Veterans helping others after war

They served each other during combat and then they serve after. They are heroes after war.

Benton City man connects generations of vets
BY JOHN TRUMBO, HERALD STAFF WRITER
Published: 12/07/1012:50 am

BENTON CITY — Iwo Jima, Pearl Harbor, Vietnam and Afghanistan are thousands of miles apart, but Spencer Oland of Benton City sees important connections between all of them.

The 63-year-old ex-Marine, who is disabled with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because of his Vietnam War experiences, understands that war can be hell long after combat ends.

That's why he connects to veterans much younger, and to those a lot older, who have continued the fight to live normal lives long after leaving the military.

He discovered that connection 1 1/2 years ago after he attended a weekly group therapy session in Richland with other veterans.

"I was sitting next to a guy who landed at Omaha Beach (on D-Day during World War II), and on one side of me was a Vietnam veteran, while across from me were veterans from Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan," Oland recalls. It was a room filled with several generations of PTSD veterans -- with older guys helping younger guys.

"I thought how helpful it was to help the younger veterans, showing them what happens when you don't do something about (PTSD," he said. Oland thought about it on his way home that night, then wrote it down and consulted with some military buddies.

Generations of Warriors Project, an educational nonprofit organization, is the result.



Read more: Benton City man connects generations of vets

We Call Them Heroes, documentary on Vietnam Veterans

Debut draws crowds, tears
'... We call them heroes'
BY STACY TEMPLE • STEMPLE@THENEWSSTAR.COM • NOVEMBER 5, 2010

The tragedy and horror local Vietnam veterans experienced in the war were magnified on the big screen Thursday night.

The vivid recollections from the veterans featured in the documentary "Some Call Them Baby Killers "» We Call Them Heroes" by R-Squared Productions were funny at times and emotional at others. Twenty Vietnam veterans from northeastern Louisiana were featured in the film and recalled the horror they saw in combat, the smell of the country and what it felt like to lose fellow soldiers in a split second.

Executive Producer Rodney Ray said it was important that he preserve and tell the stories of our vets before the stories were lost.

"It is so humbling, and it is very honoring to be a part of what we hope is the healing process for these vets," Ray said. "It is very powerful and very moving. The reason I do movies is to change people's lives, and I believe this one will."
read more here
Debut draws crowds tears


I thought they are heroes too!

Don't just sit there, cry

Don't just sit there, cry

by
Chaplain Kathie

Living in the lightening capital of the country, the sky fills with dark clouds and you know what's coming. Soon the sky grows darker taking over the light of the Florida sun. It gets darker and darker. Then comes the rolling thunder as rain comes down so hard it feels as if your skin is on fire. Lightening strikes so fierce you cannot look away. Everyone for miles around cannot escape the fact the storm is here. They see it. They hear it. They feel it. They fear it.

We can all understand the power of the storms but what we cannot understand is what is left behind unless it happens to us. There are homes set on fire by lightening strikes but it doesn't happen all the time, doesn't happen to every home and doesn't change every life, so it's hard to know what it feels like to someone else.

Some storms are so powerful they take out electricity in neighborhoods. Since most of these storms come when air conditioners are essential, there is no way to cool off as heat penetrates the walls making it unbearable. With no way to know where the storm is, where it is going as communication ends, we don't know if it will get worse or how long it will last or when our suffering will end. We wait listening to the rain and thunder putting our lives on hold. Should the storms come at night, we light candles trying to break up some of the darkness we are surrounded by but the candles are not enough to light every part of our homes and we need to walk around with candles so that we don't trip and fall.

Then the rain stops pounding turning into a soft shower. The dark clouds move on to someone else's neighborhood. We hear the distant thunder knowing the danger has passed over us. The sky slowly turns clear again and then we know it's going to return to normal soon. The power comes back on and we get on with our lives.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a lot like thunderstorms. Everyone in the area suffers pretty much the same way but some suffer more from the same event. Some lose power for longer periods of time, so as one neighborhood returns to life as normal, another is still suffering until it is their turn to get their power back on. While most homes are spared a direct hit of lightening, some will end up seeing this storm was just too much for them and their lives were sent into turmoil. It will take a lot out of them and take much longer for them to get over this storm everyone else has moved on from.

My job is to make the journey from darkness easier to get through, to help other neighbors understand that there are people who did not see the clouds clear and their lives return back to where they were before but above all, it is to make people cry.

It may sound heartless but I am delighted when a Vietnam veteran emails me because I made them cry. It has been far too long they felt as if they couldn't. I get emails from Gulf War veterans, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and from families. Now and then I'll hear from a cop or a spouse, a firefighter and then from members of the National Guards with a blended life of being deployed into combat and then facing traumatic events right here back home as a cop or firefighter.

If I can touch a veteran and make them cry, it is because I got them to understand that what they have been feeling is not so impossible for someone else to understand and see. They don't feel so alone. It is almost as if a sledgehammer has begun to take down the wall they have been living trapped behind. If I make a spouse cry, it is because they can finally understand what someone they love has been living with and then understand why their own lives have been filled with thunderstorms.

These comments were left when I had my videos up on YouTube.

comment on em PTSD Not God's Judgment
my faith was gone...i'm in tears and want to say thanks

comment on A Homeless Veteran's Day
This brought me to tears. Damn good job with the video. It's abominable that we treat our vets like that... and the way some treat these people is even more so.

There are a lot more I save to keep me going when I want to stop. When veterans email me, most of the time they write about crying. I am happy when this happens because it means the walls around their soul are coming down. It means that the pain they had trapped is leaving them so that good feelings can enter in.

This email pretty much says it all.

PTSD and cops - my husband


The other morning around 4 am, my husband (XXXXX Police for 17 years, 3 shootings, all lethal, and a million horrible experiences later because he worked in the worst part of XXXXX for 10 years) woke me after he had only had about 1 1/2 hrs of sleep to watch your video. I believe God led him to it because he doesn't like computers and for him to even find it was a miracle. We've been married for 19 years.

He's been in treatment for PTSD for about 6 months now, and you need to know that your video mirrored our life. He doesn't feel so alone now, and I'm not so angry when he takes off for a few hours, not even knowing what triggered the event (he rarely even remembers much anyway).

He's beginning EMDR therapy, and although it will be hard, after watching your video he understands that he has to keep going to his appointments faithfully to get better. He's had suicidal thoughts and before we even knew what was happening he ended up on a mountainside with a gun in his mouth, not able to go to work. He barely even remembers it. He had to take FMLA leave, and thankfully his doctors were able to word everything correctly as to not "rubber gun" him (make him not able to use his weapon, which would basically put you somewhere in nowheresville being a policeman).

I just want to thank you for your video and if you know how I can volunteer somehow to help veterans or anyone effected by PTSD (a shelter?), I want to make a difference, as you have. I especially want the world to know that cops can be affected by this, and it is so often shoved under the table with police. I know that it is real and my husband and I have both discussed the fact that if I had ever left him, he would have quit his job and quite possibly be homeless. I am believing that someday, after therapy, through prayer and through my precious Lord Jesus Christ, our life will have some normalcy again.

Thank you so much for giving us hope.

Emails like these keep reminding me that this is the way the military and the VA need to go. They need to let everyone know what it feels like to be subjected to a thunderstorm of trauma touching everyone's life but allowing some to just go back to "normal" while changing the lives of others to different levels of darkness.

We need everyone in the neighborhood of the USA to see the clouds move in as darkness takes over. Hear the thunder rolling across the sky and feel the rain of grief. Too many are suffering needlessly, feeling alone, believing the power to get back to "normal" will not be turned back on for them and others find all they had is gone. None of what they are going through has to happen if they all understand why they should cry and begin to heal. As with thunderstorms the hard rain (hard cry) soon turns into a soft shower and then the darkness moves on allowing the sun to shine again lighting their lives.

While my videos are hard to watch they are intended to make you cry and to understand that the darkness can move away from your life. So dont' just sit there suffering. Cry and begin to heal.


The rest of my videos are on the sidebar of this blog.

But it is not just men who suffer in darkness. It is women too.



This was sent from the man who wrote the lyrics to this beautiful song. It shows that after all these years, his message is still reaching out to so many people in need and so is he.

last night I watched the "Hardest Times" video. I am honoured that the lyrics I wrote so long ago are still being used to bless others in a manner such as you describe with these women - may the Lord bless them abundantly for everything they endure in serving their country. And may He bless you as well, Chaplain Kathie, for all you do in your service to Him and to your country.

For the last three years I have been living in Jerusalem, Israel, volunteering with a ministry that helps feed the poor and homeless of the city (regardless of ethnicity). As a lay chaplain myself, and as a follower of Jesus Christ, the Scripture I use as a "signature", both in the addictions ministry I worked for six years in Canada and now here in feeding the poor, is Galatians 6:9 NIV, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." Those last six words are indicative of a diligence with which you seem to have been blessed.

I may not have known it at the time, but I now believe with all my heart that while it might have been me who held the pen when I wrote those lyrics, the words that fell on the page were inspired by the Holy Spirit himself. The darkness of the "hardest times" you are so faithfully trying to expose to the Light is not the first time Wildflower has been a blessing to others - and it is my sincere prayer that it won't be the last.

It is also my prayer that the Lord will go before you in this venture, and that your heartfelt efforts will help to set captives free (Isaiah 61).

Blessings again, in Christ Jesus...

Dave Richardson

We can get the storms to pass if we all do what we can when we can, no matter how small we think the effort is. No one has to be in the darkness when there are so many ready and willing to light the candles.

Researchers Rewrite Nightmares of PTSD Patients

It's not just rewriting their dreams, they need to rewrite their memories. If they only hold onto the moments of terror, they don't see it all, remember what they were feeling before it happened and above all, what was their intention when they had to kill.

Most of the time when veterans contact me, they are focused on the image of the death of someone. While PTSD can strike without involving killing someone, it is the deepest cut of all. A young National Guardsman came back with such horrible memories that dealing with physical wounds was too much for him to begin to deal with. He lost his wife, custody of his two young children, disconnected from his family, lost his home and was couch homeless staying with friends and tried to commit suicide twice by the time I was contacted by his Mom.

His Mom didn't know what PTSD was or why he acted the way he did. It turned out that he didn't either. After building up the level of trust over a series of phone calls, he told me about the worst haunting event he had. While in Iraq, he was part of a convoy. A car was coming too close. He knew that many other cars had done the same thing to others but ended up blowing them up. He thru rocks at the car. He shouted. He fired warning shots in the air all the time praying they would stop, back off, anything to avoid having to do what he eventually had to do. He began to fire at the car. It was a family inside. The rest of what happened was edited by his memory. He was only remembering the bodies in the car and the fact he shot them.

He didn't remember what he tried to do before it in order to prevent it. He didn't remember that his prayers were begging God to get the driver to stop. He didn't remember the rocks or the warning shots in the air when he was haunted by what happened. That was not until the whole movie was allowed to play in his mind. Then he was able to make peace with that part of his story. No longer haunted by it, he began to heal. He just needed to remember that the history of events such as what he went through did not turn out to be innocent people in a car, but terrorists trying to blow up soldiers.

That's the problem with doing this kind of healing. This kind of healing does not get funded because it doesn't need medication after the chemicals in the brain are leveled off again. It doesn't take years and years of therapy session as long as it's done close, or as close as possible to the events. It doesn't cost millions of dollars. It just takes understanding what all humans do to themselves.

This even works on chronic PTSD veterans. The longer PTSD goes on un-addressed, the less PTSD can be reversed. Even with Vietnam veterans, after 40 years of being haunted, some of it can still be reversed but medications are usually still necessary and so is therapy to keep them stabilized.

With what we know about PTSD, had this been available when Vietnam veterans came home, most would have been healed. Marriages would have been saved and so many homeless veterans walking the streets wouldn't have happened if families knew how to help them. Suicides wouldn't have claimed so many lives and no veteran would ever reach the point of such despair they would need to call the suicide prevention hot line. The problem is, the DOD won't listen, the VA won't listen and congress won't fund something like this. Foundations and charities won't fund it. People won't donate to fund it. The best way to heal PTSD is to get them to the point where they can find peace within themselves. Peace with what happened so they can forgive themselves and peace with God so they know He understood what happened and why it happened.

If you want to see what a flashback looks like, here's one of my videos from a couple of years ago. If we really want to help them then we need to stop doing what has not worked and start to do what has.

'Inception' in Real Life? Researchers Rewrite Nightmares of PTSD Patients
Dreamers Can Incubate Their Own Narratives to End the Terror, Say Sleep Experts

By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES
Aug. 2, 2010


Post Traumatic Stress Patients Rescript Their Dreams

While they are awake, patients take a few minutes to create a new dream script. He asks one of his patients to change a demonic black racing car with giant eyeballs to a white Cadillac with bubbles, gently tooling along.

His studies show that this new cognitive therapy can help reduce the frequency and intensity of nightmares and perhaps even end them altogether.

Krakow's PTSD research has implications on all people with sleep disorders. In studies of more than 1,000 patients with post-traumatic stress symptoms, he found 5 to 10 other sleep problems may be involved, including high rates of sleep apnea.

"There's a connection a lot of people are missing in the complexity of PTSD sleep disturbance," said Krakow. "Everybody thinks these kinds of people have psychological issues. What we learned is there is a tremendous physiological component."

"What is being missed by many people is breathing disorders or sleep movement disorders all run together," he said. "It's not one thing."

Sleep disorders are serious business, according to Krakow. Those with nightmares can "actually act out their dreams and move around and hurt somebody."

Such is the case with Gotcher, who said her brain "feels like it's in a war, even in a conscious state."
read more here
Researchers Rewrite Nightmares of PTSD Patients

Related

Violent Sleepwalkers Can Kill When Interrupted

Fireworks and PTSD a matter of perception

When a PTSD veteran told his psychologist that he loves to go to the Disney Parks, she was stunned. PTSD veterans hate crowds so it didn't make sense he would really enjoy the rides, even in the dark, the crowds and strangers walking around in costumes. Then he said "it's a matter or perception." For him, Disney is all about families and most of the people there are kids under 12. Yet this same veteran can't go to a movie, sits with his back to the wall in restaurants and tries to stay out of stores as much a possible unless it's a food store. For him a grocery store is all about people being just human and filling a need to eat.

This veteran has carried PTSD inside of him since Vietnam and was tested very high for PTSD. Sleep problems, nightmares, flashbacks, twitches and all of this with heavy medications, yet he can understand the difference between what is supposed to be safe and what is unknowable. Fireworks can bother some veterans and remind them of combat. For others, while the reminders of combat are still awakened, they enjoy them. It is such a big problem for some that I added it into the video Hero After War when I try to explain what a flashback looks like along with how simple things we see everyday can become a dangerous reminder to them.

When it comes to fireworks, amusement parks and living in general, "it's a matter of perception" above anything else. Support them and try to understand why they react the way they do.

Fireworks and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Submitted: 07/02/2010

RHINELANDER - July 4th is a holiday when we celebrate our nation's birthday and those who selflessly fought for her.

But it can also be a dreaded day for some veterans, especially for someone who's been in combat warfare.

One veteran shares how this holiday can have a different meaning.

Jacob Lobermeier served his country in the Middle East as a platoon leader in combat warfare.

While he says he doesn't suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, he says the effects of his experiences are long-lasting. "Things that you see, decisions that you make, friends that you've lost. And those things stay with you. You're never the same after as you were before."

And those memories can return in a split second with things like the common bang of 4th of July fireworks.
read more here
http://www.wjfw.com/stories.html?sku=20100702181841

Vietnam vets hope to reach new generation

Vietnam vets hope to reach new generation
Support group makes push to connect with returning troops

By Joe Goldeen
Record Staff Writer
July 09, 2009 6:00 AM
STOCKTON - The country called, and some young men went to war. They were kids, mostly - 18 and 19 years old - thrust into a dark and foreboding place known as Vietnam.

Upon their return, some were taunted as "baby killers," rejected for jobs by employers who looked at them as misfits or long-haired, wild-eyed pot smokers. The Veterans Administration - the federal agency charged with helping them after they left military service - had nothing for them if they didn't suffer from an obvious physical injury. Even family members who had gone to war in Europe, the South Pacific or Korea a generation earlier rejected them, telling them to "suck it up."

On a recent Tuesday morning, 11 Vietnam-era combat veterans met for breakfast in the back room at UJ's Family Restaurant on Pacific Avenue.
go here for more
Vietnam vets hope to reach new generation

PTSD has not changed since Vietnam. It did not change before Vietnam when it was called other things. It is a human wound. Unlike the change is the technology, humans are still pretty much under the same design, with all the same dreams and fears, courage and compassion, same style body, same kind of mind and same kind of soul. No one can ever make humans stop being human.

There is no excuse the newer veterans can use to tell a Vietnam veteran they do not understand what it's like for them. They've already been there. What this group of Vietnam veterans is doing is not new but there are far too few doing the same thing. A couple of years ago I made this video talking about how Vietnam veterans are helping the newer veterans heal and in the process, healing themselves.

Hero After War - watch more videos

This video used to be on YouTube and Google.

PTSD DVD sets available again soon

I received several donations and thank you for them. I just purchased a DVD drive that is supposed to be able to keep up with the load. The donations were not enough to cover a new PC. I will still need all the donations I can get to be able to keep sending the DVD's out, that is if I can get the drive to work right. Remember I'm no Bill Gates.

I was promised donations when requests came in for the DVD's but some people never sent in the donation. If you want one, I will send them out for free still but if you promise to make a donation, please make sure you do. I'm out of work now so I don't have extra money to cover the cost of doing them. Email me for a DVD at Namguardianangel@aol.com and if you can make a donation, use the PayPal button on the side bar. Even $10.00 helps a lot more than you think it does.

The DVD will now have Hero After War and you can pick one other video to go onto the DVD. If you don't request another video, then the Wounded Minds video will be included. These are the two top requested videos I've done.

Please also consider making a donation for the hours I spend doing this work. I do about 12 hours a day and seven days a week, except for play day on Friday with my husband, when I get mental health time away and act like a kid again. At least he knows he can get me away from the PC for 5 hours or so before I disappear back into the office.

If you want to write to me by snail mail send it here.
Nam Guardian Angel
5703 Red Bug Lake Road #154
Winter Springs, FL 32708-4969

Make sure the box number is there or the UPS store will send it back to you.

Thanks again and say a prayer I can figure out the new DVD drive.

Vietnam veterans help returning Iraq soldiers deal with shocks of war

Vietnam veterans help returning Iraq soldiers deal with shocks of war
Neil Kenny, decorated for his service in Vietnam, plays big brother to Jeremiah Workman, a medal winner in Iraq struggling with the psychological effects of combat.

By Jennifer Miller Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the January 30, 2008 edition
Washington - Marine Sgt. Jeremiah Workman wasn't born yet when his friend Neil Kenny received the Navy Commendation Medal for dragging dead and wounded soldiers out of combat in Vietnam. But he has a good idea what it must have been like.

In 2004, during the second battle of Fallujah in Iraq, Sergeant Workman pushed through exploding grenades and machine-gun fire to rescue 10 trapped marines. His bravery earned him the Navy Cross, the military's second-highest honor. Yet today Mr. Kenny and Workman share more than medals. They came home from war with severe psychological wounds – anxiety, anger, and depression. More than their Marine brotherhood and shared valor, it is the painful legacy of combat that has now forged a singular bond between them. "I can tell him everything," Workman says. "I don't trust anybody. He's one of the few people I can talk to."

Their relationship is symbolic of a grass-roots movement by Vietnam veterans to help soldiers returning from Iraq cope with the mental rigors of war and ease the transition to civilian life. Across the country, both groups of Vietnam veterans and individual former soldiers are pitching in to help console, counsel, or just be a voice on the other end of the phone to those who have served in the Middle East.

Throughout history, veterans of one war have always helped those of another. But rarely has the homecoming experience of two sets of veterans been so different, and the bonds between them so deep, as those from Vietnam and Iraq.

One reason is that many Vietnam-era soldiers understand the trauma that some of today's returning fighters are going through and want to help them in ways they feel they never were. Kenny is currently mentoring five Iraq war veterans. When he looks at today's young soldiers, he sees a mirror image of himself returning from Southeast Asia at 19. "That's where I was," he says. "I don't want to turn my back on them."
go here for the rest
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0130/p20s01-usmi.html

This is one of the biggest reasons I did the video Hero After War. The Vietnam veterans have been doing it all along. Most of them have their own kids involved in the two occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of them are as divided on Iraq as the rest of then nation but the one common bond they all share is the brotherhood.

Vietnam veterans began so many different support groups it's nearly impossible to keep track of all of them. From Rolling Thunder, to Nam Knights motorcycle groups, to Vietnam Veterans of America. They have taken leadership positions in local government, business and state government. They have filled the seats of the House of Representatives and the Senate. They are still giving back at the same time so many are still paying for their service to this nation. They are among the finest people I've ever met and the above article is just one of the reasons I feel the way I do. My husband, naturally is the biggest reason of all.