Media dereliction of military duty

Media dereliction of military duty
By Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
January 15, 2013

After I posted about the military suicides at an all time high minutes after it was released by Associated Press, I got a call from a reporter. She wasn't asking me what I thought was going on. She didn't want to know what could be done to prevent them. Had no interest in what was behind all of this after vast sums of money had been spent in the last 40 years. You know, the questions that should have been asked considering I've been doing this for 30 years and spend 365 days a year tracking all of these stories plus working with families and veterans to heal or the fact I am working on my second book The Warrior SAW, Suicides After War because of all the false information out there and the suffering of families blaming themselves after someone they loved took their own lives. No, she didn't want to know any of that. She wanted to know how I got these stories so fast.

I told her, first, I know what I'm covering. I know the subjects of all these reports well. Seven days a week, 365 days a year, 12 hour days and haunting dreams keeping me awake at night have produced over 17,000 posts in 5 years on this blog alone. I lost count on the emails I receive and phone calls I take from military families and people I talk to filming events with heartbreaking stories they need to tell someone praying for relief, a kind word, an understanding ear they know will not judge them and more often than not, a hug. Other than that, I'm dedicated to this work because I remember what it was like when all of this was going on and the media was even less interested in these stories than they are now.

When the Washington Post's The Fold put up two video reports, I was among the first to post two breaking news stories. The first piece of news was that 22 veterans a day are committing suicide, up from the 18 the VA had been reporting. I felt for sure this would be all over the news sites. I was wrong. Last night during a conference call with Point Man leaders, I broke that piece of news to sunken hearts along with the latest military suicides at 349. The Fold also did a report on a Navy SEAL Robert Guzzo's suicide and his family when "After Veterans Day, he went to "be with the angels."

Still this reporter was doing what so many others do. I asked her how she compiled a story, what she knew about the military and PTSD. She said she searched Google when she was assigned stories. At that point, I lost my patience and hung up the phone. It happens all the time when someone has to write a "story" on something they don't know anything about.

The worst was when a reporter from the New Yorker, William Finnegan wanted to know about Staff Sgt. Travis Twiggs. I picked up the story and so did my friend Lily Casura at Healing Combat Trauma. Lily has the heart and soul to do this work and did a fantastic job finding more about Travis. Finnegan called her after I told him he should. For days he picked our brains to learn about PTSD and suicide. When it came time to publish his story, later picked up by the UK, he forgot where he got all the information from and said his editor removed reference to our work.

The worst thing about all of this is that while I do have more reports than most sites, I am only one person. Sure I get a lot of hits on a daily basis but the "real media" sites get a hell of a lot more. It makes me sick to know that all these stories are out there but few reporters care about them enough to make the general public aware. Can't imagine how far we could have come if they had cared enough to do the same thing I'm doing.

They have money to advertise their sites and they have money to pay reporters. I can't even get enough in donations to be able to support the work I do for our veterans so advertising is out of the question. That is why I get angry. If they were doing their jobs, I wouldn't have to search day and night to make sure these stories were told to as many people willing to read them.

The next time a reporter feels the need to speed up getting their story out, they better have a check book ready to make a donation for my time. If they had been doing their jobs, I'd spend a lot less time helping grieving families.

Males at Lackland reporting assaults lacking

Another view by Lily Casura: Where are the male victims at Lackland?
Lily Casura
For the Express-News
Monday, January 7, 2013

Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland's sexual assault scandal is troubling. But what's even more troubling is how doubtful it is that all the victims involved have come forward.

The victims — 56 to date — have all been women. And that's just not likely or reasonable to expect.

According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, roughly equal numbers of men and women experience sexual assault in the military, despite different proportions in the Air Force. From 2002-2008, the VA detected 61,126 male and 59,680 female cases of military sexual trauma (MST).

The Air Force, with 332,320 personnel and 63,131 women, is approximately 19 percent female. Yet at Lackland, with 35,000 recruits in basic training every year, and an 80:20 ratio of men to women, 100 percent of the victims so far are women.

Lackland's command, to its credit, seems diligent and thorough about rooting out unwanted sexual conduct and prosecuting perpetrators. But something doesn't add up. Is it the Air Force?

According to an exhaustive survey conducted in 2010 of active-duty personnel, with almost 24,000 service members from every branch responding, Air Force airmen were the least likely to experience unwanted sexual contact, whether women (2.3 percent) or men (0.5 percent).

If those percentages hold true, we would still expect to find 161 women at Lackland and 1,400 men as victims. Yet we've heard from no men at all.
read more here

The Heart-Ship of Loving Veterans with PTSD

It isn't hard to believe that Lily Casura has become an outstanding hero on PTSD. When I think of all the years we've talked and shared, it is hard to remember all the conversations but this one stood out in my mind as well as Lily's. We were talking about the kind of heartache she was heading into working with veterans trying to heal PTSD. First I told her that it was not impossible, but it was almost impossible to get through to them in the beginning. Then I told her that listening to their stories or reading their emails would break her heart but soon she'd see how great these men and women are.

To imagine that depth of pain comes with a person still willing to do it all over again no matter how much they suffered after is a testament to their character. They do not worry as much about themselves as they worry about their families and what this is all doing to them. They tell stories of how they ended up divorced or how they believe they are heading to it. They don't want to hurt anyone and they don't want to hurt anymore. Lily gets it.

Last week she did a post for Valentines Day. I've been out of my mind with classes and trying to keep up but this semester brings killer classes like typography and screenwriting taking up way too many hours a day. I have time to breathe now that several projects due tomorrow are done and wanted to post what she wrote. When she wrote heart-ship, it went right to the point of what love does when it is anything but normal to most, but normal to the world we live in with PTSD getting in the middle.

February 15, 2011

The Heart-Ship of Loving Veterans with PTSD
by
Lily Casura
Valentine's Day -- and coming up next week, five years of writing this site -- are making me think about holding the space of loving veterans with PTSD in my heart, and the "heart-ship" sometimes of doing so.

I was warned early on about this, by none other than Kathie Costos, who I esteem highly to this day. A few years into it, she wrote me in response to some problem I was bringing up, "I told you in the beginning when we first started corresponding that they would break your heart while you did this thankless job but the rewards would be worth millions for your heart. I told you they were magnificent! I am so happy they are starting to tell you how much you mean to them. That's really wonderful and even more important they are opening up. That is a big compliment to your work. They have a hard time opening up to anyone."

Well, open up they have...especially in a forum linked to this, which is the Healing Combat Trauma site on Facebook, and all the different relationships that have come out of that.
read more here
The Heart-Ship of Loving Veterans with PTSD

Danish people more aware of PTSD than we are

To deny an award for certain wounds is wrong. Tell me that TBI caused by a bomb in Iraq or Afghanistan is not the same as having metal pierce the skin or tell me having PTSD is not yet another wound caused by trauma during combat and I'll point to the countless articles on this blog alone proving that these two wounds deeper than skin do in fact matter.

There have been some in this country saying that Washington designed the Purple Heart for wounds, but the truth was he designed it to honor service. It was adopted later on for wounds received during combat at a time when PTSD was still not acknowledged and no one knew about TBI. We know better now but there are still some saying PTSD and TBI are just not worthy of getting the Purple Heart. Well, thank's to Lily over at Healing Combat Trauma, we know the Danes have been ahead of us on this and bravo for them!

October 27, 2010
Those Progressive Danes! Their Purple Heart Just Extended to Include PTSD


Those (ultimately) progressive Danes!

In a momentous development yet to be mentioned in the American or the English language-speaking press, we've learned that Denmark has expanded the criteria for their version of our Purple Heart medal -- given to those who have been wounded physically in combat operations -- to include those who suffer the less-visible wound of post-traumatic stress disorder.

(We wrote about the topic back in 2008, linked here, about whether it would be wise to extend the Purple Heart's criteria to include PTSD. That proposal generates controversy here, but the Danes have since moved past the controversy to actual recognition.)

From an official Danish government publication, issued date October 10, 2010, and translated here: "In 2010 Her Majesty The Queen approved that...veterans who are wounded physically in international operations can receive the Armed Forces Medal for Wounded in Service."

Importantly, the publication adds, "The Government recognizes the psychological harm on an equal footing with physical damage, and has therefore taken the initiative to add recognition of physical and mental injuries treated. The Defense medal "Wounded in Service" will from now on be attributed also to those mentally wounded."

read more here

Those Progressive Danes

A Veteran's Healing Journey

Just too proud of Lily to even try to find the right words for the work she is doing!



A Veteran's Healing Journey


A Vietnam vet, Marine, with 40 years of chronic, severe PTSD goes on a journey to help him heal. Please help us give other veterans this chance. Donate here, or contact us here. Thank you.

Healing Combat Trauma

Combat trauma afflicts women, men alike

In all these years I have met a lot of wonderful people trying to make a difference, offer someone a helping hand and perhaps the most important gift of all is offering hope. Lily has done all of them. She cares about them and wants to help them so she reports on the problems they face like a veteran reporter but Lily has never been satisfied to tell people what is wrong. She wants to tell them what helps so they don't feel as if this is the way the rest of their life has to be. It can change. Because of people like Lily, there is a whole new world opened up for our veterans no matter what age. Read about Healing Combat Trauma and what she has been doing.

Combat trauma afflicts women, men alike
Lily Casura Napa Valley Register
Posted: Sunday, September 19, 2010
A few months ago, I attended the week-long clinical training program in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at the National Center for PTSD in Menlo Park (Veterans Administration) as well as the “Brain at War” conference in San Francisco, put on by the Department of Defense. Both made clear how much money is being spent on research ($500 million), but success stories can be hard to find. PTSD affects veterans, their families and communities; it can also lead to suicide.

Current statistics show an active-duty suicide every 36 hours, and that 18 veterans a day die by their own hand. Suicides are on the rise in every branch of the military that’s seen heavy combat in the current wars — Marines, Army, National Guard — and so far this year, there have been more suicides than combat deaths.

The problem extends to women veterans as well. According to the American Psychiatric Association, “Women veterans are two to three times more likely to commit suicide than nonveteran women” — and also die at a younger age, “between 18 and 34.”

Clearly, the problem is serious and troubling. Suicide is the final step on a journey of misery, pain and despair that can potentially be halted earlier, by intervention that increases a veteran’s chances of survival and success.

Five years ago, after writing about integrative medicine for years, I created the nonprofit Healing Combat Trauma, a website devoted to therapeutic resources for veterans with combat-based PTSD. Today, that’s becoming an actual program to lead combat vets with PTSD through, using integrative medicine — “the best of East and West” — to help them recover from the scars of war.
read more here
Combat trauma afflicts women, men alike

Veterans Remember, Survivors Relive

There are a lot of people in this country trying to suggest that PTSD is something new. It makes life easier on them to write off the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan so they won't have to care about what happens. If they believe they are criminal frauds trying to suck off the system instead of what they really are, then no one has to care about what happens to them. It happens all the time just as advocates are making headway getting rid of the stigma. What cannot be dismissed is this is not a generational problem. It is as old as man. It is not a national problem because all nations entering into warfare have had to make the choice to do the right thing or the easy thing.

We seem to be the nation sending the most into combat but that has never translated into being the first to be able to care for them when they come home. We pride ourselves on having the best military in the world but we don't seem bothered by the fact we are not the best at taking care of our veterans. We may lead in battle but we need to be able to lead in peace afterwards.

This is a great story by Lily Casura about Vietnam veterans. Change the name of the military operation and the years and you have what many of our new veterans face today. The lesson to be learned here is that if we don't take care of the newer veterans today without excuses, 30 or 40 years from now we will be paying the price for allowing them to suffer.

August 23, 2010
Veterans Remember, Survivors Relive: Ken Jones on Vietnam, PTSD and Beyond
by
Lily Casura

Ken Jones, @AKVet on Twitter, is a Vietnam veteran, Ph.D. psychologist, and trail runner, with much to say to our current generation of veterans, starting with "been there, done that" -- and come to terms with it. He's a joy to "follow" on Twitter, but recently he took the time to really spell out what a few of his combat experiences, and coming to terms with their resulting PTSD, had been like. (He's also the author of two free, downloadable e-books on combat and PTSD, which are mentioned in the piece, with hyperlinks that take you to them.)

Another Twitter fan, @BillNigh, took the time to collate some of Ken's recent stream-of-consciousness utterances about being a Vietnam veteran and his own experiences with PTSD into something we can all learn from. Thanks, Bill, and thanks, Ken. Here is Bill's condensing of what Ken wrote on the Web in early August:

"Ken Jones has several chapters in his life that relate to his military tour of service. He suffered battle wounds and PTSD. Now, from a healthy place, and a giving heart, he wants to help fellow, contemporary, vets return Stateside. He offers two free ebooks to anyone interested in the combat experience and in PTSD, "Life After Combat" and "When Our Troops Come Home". Listed below is a stream of consciousness set of posts that he did recently on Twitter on Friday August 6, 2010."

Herewith Ken's reflections:


"We have a "Support Our Troops" effort going on today to get the word out on the two free e-books I wrote about combat induced PTSD. I thought I'd give you a bit of background about how these books came to be.
read more here
Veterans Remember Survivors Relive

A Cheerful Heart Does Good Like a Medicine

My adorable friend Lily over at Healing Combat Trauma , just did it again. She wrote a great piece on the families part in helping veterans heal. If you want to know what she wrote about me, you'll just have to click the link and finish reading it yourself because frankly she gave me too much credit.

While it is true I did what I did because I loved my husband and still do, (we're going on 26 married in September) it was because of what I knew about my husband and his character that I saw veterans through different eyes. I adore all of them.

Lily and I had a discussion about the difference between victim and survivor. What we need to do is see these men and women as survivors of what few other humans have been through. Then maybe we'll understand them better and know how to help more than sit back, feel sorry for them, complain about them and walk away a lot less. With over 300 million people less than one percent of the population serve today and while we have about 24 million veterans in this country, less than that are combat veterans. Understanding them, helping them and their families will in turn help the rest of the population living with PTSD.

Doubt it? Then think about the fact when Vietnam veterans came home there was nothing there for them when they needed help to heal from what used to be called "shell shock" and they were on their own. What they did was fight for the research to help them heal. That research lead to psychologist, mental health workers, more research into trauma and yes, even Chaplains trained in crisis intervention. So much came out of what they did that it is impossible to come close to all the mental health advances made over the last 40 years that did cannot be tied back to them.

How we treat our veterans and the troops will spread into how we all treat each other after traumatic events. It will help everyone understand that the part of the marriage vow of "in sickness and health" does not always come with a physical illness but often with an emotional one. It will help communities join together to help each other the way things used to be when everyone knew their neighbor and could count on them. Our future depends on how we treat these unselfish people willing to lay down their lives for the sake of the rest of us.

Marriages don't have to end. Kids don't have to grow up hating their parent because they don't understand why they act the way they do or blame themselves for it. They don't have to kill themselves or ever reach the point of hopelessness their only option seems to end their lives. None of this has to happen if people would only look at these men and women as survivors of something horrible.

August 06, 2010
A Cheerful Heart Does Good Like a Medicine: The Struggles of Living with PTSD...in Your Spouse
by
Lily Casura
I went to a retreat recently for combat veterans and their families. The retreat is in its third or fourth year of existence, and did a fine job with its core mission, which was providing community for veterans who had lost the camaraderie they'd experienced with other vets in combat. In theory it would also have been a supportive experience for family members who ordinarily might not find anyone else to talk with about living with and loving a combat veteran. PTSD wasn't the focus by any means -- it rarely came up -- but of course because of the demographic, many of the people at the retreat were struggling with the experience of having, or living with, someone with combat-based PTSD. And since the focus of the retreat was building community, not therapeutic counseling, the PTSD topic was somewhat of the elephant in the room, at least to me. So many people experiencing it, on one side of the aisle or another (veteran or spouse), yet few addressing it directly and certainly no one officially.
read more here
A Cheerful Heart Does Good Like a Medicine

Going to the Bunker

Lily Casura has a rare gift. No, I'm not talking about her amazing talent as a reporter but as one with a tremendous heart. There are a lot of people these days attempting to tell a story about lives they really don't understand. Reading a few lines on the subject of PTSD gives them away. You can tell they don't understand what our veterans are like and you can also tell they are just writing a story they were told to write. It happens all the time. In Lily's case, this is what she wants to do because this is where her heart has taken her. She has an informed passion going far beyond a few minutes of a reporters time as if the subject of the interview should feel bless they spent any time at all with them. She pulls people into this world of hell and hope like few others are able to do and I am very, very proud to call her my friend.

Going to the Bunker: A Combat Veteran with PTSD on the Purpose of Protective Isolation

by Lily Casura
Every combat veteran with PTSD knows what is meant by their "bunker," or what "going to their bunker" means. It's a walled-off, isolated situation that allows them to get some space to themselves, away from other people (including family and friends), when they feel particularly triggered, and they need to stay in there for, well, as long as they're going to. They come out when they're ready, and not a moment before. Obviously this situation can be very frustrating to others in the vet's life, but for the vet it affords him or her some very necessary, protective isolation.

The rest of us who aren't combat vets with PTSD I suppose could think of it as the vet putting himself or herself in a time-out from the world, by taking themselves out of the mix, and away from people and stimulation, both bad and good. And the time-out will be over when it's over, because they decide when it's up.

The recent Fourth of July with its fireworks that remind many vets of combat was a classic bunker situation. Many, many vets were making plans before the Fourth for how to protect and insulate themselves from being triggered by the fireworks (noise, smoke, crowds). One Gulf War vet with PTSD who had already isolated himself, wrote of putting a pillow over his head and just wanting it to be over, so that he didn't have to experience it. The next day, fireworks all exploded, he was better. But during, he had to be in the bunker. Another combat vet with PTSD, from the Iraq war this time, talked about staying in her bunker for days, making brief provision runs, every fourth day or so, to the grocery store and then...back to her bunker. When she needed to be in her bunker...

The bunker concept/construct is so typical to combat vets with PTSD that I thought I'd ask one who I know fairly well how he'd describe it. He has decades of PTSD "experience" under his belt, and I've also seen him retreat to his bunker at various times. A month one time, a week another time, the last time, a day. Sometimes even a few hours. But however long the episode lasts, during that time: totally unreachable. And realistically, you better not even try...because it just makes the situation worse.
red more of this here

Going into the bunker


Busting out of the bunker

by
Lily Casura
Probably spent 20% of my life in a bunker, hiding, wanting to die, not having the nerve to shoot myself; hoping that the diseases and the meds would finally do me in.

I just didn’t know how to be happy. There was no joy in my life. There’s no reason to live. My family used to ask me, 'How can you look at what you’ve done, and tell me that you have no purpose in life? You don’t understand.' Problem was, I didn’t understand. I did not know why I didn’t have the capacity to have joy, to love anyone or to have fun. I just know I’d tried religion, I’d tried everything the VA could throw at me, in-house therapy, group therapy, self-help, medication, I tried working myself to death, I tried getting rich, I tried doing stupid things to harm myself (go back into combat situations), where maybe if I revisited it; I tried going to The Wall; and something would just not allow to want to live, or be happy, or enjoy being in my life. I couldn’t look around and see the flowers, let alone smell them. All the roses in my life were wilted; not because they were, but because of my vision of them was wilted."

read more of this here

Busting out of the bunker at last

How did we get to PTSD awareness day?

Maybe you thought it was strange that this is PTSD Awareness Day, but a PTSD blog has been silent. I've been busy editing a video I shot yesterday about a fantastic group out of Orlando, Semper Fidelis and how they are getting ready to go to the Orlando VA to have a 4th of July Cookout with over 200 patients and employees there.

We seem to always forget how we get to where we are simply because while the media may report on the bad stuff, and usually it ends up helping as with PTSD, but in the process, they ignore a lot of good work being done. This country is full of regular people stepping up to make this country a better place but you'd never know most of them. What you do end up knowing is the results of their hard work when things change for the better. As with Semper Fidelis, no one knew who they were or what they've been doing all this time. I was even shocked to find out as much as I did. (Check back tomorrow for the videos on this interview.)

The best part about being involved in working toward helping the veterans, aside for meeting the veterans themselves, are the people who worked so hard to get us to a day set aside to raise awareness for PTSD.

One of the reasons we got here is Lily Casura. She has worked so hard without recognition but had it not been for people like her, this day wouldn't have happened. What you don't know about Lily is that reporters have used her worked and never bothered to even thank her or mention her. Other people jumped on stories she worked for hours on just so they could claim it for themselves. Over the years, she's wondered why she has worked so hard but will never give up because her heart is dedicated to helping our veterans. She's simply an amazing woman and I've very proud to call her my friend. Well, it looks as if Lily had finally gotten some big time support from the Founder of Craigslist with a post on the Huffington Post.

When you read it, understand that had it not been for people like Lilly and my other friend Paul Sullivan over at Veterans for Common Sense, and a lot of other groups pushing to make change happen, there wouldn't be a day to mention at all. Just a lot more endless hopeless days for a lot more veterans and their families.

Bravo Lily! I adore you even more!

Craig Newmark
Founder of Craigslist
Posted: June 26, 2010 04:51 PM
"Healing combat trauma" and "The Brain at War"
Okay, people are supporting the troops in ways that are deeply important, in ways that as a country, we got a lot of work to do. There are physical injuries that even I can understand, but beyond that, there's traumatic brain injury (TBI) and the invisible damage to troops, like post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD.)

Recently the NCIRE and The Veterans Health Research Institute, ran the "The Brain at War" conference, which I attended briefly. (I'm not very tough, and this stuff is hard to hear.) This was all about helping vets deal with these real problem. I don't really understand a lot, so I'll get out of the way, and hear from someone with real expertise.

Check out Healing Combat Trauma and specifically, "The Brain at War" Conference in San Francisco:click link for the rest of this

Or you could go to my friend Lily's site and read the great work she's been doing.

June 27, 2010 is "National PTSD Awareness Day"
Amazingly enough -- and suddenly, because the U.S. Senate just passed it -- tomorrow is "National PTSD Awareness Day." Even MORE amazingly, the text of the resolution is very veteran-focused (yippee!).
Here's the full text of the bill. Enjoy! My only quibble is that the numbers seem a little on the low side, but mebbe not. (Actually, the advocacy group Veterans for Common Sense, led by veteran and former VA bureaucrat, Paul Sullivan, lists the numbers as much higher. See link here for current information.)
And, of course, a focus on treatment through integrative medicine would also be nice. It alludes to, but does not mention directly MST (military sexual trauma), which plagues women and men in the Armed Forces AND which unfortunately also leads directly to PTSD. The combination is often too much to bear. With all those caveats, it's still a great bill, and we appreciate any and all emphasis on the topic, as beneficial to veterans, their loved ones, their caregivers, decision-makers, and the general larger community of humankind.

click the link above for more

Combat veterans, families pay heavy price

My friend, Lily Casura wrote another great article you should read.

Combat veterans, families pay heavy price
By Lily G. Casura
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Recently I had the opportunity to attend a memorial service of sorts at the St. Helena Library, honoring the 500-plus California service members who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, including 10 from Napa and Sonoma counties. The brief biographies, complete with photos, of all those killed were poignant and moving; as were the longer bios of the local soldiers, which audience members stood and read, frequently with tears.

The causes of death for all 500-plus ran the gamut: frequently improvised explosive devices (IEDs) or small-arms fire. But sprinkled throughout were the telling deaths from “non-combat injuries,” sometimes shorthand for a soldier killing him or herself. Of course, once combat veterans return, the difficulties only continue. Veterans who committed suicide after returning from war weren’t included in the rolls of who we honored that night.

A few days later, I was saddened to read of another service member’s death. Roy Brooks Mason Jr., 28, originally from Fairfield, a two-tour Iraq war veteran who’d come home with PTSD, took his life in Capitola.

Mason’s death highlights the ongoing problem of returning veterans, PTSD and suicide. A childhood friend was quoted in the local paper, saying that “Mason wrote several letters before killing himself, including one to a … congressman, in which he asked for more intense screening and other help for returning soldiers.”
go here for more
Combat veterans, families pay heavy price

Honoring the sacrifices of veterans still needs work

This is from my friend Lily Casura over at Healing Combat Trauma. She went to an event for Memorial Day that was not well attended.


There were many times over the years that I understood military and veterans families are a minority in this nation but even knowing that, when you're surrounded by other veterans and their families, you realize that this is one minority it's a honor to be among.

Rolling Thunder's Ride for The Wall produced, as with every year, hundreds of thousands of veterans and supporters. The Nam Knights ended up with hundreds of their own. They came from all over the country at their own expense and some of them spent the year saving up for this trip to honor the fallen from Vietnam. Financial hardship in a down economy aside, there were also the endless miles of riding motorcycles to get there, facing rain, crazy drivers and traffic jams. All of it was worth it to every single one.

Across the nation there were gatherings to honor the fallen from all wars and most were well attended because people care and wanted in someway to honor the sacrifices made by showing up instead of just offering slogans like "Freedom isn't free" because their hearts are tugged to be there in solidarity.

The event covered by my friend Lily normally would have saddened me but after what I witnessed Memorial Day weekend in Washington DC, I know enough people care enough to go above and beyond to prove it.

I grew up surrounded by veterans and married one. Most of the groups we've belonged to over the years have been veteran related. We don't know any other way of life although we do have other interests, we know our non-veteran friends cannot relate to any of this so we just enjoy their company as Americans and friends. For the most part, we spend the bulk of our days with other veterans and their families and I, well you know what I do because you read it here everyday on this blog. Sure there are more popular blogs with the usual posts touching the masses and what is popular in the news, but to tell the truth given the fact I can post on anything I want, I'd rather spend my time doing something to focus on veterans and the troops. They are the vast majority of my posts because I understand what it's like. My speciality is trauma related but it's the veterans tugging at my heart the most. The way I figure it, this minority should be getting a lot more attention than they do and I'm just doing my part to help that happen. I'm also grateful people like Lily are out there and showing up at ceremonies to honor the fallen as well as being fully invested in telling their stories. She's been a great friend to veterans for a very long time and a very dear friend of mine.

Honoring the sacrifices of veterans still needs work
By Lily G. Casura
Thursday, June 04, 2009
As part of last week’s celebrations around Memorial Day, I went to the presentation at the St. Helena public library on Thursday night, intended to honor those locally who had died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2000. The presentation honored veterans who had lost their lives from both Napa and Sonoma counties, and there were 10 of them — in addition to over 500 from California, total.

The program, which was held in the library’s wine collection room, represented the work of several volunteers and many hours, and was led by Jennifer Baker, library director.

There could be a number of reasons, but veterans themselves have one. Scrawled in black dry-erase marker on a white board in Iraq, one Marine wrote, “America isn’t at war. The U.S. military is at war. America is at the mall …”

go here for more

Honoring the sacrifices of veterans still needs work

Travis Twiggs: The Un-Happy One Year Anniversary

The following comes from my friend Lily Casura over at Healing Combat Trauma. It's hard to believe a year has come and gone since the days she was posting about Travis Twiggs. If you want to know the tragedy of Camp Liberty could have been prevented, take the links she has up on Travis and know none of this should have been allowed to happen.

May 14, 2009
Travis Twiggs: The Un-Happy One Year Anniversary of Combat PTSD's Perhaps Most Visible Death
by Lily Casura
Just a brief note to mention, it was one year ago today that Travis Twiggs passed from this earth, by his own hand, the veritable poster boy of combat-based PTSD. It also marks his brother Willard's passing, who left this earth with Travis, apparently by Travis' hand. It's an absolute tragedy, for any number of reasons -- from the family members and friends the Twiggs brothers leave behind -- to the fact that Travis, personally, was making an impact as a Marine who broke the code of silence, so to speak, and spoke openly about his PTSD. Twiggs wrote about his ordeal in the January, 2008 issue of the Marine Corps Gazette, in an article that has been widely circulated, and is still available on the Web.

Travis Twiggs' suffering was something that really stood out to me -- perhaps because of his very willingness to speak openly about his struggles, something Marines.Just.Don't.Do. We actually broke the news of his death on this blog, before the mainstream media had reported on it -- and in fact, the early reports were wrong on the facts but widely repeated, making the damage that much more painful. (He and his brother were reputed to be hardened criminals, for example, which they were not, although they had been -- at the last -- involved in a carjacking, as part of their initially ill-fated but ultimately successful desire to end their lives. In fact, Twiggs was a much-decorated Marine with multiple combat tours behind him, who had recently met the president, and whose Marines (and his family) deeply loved him. His brother, Willard, was well-loved as well. A year later, not a day goes by that people don't find this site out of a search they're doing for Travis or Willard; and in the days after their death, searches for Willard were almost as popular as those for Travis, though Willard was obviously shyer and less well known. And these tragedies were not the only ones the Twiggs family suffered in a very short amount of time: their beloved grandmother also passed away within days of the Twiggs' brothers' deaths. Hard, hard times for the Twiggs' family, and for all those who loved Travis and Willard.
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Travis Twiggs: The Un-Happy One Year Anniversary

The Double-Edged Sword Called "HOPE"

January 22, 2009

The Double-Edged Sword Called "HOPE"
by Lily Casura
Healing Combat Trauma
"Got hope?" the Obama bumper sticker asked. (Hey, we're non-partisan here, it's just an illustration to make a point.)

The reality is, hope turns out to be VITAL, not optional, in someone's struggle to "heal." And "healing," of course, is not specifically an end-result, a "one and done" event -- but a progress along a continuum.

Even the Bible talks about how, "without vision, the people perish." Emily Dickinson, who it's easy to imagine as a profoundly depressed, but nevertheless highly imaginative New England poet, referred in one of her more famous poems to hope "as a thing with feathers." Meaning, pretty airy, light-weight, and able to fly away. Hard to trap and catch, hard to hang onto. If you put the two concepts together, though, hope is both necessary AND hard to hard to hang onto. No wonder it's so important.

Over the last few months, I've been watching as a hardened combat veteran, with severe PTSD, has stepped out of his comfort zone, and put his "hope" to the test: Hope that there was a life for him outside the realms of severe combat trauma. It's been incredibly interesting and refreshing to see what's happened to him since. And hope shows up at every turn. Without going into it in much depth here -- there'll be another time and place for that -- I've been able to see his physiology as well as his psychology change, in just a few short months -- and I've seen the renewal of "hope" this has caused within him. For one thing, hope to be considered more than just another "crazy, effed-up combat veteran" -- the mask he's apparently worn for society for years (decades, in his case). Hope that he can have an actual life and happiness beyond what he had been reconciled to, by virtue of "throwing off" some of what's hindered him (the Biblical wording here is purely incidental.)

The deal about having a mask that you wear, as a combat vet, because it's what society expects of you -- and it's also what allows you to keep other people at bay -- is a very interesting concept in its own right. It helps, but it also hinders. It frees, but it also constrains. And suddenly, with better health, comes the realization that it may be time to consider laying that mask down, at least part-time.

Whoa. Strangely...that turns out to be a tad problematic.

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Healing Combat Trauma: A Growth Benchmark of Our Own

Congratulations to Lily Casura of Healing Combat Trauma! Most of my readers know Lily is a wonderful friend of mine and couldn't be prouder of her. I know her work, dedication and her passion. I hope you visit her site so you can see what I mean. She really is an amazing woman.

December 01, 2008
A Growth Benchmark of Our Own
Today, we passed 100,000 page views on this blog for the year to date, a growth of 10,000x over last year, and 100,000x over the first full year of the blog, in 2006.

May it represent some sort of fulfillment of the intention here: To provide a framework of the therapeutic resources for healing combat trauma, and a way for veterans, their families, their providers and policy decisionmakers to take a look at some options besides the ordinary ones that may bring combat veterans some catharsis through their suffering. Fantastic if it does, and we believe it can.

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http://www.healingcombattrauma.com/2008/12/a-growth-benchmark-of-our-own.html

Advocating for Napa’s veterans

A wonderful story of a veteran serving veterans everyday, not just one. This was also written by a wonderful friend, Lily Casura who blogs at Healing Combat Trauma. Consider this. When my brother passed away last month, I had to fly back to Massachusetts. Lily was attending to some family business in Rhode Island. She is such a dear friend that she drove up to see me and attended the wake. While we've been emailing and talking on the phone for a few years, we never met. Lily did all that just to support me in my time of need. She's an amazing woman with a heart of gold!

Advocating for Napa’s veterans
By LILY G. CASURA
For the Register
Patrick Jolly is so dedicated to helping veterans, he even started opening a claim for one he happened to meet while standing in line during a vacation at Disneyland.

Jolly, a Vietnam Navy vet, has been Napa County’s Veteran Services Officer (VSO) since 2006, when he came to Napa from years spent doing the same job in Sonoma County.
Today, 11,000 Napa veterans of various wars as far back as World War II — or 25,000 people, if you include veterans’ family members — rely on Jolly to get the straight scoop about filing claims, getting benefits approved and learning what they’re entitled to.

“We’re very lucky to have him,” said Carol Sanders, senior office assistant with Napa’s Comprehensive Services for Older Adults, who is herself a six-year veteran of the Air Force. “He cares so much about his clientele,” she says, adding, “As a veteran myself, I appreciate that he’s here for county veterans.”

Jolly arrives in his office before 7 a.m. most mornings to respond to the many needs of local veterans. He gets an average of 300 phone calls a month — just transcribing the messages veterans and their families leave on his voicemail takes up multiple pages of a legal pad daily. The best way to get in touch with Jolly is actually by email — vets@napavets.com — because he can’t pick up the phone when he’s with a client, or when he’s researching a veteran’s claim.

Jolly spends the bulk of his time in the office, but sometimes he goes to convalescent homes to meet with veterans, or even makes house calls to consult with those who aren’t able to make it into his office in downtown Napa. He also heads to the Veterans Home in Yountville frequently. There’s a memorial service there every month for the often eight to 12 veterans who have died the month before. Jolly is such a treasured friend that periodically he’s asked to do a veteran’s eulogy, or present the memorial flag to the family member.
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Veterans:A powerful force for healing the world

From Lily Casura at Healing Combat Trauma, a friend of mine and a true friend of veterans.

August 17, 2008
Veterans Can Be a "Powerful Force for Healing in the World"


Again from Claude Anshin Thomas, a lovely quote about the true power of the combat veteran's experience. For every veteran who suffers whether silently or with loud cries and tears; or who ends his or her life because they simply can't take the pain anymore (and I wish they wouldn't -- they have so much to give), here's a reflection on what their experience can really communicate:



"At the retreat Thich Nhat Hanh said to us, “You veterans are the light at the tip of the candle. You burn hot and bright. You understand deeply the nature of suffering.” He told us that the only way to heal, to transform suffering, is to stand face-to-face with suffering, to realize the intimate details of suffering and how our life in the present is affected by it.
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http://www.healingcombattrauma.com/2008/08/veterans-can-
be-a-powerful-force-for-healing-in-the-world.html

The Vietnam Veteran as Exile: Missing in America, But Hidden in Plain Sight

Another great post by my friend Lily at Healing Combat Trauma

August 15, 2008
The Vietnam Veteran as Exile: Missing in America, But Hidden in Plain Sight
My friend the veteran artist John Paul Hornbeck made this flag -- I just love it. It carries forward the whole issue of POW/MIA into the present day, by asking in effect why the veteran is "still" Missing in America (that's the "MIA" part these days.) He mocked up this flag, using the old and familiar symbol, to highlight the cause of homeless veterans in America -- a cause worth addressing.

I'm broadening the point, though, to something else:

Why ARE Vietnam veterans, in particular, still exiles in their own land?

And what should we, as a country, be doing about that?
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http://www.healingcombattrauma.com/2008/08/the-veteran-as-
exile-missing-in-america---in-plain-sight.html

Twice Betrayed: Women Veterans and Military Sexual Trauma

I started a group over on YouTube
Speaking out on PTSD
Videos: 16 Members: 6 0 Discussions
PTSD is a wound. No one would be ashamed of a bullet wound. Why be ashamed of this wound? End the silence and break the stigma.

The videos in this group are about PTSD with the bulk of them, PTSD from combat.

Two of the videos on this group are about women at war and afterwards.

The Voice Women At War09:49
From:NamGuardianAngelViews: 709

Women At War08:02
From:NamGuardianAngelViews: 8,838

I am what people call empathic because I can get into the pain others feel.

Main Entry: em·pa·thy
Function: noun
Pronunciation: 'em-p&-the
Etymology: Greek empatheia, literally, passion, from empathes emotional, from em- + pathos feelings, emotion -- more at PATHOS
1 : the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it
2 : the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner ; also : the capacity for this

This annoyed the hell out of my husband until he finally got used to it. It came out one day early in our relationship. He got really angry "How dare you get into my world? You weren't there! I was!" I told him that he's the one who opened the door to let me in. I didn't ask to get into his world, into the pain, into the sadness any more than I asked for the rest of what came with entering.

For the following post from Lily over at Healing Combat Trauma to really sink in, just for this moment, try to be empathic. Close your eyes for a second and then pretend you were willing to die for the sake of your country. You trained to do the job you would need to do in Vietnam, in Kuwait, in Afghanistan or in Iraq. You live, eat, train with the men who were also willing to lay down their lives for the same country. The warrior ethos reverberates in your ears. You know you can trust those you serve with, with your life, but what you can't do is to trust them with your honor. You cannot trust them to not view you as an object. You know you can trust most of them but things have gotten so out of control, you wonder who is sizing you up next to other women so they can attack you and rape you.

This has been a problem in the military for a very long time. It's not just the attacks or the harassment a few in the military inflict, because of what is not reported in the media enough. Women stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan, in over 100 degrees of heat, stop drinking fluids early in the day. This damages their body as they dehydrate. Why are they doing this? To avoid having to go to the latrine in the middle of the night. They are that fearful of attacks. It's one thing to have to fear being attacked by the enemy or a roadside bomb. It's another to have to fear the others who have your life in their hands as well as weapons to use against you. This is a very serious problem and needs serious attention. Rape is a crime and should be treated like it but rape in the military should be treated as more severe than in civilian life. If you have any empathy in you at all, can picture yourself in the same position then pick up the phone and contact your congressman or congresswoman. They are all home now and need to hear from you.

August 07, 2008
Twice Betrayed: Women Veterans and Military Sexual Trauma
It's my deep-seated belief that women veterans who suffer military sexual trauma risk being twice betrayed: once by their perpetrator in uniform, once by the system itself, which should be doing a much better job of protecting them from a problem that's too apparent, widespread, and part of the actual culture to pretend that it doesn't exist.

See Jeff Benedict on this:
"But an occupation that thrives on a unique capacity for aggression among participants runs the risk of being a home for troubled men who cannot contain their rage against the opposite sex." -- Jeff Benedict, author of "Public Heroes, Private Felons"
Preventing Psychological Injury, Betrayal and Trauma: The Real “Costs” and “Treatment” of Military Sexual Trauma

Sometimes I think I miss the point on some of these blog posts: I’m too busy trying to set the stage and establish the “milieu” so that a thoughtful person can absorb it all and come away with a new outlook or two on a “same old” problem. But maybe I’m failing to come right out and say what I’m really thinking, and God knows enough people are floundering around on this topic who shouldn’t be, so maybe I just will. Here goes the suddenly editorial portion of our program:

We heard Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D., pretty much the foremost expert nationally on veterans and PTSD, talk the other day about the “psychological injury” that troops are exposed to from lack of sleep, before and after combat, and how that sets them up for significant problems. True; agreed; understood. What we’re talking about here with women in the military and military sexual trauma is a similar thing: preventing and treating what is a grievous psychological injury – and one like what Shay talks about, something where the proverbial “ounce of prevention” is worth the “pound of cure.” Shay is remarkable: he’s one of a kind. There’s probably no better advocate for veterans in the country, although anyone who works with veterans from the heart is worthy of great honor. It’s a pretty much unsung, undervalued calling.
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http://www.healingcombattrauma.com/2008/08/twice-
betrayed-women-veterans-and-military-sexual-trauma-1.html

Lily Casura, In the trenches of Army of love

Lily Casura, In the trenches of Army of love

Out of all the people I know doing this kind of work, covering PTSD and our troops, Lily gets into the trenches with them, figuratively, with the way she digs at stories. She has a reporters talent, that's for sure. I'm just trying to post as much as possible so that stories don't get missed. I think it's because of how little was reported after Vietnam, that I come with deep appreciation for all the reporting being done now. Sure, I put in my two cents as the "expert chaplain" but I'm an educator/essayists and not a reporter. I just don't have the talent to be one. Lily does. Read the kind of week she just had and then think of the kind of weeks she usually has. Also keep in mind that both of us do this out of love. It sure isn't for the money.

July 12, 2008
And What a Week It Was...
This isn't a confessional/journal type blog, so my even posting this recap of "veterans, PTSD and my week" might seem out of place on it, but this past week was full of nuggets of interest at least to me -- and perhaps also to you -- that I just have to do it, if only just this once. The items are all pretty miscellaneous as well, though linked around a common theme. So sit tight, and I'll try to make this as painless as possible :-) -- although it promises, as always, to be a veritable "linkfest," to follow up at your leisure.

Started the week by learning about the crisis humanitarian photographer Zoriah was in, recently embedded with the Marines in Iraq, who'd run afoul of the Marines for posting photos of dead American servicemen on his blog, even though he'd done so with great restraint, and in effort to show the grim realities of war -- realities we're increasingly prevented from seeing, except in the most sanitized of ways. It was a shame to see how discordant and rancorous the debate over what he'd done became, but it was great to see him hold his head up high and help keep the focus on his work.

(This photo is from Zoriah's excellent, true-to-life war coverage blog, linked here and used with permission. It appears to be of a solitary American servicemember enjoying a lonely Fourth of July lunch in the chow hall on his base in Iraq.)

That gave me the chance to write another post about censorship and the Marines -- which seems to be an ongoing problem -- and mention the case of Eric Acevedo again -- only to find out from the IAVA blog, later in the week, that censorship is alive and well -- restricting freedom of the press -- even in funerals at Arlington National Cemetery. Gina Gray seems to have been fired from her job as Public Affairs Director for the cemetery, by the Army, essentially for being a whistleblower, and trying to protect the public's right to know. Depressing. If seeing is believing, I guess we're now not supposed to see anything, either. Rats...

---

A friend of mine, code named the Beautiful Redhead, has a Marine husband (1/25 - "New England's Own") is just about to return from his umpteenth deployment. That reminded me that the wonderful Ray Scurfield, D.S.W., had sent me some of his writings and given me permission to post them on this blog, which gave me an opportunity to post "Home Sweet Home: After Deployment, What? Support for Returning Veterans and Their Families" in her honor. On the other side of the coin, another buddy of mine, Kathie Costos, (mentioned elsewhere in this post), in her most rabble-rousing blog post of the week, questions why she gets so much static from wives of deployed military, who seemingly want to push the truths of war and its coverage aside. She argues firmly that knowledge is power, and produces compassion and understanding, even (or especially) for wives and families, whose veterans sometimes need a listening ear on the homefront, about what they've experienced. Read that post, questioning whether it's really bliss to be oblivious, here.

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