Review: Changes needed in Guard, Reserve pay
Stars and Stripes
Published: July 2, 2012
A Pentagon review of compensation members of the National Guard and reservists receive is recommending that changes be made to make salaries and benefits more equitable, according to an article from The Associated Press.
Guard members and reservists normally receive two days of pay for each weekend day they spend training in the States, but only receive one day’s pay when deployed to Afghanistan, according to the article.
read more here
Showing posts with label citizen soldiers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label citizen soldiers. Show all posts
Monday, July 2, 2012
Friday, August 19, 2011
UK Study shows their "citizen" soldiers suffer more too
For anyone in the United States still in denial of what we're facing, read this.
We have politicians right here in this country trying to cut back on the funding needed to help them heal but above that, they are trying to stand in the way of them being able to live, pay their bills and take care of their families. PTSD is one more part of war they need to be armed to fight. They get what the weapons they need in combat but not the weapons they need to heal from it.
The numbers we're seeing today are just the beginning of all of this and no one is ready to help them fight this battle.
"Troops who do not get help for mental illnesses often face problems including homelessness, social exclusion, mental health problems, drug and alcohol abuse and fall into crime.We are already seeing the percentages and none of them are good. A third of the Marines, 40% of the soldiers and 50% of the National Guards/Reservists have PTSD. We've seen the numbers go up on attempted suicides, suicides, homelessness, divorce and yes, crimes. The biggest thing we are not told about is that most of these combat veterans could be saved from suffering from all of this if they were helped when their PTSD was mild. Most of it could have been reversed before it claimed every other aspect of their lives. For the 14 years they are not seeking help, they are not healing. Life piles onto the pain they already carry and it all gets worse.
It typically takes 14 years for veterans to seek help once they have left the Armed Forces."
TA soldiers at greater risk of mental health problems and alcohol abuse on their return to the UK
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Transition: Territorial Army soldiers returning from Afghanistan are more likely to suffer mental health problems than full-time troops because of the struggle to readjust to civilian life
British Army reserves returning from Afghanistan are more likely to suffer mental health problems than full-time troops because they struggle more to readjust to civilian life.
Many Territorial Army soldiers found the transition from military life to be 'challenging' - putting them at greater risk of developing serious psychological problems linked to the battlefield.
Reservists were more likely to feel people at home did not understand what they had been through overseas, less likely to feel supported by the military and have more difficulty resuming normal social activities, according to the latest research.
Those left feeling unsupported after leaving their regiments were most vulnerable to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression or alcohol abuse.
'The main message from this study is that those who wish to help reservists cope with the psychological impact of deployment need to not only focus on what happens during a tour of duty, but to consider what occurs after they return home.'
Military charities have repeatedly warned that the UK is facing a 'ticking timebomb' of ex-servicemen who are suffering potentially life-changing mental disorders following intense conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
read more here
We have politicians right here in this country trying to cut back on the funding needed to help them heal but above that, they are trying to stand in the way of them being able to live, pay their bills and take care of their families. PTSD is one more part of war they need to be armed to fight. They get what the weapons they need in combat but not the weapons they need to heal from it.
The numbers we're seeing today are just the beginning of all of this and no one is ready to help them fight this battle.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
From combat to campus young Minnesota National Guardsmen
Photo by Mark Luinenburg
Ross Hedlund and other war veterans struggle to fit in.
U OF M ALUMNI ASSOCIATION'S MINNESOTA MAGAZINE
From combat to campus
By J. Trout Lowen
University of Minnesota student Steve Biorn spent a year in Iraq with the Minnesota National Guard, serving as a gunner on a Humvee patrolling "Route Irish," the notorious artery between the Green Zone and the airport in Baghdad, and patrolling the city's suburbs on foot. When he returned to Minnesota, Biorn wanted to talk about anything but Iraq.
After 18 months away from home, Biorn says, "I wanted to wear jeans and drive my car and grow my hair out and not shave forever.
University student Ross Hedlund served in Iraq nearly a year in 2004. When he returned home, he found that most people weren't that interested in where he'd been or what he done. "I don't think very many people care," he says.
Hedlund admits he also had a hard time talking about the work he did, directing counterfire from mortars, artillery, and aircraft and tracking the result. "I had a real hard time adjusting when I got back, I guess because I didn't talk about anything very much."
These days Biorn and Hedlund have been talking more about their experiences in Iraq and what it's like to come home. Both were interviewed as part of a new oral history project conducted by the U's Center for Democracy and Citizenship at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs in cooperation with the Minnesota National Guard.
The oral history project is just one part of a larger effort called the Warrior to Citizen Campaign. Begun in May 2007, the campaign is a grassroots effort to help veterans reintegrate into their home communities and help those communities tap into the skills returning veterans acquired during their military service.
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Sunday, September 21, 2008
Guard, Reserve Observe Suicide Prevention Month
Who trained these people? Is this psychologist out of her mind?
When a person is sitting in front of a screening officer, then the question, "Are you thinking of killing yourself" maybe, and I do mean maybe, ok but not from a friend. That's the worst way to ask that question. If they are not thinking of it, then they just put the idea into their friends head.
I've been to enough Chaplains training sessions to know the way you ask someone about their state of mind is as important as asking them. The last thing you want to do is basically offer a solution to someone's problem by saying " Have you thought about killing yourself?" Knowing to not say something like this is basic chaplain training and it is astonishing that a psychologist would put out this kind of information as "helpful" when dealing with someone clearly in need of help, understanding and a friend. Each word used must be carefully thought out.
Next, taking away their weapons will not work because if they are planning on killing themselves, they will find another way. They use ropes to hang themselves. Knives to cut themselves. They use their cars and motorcycles. They use pills. You cannot assume that if you take away a gun, they are safe.
The advice from the Army was fine. You need to figure out the situation carefully. Getting them the help they need is always the most important and if you are wrong, you showed your friend you care about them if it turns out to be simple depression without any danger to your friend. If it is not serious enough that they are thinking about killing themselves, at least it does help to talk to someone who cares to get them through it and should they require more help then they are in the right place to find it.
Taking this step by step:
A change in the way a person acts is a warning bell but not the only one. Some of them are great actors. People who know them very well will see the changes because they live with them and know how they reacted to all different kinds of situations. Be ready to listen to a spouse or a parent if they should begin to talk to you about their concerns.
Giving away possessions is common unless they have a habit of doing it. There are a lot of generous people out there who just cannot develop a connection to material objects. If they are giving away a lot of what they have all of a sudden then that is an alarm bell.
Talking less, drinking more are alarms.
Change in personal hygiene is an alarm. Someone who is suddenly a slob, not concerned with the way they look, not showering or shaving, not eating, all should cause alarms.
Someone who was usually happy, liked being around people, no longer laughing and avoiding friends and functions is a scream for help. Basically changes in character means changes inside.
The real emergency arises if they talk about killing themselves, have a plan, a means to do it and have exhibited any of the other warning signs.
Sometimes it's just talk because they cannot find the right words to explain how they feel. You may have had friends in such deep emotional pain that will say "I just want to die" but had no plan on doing it or intention to die. In that moment of extreme pain, they want to communicate the depth of that pain. Asking them "Have you thought about killing yourself" is the worst thing to ask them. Ask them what's going on and then give them time to formulate the words to let you know. Don't push them for an answer because you are in a hurry. This is important enough to have your full attention.
If you do anything, make sure they know what they tell you is being heard by someone who cares about them and will stand by them until they get better. They need to know they are worth your time and you are a real friend to them. They need to know you are watching their backs just as observantly as you did in combat.
You also need to know if they are thinking about harming anyone else. This is a whole other topic.
For now, just make sure you don't put ideas into their heads that they may not be thinking of. I can't believe a psychologist even suggested such a thing. I can only hope she was not thinking clearly in the interview and used a very poor choice of words.
Again very poor choice of words or really, really dangerous advice. Asking them with that choice of words is making it worse and allowing them to think that suicide is an option. Then by adding in "you will help them" allows them to think you will help them kill themselves. These are people in crisis and these are the last words they need to hear.
It is great the Guard and Reserves are taking all of this seriously but we all have to. Communities these men and women coming back to need to be aware of the signs to watch out for and given the tools they need to help. If everyone is involved in their healing there will be a lot of lives saved. Knowledge is not only power but could very well save their lives.
Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
http://www.namguardianangel.org/
http://www.woundedtimes.blogspot.com/
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington
Guard, Reserve Observe Suicide Prevention Month
This entry was posted on 9/20/2008 9:09 PM and is filed under Politics '08 - 08.
By AmericasNewsToday.Org staff
Sergeant Smith has started coming to work late.
The usually punctual, upbeat soldier has not been on time for two weeks straight, and he seems withdrawn and distracted. His co-workers don’t want to pry, but they know he’s just ended a two-year relationship with his girlfriend and he took the breakup pretty badly.
On top of that, his unit got the word that in six months they will be deploying to Afghanistan again. Yesterday Sergeant Smith gave away an entire binder of CDs to another soldier, claiming he didn’t have use for them any more. During his lunch breaks, he sits at his desk with headphones on and writes letters to various people in his family.
If someone you know displays this type of behavior, Army Chaplain (Maj.) Douglas Brown said, you may need to ask the person if everything is OK.
"When someone is thinking about hurting themselves, they often show signs of odd behavior," said Brown, the post deputy chaplain at Camp Atterbury, Ind., "[such as] not talking as much, withdrawing from former pleasures, giving away possessions."
The Army observed National Suicide Prevention Week last week, and from Sept. 6 through Oct. 5 the Army National Guard and Army Reserve are observing Suicide Prevention Month. The Army is encouraging soldiers to watch out for their battle buddies, and as one way to encourage intervention, they’re promoting the "ACE" – Ask, Care, Escort – concept, and have printed up wallet-size cards to explain it to soldiers:
— Ask your buddy the question directly: Are you thinking about killing yourself?
— Care for your buddy by listening, staying calm and removing harmful items from his/her possession.
— Escort your buddy to someone within your chain of command, the chaplain or a behavioral health professional.Dr. Marsha Rockey, a psychologist in the behavioral health office at Camp Atterbury, said that most of the time a soldier is seen immediately when he or she comes in.
"The first thing we do is figure out how to keep them safe and how to get them the help they need," she said, "so they don’t feel like hurting themselves is the only solution."
Rockey said when troops come to see her, she and the person come up with a safety plan where they find someone to stay with the servicemember at all times and get the servicemember to give up the means of self-injury.
She said one mistaken belief that people have about suicide is that there’s no stopping a person who decides to do it. "Most people don’t want to die; they just want help," Rockey said. "They just don’t want to be in pain, whether that’s psychological or physical pain."
Rockey said one way a buddy can help is by talking to the person in a direct manner.
"Don’t be afraid to ask, ‘Have you thought about killing yourself?’ " she said. "You asking about it is not going to make it worse." If the person answers "yes," she said, tell them you will help them, remind them that you care and take them somewhere to get help.
When a person is sitting in front of a screening officer, then the question, "Are you thinking of killing yourself" maybe, and I do mean maybe, ok but not from a friend. That's the worst way to ask that question. If they are not thinking of it, then they just put the idea into their friends head.
I've been to enough Chaplains training sessions to know the way you ask someone about their state of mind is as important as asking them. The last thing you want to do is basically offer a solution to someone's problem by saying " Have you thought about killing yourself?" Knowing to not say something like this is basic chaplain training and it is astonishing that a psychologist would put out this kind of information as "helpful" when dealing with someone clearly in need of help, understanding and a friend. Each word used must be carefully thought out.
Next, taking away their weapons will not work because if they are planning on killing themselves, they will find another way. They use ropes to hang themselves. Knives to cut themselves. They use their cars and motorcycles. They use pills. You cannot assume that if you take away a gun, they are safe.
The advice from the Army was fine. You need to figure out the situation carefully. Getting them the help they need is always the most important and if you are wrong, you showed your friend you care about them if it turns out to be simple depression without any danger to your friend. If it is not serious enough that they are thinking about killing themselves, at least it does help to talk to someone who cares to get them through it and should they require more help then they are in the right place to find it.
Taking this step by step:
A change in the way a person acts is a warning bell but not the only one. Some of them are great actors. People who know them very well will see the changes because they live with them and know how they reacted to all different kinds of situations. Be ready to listen to a spouse or a parent if they should begin to talk to you about their concerns.
Giving away possessions is common unless they have a habit of doing it. There are a lot of generous people out there who just cannot develop a connection to material objects. If they are giving away a lot of what they have all of a sudden then that is an alarm bell.
Talking less, drinking more are alarms.
Change in personal hygiene is an alarm. Someone who is suddenly a slob, not concerned with the way they look, not showering or shaving, not eating, all should cause alarms.
Someone who was usually happy, liked being around people, no longer laughing and avoiding friends and functions is a scream for help. Basically changes in character means changes inside.
The real emergency arises if they talk about killing themselves, have a plan, a means to do it and have exhibited any of the other warning signs.
Sometimes it's just talk because they cannot find the right words to explain how they feel. You may have had friends in such deep emotional pain that will say "I just want to die" but had no plan on doing it or intention to die. In that moment of extreme pain, they want to communicate the depth of that pain. Asking them "Have you thought about killing yourself" is the worst thing to ask them. Ask them what's going on and then give them time to formulate the words to let you know. Don't push them for an answer because you are in a hurry. This is important enough to have your full attention.
If you do anything, make sure they know what they tell you is being heard by someone who cares about them and will stand by them until they get better. They need to know they are worth your time and you are a real friend to them. They need to know you are watching their backs just as observantly as you did in combat.
You also need to know if they are thinking about harming anyone else. This is a whole other topic.
For now, just make sure you don't put ideas into their heads that they may not be thinking of. I can't believe a psychologist even suggested such a thing. I can only hope she was not thinking clearly in the interview and used a very poor choice of words.
"You asking about it is not going to make it worse." If the person answers "yes," she said, tell them you will help them,,,,,,,,"
Again very poor choice of words or really, really dangerous advice. Asking them with that choice of words is making it worse and allowing them to think that suicide is an option. Then by adding in "you will help them" allows them to think you will help them kill themselves. These are people in crisis and these are the last words they need to hear.
It is great the Guard and Reserves are taking all of this seriously but we all have to. Communities these men and women coming back to need to be aware of the signs to watch out for and given the tools they need to help. If everyone is involved in their healing there will be a lot of lives saved. Knowledge is not only power but could very well save their lives.
Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
http://www.namguardianangel.org/
http://www.woundedtimes.blogspot.com/
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Mission accomplished for Guard unit and families
Specialist Anthony Klufts was greeted by his nephew, Jonathan Maguire, before a ceremony in Newburyport for the 182d Engineer Sappers Company, which returned from Iraq in June. Members of the National Guard unit received medals and awards (below) for their service. (PHOTOS BY Yoon S. Byun/Globe Staff)
Mission accomplished for Guard unit and families
Sappers defused bombs in Iraq
By Jeannie M. Nuss
Globe Correspondent / September 7, 2008
NEWBURYPORT - A smiling Sergeant Gregg Stefanik of Dalton, dressed in a camouflage uniform and combat boots, bent down yesterday to greet his small, giggling daughters and his niece at a soldiers' homecoming ceremony at Newburyport High School.
"This time around, it wasn't as bad," said Stefanik, recalling his second tour in Iraq. "I pretty much knew what was coming."
Stefanik, who was also deployed to Iraq in 2005, was one of 106 National Guard soldiers from the 182d Engineer Sapper Company who were formally honored yesterday for their yearlong tour.
The ceremony was held three months after the unit returned.
Four members of the unit were awarded the Purple Heart for their wounds: Stefanik, Specialist Anthony Klufts, Specialist First Class Michael St. Cyr, and First Lieutenant Willie Coates.
Thirteen soldiers received Bronze Stars, and more than 60 received Combat Action Badges.
"I remember it was a rainy day that I asked you to lend me your soldiers," Captain James Herrick said to the audience of more than 500 gathered in the Newburyport High School auditorium. "The biggest relief I had was . . . to bring all these soldiers back home."
go here for more
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/09/07
/mission_accomplished_for_guard_unit_and_families/
What do they really come home too? Financial problems caused by their deployments are only part of the problem. When you understand that when they joined the guard and reserves, they felt called to serve the nation to help people, not to kill people. Much as the police officers are trained in case they have to kill, they join the force to protect. This is what is inside of them. They are not created with the warrior inside of them, but the servant instead.
We send them into combat and then say they shouldn't complain about it because they are the ones who joined. They should have known better, is what they are told all too often. Maybe they thought they could do what the military does without any issues but when reality came, they understood that they didn't get fully prepared for what was being asked of them.
The rate of PTSD is much higher for the members of the National Guards and Reservists. It is higher because these are just people who wanted to help out their communities. They are often police officers, firefighters, doctors, nurses, accountants, office workers among other professions that are not military and they are expected to just return to their "normal lives" as citizens. Too many cannot.
It is not just one trip into combat either. It is many. They are then expected to deal with the wounds of war and the financial hits their budgets keep getting hit with as they try to make due on their deployment pay, all too often coming back to jobs long gone, business dried up, homes foreclosed on and bank accounts depleted. None of this is right or fair but it is what it is and this nation has done little to solve any of their problems.
I talk to a lot of the "citizen" soldiers and try to make sure they understand what is wrong with them. In the process of explaining it to them, the law enforcement issue comes in when they are trying to get by day to day back home and their families are unaware of the changes they went through. If you need to understand what it's like for them watch my video I Grieve. You may get a better understanding of it. One more thing to think about is that too many of them have found themselves in jail because the awareness of their special circumstance is not there. These are not criminals. These are men and women who were willing to risk their lives for their fellow countrymen. It's time we understood what they need from us.
Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation."
- George Washington
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
What are we doing when the citizen soldiers return?
Returning Troops Blunt Iraq as Campaign Issue in New Hampshire
By Hans Nichols
July 30 (Bloomberg) -- Sergeant Brian Moore had one foot in his bunker in April when a rocket exploded, spraying his back with a dozen bits of burning shrapnel. His spine swelled, paralyzing the New Hampshire National Guardsman for two days.
Two months later, back in New Hampshire from his second Iraq deployment, Moore, 47, told Republican presidential candidate John McCain that, even with his wounds, the U.S. troop surge has tamed the ``wild West'' conditions of Moore's first tour in 2003 and 2004. Now, Moore told McCain in a meeting before a town-hall meeting, Baghdad streets are as safe as ``downtown Nashua.''
I want to focus on addressing the National Guards unique issues here.
While they train to deal with emergencies in their own states, prepare for combat, they are not like the other members of the armed forces. For the branches of the regular military, living on bases, living in units, it is a lot easier for them to be deployed. They are leaving behind families, but the citizen soldiers also leave behind their jobs and their incomes as well. They do not return to bases. They return to work. A great deal of them are in the service to their local communities. Some in law enforcement. Some in fire departments. As this report points out, ``The whole community is likely to know it.'' This leaves a question needing to be answered. When they come home, does the community remember it?
Many of these citizen soldiers need help to heal from their wounds, physical and emotional. Many need help catching up on bills that they could not pay while living on military pay when they made more money in private life. Doctors and other highly paid people, along with blue collar workers and business owners, base their budgets on what their professions pay. With a year or more of deployment causing financial hardship, it only adds to the stress they and their families are under. There have been far too many reports of families having to rely on food stamps and being foreclosed on.
225,000 National Guard citizen soldiers have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. We can think of how they have been affected but we need to remember the families as well. Without the proper support of veterans centers and community involvement in taking care of their needs, they are falling thru the cracks. These men and women are our neighbors. There is a saying the military takes care of it's own but do communities take care of their own?
What are you doing in your community for them? Are there support groups set up for them? Are churches stepping up to help them heal the spiritual wounds? Are the police departments educated on what PTSD is and how it causes a unique issue when they come into contact with a combat veteran? Are employers aware of the need and are they doing anything about it?
There are communities across the nation preparing for the veterans to return. There are some courts addressing the unique circumstances of veterans but there are not enough of them. This should be done in every state and especially in states with sparse populations. Every community should not only be aware of what PTSD is, they need to set up programs to help them heal. If you are a community organizer, work in a City Hall or Town Hall, find the people with the power to begin the programs to address the needs of the citizen soldiers. If you attend a church, make sure your pastor, minister or priest is aware of what PTSD is and what they can do to help members of their church family. If you are involved in hospitals, make sure nurses and doctors are aware of this and the hospital chaplains are capable of serving the veteran and the family.
I belong to NAMI and the IFOC, among other organizations. There have been too many people telling me there is nothing being done in their own communities. Right here in central Florida, I visited over 20 churches to make them aware of the needs our veterans have. Only one pastor contacted me and he happened to be a chaplain as well. They need to step up or they are not really serving their congregations. We notice when someone in the National Guard has been deployed and they notice when they come home and no one seems to care. Let's get this right for them.
Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos
International Fellowship of Chaplains
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington
By Hans Nichols
July 30 (Bloomberg) -- Sergeant Brian Moore had one foot in his bunker in April when a rocket exploded, spraying his back with a dozen bits of burning shrapnel. His spine swelled, paralyzing the New Hampshire National Guardsman for two days.
Two months later, back in New Hampshire from his second Iraq deployment, Moore, 47, told Republican presidential candidate John McCain that, even with his wounds, the U.S. troop surge has tamed the ``wild West'' conditions of Moore's first tour in 2003 and 2004. Now, Moore told McCain in a meeting before a town-hall meeting, Baghdad streets are as safe as ``downtown Nashua.''
Combat Troops
National Guard members, from military reserve units in every U.S. state, provided a bigger share of combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan than they have in any other overseas conflict. Since hostilities began, almost 200,000 Guard troops have served in Iraq and more than 25,000 have been in Afghanistan.
At the peak, more than 95,000 Guard soldiers were in Iraq and 10,000 were in Afghanistan, said Major Randal Noller, a National Guard spokesman. Today, the force has fallen to 25,887 Guard troops in Iraq and 5,189 in Afghanistan -- the fewest since the march on Baghdad began in 2003.
Returning National Guard soldiers influence public perceptions of the war because most go directly back to civilian life, said Anthony Cordesman, a security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
``Communities know when someone from the Guard is out, like a sheriff, a police officer or a doctor,'' Cordesman said. ``The whole community is likely to know it.''
click post title for more
I want to focus on addressing the National Guards unique issues here.
While they train to deal with emergencies in their own states, prepare for combat, they are not like the other members of the armed forces. For the branches of the regular military, living on bases, living in units, it is a lot easier for them to be deployed. They are leaving behind families, but the citizen soldiers also leave behind their jobs and their incomes as well. They do not return to bases. They return to work. A great deal of them are in the service to their local communities. Some in law enforcement. Some in fire departments. As this report points out, ``The whole community is likely to know it.'' This leaves a question needing to be answered. When they come home, does the community remember it?
Many of these citizen soldiers need help to heal from their wounds, physical and emotional. Many need help catching up on bills that they could not pay while living on military pay when they made more money in private life. Doctors and other highly paid people, along with blue collar workers and business owners, base their budgets on what their professions pay. With a year or more of deployment causing financial hardship, it only adds to the stress they and their families are under. There have been far too many reports of families having to rely on food stamps and being foreclosed on.
225,000 National Guard citizen soldiers have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. We can think of how they have been affected but we need to remember the families as well. Without the proper support of veterans centers and community involvement in taking care of their needs, they are falling thru the cracks. These men and women are our neighbors. There is a saying the military takes care of it's own but do communities take care of their own?
What are you doing in your community for them? Are there support groups set up for them? Are churches stepping up to help them heal the spiritual wounds? Are the police departments educated on what PTSD is and how it causes a unique issue when they come into contact with a combat veteran? Are employers aware of the need and are they doing anything about it?
There are communities across the nation preparing for the veterans to return. There are some courts addressing the unique circumstances of veterans but there are not enough of them. This should be done in every state and especially in states with sparse populations. Every community should not only be aware of what PTSD is, they need to set up programs to help them heal. If you are a community organizer, work in a City Hall or Town Hall, find the people with the power to begin the programs to address the needs of the citizen soldiers. If you attend a church, make sure your pastor, minister or priest is aware of what PTSD is and what they can do to help members of their church family. If you are involved in hospitals, make sure nurses and doctors are aware of this and the hospital chaplains are capable of serving the veteran and the family.
I belong to NAMI and the IFOC, among other organizations. There have been too many people telling me there is nothing being done in their own communities. Right here in central Florida, I visited over 20 churches to make them aware of the needs our veterans have. Only one pastor contacted me and he happened to be a chaplain as well. They need to step up or they are not really serving their congregations. We notice when someone in the National Guard has been deployed and they notice when they come home and no one seems to care. Let's get this right for them.
Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos
International Fellowship of Chaplains
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington
Monday, June 23, 2008
Army Wives and Forgotten Families
'Army Wives': I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV
Zap2it.com - USA
Roland Burton is an excellent doctor. We know this because they told us so throughout the entire first season of Army Wives. This is a man who has received national acclaim for his work counseling patients through post-traumatic stress disorder. He's a man who, as soon as he decided at the end of the first season to look for a job elsewhere, was instantly offered a new job at Northwestern and presumably could have had his pick of places to go. In short, this is a guy who knows what he's doing.
So what exactly does it say when one of Roland's best friends is suddenly dealing with some post-traumatic stress, but abjectly refuses to seek counsel from him? Strange, right? But that's exactly the case we've got on our hands. Claudia Joy is hurting, badly, but rather than seek help from a respected and trained professional who also happens to be a great friend, Claudia Joy would apparently rather seek support from a mysterious stranger.
As it happens, Roland isn't even the only medical professional here whose professional expertise is falling by the wayside as somebody else assumes that role instead. Denise is a registered nurse, but you wouldn't know it from her behavior in this episode, in which flirting rather than nursing seems to be her priority. In the meantime, Roxy ends up acting like more of a nurse than Denise does. Roxy takes care of Betty, dishes out medical advice on Betty's fight with cancer, and ends up bedside looking after Betty as she prepares for chemotherapy. So to recap, in this series there's both a doctor and a nurse, but others are taking over the roles of doctor and nurse instead.
The case of Claudia Joy refusing to turn to Roland for support is especially interesting. Is she operating under the presumption that everybody on post is sure to gossip about her, and so even though she should theoretically trust Roland she still worries that if she talks to him, people will undoubtedly in turn begin to talk about her? Or is it simply a matter of pride, in that Claudia Joy still believes that she should present an invincible face to the rest of the post community, that she should be strong because that's what everybody else needs?
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This is a great piece on a show I really like. If you missed Army Wives last summer, turn on Lifetime next Sunday night and watch a good show. You can catch a repeat of yesterday's show on Saturday.
The point of posting this is that TV is being played out all across the nation on a daily basis. The suicide bomber is not on a base here, but is in Iraq and Afghanistan. The family torn apart is not just on TV but right here in our own neighborhood. They do not all live on bases with other military families to turn to for understanding. They are surrounded by people without the slightest clue what they're going through. These families are National Guards and Reservists families living right in our own communities. As bad as it is for regular military families, it's worse for the "part timers" who are expected to just be like the rest of us, act like the rest of us and deal with the same problems the rest of us do. But they are not like us.
Think of what the families of National Guards and Reservists go through. They face the same problems the regular military does, except they did not expect their husbands and wives to be sent to Iraq and Afghanistan over and over again. They did not expect to have to do without the kind of income they based their budgets on. They may have expect their spouse to have to respond to national security problems here on US soil, respond to natural disasters, but to be sent over and over again away from home is not what they planned on.
When members of the "part time" weekend warriors come home, they are expected to just go back to work, if they can, picking up where they left off. Their families are expected to just go on with life between deployment and homecoming. We expect much of them but no one is really talking about what they expect from us.
When they sacrifice their incomes to live on military pay, who makes up the difference? They do. When they have to leave their own businesses, who pays their bills? They are expected to. When they come home wounded and need to be taken care of, they are on their own until their claim is finally approved to deal with the injury as well as the loss of income. But there is a catch to that too. When they have a job making a certain income, that is what they base their budget on paying for mortgages, car payments and other issues in the lifestyle they planned on. The money in compensation, is not determined on what they make in their private lives. Most of them make a lot more money working than they can ever hope to receive as a disabled veteran. Who pays the difference?
We ask a lot of our military and their families but we expect even more sacrifice out of the National Guardsmen and Reservists. We've all heard "they knew they could be sent" when they signed up, comments along that line, but when you really understand what these families expected, being totally disregarded in the process was not part of the deal.
As great as Army Wives is, there should be a program on the National Guards and Reservist families because these people are our neighbors and we've let them all down expecting them to just deal with it all. The local communities do not understand what they are going through and have been reluctant to step up to help them. Local pastors are ambivalent when it comes to the stresses and strains on families and hardly none of them want to even hear the term PTSD, yet they are supposed to be their for their congregations. They need help to heal that wound and their families need help to cope with the changes. The spiritual needs are not being filled either.
When it comes to these citizen soldiers, we have a lot to catch up on and make up for but we won't unless the media sticks their stories in our face on a daily basis and humiliates us into paying attention. They have the same problems the regular military familes do but they also have the same problems the rest of us do. The military has bases and gain support from other families but who do the citizen soldiers have? Us and we are not there for them.
Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington
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