Military moms honor family at Virginia War Memorial

Military moms honor family at Virginia War Memorial
NBC News 12
Posted: Dec 01, 2012
By Tayleigh Davis

RICHMOND, VA (WWBT)
Dozens of military moms were at the Virginia War Memorial, decorating a very special Christmas tree. It's a tribute made possible by the Blue Star families military service organization.

"We understand what that mother is feeling without even saying a word," said Blue Star Mom, Teresa Sumners."

Sumners and about 40 other moms proudly hung ornaments on this hero tree - a reflection of pride and honor. Sumner's oldest son served four years in the army and her youngest was in the National Guard.

The women here decorated an ornament - each one with a special meaning. Whether they have children who are enlisted, in the reserves, or died while serving - they can all connect on a common ground.

"We can talk about things no one else wants to hear anymore about our children and we do," said Eileen Osmolski. "We might share the same story over and over again. It doesn't matter because we understand and we have these same feelings."
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Veterans can heal and find purpose at Eagle’s Nest

Veterans can heal and find purpose at Eagle’s Nest, opening in August

Eagle’s Nest national veterans community will open in August in Sauk Centre, providing a place for veterans of any age to heal with honor. Pictured above are (from left): Vietnam veteran Mike Weisser, family member Cindy Anderson, Blue Star mom Melony Butler, Gold Star mom Dorothy Sills and family member Pam Hyatt.

By Jennie Zeitler
Staff Writer
Dairyland Peach
Patrick McCaffrey gave his life for his country while deployed to Iraq. His mother, Nadia, founded the Patrick McCaffrey Foundation to honor her son by helping veterans find resources to heal.

Eagle’s Nest was the vision of Melony Butler, military wife and Blue Star mother of three soldiers. That vision can be traced to a promise Butler made to her stepfather when she was 12 years old.

“He was a Vietnam veteran and I promised I would not let other veterans suffer by not having the resources they needed to heal,” Butler said.

That promise was reinforced after one of Butler’s sons returned from Iraq suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), suicidal, and unable to find help.
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“The first shot of a war hits the heart of a mother.”

Fallen soldier honored with plaque dedication
By JOHN GUTEKUNST
Today's News-Herald
Published Monday, May 14, 2012

Former Parker resident Ara Tyler Deysie was honored May 12 with the unveiling of a plaque in his honor at Western Park. Pfc. Deysie was killed in action May 9, 2008, in Paktia Province, Afghanistan.

Yava quoted a Chinese proverb:
“The first shot of a war hits the heart of a mother.”

The plaque honoring Deysie was placed in Western Park because he often played there while growing up in Parker.

The plaque was purchased by members of the 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division and sent to his mother, Lori Deysie. The regiment has purchased plaques for all its fallen members.

Lori Deysie asked the Parker Town Council to have the plaque installed at Western Park. The council agreed, and the town purchased a decorative boulder to mount it on. The plaque was installed earlier this year.

Lori Deysie was the guest of honor at the dedication. She now lives in Lake Havasu City. She was given an escort to Parker by the Blue Star Mothers and the Patriot Guard motorcycle riders.
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Facebook offers suicide-prevention lifeline for military families

Facebook offers suicide-prevention lifeline for military families
By Michelle Maltais
May 9, 2012

Facebook is connecting with military-support and service organizations to offer customized suicide-prevention services for veterans, active service members and their families.

For many members of military families, social media serve as a lifeline, connecting them to various supportive communities to help them cope with their specific strains and stresses. So, in conjunction with the Department of Veterans Affairs and the nonprofit organization Blue Star Families, Facebook has unveiled a literal lifeline within the site, with informational and response tools customized for service members and their families.

In a recent survey of 4,000 military families, Blue Star Families discovered that more than 90% of those who responded reported some type of use of Facebook, and 86% of them said they were on the social networking site daily.
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Chiarelli Lauds Anti-Suicide PSAs

Too many people want to excuse themselves for not wanting to know by saying they can't understand. I was one of them. Before 1982, I didn't want to know what it was like for the Vietnam veterans coming home or what their families were going through. After all, I was raised by a Korean Vet and surrounded by WWII veteran uncles. What could I possibly learn from Vietnam Veterans? I was young when all of it was going on anyway. I didn't want to know until I met a Vietnam Veteran I fell in love with at the age of 23. Vietnam became something very personal to me and I finally opened my eyes to the fact that just because their boots came off and they put on sneakers, where they were stayed with them.

Over the years the biggest thing noticed was these men and women survived combat while someone else was counting on them. No matter how much emotional pain they were in, they stayed and did what they had to do. They got up from a couple of hours of sleep, ready to risk their lives another day. All that happened to them, around them and even because of them, didn't stop them from making sure more of them lived longer than if they had not been there.

I tell the story often of a young Marine back from Iraq crying and apologizing for crying because he was a Marine and wasn't supposed to cry. He did everything he needed to do no matter how much pain he was in. He didn't allow himself to feel it until he was back home and no one else was in danger, except him. He wanted to live.

The other night I got a phone call from a National Guards Mom I hadn't heard from in a couple of years. Her son had tired to commit suicide twice by the time she contacted me. She didn't know what to do any more than she understood what was going on. He was totally lost. He carried the pain of something he had to do, started to think he was evil because all he focused on was what happened, forgetting what came before the end of this event. He needed to see himself through different eyes. Anyway, fast forward to two year later, he got married again, is back in treatment, went back to church and is healing. He's closer to his Mom than ever before because she was willing to do whatever it took to help him. She wanted to understand and it saved his life.

We need to stop making excuses to not care, not want to know, because we lose 18 veterans a day to suicide and we're still losing them to suicide while on active duty. We can't save them all but they are worth fighting for and doing whatever we can to save them. After all, the fact they were willing to die for us shouldn't mean we should let them.

You don't have to know what it was like for them to be a soldier. You just need to understand what it is like for them to be human.

News
American Forces Press Service


Chiarelli Lauds Anti-Suicide PSAs
By Terri Moon Cronk
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, April 29, 2011 – Preventing suicide in the military is showing signs of progress, but breaking the social stigma attached to it remains a challenge, the Army vice chief of staff said at the Blue Star Families’ premiere showing of the “I Don’t Know What It’s Like,” public service announcements to help military families fight suicide.

“Making sure the people who need help are willing to take advantage of those programs and services is not something that can be directed from the upper echelons of command,” Army Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli told an audience of military families, senior military leaders, members of Congress, business and Hollywood celebrities here last night at the American Red Cross Great Hall of Service.

“In the military, we institute policies and [give] orders,” the general said. “But you can’t direct the elimination of this stigma.”

Fighting the stigma, he said, can only be done by those who understand that the symptoms of depression and anxiety, which could lead to suicide, are real and not signs of weakness, and that seeking help is OK, Chiarelli said.

The nonprofit Blue Star Families launched the suicide prevention PSAs in support of military families, with help from several organizations, including The Creative Coalition, comprising members of the arts and entertainment community who take on issues of public importance.

Chiarelli recalled how a Blue Star Families member, Alison Buckholtz, gained attention last year from her opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times when she called on the Defense Department for an outreach program to tackle the growing problem of suicides in the military.

The general credited Buckholtz for raising awareness of the suicide issue.

”The PSAs are the direct result of her call for a public outreach program that will inevitably save lives both inside the military and outside the military,” Chiarelli said.

“[We’re] seeing a reduction in the number of suicides across our forces, including our reserve components,” he said. “Every suicide is one too many. We must continue, and double, our efforts and keep working to expand the accessibility of programs and services to better support those not living or working near a military installation.”

Combating suicide requires total team support, the general said, now and into the future.

“That’s what these public service announcements are about,” Chiarelli said. “There are great support and care programs available, and today, doctors, therapists, behavioral health counselors and members of the clergy are willing to help those struggling with depression, anxiety and other conditions.”

However, professionals cannot help those who avoid seeking help because they feel embarrassed, ashamed or fear it will negatively impact their lives and careers, the general said.

“There’s absolutely no reason for anyone to suffer in silence,” Chiarelli said. “A soldier who is hit and injured by an [improvised explosive device] would never go untreated, and there’s no difference.”

also
Survivor: War hero reaches out to help Soldiers
Apr 28, 2011

By Dave Larsen, III Corps and Fort Hood Public Affairs
FORT HOOD, Texas -- John McCormick is a survivor. He survived two combat tours in Vietnam and came out a hero. He survived deep depression and suicidal ideations and came out addicted to alcohol. He survived his substance abuse and came out with a message for today's troops who face the same fight he fought himself: You can conquer it all, but you don't have to go it alone.

The 72-year-old retired Army officer, a graduate of West Point's class of 1961 and Corpus Christi resident, visited Fort Hood in March 2011, when national media outlets were reporting a spike in suicides among Soldiers in February.

Later that month, Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli held a press conference at the headquarters of the 1st Cavalry Division here. With national Alcohol Awareness Month observed in April, the general discussed the correlation between substance abuse and suicide.

"There's no doubt in my mind that there is a correlation between substance abuse, both alcohol and prescription drugs, and suicide," Chiarelli, who has spearheaded the Army's suicide prevention efforts, said March 28. "Suicide is a compulsive act, and when you mix alcohol or some other form of medication with individuals who may have ready access to a firearm you have a lethal combination."

McCormick is living proof of that correlation.

"It really means a lot to me," he said, "if I can help one Soldier by telling my story."
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War hero reaches out to help Soldiers

Five Missouri National Guard Troops Committed Suicide In Six Months

The fact this has happened in the first six months of this year should be an awakening for the military and communities around the nation that what they've been doing has not worked. All the reports of what they've been trying has been a series of repeated mistakes. It is not that they don't care but more a case of being ill advised. They keep asking the same people to come up with solutions when that stopped making sense a long time ago. To think the same group of people would have anything new to suggest would mean they were holding back before this. It's like trying to get blood out of a stone.

Here's a suggestion that has worked in a lot of parts of the country in the civilian world. Crisis teams fully trained to deal with trauma and the aftermath. Some communities have enlisted the experts from mental health, Chaplains to take care of the spiritual aspects and therapist offering help thru programs like yoga and martial arts to help them learn how to calm anxiety, relieve stress and reduce anger. All of them have to be trained in their professions and receive more training on trauma. Without the specialized training on trauma, there isn't much they can really do to help.

The other thing they have to do is to train the families. It's gotten past the point when simply understanding the problem is sufficient. They need to understand but above that, they need to know what to look for and how to respond to it.

This is not impossible. In 1982 I learned the hard way. I married into the world of a Vietnam veteran at a time when no one was talking about PTSD. I faced having to learn all of this on my own with virtually no support in doing so simply because my family didn't understand. I was constantly advised to get a divorce just because they didn't have any knowledge on the subject. They were limited to the term "crazy Nam vet" and that was the end of what they were willing to understand. They were not alone but I was.

Time went on and little by little they understood more and supported me more in the process. We can do it today. The simple fact you're reading this blog proves how far we've come since those lonely days of searching for information in clinical books. We have hundreds of thousands of reports online to find what we need to know, yet there are countless families with absolutely no idea what it is they need to find. Support groups are vital but there are simply not enough of them. Families are on the front lines but when it comes to information and understanding, they are unarmed. The citizen soldiers pay for this instead of receiving what they need to heal. It's simply not enough to just point the finger at the military and the VA.

They need what the VA has to offer but unless they reinstate support groups for families along with providing them with the tools to help the veteran heal, we will continue to see numbers of suicides, attempted suicides, homelessness and divorces rise.

Holding a marriage together is hard enough but when you add in combat and PTSD, it becomes nearly impossible to stay together. I know for a fact if I didn't know what I knew, I wouldn't have been able to get past the dark days into better days. We've been married almost 26 years! They do not have to die because they've lost hope of healing. They do not have to become so despondent the end seems to be the only solution. They do need the rest of us to find reasons to stay. We can get there but only if the military and the VA listens to what really needs to be done and these steps are not nearly as expensive as what they've been trying to do.

They've paid out millions of dollars for programs that are repeated mistakes wasting money and more troubling, wasting lives. Maybe this report of the five suicides in six months will wake them up. After all, we're talking about the numbers from the Missouri National Guard alone and that is a very troubling piece of news.

Five Missouri National Guard Troops Commit Suicide So Far This Year
Written by Jennifer Moore
Thursday, 24 June 2010
Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, sits on the US Armed Services Committee. She says already this year, five soldiers in the Missouri National Guard have taken their own lives—that’s a record high, she says.

On Tuesday, the Armed Services Committee talked about the shortfall of mental health professionals in the military. McCaskill says one solution is to hire licensed mental health counselors without supervision.

“The military is moving forward on that, and they are working to fill 225 vacancies across the military with very-much needed mental health professionals,” she says.

McCaskill also talked about protecting a soldier’s confidentiality if he or she comes forward seeking mental health treatment, and embedding a mental health counselor in each National Guard unit across the state.
go here for more
http://www.ksmu.org/content/view/6869/66/

Here's a video I made for the National Guard troops. Our citizen soldiers need more help and support and they are waiting.



And then we have this from Florida

Community Leaders Say Listening to Military, Soldiers' Stories is Key to Prevent Suicide

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Nearly as many American troops have committed suicide this year as have been killed in combat in Afghanistan, according to published reports.

The U.S. government's top psychiatric researcher said that's because of inadequate mental health care for soldiers.

Last month, a study was published that found about 20 percent of returning U.S. soldiers have post traumatic stress disorder.

The military said so far this year, roughly 60 soldiers have committed suicide, and about 50 other deaths are still under investigation but have not been confirmed as suicides.

Jacksonville doctor, Justin D'Arienzo said while military suicides are shocking, they are for the most part on track with civilian suicide rates.

Judy Edwards, the president and founder of the Florida Blue Stars Mom, Chapter 1, said her son, 24-year old Army Spt. Nicholas Edwards is on his third deployment to Iraq.

"He has never really exhibited (suicidal thoughts) but it has been in the back of my mind because you hear so much about it here at home," said Edwards.
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Community Leaders Say Listening to Military

Benefit marks fallen Marine's 25th birthday

Benefit marks fallen Marine's 25th birthday
Aaron Reed memorial event helping local organizations
By ASHLEY PHILLIPS
Gazette Staff Writer

Remembering her son on his 25th birthday Saturday was a bittersweet feeling for Sara Duvall.

Duvall's son, Marine Lance Cpl. Aaron Reed, of Chillicothe, was 21 when he was killed Aug. 3, 2005, when an explosive device detonated under his vehicle near Haditha, Iraq.

All day Saturday friends, family and people of the community came out to the fourth annual Aaron Reed Veterans Awareness Benefit to honor him at the Chillicothe Elks Lodge 52.

Filled with music, games and tournaments people from the community came out to show their support for the benefit.

Since the benefit started in 2005, organizers have been donating money to various organizations such as Blue Star Mothers (an organization for mothers who have lost sons in the military), Scioto Valley Habitat for Humanity, Lima Company, Ohio Flags of Honor and the Aaron Reed Scholarship Fund at Southeastern High School.
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