FSU grad still recovering from 2009 Fort Hood shooting

FSU grad still recovering from 2009 Fort Hood shooting
Apr. 25, 2012
By Doug Blackburn
Democrat senior writer

FSU graduate Patrick Zeigler survived two tours in Iraq but was nearly killed during the Nov. 5, 2009 massacre at Fort Hood.

Zeigler, a Florida State graduate who was gravely wounded during the Nov. 5, 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, has relocated to a civilian hospital in California. His daily rehabilitation continues, 30 months out and counting.

He is hopeful he will be able to walk without a cane by August, when he is scheduled to testify in the murder trial of former Army psychiatrist Malik Hasan, charged with killing 13 men and women at Fort Hood. He also continues to work on his left arm, which remains mostly paralyzed after it suffered two bullet wounds.

Zeigler remains a positive, focused man. He and his wife, Jessica, who married at Fort Hood in December 2010, are expecting their first child in late October, within weeks of the third anniversary of the Fort Hood tragedy.
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9 years after leaving Army, veteran mistakenly declared AWOL is arrested, jailed

UPDATE

Army finalizes discharge for veteran mistakenly jailed as AWOL
By BILL MURPHY JR.
Stars and Stripes
Published: February 13, 2012

WASHINGTON — The Army will issue a discharge certificate to a former soldier who was arrested and held in Florida jails for 12 days last month because the military considered him absent without leave nine years after he was chaptered out.

Louie Castro, 28, who was to have been given an other-than-honorable discharge in December 2002 and who says he had thought his military service was long behind him, was arrested Jan. 2 as he re-entered the United States after a trip to France. Army officials had demanded that he fly to Fort Carson, Colo. — a base where he had never served, but where the 4th Infantry Division moved in 2009 — as a condition of being let out of jail.

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9 years after leaving Army, veteran mistakenly declared AWOL is arrested, jailed
By BILL MURPHY JR.
Stars and Stripes
Published: February 10, 2012

WASHINGTON — Louie Castro is a 28-year-old religion major at Florida State University who should have started the final semester of his senior year last month. Instead, he spent 12 days in jail after being arrested at Miami International Airport because of an administrative error the Army apparently made when he left the service more than nine years ago.

The Army considered him absent without leave.

Castro was told he must fly to Fort Carson, Colo. — a base where he never served, but where his old Fort Hood unit, the 4th Infantry Division, relocated in 2009 — to resume his old life as an Army private long enough for military personnel officers to fix his paperwork. In the meantime, he missed the start of classes and was forced to withdraw, costing him his financial aid. He will not graduate on schedule.
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PTSD sleep research thinks new way

Wish Fulfillment? No. But Dreams (and Sleep) Have Meaning
By Tiffany Sharples Sunday, Jun. 14, 2009
Dreams may not be the secret window into the frustrated desires of the unconscious that Sigmund Freud first posited in 1899, but growing evidence suggests that dreams —and, more so, sleep — are powerfully connected to the processing of human emotion.



According to new research presented last week at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in Seattle, adequate sleep may underpin our ability to understand complex emotions properly in waking life.

Past studies have also established a link between chronic sleep disruption and suicide. Sleep complaints, which include nightmares, insomnia and other sleep disturbances, are listed in the current Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's inventory of suicide prevention warning signs. Yet, what distinguishes Bernert's research is that when nightmares and insomnia were evaluated separately, nightmares were still independently predictive of suicidal behavior. "It may be that nightmares present a unique risk for suicidal symptoms, which may have to do with the way we process emotion within dreams," Bernert says.

If that's the case, it may help explain the recurring nightmares that characterize psychiatric conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Walker says.

"The brain has not stripped away the emotional rind from that experience memory," he says, so "the next night the brain offers this up, and it fails again, and it starts to sound like a broken record...What you hear [PTSD] patients describing is, 'I can't get over the event.'"

At the biological level, Walker explains, the "emotional rind" translates to sympathetic nervous system activity during sleep — faster heart rate and the release of stress chemicals. Understanding why nightmares recur and how REM sleep facilitates emotional processing, or hinders it when nightmares take place and perpetuate the physical stress symptoms, may eventually provide clues for effective treatments of painful mental disorders. Perhaps, even, by simply addressing sleeping habits, doctors could potentially interrupt the emotional cycle that can lead to suicide. "There is an opportunity for prevention," Bernert says.

The new findings highlight what researchers are increasingly recognizing as a two-way relationship between psychiatric disorders and disrupted sleep. "Modern medicine and psychiatry have consistently thought that psychological disorders seem to have co-occuring sleep problems, and that it's the disorder perpetuating the sleep problems," says Walker. "Is it possible that, in fact, it's the sleep disruption contributing to the psychiatric disorder?"

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http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1904561,00.html

Jericho Project to Prevent Homelessness Among Veterans

Preventing Homelessness in Veterans
Invisible injuries of war in Iraq and Afghanistan are showing up in returning troops, and a recent Pentagon surveys estimates that 20% will suffer from "temporary stress injuries" and 10% from "stress illnesses" that lead to pervasive social dislocations. PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injuries can lead to a cascade of problems interfering with a veteran's re-entry into society, employment and family. The Jericho Project, a 25-year old national leader in solving homelessness, is helping with its innovative Veterans Initiative including permanent supportive housing, comprehensive services and ongoing peer support. Two specially designed Veterans Residences will be in the Bronx, NY; and one is breaking ground this fall.

(PRWEB) July 2, 2008 -- Jericho Project to Prevent Homelessness Among Veterans

Invisible injuries of war in Iraq and Afghanistan are showing up in returning troops, so much so that recent Pentagon surveys estimate that 20% will suffer from "temporary stress injuries" and 10% from "stress illnesses" that lead to pervasive social dislocations. On top of that are the physical injuries like Traumatic Brain Injuries which likewise can prevent a veteran's re-entry into society, employment and family.

Stepping in to help is the Jericho Project, a 25-year old national leader in solving homelessness, whose holistic approach combines permanent supportive housing, comprehensive yet targeted counseling, and ongoing peer support and role modeling by its successful "graduates." Jericho will apply this model to the goal of preventing homelessness among our nation's veterans with its innovative Veterans Initiative.

In advance of breaking ground on the first of two Veterans Residences in the Bronx, New York, this fall, Jericho Executive Director Tori Lyon is already distilling the expertise of leading scientists, foundations and nonprofits into a comprehensive housing and counseling program specifically designed for vets.

"We are learning that there are ways to manage and mitigate the effects of mental trauma like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder so that a person can regain his or her equilibrium, confidence and life," she says. Chronic grief and fatigue can be misdiagnosed as PTSD, for example; and PTSD unacknowledged and untreated can result in substance abuse and alienation.

"Our goal is to intervene when veterans are in crisis so that we can prevent homelessness and help them back to the road of recovery," she adds.

We invite you to speak to Ms. Lyon on how the Jericho model will be applied to veterans of all wars and eras. At the Veterans Residences, veterans will receive compassionate counseling by people who understand the particular conflicts that veterans face; for example among Iraq vets, receiving a hero's welcome while overcome with grief, fatigue and trauma; or concealing symptoms of PTSD for fear of losing jobs in law enforcement or security.

Jericho has a track record of success: among the "graduates" of Jericho's five locations housing 253 residents, 96% move to stable, independent living, two-thirds are employed at an average salary of over $10.00 per hour, with the remainder using government benefits; and only 5% experience relapse. What's more, Jericho accomplishes this for $12,000 per person per year, less than half of the $25,000 for a New York City shelter bed; and roughly a quarter of the $40,000 for the city jail.

For its Veterans Initiative, Jericho calls upon the expertise of people and organizations including:


Dr. Charles Figley, one of the nation's foremost experts on combat-related trauma and its ensuing psychological stress on veterans and their families. A Fulbright Fellow and Professor, College of Social Work at Florida State University, he founded the Consortium on Veteran Studies in 1975 to study and help Vietnam veterans returning from war. This effort led to the development of the diagnosis of PTSD and a national outreach program for Vietnam veterans within the Veterans Administration.


The Bob Woodruff Family Foundation, which awarded Jericho a $100,000 grant for use in serving veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have sustained Traumatic Brain Injury and/or PTSD.


The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. With a mission is to end homelessness among America's veterans by shaping public policy, promoting collaboration, and increasing the capacity of service providers, NCHV is the resource and technical assistance center for a national network of community-based and government veteran assistance agencies representing 48 states and the District of Columbia.

For more information on the Jericho Project, please contact Lynthia Romney, RomneyCom L.L.C., (914) 238-2145.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/7/prweb1066564.htm