WWII veteran opens up for first time at the WWII Memorial

Military staff writer Kelly Kennedy went with her grandfather, a WWII veteran, to the Memorial because of the Honor Flight. While there, he shared some of his experiences with his granddaughter for the first time. Many never talked about what they did because it was not "what you do" when you come home and it's a shame because they kept it all inside. While we talk about PTSD openly now, they never did and they suffered inside instead of healing.

Blood Brothers of Charlie Company

Eye Witness To The Horrors Of War
Reporter Shares First Person Account Of The Origins of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

June 25, 2008


CBS) CBS News has reported extensively on the mental and physical health of American service members fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and the many veterans who have returned home. We have chronicled the effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, an increase in veteran suicides and a VA system grappling to deal with the big issues. We recently had the opportunity to hear first hand from a colleague who is looking to answer one fundamental question about war: what does it actually take to trigger PTSD?

Kelly Kennedy is a health reporter for Army Times. A former soldier who served in the first Gulf War and Mogadishu, Somalia, she embedded last summer as a journalist with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry in Adhamiyah, Iraq - a neighborhood in Baghdad. Even though Kennedy says she doesn’t have post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from her trip, she says she understands how the emotional repercussions of war could develop into a full-blown disorder.

Kennedy is the author of a four-part series called Blood Brothers, a you-are-there account of the daily struggle to hunt insurgents, dodge roadside bombs-- often hitting them-and treat the physical and emotional wounds of the soldiers in the hardest hit unit since Vietnam.

"I was numb," is how Kennedy describes readjusting to life after Iraq. "I remember talking to the guys about how you have to feel things or else things are going to get worse. If you can tell the stories enough times, then the details won't have as much an effect on you as they would the first time you tell the story."


She says in the weeks following her return she was distracted, not paying attention and driving through stop signs and red lights. She says she knows from experience how easy it is for servicemen to return home and "shut down" because communicating those experiences can be too difficult and stressful.

For every one soldier, who leaves Iraq with no PTSD symptoms, there are five soldiers who suffer from PTSD or major depression - according to a study from the Rand Corporation.

Kennedy spoke with CBS News investigative producer Michael Rey and summer intern, Kim Lengle, who produced the video.



By Michael Rey
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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/25/cbsnews_investigates/main4207662.shtml

The 'Inside' Story On A Mutiny In Iraq

Readers of this blog will remember the series Editor and Publisher is addressing here. It was a fantastic job of reporting what life is like in Iraq for Charlie Comopany. I just wonder what took them so long to do this?

The 'Inside' Story On A Mutiny In Iraq



By Barbara Bedway

Published: February 13, 2008 8:30 AM ET

NEW YORK When Army Times medical reporter Kelly Kennedy embedded with U.S. forces in Iraq last June, a mutiny was probably the last thing she expected to cover. But the catastrophic losses of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment that preceded the revolt -- including 14 soldiers killed, more than any other Army company sent to Iraq -- convinced Kennedy and her editors at the Gannett-owned, independent weekly to greatly expand the scope of her original assignment.

Instead of focusing on the near-miraculous efforts of the on-site medics, the 37-year-old Kennedy would instead chronicle the company's entire 15-month deployment. "Blood Brothers," the resulting four-part series that appeared in December, became "one of the single best examinations of an Iraq war deployment so far," in the words of Paul Rieckhoff, founder and executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

Kennedy, herself an Army veteran, "took readers deep inside a combat unit in a way nobody else has," he observes. "She knows when an Army public affairs officer is pushing a line of b.s. and can sense when a soldier is afraid to be candid in front of a superior. Her military experience clearly gives her subjects a level of trust that they would not have with someone who had not personally served."

But it wasn't easy. "I cried a lot writing this story," admits Kennedy, who had just started following Charlie Company a few days before the June 21st IED blast that killed five of its soldiers. "They'd been great to us, hanging out the night before, doing karaoke," she recalls.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/
article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003710253