Jack Nicklaus is helping combat veterans

Jack Nicklaus donates design for VA course

By Gregg Bell - The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday Jun 20, 2010 15:07:09 EDT

LAKEWOOD, Wash. — Jack Nicklaus takes the wrapping off another in his signature line of hybrid clubs and hands it to Danny Dudek.

The Army lieutenant colonel, paralyzed below both knees, is propped up inside a “SoloRider,” a specially designed cart with a seat that tilts up to support disabled golfers when they swing. He takes the new club, leans over the ball and follows the legend’s instructions.

THWACK! The white ball soars into the sunny Northwest sky, past lush evergreens and lands about 150 yards down the driving range.

Dudek’s drive — specifically the dedication and promise for renewal it represents — is why Nicklaus is here outside Tacoma. The golf great is donating his expertise to design what will perhaps be the most appreciated course he’ll ever build.

Nicklaus is helping combat veterans by redesigning and expanding the American Lake Veterans Golf Course. It’s going to be a one-of-a-kind, 18-hole layout geared specifically for disabled golfers.
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Jack Nicklaus donates design for VA course

Lance Cpl. "just knew something was going amiss with me"

All are heroes: the Lance Corporal
A Lance Corporal who suffered from post traumatic stress has told how he struggled with the condition while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I'll tell you what the worst feeling in the world is: it's flying out on a C-17 with the seriously injured guys, when there's not a scratch on you."

This is Jim Maguire* and he's 29. He joined the Army in 1998 and saw service in Iraq and Afghanistan as a gunner and a Lance Corporal commanding a Scimitar armoured reconaissance vehicle.

He now suffers from post traumatic stress disorder.

"I died of shame 100 times, talking to lads from the same battle with missing limbs. Yet I was still thinking, 'But I was there, I'm no coward, I was there fighting to help you guys stay alive.'

"In the UK they don't look at your passport, no debrief, nothing. I walked off the plane and walked home. Soon after that is when I first tried to kill myself.

"Thank God somebody passed my details to Combat Stress and when they got my file they sent someone straight away. Honestly, they showed up just in time! I went into Audley Court, where they truly appreciate what's happened to you."

It took about three years for the seriousness of Mr Maguire's illness to reach critical, having first been to Iraq in June 2003, to the volatile area of Al Amarah.

He was then seconded to Baghdad and that's when he first noticed signs of PTSD, though he had no idea what it was.

"I just knew something was going amiss with me," he says.
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All are heroes

Vietnam MIA's remains laid to rest with honor

Vietnam Veteran's Body Finally Home
Indiana's NewsCenter

By Megan Trent
Jun 19, 2010

COLUMBIA CITY, Ind. (Indiana's NewsCenter) - Hundreds of people lined the streets of Columbia City today as Sergeant Roy DeWitt Prater was laid to rest with full military honors nearly 40 years after his death.


"It just warms my heart that so many people have come out here today, and obviously this example of patriotism, to recognize this fallen hero. And he truly is a hero," says funeral attendee Steve Mundy.

Prater's aircraft was shot down over South Vietnam during a search and rescue mission in 1972. He was buried with six other airmen in Arlington Cemetery in 1997, but recent DNA testing positively identified Prater's remains.
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Vietnam Veterans Body Finally Home

Stone pavilion would honor Hood victims

Slavonic Benevolent Order of the State of Texas via AP This rendering provided by the Slavonic Benevolent Order of the State of Texas shows a proposed memorial honoring the victims of the Fort Hood shootings. The granite and limestone pavilion is planned near the Killeen Civic and Conference Center.

Stone pavilion would honor Hood victims

Staff report
Posted : Sunday Jun 20, 2010 8:44:56 EDT

The Killeen, Texas, city council has approved plans for a Fort Hood Memorial to victims of the deadly Nov. 5 shooting rampage.

The memorial, approved June 8, is planned near the Killeen Civic and Conference Center. The city will search for an engineer and architect for a granite-and-limestone pavilion.

Brian Vanicek, president of the Slavonic Benevolent Order of the State of Texas, said June 9 that his group will spearhead the project, seeking donations from the public and private groups. He had no cost estimate.

The group has collected $36,000, with $25,000 more in pledges for the monument, according to the Killeen Daily Herald.
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Stone pavilion would honor Hood victims

Camp Lejeune Marines begin to get benefits for toxic water

VA quietly giving benefits to Marines exposed to toxic water
By BARBARA BARRETT
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON -- Former Marine Corps Cpl. Peter Devereaux was told about a year ago that he had just two or three years to live.

More than 12 months later, at 48, he still isn't ready to concede that the cancer that's wasting his innards is going to kill him. He swallows his pills and suffers the pain and each afternoon he greets his 12-year-old daughter, Jackie, as she steps off her school bus in North Andover, Mass.

The U.S. Department of the Navy says that more research is needed to connect ailments suffered by Marines such as Devereaux who served at Camp Lejeune and their families who lived there to decades of water contamination at the 156,000-acre base in eastern North Carolina. Meanwhile, however, the Department of Veterans Affairs has quietly begun awarding benefits to a few Marines who were based at Lejeune.



Read more: VA quietly giving benefits to Marines exposed to toxic water

Dad and six year old daughter share hospital room at Walter Reed

Dad, daughter share hospital room at Walter Reed
June 19, 2010 3:20 PM
Katie Tammen
Daily News
FORT WALTON BEACH — It wasn’t quite the reunion with his daughter he’d imagined, but it was memorable nonetheless.

Air Force Staff Sgt. Travis Dalton and his oldest daughter, Eva, saw each other for the first time in about four months at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Eva had traveled to the hospital with her mother, Kara, and two younger siblings to see Dalton after he was wounded by an improvised explosive device.

But then, instead of seeing her father right away, the 6-year-old had a severe asthma attack that got her hospitalized, too.

Dalton had no inkling of his daughter’s attack when he awoke from surgery and found himself alone in a hospital room. It was about 45 minutes later that Kara came to see him.

Initially, she gave no indication anything was amiss.

Then Dalton asked about the kids.

“She said, ‘Well, we’ve had an eventful day while you’ve been in surgery,’ ” Dalton recalled.
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Dad daughter share hospital room at Walter Reed

Beloved Marine statue stolen from Larksville home

Beloved Marine statue stolen from Larksville home
By Matthew Harris (Staff Writer)
Published: June 20, 2010

The taciturn-faced Marine stood at attention in his dress blues, gripping an American flag and keeping watch at his post.

For six years, the 175-pound concrete sentinel, who stood barely 3 feet tall, steadfastly protected Florena Sorokas' front yard in Larksville.

Sure, he was a statue. But in a family where two sons are Marine veterans and two more grandsons served the Marine Corps, the oversized figurine was a talisman from the boys to the family matriarch.

"They bought it to protect me while they were gone," said Sorokas, who got the statue before her grandsons left for tours in Afghanistan.

And he never flagged in his duty - until Saturday, and not on his own will.

In the wee hours, someone sneaked onto Sorokas' lawn and made off with the statue, leaving the 71-year-old grandmother heartbroken and her family upset. Larksville police are investigating the theft and offering a reward to anyone with information leading to its return.
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Beloved Marine statue stolen from Larksville home

A Marine, a Mosque, a Question

Leave it to a Marine to ask the right questions!

A Marine, a Mosque, a Question
By JIM DWYER
Published: June 18, 2010
A few hours after the town hall meeting began, deep into the question-and-answer portion, Bill Finnegan lined up for a turn at the microphone. He had not come with any intention to speak, but as the evening dragged on, he changed his mind.

A Muslim group had made a deal to buy an empty convent from the Catholic parish of St. Margaret Mary in the Midland Beach section of Staten Island and open a mosque. A civic association organized a meeting with representatives of the group, the Muslim American Society, on the evening of June 9. Mr. Finnegan had gone, he said later, to “see what all the hoopla was about.”

Mr. Finnegan, 25, began by introducing himself. “I said, ‘My name is Bill Finnegan, and I’m a United States Marine recently returned from Afghanistan,’ ” he said.


Cheers rang out. He turned to the representatives of the Muslim group, seated at a table in the front.


“My question to you is, will you work to form a cohesive bond with the people of this community?” he asked.


The men said yes.


Mr. Finnegan then faced the audience. “And will you work to form a cohesive bond with these people — your new neighbors?” he asked.


The crowd booed. A voice called out: “No!”

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A Marine a Mosque a Question

Paul Revere's Ride to The Wall

Ride to the Wall


This project would not have been possible without Rolling Thunder, who invited us to do a free musical tribute at their annual veteran’s demonstration in Washington, D.C.; Paul Allen, whose “Experience Music Project” in Seattle provided the ideal venue for the kickoff concert, EMP’s Ben London who coodinated the event, Richard Foos and Mark Pinkus of Rhino Entertainment, who worked with us in manufacturing the Ride To The Wall CD, Steve Mueller and his staff at Signature Design for the design and production of the CD Booklet and a special thanks to Larry Leasure, we couldn’t have done it without you. To them, Adrian Cronauer, Heather French Henry and my good friend Dick Clark, a heartfelt “thank you” for helping us help America’s veterans. --Paul Revere

Ride To The Wall

Lyrics By Tommy D.

Music By C. Driggs & O. Martinez

Now here’s a story that needs to be told, Of a midnight ride not the one of old

Paul Revere with his rock band, Told his Raiders he had a plan

Rolling Thunder bikers heard the call. Fired up their hogs and headed for the Wall

Coast to coast the veteran brothers grew, To show in numbers ‘cause they all knew

We’ll ride to the Wall the Vietnam shrine

To honor those who put it all on the line

We’ll ride to the Wall...the price they had to pay

Young warriors in blood for the U.S. of A. ... USA

Some say get over it, it’s in the past. But the Wall is proof that their story will last

Tears in our eyes as choppers flew overhead, Reminds us of the veterans living and dead

Rolling Thunder bikers side by side, Remembering names carved in the Wall who had died

Harley’s roaring by the thousands they ride, To the big black Wall with honor and pride

Chorus

Wall of my soul ... Vietnam Vet, Ride to the Wall ... Never forget

Wall of my soul ... Vietnam Vet, Ride to the Wall ... Never forget

Chorus

Wall of my soul ... Vietnam Vet

Ride to the Wall but you never forget

With love in our hearts - we ride to the Wall

See the names of my brothers and sisters

Too young to have died ... I’ll never forget

Ride to the Wall ... our Vietnam Vets

Wall of my soul

PTSD I Grieve Video for National Guards

It all depends on who is doing the study and the results come out based on how they do it. The going rate for PTSD for humans in general is one out of three, the next highest used rate is one out of five exposed to traumatic events. Factor in the redeployments increase the risk by 50% and then you can see how there could be such a huge number of PTSD veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. One more thing to consider is that National Guards and Reservist often have dangerous jobs when they return home. Many of them are in law enforcement and others are firefighters as well as EMT's. Many times they return from combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, back to their regular jobs but also as part of the National Guard, they are expected to respond to events in their own communities. Floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, snow storms and mud slides along with forest fires, will often put them under even more stress. Today we see them being called to act as border patrol and clean up of the coasts after the oil rig explosion.

These men and women have regular lives, with families to worry about and jobs to do to provide for their families, yet too often all the demands placed on them are not considered when they come home and receive even less help to heal than the active military members do. We need to do a better job supporting them for real!

PTSD Hits National Guard Soldiers Harder: Study
National Guard Soldiers Have Higher Rates of Mental Health Problems Than Others

By KRISTINA FIORE
MedPage Today Staff Writer
June 13, 2010
After combat duty in Iraq or Afghanistan , members of the National Guard appear to have higher rates of mental health problems than those in the Active Component, researchers have found.


Rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with serious functional impairment increased from about 7 percent to more than 12 percent over a nine-month period, compared with only about a 1 percent increase among those in the Active Component, according to Jeffrey Thomas of Walter Reed Army Institute in Silver Spring, Md. and colleagues.

The researchers reported their findings in the June issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.

"The emergence of differences ... likely does not have to do with the differences in the health effects of combat, but rather with other variables related to readjustment to civilian life or access to health care," they wrote.
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PTSD Hits National Guard Soldiers Harder

From 2008

PTSD and Depression Increase in Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars
SALT LAKE CITY— Rates of PTSD and depression are high and increasing among combat veterans of the current Iraq and Afghanistan wars who sought care from US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical facilities, reported Charles Marmar, MD, at the 133rd Annual Meeting of the American Neurological Association.

Despite evidence that the rate of VA specialty visits is increasing for veterans with a mental health diagnosis, as many as two-thirds of these patients are receiving minimal or no psychiatric care, according to Dr. Marmar. In the absence of widespread early intervention for specific subgroups of combat veterans, he believes that returning Iraq and Afghanistan servicemen and servicewomen with mental health problems will create a significant burden for the US health care system, including general medical services.

Dr. Marmar, Chief of Mental Health Services at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues assessed the electronic medical records of more than 206,000 veterans entering the VA health care system from 2002 to 2007. They found that one in three patients was diagnosed with at least one mental health disorder, and 41% were diagnosed with either a mental health or behavioral adjustment disorder. The diagnosis rate for PTSD was 20%, followed by 14% for depression, about 7% for alcohol abuse, and 3% for substance abuse.

For PTSD, no significant differences were seen between active-duty veterans and members of the National Guard or reserve units or between men and women. However, women had higher rates of depression than men did, and male veterans—regardless of whether they were in active duty, the National Guard, or reserve components—had nearly twice the rate of alcohol and drug use, compared with female veterans.
read more of this here
http://www.neuropsychiatryreviews.com/08nov/PTSDDepression.html

But then there is this report from RAND

Studies' Estimates of PTSD Prevalence Rates for Returning Service Members Vary Widely
In allocating resources to treat posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among service members, policymakers rely on estimates of how prevalent this condition is among troops. But published prevalence rates vary extensively and are often disputed. For example, the most frequently cited estimate for PTSD among Vietnam veterans — nearly 31 percent — is still highly criticized. Similar concerns have been raised about PTSD prevalence estimates among U.S. service members serving in Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and in Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).
A team of RAND researchers analyzed the literature to document the extent of the variation in PTSD prevalence rates for military personnel who had served in OEF and OIF since 2002 and to identify possible explanations for these discrepancies. The team found 29 relevant studies and documented the following findings
read the findings here
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9509/index1.html