Michelle Obama preps her family for D.C.

Michelle Obama preps her family for D.C.
Emmanuel Dunand / AFP - Getty Images file
Newsweek: Soon-to-be first lady calls the pending move "daunting" and talks about the projects she'll work on in Washington.

You ' ve obviously become engaged with military families and their plight during this campaign. How would you continue with that?

I don't know yet, but when I was having these conversations, I would always have military officials along with me. I know a lot about the issues that families face, but I didn't know as much about the military structure. One former senior official there talked about the past and how the military, because of its flexibility, was often the place that provided the platform for trying new things with regard to family life and family leave. That's not the case any more ... I want to figure out how we explore ways to be creative in terms of support and then use some of those models in the broader society.

These conversations with military families—they were an outgrowth of the conversations we were having with women in working families. I periodically would come across the spouse who was living alone out there, the wife or the husband of a reservist living in the regular community, struggling with the same economic, childcare, education issues that everybody else was. But on top of that, they were living alone with a loved one that was shipped away for years on end, with no one around to really support them. Their bosses didn't understand, so they didn't get any extra support time when their loved one was being deployed. There were no support systems. The first thing I'd like to do is to continue those conversations, because it was a shock to me, just as a civilian, to know that these support systems weren't there … I think there are many other families out there who would be shocked and outraged to know that our troops' families are not being taken care of while they are fighting and dying for us … How you take these conversations and come up with real, concrete recommendations that can be turned into change?

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Operation Homefront and CDW Computers is giving computers to deploying N.C. troops

N.C. troops to get computers before deploying

The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Nov 6, 2008 13:08:05 EST

FORT BRAGG, N.C. — A nonprofit organization and a computer company will present 100 refurbished computers to the soldiers and the families of the 82nd Airborne Division preparing to deploy to Iraq.

Operation Homefront and CDW will present the computers Thursday to the paratroopers from the 82nd’s 3rd Brigade.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/11/ap_braggcomputers_110608/

Marines arrested as suspect is murder of Sergeant and his wife

Brooklyn Marine Sgt. Jan Pawel Pietrzak and his wife, Quiana, seen in August wedding photo, were found tortured and slain Oct. 15 in their home near San Diego.

Brooklyn Marine sergeant & wife tortured, slain in Calif.; 4 of his men are arrested
BY CORKY SIEMASZKO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Updated Thursday, November 6th 2008, 12:30 PM


A Brooklyn-raised Marine sergeant and his new bride were tortured and killed execution-style in their California home - allegedly by four other Marines under his command.

Sgt. Jan Pawel Pietrzak, who was raised in Bensonhurst, and his wife, Quiana, were found bound and gagged in the ransacked house, each shot in the head.

Pietrzak was the suspects' sergeant at Camp Pendleton, Quiana's mother said Wednesday.

"They're monsters," Faye Jenkins told the Daily News. "They're monsters."

Pietrzak's mother, Henryka Pietrzak-Varga, said she had prepared herself "for the possibility that my son could die in Iraq."

"But to die like this, in their own home?" she told The News. "They were good kids. They didn't deserve to die like this."

Investigators said the motive for murder was "financial gain." Neither mother believes that.

"When I found out what they did to them, it was like they killed me, too," Pietrzak-Varga said.

A spokesman for the Riverside County district attorney's office would not comment on reports that Pietrzak was killed by his own men.

Detectives also did not divulge what the accused Marines were looking for, but the suspects were tied to the crime by items found in their homes and on the military base.

Charged with murder and other crimes are Pvt. Emrys John, 18, of Maryland; Lance Cpl. Tyrone Miller, 20, of North Carolina; Pvt. Kevin Darnell Cox, 20, of Tennessee, and Pvt. Kesuan Sykes, 21, of California.

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linked from RawStory

FOX news reports the truth about Palin, almost too late

If FOX had been paying attention, they would have known how bad Palin would have been as a Vice-President a heartbeat away from McCain at 72! Bravo to Carl Cameron anyway. It almost came too late but at least the supporters she had can find some comfort she didn't get that close to being in charge of this entire nation.

Fox: Palin didn't know Africa is a continent
David Edwards and Nick Juliano
Published: Thursday November 6, 2008

So just how woefully unqualified was Sarah Palin? Now that the election's over, aides to John McCain's campaign are starting to dish on the former Republican vice presidential nominee. The Alaska governor who bragged about being able to see Russia from her home state was pretty uninformed on even the most basic details of the world, it appears.

As Fox News's Carl Cameron reported Wednesday, Palin allegedly thought Africa was a country -- not a continent -- and didn't know which countries were a party to the North American Free Trade Agreement. (That would be the US, Mexico and Canada.)Cameron's report joins negative portrayals of Palin in Newsweek and the New York Times, which on Thursday revealed that Palin had not prepared for her disastrous interview with CBS's Katie Couric and did not inform McCain officials that she had scheduled an interview with two Canadian pranksters posing as French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
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Will Military Bloggers Support President Obama As Much As Bush?

Was supporting Bush no matter what he did about supporting the President as Commander-in-Chief or was it about Bush being a Republican?

I remember all the rants coming from supposedly "Patriotic Americans" when the Commander-in-Chief was Bill Clinton and it was bash after bash claiming he couldn't do anything right. It wasn't just the bloggers doing it but it was the Republican party in general.

When it came to Bush becoming president, the bashing was done on the other side, but no one on that side seemed to have the right to claim they were on the side of the troops against the president the way the anti-Clinton folks were able to get away with.

So now the tide has turned yet again. Since the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, anyone speaking out on the facts or asking for accountability was viewed as being the enemy, refusing to support the president as Commander-in-Chief, called anti-American and anti-military. Will the Military Bloggers regard President Obama in the same way they viewed President Bush or President Clinton?

Sorry but I just don't trust most of them and here are the reasons.

Naturally I'm on the outside of the military bloggers. I'm not welcomed among them. I tried for a couple of years because of the videos I do and though that they would be happy to pass them on for the sake of the troops and our veterans. That didn't work. Either I received an email telling me that I would not be included in their groups or received no email response at all. You'd think that since the videos I do on PTSD are non-political and provide support for the troops and veterans, they would be pushing these videos so that more would be able to find them, but then you'd also have to expect that when it came to the troops and veterans, politics was taken out.

While some called me a hero when they discovered some of my videos, sooner or later they dropped promoting the videos then either totally disregarded me or slammed me. Thankfully it was more ignoring me than slamming me. That's the first reason.

The next is my blog. Again, either it was ignored or slammed because while I fully support the troops and veterans, the Military Bloggers didn't like what I had to say about Bush. That's the second reason.

The other reason is that while they claim that it had nothing to do with being a Republican or Democrat, the defense of Bush, no matter what he did or didn't do, didn't end. All they had to do was look at the facts. Right up until this year, Iraq was a mess and it was not until the end of the Bush presidency things began to turn around in Iraq. None of them wondered why this had not happened before? Iraq was invaded in March of 2003 and this is 2008! Over five years into an occupation with 4,191 dead in Iraq and 626 dead in Afghanistan, why weren't they asking for changes in what was being done before? When others did demand changes to secure Iraq and bring the troops home, change the focus back to Afghanistan, they were called anti-war. It didn't seem to bother any of them the changes did not come until this year considering last year was not only the highest death rate in Iraq but in Afghanistan as well.

When the reports came out about the way the wounded were being treated, or should I say ignored, none of them came out forcefully demanding the administration take action.

The list goes on. The response of the Military Bloggers will show if this was all about supporting the President as Commander-in-Chief or just supporting him as a Republican. So far most of the post I've read are against Obama. Let's see if the trend continues and then we'll know if this is about party or patriotism.

As for President Elect Obama, my side will hold him accountable the same way we did President Bush and Clinton. We will support him when he's right and "bash" him when he is wrong. We will, for the most part anyway. As for the troops and veterans, get ready to see what real support means because when it comes to them, they have a someone who is really on their side stepping in as Commander-in-Chief. He's proven that by what he's done since he entered the Senate. As for John McCain, well, his voting record has been against veterans but that didn't seem to bother most of the Military bloggers either. There are some who have been fair and balanced, but there are only a few I can think of.







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

Obama to expand size of military and veterans healthcare

During the campaign, there were a lot of false claims made about what Obama wanted to do. One of them was a claim made by the McCain supporters that Obama and the Democrats wanted to cut the military, but this was never true. While Obama does in fact want to cut the defense spending, he wants to do it by cutting out the waste in what the Department of Defense spends. He also wants to stop spending billions of dollars in Iraq when the Iraqi government has billions in reserves not being used for their own sake.

The other false claim told over and over again is that Obama would not take care of the veterans. The problem with this is that Obama has been on the Veterans Affairs Committee and has been focused on what the veterans need. The Democrats are not the enemy of veterans, but have been providing the hearings and changes for what the veterans need since they took control in 2006.

It's time for the military and veterans to set their minds at ease and stop believing in gossip. Learn the facts on line from Obama's site and know what he wants to do for them.



For Defense issues

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/defense/



For Veterans Issues


Barack Obama will restore our sacred trust with our nation's veterans:
Obama and Biden are committed to creating a 21st Century Department of Veterans' Affairs that provides the care and benefits our nation's veterans deserve.
Help returning service members:
Obama and Biden will improve the quality of health care for veterans, rebuild the VA's broken benefits system, and combat homelessness among veterans.
Improve mental health treatment:
Obama and Biden will improve mental health treatment for troops and veterans suffering from combat-related psychological injuries.

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/veterans/

In this Section
A Sacred Trust
Help for Returning Service Members
Improved Mental Health Treatment

New attitude: Obama vows change, agency by agency
The Associated Press

Obama wants to increase the size of the Army, Marine Corps and special operations forces, efforts already under way. He has called for greater emphasis on counterinsurgency missions — a move the military recognized as critical in the early years of the Iraq war, and began to implement.

Lolita C. Baldor

VETERANS AFFAIRS

Obama wants to expand VA health care for veterans. Congress voted in 1996 to do that, but the agency has exercised its authority to suspend enrollments as needed. Obama has said that led to 1 million veterans being turned away, and he has promised to reverse the policy.

He also said he would improve screening and treatment for mental health conditions and traumatic brain injury; expand the number of housing vouchers and start a program to help veterans at risk of being homeless; add more rural veterans centers; create an electronic system to transfer medical records from the military; and improve preventative health options.

Kimberly Hefling
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Soldier, two others killed in high-speed wreck

Soldier, two others killed in high-speed wreck
WRAL.com - Raleigh,NC,USA
Lillington, N.C. — A Fort Bragg soldier and two other people were killed Tuesday in a three-car wreck in southern Harnett County, authorities said.

Sharon Southerland, 20, of Fort Bragg, and Ashley Marie Richardt, 21, and Abraham Ryan Lowe, 18, both of 301 Mamie Ferfuson Drive in Lillington, died in the wreck, which occurred shortly before 5 p.m. Tuesday about 14 miles south of Lillington, said Trooper G.D. Steffens of the state Highway Patrol.
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Soldier's bail $100000 in Parkland shooting death

Soldier's bail $100000 in Parkland shooting death
Seattle Post Intelligencer - USA

TACOMA -- Bail has been set at $100,000 on a decorated Fort Lewis soldier who was arrested following the fatal shooting of a friend.

Twenty-three-year-old Sgt. Christopher Thomas Green remained in custody after the court hearing Tuesday for investigation of first-degree manslaughter.
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PTSD:When domestic violence is not what you think

I've written often about this issue. When it comes to PTSD and domestic violence, sometimes, it isn't what you think.

A Growing Problem for Veterans: Domestic Violence
"The increasing number of veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) raises the risk of domestic violence and its consequences on families and children in communities across the United States," says Monica Matthieu, Ph.D., an expert on veteran mental health and an assistant professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis.

"Treatments for domestic violence are very different than those for PTSD. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has mental health services and treatments for PTSD, yet these services need to be combined with the specialized domestic violence intervention programs offered by community agencies for those veterans engaging in battering behavior against intimate partners and families."
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Are there combat veterans who commit domestic violence without PTSD being involved? Absolutely. We forget that the men and women who serve are just like the rest of us.

There are many cases where abuse and domestic violence have the contributing factor of PTSD. This is not blame the victim but without knowing what PTSD is and what it does to some people, all too often the reaction of family members contributes to the escalation of angry situations.

Black eyes and bloody noses have been reported since Vietnam veterans came home. Although reports before that time were not highly publicized, they occurred in older veterans households as well. When a PTSD veteran is having a nightmare, the normal reaction of a spouse is to wake them up. If they know what the nightmare is putting the veteran thru, they are more careful about how they do this. If the veteran is shaken awake, they can and usually do react with a tight fist. They are not aware that it is their spouse trying to wake them up. To them, at the moment, the spouse is an enemy trying to hurt them. When the spouse knows what they are dealing with, they will remove themselves from the bed, out of striking distance, softly call out the name of the veteran until the veteran wakes up. This eliminates the violence that can follow when something as simple as walking someone up can cause a lot of harm.

Police have been called in the middle of the night to a domestic dispute because a nightmare was handled badly. The spouse, unaware of the danger, actually caused it. If we do not educate all spouses living with a PTSD veteran, we will see more domestic violence that does not need to happen. The same problem happens when they are having a flashback.

During the time of a flashback, the veteran is not in the same room. They are far away and reliving danger. If a spouse gets angry because the veteran is not paying attention to them, they may yell out of frustration and end up being attacked. Again, if the spouse can see the signs of the veteran taking a mind trip back into combat, they know how not to react.

It is not just the spouse on the receiving end of reactions but the children as well. If they think Dad or Mom is the same as they always were, they will act the same way they did but with PTSD, the reaction of the veteran is not always "normal" and a lot of children end up being yelled at and punished for minor offenses like breaking a glass and causing a startled response from the veteran. The child will internalize the reaction and begin to blame themselves as well as emotionally pull away from the veteran, all too often end up feeling as if they hate their parent simply because they do not understand.

PTSD households need to have new ground rules but they will not develop them unless they know exactly what PTSD is. We are failing military families and citizen soldier families across the nation when they are not provided with every scrap of information they can receive. There are too many cases of this that do not need to happen.


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

Michelle Obama will focus on her family and military families

Michelle Obama, first lady 1:55
CNN's Brooke Baldwin takes a closer look at the next first lady of the United States.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/11/05
/baldwin.michelle.obama.first.lady.cnn

What does not get enough attention is that Michelle has been meeting with military families since the campaign began. This is just one of the reports and there are many more. Just Google Michelle Obama meets with military families and find all the reports on this.

Michelle Obama Focuses On Military Spouses
Politico: Candidate's Wife Often Meets With Military Families In Swing States, Could Be A Prelude To An Agenda As First Lady
Comments 304
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C., Oct. 20, 2008


Once portrayed as unpatriotic, Michelle Obama has quietly carved a niche on the campaign trail as a sounding board for military families, taking up a cause that could define her agenda as first lady.

Every few weeks, Obama meets with military spouses in swing states, where she presents herself as a kindred spirit and Barack Obama as the best choice for their families. She attended the two debates with military family members. And at the Democratic National Convention, she led a day of service on behalf of Blue Star Families for Obama, a two-month old group with the tagline: “Pro-Military, Pro-Obama.”

Obama aides say her work with military families has nothing to do with the controversy created by her February comment suggesting that the presidential campaign made her proud of the United States for the first time. But the effort could be viewed as an exercise in counterprogramming, serving as a rebuttal to criticism from Cindy McCain and others for a comment that Michelle Obama insists was misinterpreted - and the notion that her husband, a Democrat with no military service, cannot peel off voters from John McCain, an ex-Navy pilot and war hero.

“Barack and I know that too often it feels like you are alone, on your own,” Obama told military spouses last month in Santa Fe, N.M. “I know you become everything. In a small way, I have experienced that over the course of this campaign, but in no way does it compare to what you are going through.”

Michelle Obama's focus on military families puts her at the leading edge of the Democratic nominee's campaign to reclaim some of the military vote from Republicans - an effort that brought Barack Obama here Sunday for a rally near Fort Bragg, where a military wife introduced him and he touted his endorsement from Colin Powell, the retired four-star general and President George W. Bush's first Secretary of State.
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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/20/politics/politico/main4531538.shtml