Wounded Times 5th Year of tracking PTSD

August 10, 2007 had the first news report I put up on Wounded Times.

Vets center healing invisible wounds from different wars
East Valley Tribune
August 10, 2007
New Mesa Vets center healing invisible wounds
Mary K. Reinhart, Tribune

For Mike Saye and Daryl Cox, it was the Iraq War that unearthed the horrors of combat. The Vietnam veterans struggled for nearly 30 years with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, but never sought help until young Americans started fighting, and dying, in the Middle East.

They were gathered Thursday at a new Veterans Readjustment Center near Fiesta Mall in Mesa, getting help for their own demons and hoping to give younger veterans the benefit of their experience.

“It triggered everything in me. I started dreaming about it again,” Saye, of Mesa, said of the Iraq War.

“I was a candidate for PTSD for years and years, but I thought I could handle it,” he said, even as he struggled through four marriages and some 30 jobs.

“But I can’t, and they can’t either. I don’t want them to wait as long as I did to get help.”

Though a trickle of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are finding their way to the new center, team leader Patrick Ryan knows many more are out there.

“We’re certainly trying to do outreach, but we’d like to see more of them,” Ryan said.

“The stigma is not what it used to be, but it’s still there.”

Five years later, there are 15,873 posts to go with it. 1,983 posts have the label Combat and PTSD. 4,051 have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. These remind me of how many veterans are suffering more after combat when almost everyone assumed the danger to their lives ended when they came home. 607 posts have the label military suicides. These are the ones that break my heart the most. Had the DOD and the VA managed to use the research available in the last 40 years, there would be very few reports of military suicides and a lot less attempting it. There would be many more reports on veterans healing and less reports on their suffering.

Wounded Times has managed to be viewed almost 700,000 times and I want to thank my readers for trusting this work.

I am not perfect and most of my followers and subscribers keep me on my toes. You make sure I know the latest news coming out so that I don't miss much. Being a "one woman" operation, it has been rough to do this and I couldn't do it without you.

I promise to keep this blog going for as long as it is needed to provide veterans with a one source place to find out what is happening to other veterans. I promise to keep politics out of this only posting on politicians either doing something for you or against you. You deserve the truth no matter what party they belong to.

I am asking for your help in return. Please pass on the news you find here so that others know what is going on. If you can afford a couple of dollars to donate, that would be great since I don't make much money off the advertising on this site and don't have a clue how to find financial support. I lose a couple of thousand dollars a year paying for equipment, programs and traveling to film, but it is more the time it takes to do this work. I put in on average 70 hours a week since I publish everyday, emails and phone calls come in and I can't find a part time job to make up for the lost income. We're suffering financially.

It irks me that some group out there is raking in millions a year doing less than I'm doing except they give out backpacks and pay for a great PR campaign but I have to worry about paying for gas and keeping the cable company paid.

What I do doesn't cost much at all and never will.

Matthew 10:8
New International Version (NIV)
8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons.
Freely you have received; freely give.

Thank you very much for staying with me all these years.

Chaplain Kathie

Wounded Times Blog

Editor and Publisher