Army Suicide Problem Needs God, not Nasal Spray and Drugs

Well I do agree with this part way anyway. The whole of the veteran needs to be treated which means mind (medication and therapy) body (reteaching it to calm down) and spirit (finding forgiveness and being able to forgive others as well as themselves) so I do not agree with taking medications out of this. Medications can't be the only treatment provided.

The reason why I put this article up is that it right on the mark when it says this is a spiritual issue and must be addressed that way for the sake of the veteran and the family.

U. S. Army Suicide Problem Needs God, not Nasal Spray and Drugs
by Dale Fletcher

The U.S. Army has reported that there were 38 total confirmed or suspected suicides in its ranks in the month of July, 2012. This is the highest number of suicides in a month ever.

The Army has confirmed 120 suicides for both active- and non-active-duty soldiers in 2012, with 67 other deaths suspected as suicides but still under investigation. Twenty-five of those were attributed to soldiers who did not have any previous deployments.

The Army reported 242 suicides in 2009, 305 in 2010 and 283 in 2011.

As part of its coverage of this serious issue, this week CNN carried an article titled Can Nasal Spray Prevent Military Suicides? Apparently, the Army has endorsed a grant for Dr. Michael Kubek, an Indiana University of Medicine professor, to determine whether a nasal spray could be a safe and effective way to administer a specific antidepressive neurochemical to the brain of soldiers and help calm suicidal thoughts.

I know that the Army, as well as the Navy and Air Force, has directed a lot of resources into attempting to prevent suicides. They clearly have not implemented initiatives that have been effective at reducing the incidence of suicides. So, they need to do more... but administering antidepressive neurochemicals through the nose? Come on.

The stressors that members of our Armed Services are under are significant. But choices to take one's life come from deep within their soul, spirit and mind. Any long-lasting and permanent solution to the high suicide rate will not come from administering chemicals through a pill or a spray. The solution must be at a deeper lever than that.

The solution must be spiritual, because the problem is spiritual.
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New Jersey Vets4Warriors gets 300 calls a week

Fighting military suicides with peer counseling
CBS News
By Elaine Quijano
August 22, 2012

(CBS News) The Pentagon granted a six-month extension Wednesday to a pilot call-in program for American military personnel considering suicide.

The suicide rate among both active-duty troops and reservists is alarming, and it's increased dramatically this year.

One effort to save troubled lives is led by veterans who understand the problem all too well.

Marine reservist Tim Arora served in 2006 near Fallujah, Iraq. He saw some of the most intense fighting of the war.

Arora returned with deep psychological wounds so severe he requested a service dog for companionship and comfort.

"I was thinking of suicide pretty much on a daily basis," Tim said. "Now it's just how I help others with it."

Arora works at a call center at New Jersey's University of Medicine with 25 other veterans. It's called "Vets 4 Warriors." It's a place veterans can call to talk confidentially with other vets. They get 300 calls a week here.

"When they come home they come home to their communities. They are not coming home to army bases or military mental health centers. They're coming home to their parents," said Linda Bean, whose son Coleman committed suicide in 2008 after two tours in Iraq.

He killed himself on the 8th anniversary of his enlistment in the Army.
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Study set on how 'suicide bereaved' cope

What happens to a family after someone they loved committed suicide? They are shocked, they cry and then they blame themselves. They wonder how they could have missed how deep the pain was that suicide was even a thought. What did they miss? What didn't they say that could have made a difference? What did they say that could have added to the pain? Why didn't they talk to them instead of taking their own lives?

How do I know this? Because it happened in my family and has been happening since I got into all of this 30 years ago.

Study set on how 'suicide bereaved' cope
Aug. 22, 2012

LEXINGTON, Ky., Aug. 22 (UPI) -- It's estimated a U.S. veteran takes his or her own life once every 80 minutes on average and a study will analyze how those left behind cope, researchers say.

Officials at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs said about 6,500 veterans committed suicide last year, accounting for nearly 20 percent of all suicides in the United States.

"We really do not know how many people are personally affected by a suicide in their family, workplace or community," Cerel said in a statement. "Our previous research suggests that about 40 percent of people know someone who has died by suicide and that almost 1-in-5 people report they have been personally affected by a suicide."
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By the time my husband's nephew committed suicide, I knew just about as much as I needed to be able to help him, but for whatever reason, I couldn't get him to listen. I couldn't get him to talk to me much. After all, I was just his uncle's wife and 8 years younger than he was.

My husband and "Andy" served at the same time in Vietnam. They were the same age because my husband's half sister gave birth around the same time. I was helping other veterans get to the point where they went to the VA for help and "Andy" went too but what he was getting was not enough to fill his need. He had shrapnel in his body but the VA scheduled him for an MRI, which could have killed him, but was called off moments before they turned the machine on. He sent for his records to fill in things he had forgotten about but the DOD sent him a letter telling him his unit didn't exist.

"Andy" had 100% disability from the VA but the DOD sent him that letter? What set off his PTSD was when he was heading off on a sweep after he checked the road for bombs. He was talking to a couple of his best friends, noticed his boot was not tied right, bent down to fix it when the bomb exploded killing his friends.

First he blamed himself for not checking the road right and then had massive survivor guilt because he would have been right there with them if he didn't stop.

After that letter came, he checked himself in a motel room with enough heroin to kill ten men, locked the door and his body was found the next day.

To this day, whenever I post about military suicide, guilt pops into my head and to this day I wonder what I could have done differently. The other lives I saved don't replace the sadness I feel because I know there are too many more like "Andy" out there not finding enough hope to last one more day.

It is especially heartbreaking for me when I get an email from a family member when it is too late to do anything for their veteran but not too late to help them.

Most of the time they just need to understand Combat PTSD and what it did, not just to the veteran but to everyone in the veteran's life. Then I have to help them understand it was not their fault. Understanding what caused it does not remove the guilt they feel because then they think they should have done the search in the first place. The guilt doesn't end.

Wounded Times has many comments from family members left behind but there are thousands more no one knows about. That is the saddest part of all. They didn't get the help they needed to be able to help their veteran and they don't get the help they need when they have to visit the grave.

Battle-tested, female war vets run for Congress

Battle-tested, female war vets run for Congress
By Donna Cassata
The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday Aug 22, 2012

WASHINGTON — One flew an A-10 Warthog over Iraq and Afghanistan. Another was part of the 29th Infantry Brigade’s medical operations near Baghdad. A third lost both legs and partial use of an arm in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in Iraq.

All are war veterans aiming to serve in Congress. All reflect an evolving U.S. military. All are female.

After more than a decade of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, dozens of military veterans — Republicans and Democrats — are running for Congress this election year as voters have shown a fresh enthusiasm for candidates with no elected experience. This year, as the military has opened more jobs to women closer to the front lines, several of those veterans are females with battlefield scars and pioneering accomplishments.

Tammy Duckworth was a captain in the Army National Guard, sent to Iraq in 2004 and injured in November of that year when the Black Hawk helicopter she was co-piloting was struck but landed safely. In her second bid for Congress, the Democrat and former assistant secretary at Veterans Affairs hopes to wrest a northern Illinois seat from Republican Rep. Joe Walsh, an outspoken tea party freshman whose comments have stirred controversy.

Republicans and Democrats consider the 44-year-old Duckworth the favorite.

Tulsi Gabbard was a specialist with the medical unit of the 29th Brigade of the Army National Guard and a military police platoon leader who helped train the Kuwaiti national guard’s counterterrorism unit. The 31-year-old stunned Hawaii’s political establishment earlier this month with a come-from-behind win in the Democratic primary.
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Twisted values exclude deployed troops

My email box is full of links to Todd Akin. He has been the topic for the last few days and rightly so but he is only one of the many taking up time and interest of the 24-7 news shows. There is always some reason or another to invest what used to be called "reporting" time instead of what most of the people I hang around with talk about.

We talk about this.

'No one really cares': US deaths in Afghanistan hit 2,000 in 'forgotten' war
By NBC News staff and wire reports

KABUL, Afghanistan -- It was once President Barack Obama's "war of necessity." Now, it's America's forgotten war.

The Afghan conflict generates barely a whisper on the U.S. presidential campaign trail.

It's not a hot topic at the office water cooler or in the halls of Congress — even though more than 80,000 American troops are still fighting here and dying at a rate of one a day.

Americans show more interest in the economy and taxes than the latest suicide bombings in a different, distant land. They're more tuned in to the political ad war playing out on television than the deadly fight still raging against the Taliban. Earlier this month, protesters at the Iowa State Fair chanted "Stop the war!" They were referring to one purportedly being waged against the middle class.
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We talk about men and women risking their lives everyday in Afghanistan right along side of someone they may not agree with politically but are willing to die for their sake all the same.

We talk about the wounded coming home almost as much as we talk about the veterans coming home with PTSD and TBI.

We talk about wasted time and money on things that have been proven to be failures and how 40 years of researching proving what does work is ignored.

We talk about the Mom visiting her son's grave because he didn't get what he needed to recover from where he was sent, doing what he was asked do and then that same Mom blames herself. She couldn't have imagined this country would have let down so many and wondered why the media never told her a thing about any of this.

For all the ability to communicate with each other online and on our phones, you'd think we'd use it wisely but we don't. It is too easy to send a text or blog update about what you had for lunch then invest any real time in talking or even showing you care.

Detained Marine veteran moved to Salem VA hospital

UPDATE August 24, 2012
Va. judge orders release of detained veteran

Detained Marine veteran moved to Salem VA hospital
By: KRISTEN GREEN
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Published: August 21, 2012
HOPEWELL, Va.

Brandon J. Raub, the 26-year-old Marine Corps veteran who was detained involuntarily last week after federal and local officials questioned him about his Facebook posts, was being moved to the Salem Veterans Affairs Medical Center on Tuesday, his attorney said.

John W. Whitehead, founder of The Rutherford Institute, a Charlottesville-based civil liberties organization, filed an emergency motion in Hopewell General District Court to keep Raub at John Randolph Medical Center. Special Justice Walter Douglas Stokes, who on Monday ordered Raub held for up to 30 additional days, denied the motion Tuesday afternoon, Whitehead said.

Stokes said in the hearing Monday that Raub would get better care in a VA hospital and that the Hopewell center where he had been held since Thursday was only appropriate for a temporary placement, said Raub's mother, Cathleen Thomas.

Whitehead said hospital officials indicated that Raub could not be kept in a closer VA hospital, such as the Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center in Richmond, without voluntarily committing himself.

An Aug. 13 post said, "Sharpen up my axe; I'm here to sever heads." Raub also accused the government of perpetrating a "great amount of evil." "The day of reckoning is almost at hand," an Aug. 5 post on his Facebook page said. His attorney said many of the things he wrote on his page were song lyrics.

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Former Marine detained by FBI

Indiana Guard chief promoted religion. So What?

Indiana Guard chief promoted religion. So What?
by Chaplain Kathie
Wounded Times Blog
August 22, 2012

Indiana Guard chief promoted religion? Well that is what the title said anyway. This is a lot more complicated than this simple title suggested. While Mikey Weinstein has been doing a lot of good when it comes to everyone in the military being able to decide their own faith and has been against forcing anyone, he has been wrong on several issues that do not cross the line. He was against The Cross at Camp Pendleton saying that atheists were harmed by it. If they don't believe in anything then how does this actually harm them? It isn't as if they were forced to go and kneel in front of it. Weinstein has never really explained that one. He was right when it came to soldiers being forced to go to a religious concert at Fort Eustis.

I doubt he can explain how Indiana Guard Major General Umbarger's support of a religious group especially when evidence supports the power of spiritual healing when soldiers have PTSD and military suicides have gone up. Umbarger was talking about a group trying to help.

Centurion’s Watch Founder, Doug Hedrick, Speaks Directly to You
Major Doug Hedrick, Founder of Centurion’s Watch, and the Board of Directors of Centruion’s Watch, are passionate and dedicated to strengthening military marriages across America, including yours! Doug would like to personally invite you and your spouse to attend an upcoming “Fortified” Military Marriage Conference, and to ask you to consider partnering with us, your local church, and local businesses to bring a conference to an area near you. We want your marriage to be healthy and strong, and we need your help to reach other military couples who need to discover the principles, tools, support, and encouragement they need to enjoy the marriage relationship that they desire and God intended.

As Florida State Coordinator of Point Man International Ministries we help veterans and their families from all walks and all faiths. I am a Christian but fully acknowledge that all Christian denominations do not agree on doctrine. All of the people I help are helped the same way. With the love and compassion of Christ no matter what they claim their own faith is. I do not hit them over the head with the Bible any more than I try to covert them to my own faith. I am Greek Orthodox for Heaven's sake. Do you really think I could covert anyone? We come from all branches of faith and we like it that way. We aim to heal the soul of veterans and their families, not get butts in the pews.

There are times when I have to worry about crossing the line even when I am talking Christians because their faith preaches something I don't agree with. It isn't up to me to tell them they are wrong in what they believe. It us up to me to use what they believe to help them to heal.

It is the same when I talk to a person with no faith at all. I talk to them as a person spiritually since that part of the of the whole veteran is at the core of PTSD. It is a spiritual wound and requires treatment of the mind, body and spirit.

If no one was forced to support Centurion's Watch, or listen to Umbarger's speech, then there should be no problem with this.

Group: Indiana Guard chief promoted religion
By Chris Sikich and Michael Boren
Indianapolis Star
Posted : Tuesday Aug 21, 2012

The head of the Indiana National Guard says he made a video promoting an evangelical Christian group because it helps soldiers who struggle with their marriages after coming home from war.

But a military watchdog group says Maj. Gen. R. Martin Umbarger, the Guard’s adjutant general, violated military rules and the First Amendment by promoting a religious group in the 33-second video while in uniform.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, based in Albuquerque, N.M., sent a letter to the National Guard Bureau on Thursday asking that Umbarger be investigated and punished. Former Air Force attorney Mikey Weinstein founded the group, which seeks to guarantee religious freedom in the military.

The issue, Weinstein said, is that Umbarger’s message promotes one religious group over others. In the military, Weinstein says, such a show of support from a two-star general is intimidating.

“He should be removed immediately,” Weinstein told The Indianapolis Star on Monday, “and, from our perspective, court-martialed.”

Umbarger made the video in September 2011 on behalf of Centurion’s Watch, a Christian group based in Indianapolis that offers marriage counseling to military families. It was posted on the nonprofit’s website.
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Yep, that's all he did. No one was forced to do anything.

Veterans hiring program surpasses 100,000 a year ahead of time

Veterans hiring program surpasses 100,000 goal
Army Times
By Karen Jowers
Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Aug 22, 2012

The Joining Forces initiative has exceeded its goal of hiring 100,000 veterans and military spouses — more than a year ahead of expectations.

More than 2,000 companies have participated in the initiative, hiring 125,000 veterans and military spouses, said a White House official in a conference call with reporters.

First Lady Michelle Obama is expected to make an official announcement at Naval Station Mayport, Fla. Wednesday. Last August, Joining Forces challenged the private sector to hire 100,000 veterans and military spouses by the end of 2013.
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Wis. State Senator Connects Her Politics To Her Past

Wis. State Senator Connects Her Politics To Her Past
By DAVID GREENE
Originally published on Wed August 22, 2012

As the presidential election nears, Morning Edition is visiting swing counties in swing states for our series First and Main. We're listening to voters where they live — to understand what's shaping their thinking this election year. This week, we're spending time in Winnebago County, Wis., where we spoke with two women — one Democrat, one Republican — who embody their state's Midwestern charm and spirit of self-reliance.

First, we hear from the Democrat.

Last year, Jessica King became a Wisconsin state senator, swept into office in a wave of special recall votes. It was part of the larger political drama that saw Wisconsin's governor avoid his own recall.

King, 37, made history. In part of her district, she's the first Democrat to serve as state senator since the 1930s.

Her secret to representing a Republican area?

"I'm realistic. I represent approximately 160,000 people, and you have to ask yourself, 'When's the last time you remember 160,000 people agreeing on anything?' Probably never," she says. "If I can get people to agree with me 7 out of 10 times, I'm probably doing a good job.

"Now for those three times that maybe people think, 'Well, my priorities line up differently than the senator's' — well, as long as I do what every fifth-grade math teacher told me to do, which is 'show my work' — show my work, explain it — people then at least respect me."

When we met in a coffee shop in downtown Oshkosh, Wis., the youngest woman in Wisconsin's state Senate was wearing a business suit and was on the go, stealing bits of a muffin that was her breakfast.

King's story began with a tough childhood.

"My father really suffered from today what we call, you know, post-traumatic stress disorder," King says. "My mother actually suffered from schizophrenia."

Her dad's PTSD dates to when he served on a destroyer in the Pacific before the Vietnam War.
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Wounded St. John the Baptist Parish deputies are recovering

Wounded St. John the Baptist Parish deputies are recovering, sheriff says
Published: Tuesday, August 21, 2012
By Lori Lyons
The Times-Picayune

The two St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff's deputies wounded in last week's deadly shootings are continuing to improve, Sheriff Mike Tregre said Tuesday, while one of the suspects has been released from the hospital and jailed. Deputies Michael Scott Boyington and Jason Triche remain hospitalized for injuries suffered in two early morning shootings Thursday in which two deputies were killed.

Tregre said Boyington, who is at University Hospital in New Orleans, underwent surgery Tuesday morning and is continuing to improve. Triche is undergoing treatment at River Parishes Hospital in LaPlace.
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2 sheriff's deputies dead, 2 wounded in La. shootout