Young cancer patient soars with help of 101st Airborne
Jul 17, 2012
FORT CAMPBELL, KY (WSMV) - A 9-year-old cancer patient took part in a special mission Tuesday with the help of the soldiers in the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell.
Adam Crider, a Sumner County fourth grader, finished flight school and soared above Fort Campbell and the mountains of Colorado in a Blackhawk helicopter simulator.
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Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Combat PTSD – You Are Not Alone
Combat PTSD – You Are Not Alone
by SHELLY on JULY 17, 2012
When military personnel return home after serving a tour overseas, they come back changed. If they’ve witnessed horrors associated with war, such as their comrades dying before their eyes or innocent children caught in the cross fires, they come home with troubled minds and disturbing memories that don’t go away. A large proportion develops PTSD – post traumatic stress disorder. In fact, at least 20% of veterans (around 200,000 veterans) who were deployed in the last six years suffer from PTSD. The actual number is undoubtedly higher since still, in this day of age, there is stigma associated with any mental health issue.
Luckily awareness surrounding PTSD is increasing within the ranks of the U.S. Military and society in general. “Know absolutely that your chain of command and your leadership in the military at our highest levels recognize this issue and want to encourage our soldiers to seek out that mental health assistance,” said Brigadier General Gary S. Patton in the CNN article “Generals share their experience with PTSD” (2009). Patton and General Carter Ham, who both served in Iraq, shared with CNN about their personal struggles with PTSD as well as some of the more harrowing moments they witnessed on the battlefield.
For Patton, it was medevacing one of his unit’s soldiers who had been shot and then watching him die. For Ham, he said December 21, 2004 was the “worst day of [his] life” because he witnessed the mess tent blown up by a suicide bomber resulting in the loss of 22 lives.
Back on American soil, Patton and Ham experienced symptoms, such as disturbing flashbacks, trouble sleeping and avoiding talking about some of the more traumatic events. Other symptoms include emotional numbness, nightmares, anxiety, no longer having interest in past activities, feelings of guilt or shame, irritability, anger, resorting to substances to numb the pain and even suicidal thoughts.
Rather than prolonging the destructive nature of PTSD, it’s important to get help! “We need all our soldiers and leaders to approach mental health like we do physical health,” Patton told CNN. He added that just as you would get help for a broken arm, you should get help for PTSD and other mental health problems.
And remember it is not a sign of weakness. Perhaps Chaplain Kathie says it best in her blog Wounded Times (a blog “dedicated to defeating combat PTSD”):
“Well, you are not now nor have you ever been weak. When you were deployed and lives were on the line, what did you do? Did you call in sick? Did you catch a flight back home? Or did you stay to help the men and women you served with? Did you notice the pain you had inside when someone else was in danger?
You did not allow yourself to feel the pain you carried until everyone was out of danger, until you were back home, until you couldn’t trap in behind the wall any longer. How much tougher can you get than to be able to carry that kind of pain and still do it all?”
Check out the following links to find out more about Combat PTSD and how you or a loved one can seek help:
http://woundedtimes.blogspot.ca http://www.criminaljusticeschoolinfo.com/ptsd.html#resources http://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/ http://www.veteranscrisisline.net/
by SHELLY on JULY 17, 2012
When military personnel return home after serving a tour overseas, they come back changed. If they’ve witnessed horrors associated with war, such as their comrades dying before their eyes or innocent children caught in the cross fires, they come home with troubled minds and disturbing memories that don’t go away. A large proportion develops PTSD – post traumatic stress disorder. In fact, at least 20% of veterans (around 200,000 veterans) who were deployed in the last six years suffer from PTSD. The actual number is undoubtedly higher since still, in this day of age, there is stigma associated with any mental health issue.
Luckily awareness surrounding PTSD is increasing within the ranks of the U.S. Military and society in general. “Know absolutely that your chain of command and your leadership in the military at our highest levels recognize this issue and want to encourage our soldiers to seek out that mental health assistance,” said Brigadier General Gary S. Patton in the CNN article “Generals share their experience with PTSD” (2009). Patton and General Carter Ham, who both served in Iraq, shared with CNN about their personal struggles with PTSD as well as some of the more harrowing moments they witnessed on the battlefield.
For Patton, it was medevacing one of his unit’s soldiers who had been shot and then watching him die. For Ham, he said December 21, 2004 was the “worst day of [his] life” because he witnessed the mess tent blown up by a suicide bomber resulting in the loss of 22 lives.
Back on American soil, Patton and Ham experienced symptoms, such as disturbing flashbacks, trouble sleeping and avoiding talking about some of the more traumatic events. Other symptoms include emotional numbness, nightmares, anxiety, no longer having interest in past activities, feelings of guilt or shame, irritability, anger, resorting to substances to numb the pain and even suicidal thoughts.
Rather than prolonging the destructive nature of PTSD, it’s important to get help! “We need all our soldiers and leaders to approach mental health like we do physical health,” Patton told CNN. He added that just as you would get help for a broken arm, you should get help for PTSD and other mental health problems.
And remember it is not a sign of weakness. Perhaps Chaplain Kathie says it best in her blog Wounded Times (a blog “dedicated to defeating combat PTSD”):
“Well, you are not now nor have you ever been weak. When you were deployed and lives were on the line, what did you do? Did you call in sick? Did you catch a flight back home? Or did you stay to help the men and women you served with? Did you notice the pain you had inside when someone else was in danger?
You did not allow yourself to feel the pain you carried until everyone was out of danger, until you were back home, until you couldn’t trap in behind the wall any longer. How much tougher can you get than to be able to carry that kind of pain and still do it all?”
Check out the following links to find out more about Combat PTSD and how you or a loved one can seek help:
http://woundedtimes.blogspot.ca http://www.criminaljusticeschoolinfo.com/ptsd.html#resources http://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/ http://www.veteranscrisisline.net/
Fort Hood Dining Hall Cordoned Off Because Of Unknown Contaminant
Fort Hood Dining Hall Cordoned Off Because Of Unknown Contaminant
FORT HOOD
July 17, 2012
A 1,000-foot area was cordoned off Tuesday around a dining facility and adjacent maintenance facility at Headquarters Avenue and Mohawk Drive while post authorities searched for the source of an unknown contaminant.
Fort Hood Emergency Medical Services personnel treated two people for possible ammonia inhalation, a post spokesman said.
read more here
FORT HOOD
July 17, 2012
A 1,000-foot area was cordoned off Tuesday around a dining facility and adjacent maintenance facility at Headquarters Avenue and Mohawk Drive while post authorities searched for the source of an unknown contaminant.
Fort Hood Emergency Medical Services personnel treated two people for possible ammonia inhalation, a post spokesman said.
read more here
Ohio suspect in Michigan slayings was in military
Ohio suspect in Michigan slayings was in military
By JOHN SEEWER
Associated Press
July 17, 2012
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) - A man being sought nationwide Tuesday in the shooting deaths of his ex-girlfriend and her pregnant sister in Michigan is a former military police specialist who served nearly a year in Iraq and later was jailed in Ohio for sexual battery.
Authorities say they believe Thomas Fritz, who has been on the run since the killings Friday night, is armed and dangerous.
"We will use extreme caution when we do find Mr. Fritz," Michigan State Police Lt. Sean Furlong said.
Fritz, 38, is charged with killing his 33-year-old ex-girlfriend in a house they shared in Blissfield, a village on the edge of southern Michigan's scenic Irish Hills region. He is also accused of killing the woman's younger sister, who was eight months' pregnant, and shooting and wounding their 52-year-old mother.
By JOHN SEEWER
Associated Press
July 17, 2012
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) - A man being sought nationwide Tuesday in the shooting deaths of his ex-girlfriend and her pregnant sister in Michigan is a former military police specialist who served nearly a year in Iraq and later was jailed in Ohio for sexual battery.
Authorities say they believe Thomas Fritz, who has been on the run since the killings Friday night, is armed and dangerous.
"We will use extreme caution when we do find Mr. Fritz," Michigan State Police Lt. Sean Furlong said.
Fritz, 38, is charged with killing his 33-year-old ex-girlfriend in a house they shared in Blissfield, a village on the edge of southern Michigan's scenic Irish Hills region. He is also accused of killing the woman's younger sister, who was eight months' pregnant, and shooting and wounding their 52-year-old mother.
He served in the Ohio National Guard beginning in 1997 and later the Army Reserve. He then spent nearly a year in Iraq with the guard's military police unit from the spring of 2003 through early 2004.
read more here
Springs murder suspect commits suicide in Utah
Springs murder suspect commits suicide in Utah
July 17, 2012
MATT STEINER
THE GAZETTE
Law enforcement officers in Colorado and Utah are trying to figure out how a local man suspected of killing a 39-year-old Colorado Springs woman ended up dead Tuesday in an airplane at the St. George airport in Utah.
Capt. James Van Fleet of the St. George police department confirmed that Brian Joseph Hedglin was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound in an empty SkyWest plane. Hedglin was a pilot with the airline but was on leave, SkyWest officials confirmed Tuesday.
The aircraft was not in service and no one else was aboard when Hedglin gained unauthorized access to it, officials said.
Hedglin was being sought by Colorado Springs police in connection with the death of Cristina Cornejo, whose body was found Friday in the 1000 block of Cheyenne Villas Point in southwest Colorado Springs.
read more here
July 17, 2012
MATT STEINER
THE GAZETTE
Law enforcement officers in Colorado and Utah are trying to figure out how a local man suspected of killing a 39-year-old Colorado Springs woman ended up dead Tuesday in an airplane at the St. George airport in Utah.
Capt. James Van Fleet of the St. George police department confirmed that Brian Joseph Hedglin was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound in an empty SkyWest plane. Hedglin was a pilot with the airline but was on leave, SkyWest officials confirmed Tuesday.
The aircraft was not in service and no one else was aboard when Hedglin gained unauthorized access to it, officials said.
Hedglin was being sought by Colorado Springs police in connection with the death of Cristina Cornejo, whose body was found Friday in the 1000 block of Cheyenne Villas Point in southwest Colorado Springs.
read more here
Two tour Iraq vet charged after Andover VFW fracas
Local Iraq vet charged after Andover VFW fracas
By Keith Eddings
Staff Writer
Gloucester Daily Times
July 18, 2012
A former National Guard medic and Gloucester resident who served two tours in Iraq spent his wedding night in jail.
The veteran spent the weekend in lockup after being accused of assaulting three men — including one at least 65 years old — in a downstairs bar at a Veterans of Foreign Wars banquet hall in North Andover.
Philip Brooks, 32, a former North Andover resident now living in Gloucester, was arrested Saturday in an area hotel and charged with two counts of assault and battery and one count of assault and battery of a person over 65 with a dangerous weapon, North Andover Police Lt. Charles Gray said.
read more here
Iraq veteran accused of attacking VFW members
By Keith Eddings
Staff Writer
Gloucester Daily Times
July 18, 2012
A former National Guard medic and Gloucester resident who served two tours in Iraq spent his wedding night in jail.
The veteran spent the weekend in lockup after being accused of assaulting three men — including one at least 65 years old — in a downstairs bar at a Veterans of Foreign Wars banquet hall in North Andover.
Philip Brooks, 32, a former North Andover resident now living in Gloucester, was arrested Saturday in an area hotel and charged with two counts of assault and battery and one count of assault and battery of a person over 65 with a dangerous weapon, North Andover Police Lt. Charles Gray said.
read more here
Iraq veteran accused of attacking VFW members
Rocky mountain high or Sensible Colorado?
I have very religious friends saying there should not be medical marijuana for anything. They add to this thought that people will abuse it, never once considering that people will abuse everything but everything is not illegal. They forget that pot has helped a lot of people with illnesses just as they have forgotten that cocaine used to be used by doctors to ease pain. Saying it will be abused does not erase the help it delivers.
Vietnam veterans used it to help their combat PTSD because when they came home, there was nothing for them and narrow minded people called them "pot heads" simply because the few media reports about Vietnam veterans involved arrests. No one was talking about them they way today's veterans are talked about. Had it not been for Vietnam veterans, what is being done to address PTSD today wouldn't have happened.
PTSD research, all PTSD programs and treatments, crisis intervention and trauma specialists along with most mental health experts started because of them pushing for all of it.
So now we over 40 years of veterans doing their own research using pot to calm down and treat side effects of medications they are on but other people would prefer to just label them instead of learning the facts. If they stopped to read the side effects of the medications our veterans are given, they would understand the need for a less harmful drug.
I support medical marijuana because it helps more and harms less.
Vietnam veterans used it to help their combat PTSD because when they came home, there was nothing for them and narrow minded people called them "pot heads" simply because the few media reports about Vietnam veterans involved arrests. No one was talking about them they way today's veterans are talked about. Had it not been for Vietnam veterans, what is being done to address PTSD today wouldn't have happened.
PTSD research, all PTSD programs and treatments, crisis intervention and trauma specialists along with most mental health experts started because of them pushing for all of it.
So now we over 40 years of veterans doing their own research using pot to calm down and treat side effects of medications they are on but other people would prefer to just label them instead of learning the facts. If they stopped to read the side effects of the medications our veterans are given, they would understand the need for a less harmful drug.
I support medical marijuana because it helps more and harms less.
Stress test
by Jeff Koch
In Colorado, folks can acquire marijuana to treat their chronic illnesses, as long as those illnesses qualify as "an appropriately diagnosed, debilitating medical condition," as defined by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
The approved list includes muscle spasms, chronic pain and even severe nausea, but what's more interesting is what's not included. And that you can easily see in a much longer list, covering more than a dozen conditions the department has received petitions to add, but rejected. Among them: asthma, diabetes, Hepatitis C and post-traumatic stress disorder.
However, with its second PTSD petition in as many years, Sensible Colorado, a marijuana advocacy group based in Denver, hopes to do a little list revision. "The state health department is still examining the petition," says Brian Vicente, the organization's executive director.
It's an interesting situation, because since its inception in 2000, the Colorado medical marijuana law has never OK'd anything but the original maladies. Contrast that with states like New Mexico, which put PTSD on its list of approved ailments at the behest of its veterans; California's already lenient law — which was written to allow doctors to prescribe MMJ at their discretion for what the California Department of Public Health calls "any other chronic or persistent medical symptom"; and Arizona, which has already done exactly what Sensible Colorado is trying to do.
read more here
Legislation aimed at helping vets moves to full House
Legislation aimed at helping vets moves to full House
Posted: Jul 16, 2012
Three bills aimed at helping America's veterans have moved to the full House of Representatives.
House Resolutions 4057, 5747 and 5948 all unanimously passed the House Committee on Veteran's Affairs July 11.
HR 4079, The Safe Housing for Homeless Veterans Act, introduced by Rep. David McKinley, R-W.Va., was included in HR 4057. That bill is known ad the Military Family Home Protection Act.
"I was so happy that I could use my engineering background to help our veterans," McKinley said. "After touring homeless shelters in the 1st District of West Virginia, and seeing the conditions, with my own eyes, we began to investigate whether this was an isolated case or part of a bigger problem."
McKinley said his amendment, and the larger bill, will ensure homeless veterans have access to safe shelters.
In addition, McKinley's amendment would require any organization that seeks funding from the Veterans Administration for services for homeless veterans to document that their buildings meet or exceed all Life Safety Codes. HR 4079 also requires the VA to report the safety conditions of homeless shelters in its annual report to Congress.
"As a nation, it should be unacceptable for us to allow homeless veterans to be housed in potentially unsafe conditions," McKinley said. "In defense of our country, these men and women were put in harm's way – they should not be in doubt about their own safety now that they are home again. These homeless veterans experiencing difficulties should be able to trust that they will be safe each night."
Not only are veterans at risk of losing their homes, many also face financial hardship.
HR 5948, The Veterans Fiduciary Reform Act of 2012, was introduced by Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, who has been investigating fraud within the VA's Fiduciary Program.
read more here
Posted: Jul 16, 2012
Three bills aimed at helping America's veterans have moved to the full House of Representatives.
House Resolutions 4057, 5747 and 5948 all unanimously passed the House Committee on Veteran's Affairs July 11.
HR 4079, The Safe Housing for Homeless Veterans Act, introduced by Rep. David McKinley, R-W.Va., was included in HR 4057. That bill is known ad the Military Family Home Protection Act.
"I was so happy that I could use my engineering background to help our veterans," McKinley said. "After touring homeless shelters in the 1st District of West Virginia, and seeing the conditions, with my own eyes, we began to investigate whether this was an isolated case or part of a bigger problem."
McKinley said his amendment, and the larger bill, will ensure homeless veterans have access to safe shelters.
In addition, McKinley's amendment would require any organization that seeks funding from the Veterans Administration for services for homeless veterans to document that their buildings meet or exceed all Life Safety Codes. HR 4079 also requires the VA to report the safety conditions of homeless shelters in its annual report to Congress.
"As a nation, it should be unacceptable for us to allow homeless veterans to be housed in potentially unsafe conditions," McKinley said. "In defense of our country, these men and women were put in harm's way – they should not be in doubt about their own safety now that they are home again. These homeless veterans experiencing difficulties should be able to trust that they will be safe each night."
Not only are veterans at risk of losing their homes, many also face financial hardship.
HR 5948, The Veterans Fiduciary Reform Act of 2012, was introduced by Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, who has been investigating fraud within the VA's Fiduciary Program.
read more here
$2.5 million in Texas Lottery proceeds to benefit veterans
$2.5 million in Texas Lottery proceeds to benefit veterans
Posted Monday, Jul. 16, 2012
AUSTIN -- A state agency has earmarked $2.5 million in lottery proceeds for groups seeking to help Texas veterans and their families.
The Texas Veterans Commission announced the available grants Monday. Organizations have an Aug. 7 deadline to apply.
read more here
Posted Monday, Jul. 16, 2012
AUSTIN -- A state agency has earmarked $2.5 million in lottery proceeds for groups seeking to help Texas veterans and their families.
The Texas Veterans Commission announced the available grants Monday. Organizations have an Aug. 7 deadline to apply.
read more here
Iraq veteran and family heading into homelessness
We can read about numbers but we don't really know the veterans or the families behind the numbers. Here's one of them. We have a choice here. We can just get really sad reading about another homeless veteran in a few months or, we can do something about it today. If you know someone that can help this family, please share this story with them.
Veteran, family in danger of becoming homeless
By Melanie Tucker
It’s one thing to hold a yard sale to get rid of some old golf clubs or a few dresses you’ve outgrown.
It’s quite another when the motivation is providing groceries for your family.
The Duke family, who resides off East Broadway Avenue in Maryville, set out some items they could do without for a sale on a recent weekend. They sold some and used the extra money for food.
The larger picture, however, is even more dire. Stuart Duke is 55 and a veteran of the U.S. Army, having served in Korea, Germany, Egypt, Honduras and Iraq. The home he bought back in 1995 before he married Beatrice is now on the auction block, set to be sold to the highest bidder on the steps of the Blount County Courthouse. The date — July 24 — is getting way too close for this family of three.
The Dukes are raising their 14-year-old granddaughter who’s been with them since the age of 3. It’s the only home she’s known.
The Dukes said they’ve received the notice of the pending sale from their lawyer, who confirmed the state-mandated legal notice was published in the Knoxville News Sentinel rather than The Daily Times, despite the fact that they live in Maryville.
Proud to serve
Stuart’s military service began in 1975, and he remained in the Army until 1992. He then entered the inactive reserves until 2000 when he became an active reservist. He stayed for 10 years, just recently getting out. His year of service in Iraq was as an active reservist. That was in 2004.
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