Obama win also means PTSD work gets new hero

This is one of the biggest reasons I am so delighted that Senator Obama will be President Obama. In August, he visited the Montana National Guard because he heard about the great work they were doing on PTSD. He was so impressed that he promised to take their program nationally.

Up until now, PTSD has only recently become a hot topic. President Bush surrounded himself with people who either had no clue what PTSD was or denied it was real. This prevented years of research not being done and programs that could have been created sooner, to not even be dreamt of. Thousands of our veterans and troops, guardsmen and reservists died as a result, not by enemy hands but because of the enemy within them.

Military families and veteran families have a new hero coming to fight for them and I'm sure when you get to know exactly how much he does care, plans to act, you will feel the same way too. He's been on the Veterans Affairs Committee and has paid attention to all that is going on

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Obama promises to repeat Montana's National Guard PTSD work nation wide
Obama Pledges Nationwide Use of PTSD Program
Eric Newhouse
Great Falls Tribune
Aug 28, 2008
August 28, 2008 - Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama promised Wednesday to expand Montana's pilot program to assess the mental health of combat vets nationwide, if elected.The Montana National Guard has developed a program to check its soldiers and airmen for signs of post-traumatic stress disorder every six months for the first two years after returning from combat, then once a year thereafter. The program exceeds national standards set by the U.S. Department of Defense.

The pilot program was created in response to the suicide of former Army Spc. Chris Dana of Helena, who shot himself on March 4, 2007, days after being given a less-than-honorable discharge because he could no longer handle attending drills following a tour in Iraq."He (Obama) told me he understood why we need to have additional screenings for PTSD," said Matt Kuntz, Dana's stepbrother, who was among a small group invited to meet with Obama on Wednesday in Billings. "And he told me when he is elected president, he will implement Montana's pilot program nationwide."

Kuntz, who recently gave up his job as a lawyer in Helena to advocate for the mentally ill and their families, said he was invited to brief Obama on how Montana had become a national model for assessing the mental health of its combat vets.

Besides the additional screenings, the Montana National Guard has developed crisis response teams that include a chaplain to investigate behavioral problems among its troops, and TriWest Healthcare pays to have four part-time counselors on hand to talk with soldiers and airmen during weekend drills.After the briefing, Obama spent about 20 minutes telling several hundred veterans and their families that, if elected as president, he will be committed to meeting their needs.

go here for morehttp://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/ArticleID/11028