, never said a word about anyone or anything," Davidson said in the post. "I'm trying to understand how when something happens to a guy the whole entire world just trashes him without any facts or frame of reference. Especially in today's climate where everyone loves to be offended and upset it truly is mind boggling."

The "Saturday Night Live" star said that he wants to bring awareness to borderline personality disorder for people like him "who don't want to be on this earth."

"I've been getting online bullied and in public by people for 9 months," he continued. "I've spoken about BPD and being suicidal publicly only in the hopes that it will help bring awareness and help kids like myself who don't want to be on this earth."

Despite any virtual trolls, Davidson vowed to stay strong.

"I just want you guys to know," Davidson said. "No matter how hard the internet or anyone tries to make me kill myself. I won't. I'm upset I even have to say this. To all those holding me down and seeing this for what it is – I see you and I love you."
read more here

Remote Controlled: Bodyguard and PTSD

Listen: Richard Madden Breaks Down Playing a ‘Bodyguard’ With PTSD

VARITY
By DANIELLE TURCHIANO
HOME TV FEATURES
NOVEMBER 30, 2018

Welcome to “Remote Controlled,” a podcast from Variety featuring the best and brightest in television, both in front of and behind the camera.

Richard Madden photographed exclusively for the Variety Remote Controlled Podcast DAN DOPERALSKI FOR VARIETY

In this week’s episode, “Bodyguard” star Richard Madden sits down with Variety‘s features editor of TV, Danielle Turchiano, to talk about playing a former soldier with PTSD, who is tasked with protecting Britain’s Home Secretary.

“In a lot of movies and television we see PTSD as someone closes a door too loud or a car backfires and our subject suddenly is transported back to Afghanistan in the middle of this fighting and men are dying,” Madden says. “That does happen sometimes for people with PTSD — they have flashbacks like that — but that’s not the only thing that happens.”

Madden shares that he was most interested in bringing to life the daily struggle of someone in that position — the anxiety and depression that comes with the disorder.
read more here

Police looking for gunman who killed Desert Storm Veteran

Surveillance video shows suspect's car in deadly shooting of Desert Storm vet

ABC 13 News
TJ Parker
November 30, 2018

HARRIS COUNTY, Texas (KTRK) -- New surveillance shows the moments a black Ford Fusion pulled up in front of a home where a veteran was killed during a home invasion.

A man was killed after a suspect broke into his home in northwest Harris County, deputies say. They say motive is robbery.

It happened around 11:30 a.m. Thursday in the 10800 block of Gates Randal Court.

The man has been identified as 47-year-old Leandro Morales Jr.

The Harris County Sheriff's Office said the victim and his wife were at home when the wife reported hearing a sound at the back door. The husband was shot while he was investigating the sound, deputies said.

The wife told investigators she heard a noise at the back door and then she heard a gunshot inside of the house.
read more here

Why didn't suicide awareness groups care sooner...or more?

UPDATE Billions of dollars a year go into "raising awareness" and all these years later, this is the outcome! Yet people still write checks to support that instead of people actually doing the work to change the outcome.

This is what they paid for!

Suicide rate up 33% in less than 20 years, yet funding lags behind other top killers

Suicide rates are up 33% in the U.S., yet funding lags behind that of all other top causes of death — leaving suicide research in its "infancy."

read more on USA Today 

Shocking suicide awareness happened 22 times this year

Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
December 2, 2018

When you need to know how to get to somewhere, you plug in the addresses from where you are to where you want to be. 

Let's say you needed to go from Lake Nona VA Hospital to Tampa VA.

What would happen if this is all you got for directions?

It tells you how long it will take, how many miles, and even how much it will cost in fuel, but the rest is up to you to figure out. Not very helpful is it? You are still lost without a clue how to get to where you want to go.

Yet, as with directions, details should matter regarding anything important to know.

All across the country there are people doing everything possible to "raise awareness" that veterans are committing suicide. Much like the missing directions, they are missing important details.

The first thing is, they are missing an explanation on what their goal is. What is the point of raising awareness something is happening, if they do not understand the extent of how many times it happens? If they do not offer anything of value to change the outcome? If they did not take the subject seriously enough to learn how much they did not bother to learn in the first place?

In 2006, Doug Barber of the Ohio National Guard committed suicide. Montana National Guard soldier Chris Dana was doing suicide awareness. He committed suicide in 2007. He was due to be discharged under "other than honorable" kick to the curb. He would have been one of the over 2 million without honorable discharges that were not even worth mentioning in the numbers left out.

In 2008 the National Guard was doing "suicide prevention" followed by more years, but while some have been "prevented" far too many had succeeded.

That gives you an idea that it is happening all over the country. But when you do a Google Search on "veteran suicide awareness" you get 10,700,000 results.

Why weren't all of these "awareness" groups paying attention all along? Wasn't it important enough when the VA said it was 18 a day? Wasn't it important enough when the VA said it was 20 a day at the same time they said the number of veterans living in the country dropped by millions?

More than a number

Wasn't it important enough during all these years before they became "aware" of what they decided to make it their mission?

Most of the "awareness" groups left out the fact that the majority of veterans committing suicide, the known number anyway, had been over the age of 50 and yes, committing suicide before the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.


Most of the groups still leave out the fact that while they failed to change the outcome, veterans keep committing suicide in very public ways to make sure the public knows what the truth is.

So far this year, veterans made sure their names were known and their deaths could not be covered up or forgotten about. Each one of them had a name. It happened 22 times this year...so far.

PTSD Patrol Ending Friction

Avoiding Engine Friction

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
December 2, 2018

When you neglect all the things that go into making your vehicle run properly, you get engine friction.

techflourish.com

Heat and Friction: Primary Enemies of Car Engines
Engines, Heat, and Friction
“Friction, according to its encyclopedia description, is the force that opposes the relative motion or tendency of such motion of two surfaces in contact. When it comes to engines and automobiles, the term holds a deeper relevance to car performance.“

Heat and friction results from the rubbing of the many parts of an internal combustion engine. (your mind)

A modern internal combustion engine is comprised of dozens of moving parts. Without proper oiling, these parts run against each other with tremendous speed, creating friction which then leads to heat. (anger) This heat can wear the mechanical parts of an engine and lead to bad performance under the hood.

Worn parts due to friction cause havoc with gas mileage and emissions since the engine is pushed to work harder. Wear on the engine’s vehicle is a primary known cause of less efficient burning of fuel.

When the engine that drives everything in you is neglected, you get more friction in your life too.

If you understand the basic fact of PTSD, it takes some friction away. That is the fact that PTSD hit you and happened because you survived what the event tried to do to you. So why let it win now?

Friction happens when you think it is your fault, or you were too weak to "get over it" but PTSD hits harder when you have a strong emotional core.  Just like when you feel good stuff really strongly, you feel bad stuff more. So why think there is anything wrong with you now that sadness hit if you do not feel wrong when love lives strongly?

Friction happens when you surround yourself with people who reenforce the negative actions you take, like drinking, doing drugs or taking risks. It happens when they add to the terrible thoughts you are already thinking.

Stay away from anything or anyone telling you about veterans committing suicide with their pushups, walks, stunts and events you are invited you to because they tell you what a good time you'll have.
read more here

Canadian Veteran's dying wish, to step it with wife of 70 years!

Wife of ailing WWII veteran denied bed at Camp Hill

The Chronicle Herald Canada
Andrew Rankin
December 1, 2018
“I’m 97 years old and I’m only getting a few days here and there to see my wife,” said Vaughan. “This could go on until I die. Not a very nice thing to think about.”

The pair have been married for 70 years

Second World War veteran David Vaughan says he’s disappointed that his wife of 70 years is not allowed to live with him at Camp Hill Veterans Memorial Hospital in Halifax. - Andrew Rankin

David Vaughan is nearing 100 years of age and the Second World War veteran wishes he could spend whatever time he has left with his wife Cecilia.

“I miss her a lot,” said Vaughan as he lay in bed at Camp Hill Veterans Memorial Hospital in Halifax Monday evening. “She’s from Cape Breton, a wonderful girl. My best friend.”

The 97 year old, who served as a tank operator during the Italian campaign, found out from hospital staff this week that his 92-year-old wife Cecilia isn’t allowed to move in to the 175-bed long-term care facility.

Veterans Affairs confirmed this on Friday, saying all but 22 of the beds there are currently occupied by Canadian veterans. The Nova Scotia Health Authority pays a fee to the department for those beds. They’re occupied by regular civilians discharged from hospital and awaiting long-term care outside of Camp Hill.

Still, the facility currently boasts 28 vacant rooms.
read more here

Vice Admiral Scott Stearney passed away

update

Vice Adm. Scott Stearney, who oversaw U.S. naval forces in the Middle East, was found dead Saturday in his residence in Bahrain, officials said. Defense officials told CBS News they are calling it an "apparent suicide." CBS News

Navy admiral Scott Stearney found dead in Bahrain, no foul play suspected

NBC News
By Courtney Kube and Phil Helsel
Dec. 1, 2018

Vice Adm. Scott Stearney, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, U.S. 5th Fleet and Combined Maritime Forces, speaks on the 1MC shipboard intercom to welcome the crew of the guided-missile destroyer USS Jason Dunham to Manama, Bahrain, on Oct. 24, 2018.Petty Officer 3rd Class Jonathan / USS Jason Dunham (DDG109)

The Navy admiral in charge of the military branch’s operations in the Middle East was found dead in Bahrain on Saturday, the Navy said.

Vice Admiral Scott Stearney was found dead in his residence in Bahrain Saturday and no foul play is suspected, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson said in a statement. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Bahraini Ministry of Interior are cooperating on the investigation.

Stearney took over as commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and the Combined Maritime Forces in May, where he commanded more than 20,000 U.S. and coalition sailors, Marines, Coastguardsmen, and civilians. Stearney served 36 years in the Navy.
read more here