Women’s memorial at Arlington struggling
By Kimberly Hefling - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday May 11, 2010 7:06:39 EDT
ARLINGTON, Va. — Garage sales and quilt raffles helped a determined group of female World War II veterans raise money to transform a rundown wall at Arlington National Cemetery into a grand stone memorial to women who served their country. But those women are dying off, even as the memorial runs short of funds.
With women now involved more heavily in combat jobs, those early organizers hope a new generation will step up to the challenge of keeping the memorial open so military women’s stories won’t be lost.
The dedication of the memorial that today is visitors’ first view of the cemetery was such a joyous event that 40,000 people attended in 1997. One of them was a 101-year-old World War I vet named Frieda Mae Hardin who was met with cheers when she told the crowd that women considering military careers should “go for it!”
Even as a steady flow of visitors enters its doors, the deaths of about three-quarters of the 400,000 women who served in World War II has left the memorial honoring military women of all eras without many of its loyal benefactors, although some still visit.
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Women memorial at Arlington struggling
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Promises a Marine widow cannot bear to hear
Rachel Porto, 23, is the widow of Marine Corps Cpl. Jonathan D. Porto, 26, who was killed in Afghanistan on March 14. Together they have a three-month-old daughter, Ariana. Rachel, a native of Aberdeen, Md., graduated from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2008. She is currently living in North Carolina outside of the family's last duty station, Camp Lejeune. She blogs atA Little Pink in a Word of Camo.
Promises a Marine widow cannot bear to hear
By Rachel Porto
A cassette tape is waiting for me. It sits in a small bubble mailer on my night table. It stares at me when I walk in the room; it beckons to me as I walk out. But still it sits there and waits. It is the last thing. The last thing he sent to me from "over there."
There is no note inside, just a regular old-school cassette tape. The outside of the envelope is addressed in his handwriting. "Love, Poppa Bear" is written on the back. I've opened it to look inside, but I haven't yet drawn up the courage to listen.
I know what I can expect to hear. The same things he always told me. He'll tell me how much he loves us and misses us. He'll sing to us--he always sang to us. Probably our favorite songs, maybe some new ones. He'll talk to the baby, he loved talking to her and she loves to listen to him. The first time I saw her smile was when he talked to her on the phone from "over there."
It will be filled with promises. He will promise us he's coming home, promise us everything is ok, promise that we're almost done and that we'll see each other soon. It's these promises I am most scared of, hearing them anew from lips that will never again utter them to me. Promises I held on to so tightly for the first three months of the deployment. Before... before the fateful ringing of my doorbell at 0530 on March 15. These promises have taken a completely new meaning for me since that morning. Promises to come home turn into, He's already home, just not the way I ever imagined. Promises of seeing each other soon have turned into, I've got a lifetime to wait. Promises of everything being ok have turned into, I am now in charge of making it ok.
read more here
Promises a Marine widow cannot bear to hear
There may never be a full accounting for the Vietnam War
There may never be a full accounting for the Vietnam War
by
Chaplain Kathie
They died and are still dying because of Agent Orange. Their numbers are not on the Wall but as you can see, many died because they were there, deployed into combat zones. Had they not been sent there, had the military not used Agent Orange, they would not have died because of their service. Their children, born with illnesses connected to Agent Orange, would not have happened.
The numbers on the Vietnam Memorial Wall keeps growing because some died as a result of being wounded in Vietnam. Imagine the next time you see the Wall if the numbers of Agent Orange related deaths were included.
This came out in 1984.
Agent Orange Review Information for Veterans Who Served in Vietnam October 1984
Vietnam Veteran Mortality Study
VA is conducting a Vietnam veteran mortality study to compare the mortality patterns and specific causes of death between veterans who served in Vietnam and veterans without Vietnam service.
It is estimated that approximately 300,000 Vietnam and Vietnam-Era veterans have died since the start of the Vietnam confiict.
This number includes approximately 52,000 combat deaths.
VA has used computer records to identify a group of approximately
75,000 deceased veterans who served during the Vietnam Era (1964-1975). Cause-of-death data have been obtained from death certificates, and histories of military, service have been obtained from military records.
VA recently received approval from the National Center for Health Statistics to use the National Death Index. This information will assist VA in developing a death certificate-search mechanism for veterans whose records cannot be found by other methods.
The Social Security Administration has agreed to search its records to verify the vital status of untraced veterans for the study and to assist in determining their place of death.
Various VA departments and offices are providing assistance in the death certificate search.
All fifty states have indicated their willingness to search their records and locate veterans' death certificates, if needed.
The mortality study will determine whether Vietnam veterans have died from unusual diseases or as a result of specific causes -such
as suicide or cancer -- in higher than expected proportions.
VA projects that the study will be completed in 1985.
Since Public Law 97-72 was signed in November 1981, VA has provided hospital care or nursing home care, as well as outpatient care, which is designed to prepare a veteran for hospital care, provide
post-hospitalization followup care or prevent hospitalization. Such health care services are provided without regard to the veteran's age, service-connected status or the veteran's inability to defray the costs of such care elsewhere. More than 20,000 inpatient admissions and more than one million outpatient visits have occurred for the treatment of illnesses or disabilities possibly related to Agent Orange exposure. These statistics represent numbers of admissions and outpatient visits, not the actual number of veterans receiving treatment. Based on average use rates, it is estimated that in fiscal year 1982, approximately 6,000 veterans were hospitalized and approximately 62,000 were seen as outpatients. In fiscal year 1983, approximately 6,900 veterans were hospitalized and 73,000 were seen as outpatients. These two groups -- inpatients and outpatients -may include some of the same individuals. Only limited data are available for the current fiscal year, but the information to date suggests that the level of inpatient admissions will be reduced, while the number of outpatient visits will be somewhat higher than that experienced during fiscal years 1982 and 1983.
http://www.publichealth.va.gov/docs/agentorange/reviews/ao_newsletter_oct84.pdf
Some names are added, but not enough are.
Names Added to Vietnam Memorial
Week of May 10, 2010
The names of six American servicemembers were recently added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The new additions are veterans who survived serious injury in the War but were determined by Defense Department officials to have "died as a result of wounds [combat or hostile related] sustained in the combat zone." The engravings for 11 other servicemembers will be modified to reflect that they are no longer considered missing in action. The six new names will become official when they are read aloud during the annual Memorial Day ceremony May 31. For more information on the Memorial, visit the National Parks Service Vietnam Veterans Memorial webpage.
Find ways to support and honor U.S. military servicemembers and veterans who protect our security and freedom. Visit the Military.com Support our Troops Web page.
These deaths won't be fully counted either. This came out in 1978. It is from the same report above and what I have based all these years of research on. It also helped me live with it in my own home when the Vietnam War became part of my life as the wife of a Vietnam Vet.There are many things we knew for a very long time about PTSD but what we don't really know is how many committed suicide because of the Vietnam War. We don't know how many died having flashbacks on the road driving and were killed in accidents because of it. We don't know how many drank themselves to death because there was no help for them to ease their minds. Think of them when you look at the Wall and know, as sad as it is to see all those names, there are many more names that will never be added.
What is more troubling is that we don't know how many died in all other wars because of what we call PTSD but they called "nostalgia" or "soldier's heart" or "shell shock" in different times and different places, going where they were sent, doing what they were sent to do, but then returning to a nation wanting to forget.
What is more troubling is that we don't know how many died in all other wars because of what we call PTSD but they called "nostalgia" or "soldier's heart" or "shell shock" in different times and different places, going where they were sent, doing what they were sent to do, but then returning to a nation wanting to forget.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Fort Carson may finally get it right on PTSD
It's been an up and down ride when posting about Fort Carson. First hope they know what they are doing, followed by more suicides, more arrests and more terrible reports about how much they've gotten wrong. Then hope returns when they appear to be trying at the very least.
It is not that they don't care, it has been more about what they don't know that has come back on them and the troops paid for it.
PTSD is not the end of a career. Generals have come out over the last year or so, talking about their own struggles. With the right kind of treatment and with treatment early, most can not only recover from PTSD, they can come out on the other side stronger. Even with all the time Vietnam veterans went without help, their lives are far from over when they are helped to heal, but some parts of their lives, some of their symptoms, cannot be reversed. They do learn how to cope with what remains and life, life is something to rejoice with as a survivor instead of exist in. None of this is hopeless. Once they understand it, they begin to heal partly because they stop beating themselves up over it.
Maybe Fort Carson is getting it right now but diagnosing them is just the first step. Healing them is the biggest challenge of all. As long as they are not trying to just medicate the "problem" away, then there is hope but if they are thinking inside the box using pills as the answer, they will have a much greater chance of replicating failure instead of saving lives.
It is not that they don't care, it has been more about what they don't know that has come back on them and the troops paid for it.
PTSD is not the end of a career. Generals have come out over the last year or so, talking about their own struggles. With the right kind of treatment and with treatment early, most can not only recover from PTSD, they can come out on the other side stronger. Even with all the time Vietnam veterans went without help, their lives are far from over when they are helped to heal, but some parts of their lives, some of their symptoms, cannot be reversed. They do learn how to cope with what remains and life, life is something to rejoice with as a survivor instead of exist in. None of this is hopeless. Once they understand it, they begin to heal partly because they stop beating themselves up over it.
Maybe Fort Carson is getting it right now but diagnosing them is just the first step. Healing them is the biggest challenge of all. As long as they are not trying to just medicate the "problem" away, then there is hope but if they are thinking inside the box using pills as the answer, they will have a much greater chance of replicating failure instead of saving lives.
Carson details efforts to uncover soldiers' scars of war
May 10, 2010 5:00 AM
LANCE BENZEL
THE GAZETTE
Most Fort Carson soldiers are greeted with fanfare as they return from war: cheering throngs of friends and relatives, children they haven’t seen in months, comrades who whisk them away for a night on the town.
But what happens when the homecoming euphoria fades?
As the 4th Brigade Combat Team trickles home from Afghanistan, Fort Carson says it is poised to treat the after-effects of the unit’s difficult year at war, from the depression, anxiety and nightmares that gradually afflict some returning soldiers to brain injuries that might have gone unrecognized.
Nearly 200 of the brigade’s 3,800 soldiers have arrived at Carson since late April. They will continue to return through June.
“I’m expecting to see a unit that’s been worked hard and put up wet,” said Col. John Powell, an Army physician who oversees the post’s Soldier Readiness Center, which provides mandatory medical screenings for soldiers who are about to deploy or just getting home.
Getting the soldiers the care they need is job No. 1 for the center’s healthcare providers, and signs from the warzone suggest they will be tested.
Nearly 50 of the brigade’s soldiers have died in the past year — the latest death was announced Friday — and health experts at the Soldier Readiness Center say those losses will reverberate long after the homecoming parties.
During preliminary assessments conducted in Afghanistan, approximately one-quarter of the brigade — about 920 soldiers — was flagged by unit healthcare providers to receive a closer-than-normal look after returning to post, Powell said. These at-risk soldiers were listed as “amber” under Fort Carson’s triage system, either because of concerns voiced by their commanders or because unit doctors identified risk factors that could be aggravated by sustained combat, such as a history of depression or turmoil at home.
An additional 21 soldiers were listed as “red,” meaning the Army considers them a potential danger to themselves or others.
read more here
http://www.gazette.com/articles/carson-98365-war-soldiers.html
Army still wrong after all these years on PTSD
This is why they keep dying and suffering. The Army still does not want to learn what causes PTSD. They really think it's something you can "train" for like how to shoot? How do you train for the first time you kill someone until you really do it? How do you train to watch your buddy die until it happens? You can't. What you can do is know why you suffer beyond what everyone else seems to be suffering. Once you know then you are able to help yourself heal from it instead of looking for excuses to deny it.
The door to PTSD comes in two parts. One is the ability to feel things deeply, good as well as bad. The other factor is the age of the man or woman because until the age of 25 the frontal lobe is not fully mature. Trauma kicks down the door and hits them hard. What can be taught is how to heal but first the military has to stop looking at the men and women serving like machines instead of humans. If they don't understand this basic, simple lesson, then they will keep making it worse instead of better. This is all just more of the same tactic they have been trying since they first claimed they learned anything about PTSD.
The door to PTSD comes in two parts. One is the ability to feel things deeply, good as well as bad. The other factor is the age of the man or woman because until the age of 25 the frontal lobe is not fully mature. Trauma kicks down the door and hits them hard. What can be taught is how to heal but first the military has to stop looking at the men and women serving like machines instead of humans. If they don't understand this basic, simple lesson, then they will keep making it worse instead of better. This is all just more of the same tactic they have been trying since they first claimed they learned anything about PTSD.
Army initiative aimed at preventing mental problems in returning troops
By Chris Vaughn, McClatchy Newspapers
Stars and Stripes online edition, Sunday, May 9, 2010
FORT WORTH, Texas — The Army is struggling to hire more mental health professionals to treat soldiers for readjustment problems.
It is burying a record number of troops who died by their own hands. Alcohol abuse and drug use discharges are up, and chaplains are holding marriage retreats to help families deal with a worrying number of divorces and domestic violence cases.
These are a few of the unwelcome consequences of the nation's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have whipsawed soldiers and their families from one long, combat deployment to the next for most of the last decade.
"We've never done a war this way before," said Brig. Gen. Rhonda Cornum, a flight surgeon and former commander of the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.
The Army, frustrated at its inability to get ahead of problems, has adopted a new tack — resiliency training for every single man and woman who wears green.
Army leaders, led by Secretary of the Army John McHugh and the service's top generals, are convinced that they can prevent some of the negative fallout on the home front by making soldiers more "psychologically fit" before they deploy.
"Listen, you don't just decide to climb Mount Kilimanjaro one day," said Cornum, who is leading the effort. "You get ready for a year before you do something like that. In the same way, we need to mentally and physically prepare for these deployments. If you go into it psychologically fragile, you're not going to come out better."
read more here
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=69891
Deputies Are "Shooting My Husband" after she called for help
911 Caller: Deputies Are "Shooting My Husband"
VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. -- A Volusia County deputy is now under investigation for two separate shootings. Sergeant Vidal Mejias shot Joshua James Gerard on Sunday night at a home on South Blue Lake Avenue in DeLand (see map) after, investigators said, Gerard wouldn't put down a shotgun when they responded to a domestic
It’s the second time in a month the deputy opened fire on a suspect.
“Oh God,” a 911 caller told a dispatcher Sunday night (listen to unedited, explicit call).
“What's the matter ma'am,” the dispatcher asked.
“They shot him. They're shooting him. They're shooting my husband,” she said.
The victim posted a ‘no trespassing’ sign on a lawn chair and warned visitors not to knock on the front door. Her home on Blue Lake Avenue was the scene of the second deputy-involved shooting in Volusia County in less than a month.
The woman told investigators she took her kids to the beach Sunday and, when they returned around 9:30pm Sunday, her husband, 30-year-old Joshua Gerard, had trashed their home.
“He busted out the window. He busted out the oven,” the caller told 911.
“That's tonight?”
“Yeah, there is glass all over my floor. I can't even take the kids inside,” she said.
The woman told investigators she kept her 8- and 2-year-old children in the car outside while she tried to calm him down, but he was drunk. She said he poured gasoline over their kayak and tried to set it on fire, waving a cigarette at her. She finally took her children and drove to the neighbor’s home next door where she called 911.
“He's probably going to try to kill himself,” she told the 911 dispatcher.
“Why?”
“He doesn't want to go to jail. He's a veteran. He's (explicative) in the head,” she said.
go here for more
http://www.wftv.com/news/23507572/detail.html
VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. -- A Volusia County deputy is now under investigation for two separate shootings. Sergeant Vidal Mejias shot Joshua James Gerard on Sunday night at a home on South Blue Lake Avenue in DeLand (see map) after, investigators said, Gerard wouldn't put down a shotgun when they responded to a domestic
It’s the second time in a month the deputy opened fire on a suspect.
“Oh God,” a 911 caller told a dispatcher Sunday night (listen to unedited, explicit call).
“What's the matter ma'am,” the dispatcher asked.
“They shot him. They're shooting him. They're shooting my husband,” she said.
The victim posted a ‘no trespassing’ sign on a lawn chair and warned visitors not to knock on the front door. Her home on Blue Lake Avenue was the scene of the second deputy-involved shooting in Volusia County in less than a month.
The woman told investigators she took her kids to the beach Sunday and, when they returned around 9:30pm Sunday, her husband, 30-year-old Joshua Gerard, had trashed their home.
“He busted out the window. He busted out the oven,” the caller told 911.
“That's tonight?”
“Yeah, there is glass all over my floor. I can't even take the kids inside,” she said.
The woman told investigators she kept her 8- and 2-year-old children in the car outside while she tried to calm him down, but he was drunk. She said he poured gasoline over their kayak and tried to set it on fire, waving a cigarette at her. She finally took her children and drove to the neighbor’s home next door where she called 911.
“He's probably going to try to kill himself,” she told the 911 dispatcher.
“Why?”
“He doesn't want to go to jail. He's a veteran. He's (explicative) in the head,” she said.
go here for more
http://www.wftv.com/news/23507572/detail.html
New Video for Memorial Day
Marine unit hit hard by casualties in Iraq deploys again
Brook Park: Marine unit hit hard by casualties in Iraq deploys again
Paul Thomas
BROOK PARK -- Nilda Bermudez fought back tears as her 23-year-old grandson left Ohio Sunday for deployment to the Middle East for the second time in five years.
"I told him, 'don't move until you ask God to protect every move you do,'" Bermudez said. "I know how bad it was the last time. We hope this time they all come back."
In 2005, the 3rd Battalion 25th Marines lost 46 Marines and two Navy Corpsmen during a tour in Iraq.
On Sunday, before hundreds of family members, the Marine reserve unit based in Brook Park lined up and filed out of the city recreation center to board buses.
Weeks of training in California await the Marines before they travel to Afghanistan on a security mission.
All five of Gary Scott's sons have served in the military.
On Sunday, as Scott's youngest son headed out to his second deployment, he thought about the tradegy the 3rd Battalion 25th Marines endured five years ago.
go here for more
Marine unit hit hard by casualties in Iraq deploys again
Paul Thomas
BROOK PARK -- Nilda Bermudez fought back tears as her 23-year-old grandson left Ohio Sunday for deployment to the Middle East for the second time in five years.
"I told him, 'don't move until you ask God to protect every move you do,'" Bermudez said. "I know how bad it was the last time. We hope this time they all come back."
In 2005, the 3rd Battalion 25th Marines lost 46 Marines and two Navy Corpsmen during a tour in Iraq.
On Sunday, before hundreds of family members, the Marine reserve unit based in Brook Park lined up and filed out of the city recreation center to board buses.
Weeks of training in California await the Marines before they travel to Afghanistan on a security mission.
All five of Gary Scott's sons have served in the military.
On Sunday, as Scott's youngest son headed out to his second deployment, he thought about the tradegy the 3rd Battalion 25th Marines endured five years ago.
go here for more
Marine unit hit hard by casualties in Iraq deploys again
Explosive Ordnance Disposal soldier dies in Iraq
DOD Identifies Army Casualty
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Staff Sgt. Esau S.A. Gonzales, 30, of White Deer, Texas, died May 3 in Mosul, Iraq, of injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident. He was assigned to the 38th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Company, Fort Stewart, Ga.
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Staff Sgt. Esau S.A. Gonzales, 30, of White Deer, Texas, died May 3 in Mosul, Iraq, of injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident. He was assigned to the 38th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Company, Fort Stewart, Ga.
Hurt Locker soldier killed in Afghanistan due to "indirect fire"
'Indirect fire' blamed for Maine soldier's death
May 09, 2010 09:14 EDT
WATERVILLE, Maine (AP) -- The Department of Defense says the soldier from Waterville who died Thursday in Jaghatu, Afghanistan, was killed by indirect fire from a rocket or mortar fired by insurgents.
The Morning Sentinel of Waterville reported Sunday that 21-year-old Army Spc. Wade Slack worked in combat, performing duties depicted in this year's Academy Award-winning film for best picture, "The Hurt Locker." But officials said Slack did not lose his life in an accidental detonation while working to disarm a bomb.
read more here
Indirect fire blamed for Maine soldier's death
May 09, 2010 09:14 EDT
WATERVILLE, Maine (AP) -- The Department of Defense says the soldier from Waterville who died Thursday in Jaghatu, Afghanistan, was killed by indirect fire from a rocket or mortar fired by insurgents.
The Morning Sentinel of Waterville reported Sunday that 21-year-old Army Spc. Wade Slack worked in combat, performing duties depicted in this year's Academy Award-winning film for best picture, "The Hurt Locker." But officials said Slack did not lose his life in an accidental detonation while working to disarm a bomb.
read more here
Indirect fire blamed for Maine soldier's death
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