VoteVets Want O'Reilly Off the Air

Progressive Veterans Group Wants O'Reilly Off The Air
Media Matters
February 20, 2015

VoteVets, a leading progressive veterans advocacy group, is calling on Fox News to take Bill O'Reilly off the air following revelations from Mother Jones that the Fox News host may have repeatedly misrepresented his experiences reporting on the 1982 Falklands War.

"NBC acted completely appropriately in taking Brian Williams off the air and looking into claims he's made over the years. Fox News has to do the same thing," Jon Soltz, chairman of VoteVets.org, a 400,000-member organization that advocates for vets and military families, said in a statement. "The issue, for me, isn't that Fox has been caught off guard, and didn't realize O'Reilly was telling possibly false tales. That I can accept. It's what do they do about it now? That will tell us a lot about how seriously they take their news organization."

So far, the response from O'Reilly and Fox does not suggest that they take the apparent infraction seriously. Fox News media reporter Howard Kurtz published a piece featuring O'Reilly saying Mother Jones Washington bureau chief David Corn is "a liar, a smear merchant, and will do anything he can to injure me and the network. Everybody knows that. Everything I've reported about my journalistic career is true."
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The same can't be said about when Bill O'Reilly denied there were homeless veterans in this country.

Jan 17, 2008
Bill-o's Assault on the Truth: On the website of the Federal Department of Veterans Affairs... In black and white... It states the sad truth about many of the men and women who served this country in uniform.

"Current population estimates suggest that about 195,000 veterans (male and female) are homeless on any given night and perhaps twice as many experience homelessness at some point during the course of a year." A grotesque statistic that Senator John Edwards has repeatedly cited during his bid for the presidency. Most recently, last night.

Ok, there you have John Edwards, Keith Olbermann and Paul Rieckhoff talking about something very real and the rest of the country finally found out about this. They could have found out sooner had O'Reilly and his team forgot about politics for the sake of these veterans.

Fighting Combat PTSD in Scotland

Fighting on the frontline: PTSD cases surge across Scotland
Edinburgh
By Laura Piper
18 August 2014

Lance Corporal John Templeton was one soldier who was referred to the charity by his GP after suffering a breakdown years after he had left the army.

"I had been suppressing it for years, self-medicating through alcohol misuse," he said. "I think I used drink to keep the demons away at night...me and the lads just had a drink and – you know that phrase 'just soldier on' – well, that’s what we did.

“I now know I should have got help a lot earlier. If I had maybe I wouldn’t have lost so much."

It has been described as the invisible scar of war; the bomb waiting to explode when a soldier returns home.

For men and women returning from conflict, post-traumatic stress disorder can be a battle they never expected to fight.

In the military there is a deep-rooted ethos that 'no man gets left behind' with soldiers committed to risking all to protect those they fight alongside.

In Scotland, there are two men carrying this belief on long after the call to duty has been answered.

As one of only two regional officers for Combat Stress in Scotland, Lappin has to see the on-going turmoil in the eyes of veterans every single day.

"If you were to draw a line down Scotland I would be on the West and Jim Lawrence the East," said Lappin.

Together, the two men travel door to door across the country, meeting veterans in their own home in order to help them take the first step to confronting their ongoing battles.

"When I started here we were getting an average of 60 new referrals a year. Now, I'd say that's up to 130, partly because of the recent conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"But as much as we see veterans from Iraq we see many, if not more, from the Falklands and Northern Ireland. And the numbers are rising."
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Using poetry to tackle Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Using poetry to tackle Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
When Peter Southern from Corby returned from duty in The Falklands, he buried all he'd seen and experienced, deep inside himself.

For years he carried those feelings and didn't even tell his wife what he'd witnessed during the conflict.

It was only a chance incident at work that brought out the tide of emotions that Peter had kept hidden away for years.

Peter was diagnosed as having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He'd served in the army during the Northern Ireland conflicts and The Falklands War.

During his army career Peter said he was taught to blot out all the bad and horrific experiences and keep the British 'stiff upper lip'.

This often resulted in nightmares, bouts of depression and Peter even considered taking his own life.

But Peter is fighting back and helping others in the process. He's started writing poetry and pouring his feelings and emotions onto paper.

He says its part of a healing process and his poems have also helped others suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

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UK Military:Echo Health - Battle for the Mind

Echo Health - Battle for the Mind
Posted on: Friday, 20 June 2008, 09:00 CDT

By Barry Nelson

Not enough is being done to help psychologically-scarred ex- servicemen after they are discharged. A week before the UK celebrates Veterans' Day, Health Editor Barry Nelson looks at a pilot scheme which aims to help former soldiers, seaman and airmen recover

IMAGINE witnessing an horrific car crash, particularly one in which a close family member was killed or seriously injured. Many people exposed to such a traumatic experience will make a full recovery, but some will bear the psychological scars for years or even decades afterwards. A number may be so disturbed by what they have seen that they may need professional treatment from a psychologist or psychiatrist.

Seeing someone you love die in a road accident is bad enough, but cannot be compared to the cumulative experiences of British soldiers returning from places like Iraq and Afghanistan after spending months in the firing line. With large numbers of British servicemen and women deployed in troublespots around the world, the number of ex-soldiers who are being discharged with significant mental health problems as a result of being exposed to nerve-jangling combat, sniping and kerbside bombs is growing.

And it is not just recent conflicts, Combat Stress, the charity which supports veterans who have been badly affected by their experiences, say they still work with many who were involved in the 30year-old undeclared war with the IRA in Northern Ireland. They are also still seeing new referrals from soldiers, sailors and airmen who fought in the Falklands War, which ended 26 years ago.

The scale of the problem is clear from the figures. In 2000, Combat Stress was contacted by around 300 veterans needing help, advice and support. Last year it was 1,200 and the charity expects this figure to continue to grow.

A major difficulty is that many of the veterans who have the most severe mental health problems as a result of what they have seen are poorly served by existing NHS services.
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http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1442695/echo_health__battle_for_the_mind/

David Boulton, Falklands War Vet, kicked to death

Man killed Falklands War veteran

Christopher Jones admitted manslaughter
A man who kicked a veteran of the Falklands War to death has been jailed for six years at Swansea Crown Court.

Christopher Jones, 31, from Milford Haven, admitted the manslaughter of David Boulton, 59, from Hakin.

His plea of not guilty to murder was accepted by the prosecution on the grounds that he had not intended to kill or to seriously injure Mr Boulton.

Jones' uncle, Joseph Vlietstra, 60, was jailed for nine months for attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Vlietstra, who admitted the charge, had arranged for Jones' clothes to be washed immediately after the attack, the court heard.

Mr Boulton was attacked on 30 April last year but died on 1 June.

Shoe marks

Judge Mr Justice Saunders said there had been disputes between neighbours at a block of flats in John Lewis Street, Hakin, and both Mr Boulton and Vlietstra had made complaints to the police.

On 30 April Jones visited his uncle and got into a row with Mr Boulton and then went into his flat and assaulted him, the court heard.

As he left Mr Boulton followed him, but Jones grabbed hold of his legs, pulled him down a flight of stairs and kicked him to the head and stamped on him, leaving shoe marks on his body, the court was told.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/south_west/7305095.stm

New charity has "new approach to military PTSD".

Sounds great but I would like to see the evidence it worked. How many were involved in this? How many veterans were healed with this? How long did the study go on and what were the rates of recovery and what were the years of follow up?

I get emails from them all the time. Sounds to me like if this treatment really worked, more of the Falklands veterans would have been aware of it and treated by it. If this treatment works then we need to see the evidence of it and use it. Right now, I'm skeptical.

Charity to help war veterans
2 hours ago

A new charity is to be launched on Thursday to offer treatment to war veterans and military personnel who have developed mental health problems as a result of their service.

Many men and women suffer from some form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and the PTSD Resolution Project has been set up to offer help specifically to those affected because of their experiences in the armed forces.

Sufferers of PTSD can experience a range of different symptoms, including nightmares, panic attacks, flashbacks and depression.

The charity's director, Piers Bishop, said it offered a "new approach to military PTSD".

Mr Bishop said: "We offer radical, highly-focused treatment. We now consider it a humanitarian necessity to make it available to everyone who wants it."

The charity was set up after a pilot project was successfully carried out on veterans from the Falklands War last year.

The therapy, which uses relaxation techniques to take the patient's mind back and revisit their memories safely, helped many from the Falklands Veterans Foundation recover after 25 years of suffering.
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http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jq_0ftqfaByBHflwGBczECCgF5rQ