This piece of data is one of the biggest reasons there needs to be programs like this across the country.
"And veterans as a group are far more likely than the general population to run into trouble with the law. Statistics show that 95 percent of enlisted personnel have had no problems with the law when they join the military, said Robin Korogi, director of Montana Veterans Health Care Systems in Helena. But that drops to 40 percent after their return from combat."
These men and women didn't put themselves first when they enlisted. They did not put themselves first when they deployed into combat. They put their brothers and sisters first. While the rest of us did whatever, whenever, for the sake of our own lives, they were willing to die for their friends, endure any hardship, be torn away from their parents, spouse, kids and friends back home and once back home, they changed. When smart people read about one of them in trouble all of a sudden after a lifetime of honor, they understand there is a lot more going on than one of them deciding to commit crimes.
Missoula opens state's 1st program to help veterans with legal problems
By JAMIE KELLY of the Missoulian
Posted: Monday, June 13, 2011
Wars take lives and limbs, but they also steal the senses of peace, purpose and meaning for those who fight them.
Recognizing that substance abuse and mental illness are often the unseen byproducts of warfare, Missoulians on Monday launched the Veterans Treatment Track program - which shepherds veterans through whatever legal problems they run into after they come home.
"Knowing there are places like Missoula, Montana, that will put its arms around them is very comforting for veterans," said Montana Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger, one of numerous politicians and professionals who welcomed the new program in a ceremony at the Missoula County Courthouse.
Veterans who run into problems with the law through their behavior or through drug or alcohol abuse can now go through the program, which helps them find counseling and treatment instead of merely seeking punishment.
It is the only such program in Montana, and is modeled after a veterans court established in Buffalo, N.Y., in 2008.
Montana has the second-highest veteran population per capita in the nation - more than 100,000, or roughly one in nine people.
Westboro Baptist protest at Marine's funeral met by thousands of protectors
Church group draws counter-protest
5:46 AM, Jun. 14, 2011
Written by
Erin Quinn
The Tennessean
Bikers revved their engines. Thousands of protesters waved American flags.
On one side of the street, the signs read: “Nashville: No place for hate” and “God loves Sgt. Kevin Balduf.”
On the other side, they read: “Thank God for dead soldiers” and “God is your enemy.”
But beyond all that, inside the protective walls of a quiet church, lay a young man in Marine dress blues.
On May 12, Nashville native and Marine Sgt. Kevin Balduf, 27, was killed in combat in Afghanistan. Much closer to his home, Christian fundamentalists in Topeka, Kansas, planned their trip to protest his funeral.
read more here Westboro Baptist protest at Marine's funeral
Raw footage from the protest and counterprotest: Protestors and counter-protesters stand near the funeral of Marine Sgt. Kevin Balduf.
Family of slain Marine from Rota wants justice as trial begins
By Haidee V. Eugenio
Reporter
As the trial on his son's murder case begins this week, all that David M. Santos of Rota wants is for justice to prevail for the late U.S. Marine Corporal Dave Michael Maliksi Santos.
The young Santos was allegedly murdered by a fellow Marine while deployed to Afghanistan almost a year ago.
David Santos said he will be leaving the CNMI today for Camp Lejeune in North Carolina for the trial that begins on June 16, a month before the one-year anniversary of his son's death.
“What really hurts me is that I can only hear one side of the story. I can only hear the defendant, but not my son's side of the story. I really feel sad. I hope justice will be served,” David Santos told Saipan Tribune in a phone interview from Rota.
Eye doctors salvage sight in war zone
By Carmen Gentile - Special for USA Today
Posted : Monday Jun 13, 2011 9:08:59 EDT
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — Spc. Joshua Pederson was manning his armored vehicle's revolving gun turret when insurgents peppered the hulking truck with rocket propelled grenades and small arms fire.
When a round penetrated the vehicle, Pederson said he ducked inside and was hit with fragments and debris that sprayed his face and torso.
Lying in a hospital bed, a Purple Heart freshly pinned to his gown, the 24-year-old Phoenix native bore numerous scabs and sutures along his jaw line and on his eyelids. Small particles of debris had entered his eyes, though they were largely protected thanks to the ballistic-proof glasses he was wearing.
read more here Eye doctors salvage sight in war zone
Manhunt for militiaman who vowed to fight Guard
The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Jun 13, 2011 13:52:41 EDT
MISSOULA, Mont. — A manhunt was on Monday in the northwestern Montana woods for a former militia leader who authorities say fired on deputies and previously told police “he wasn’t going to be taken down like last time.”
Police have been searching for David Burgert since Sunday morning, after he fled in his Jeep when officers stopped to make a check on a vehicle at a picnic site near Lolo on U.S. Highway 12.
Burgert is the former leader of a Flathead County militia group known as Project 7, named for the number “7” on Flathead County license plates. Project 7 allegedly plotted to assassinate local officials, go to war with the National Guard and overthrow the federal government.
read more here Manhunt for militiaman who vowed to fight Guard
Integrated Care Clinics Improve Access for Vets
By RICK NAUERT PHD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on June 13, 2011
Veterans Administration clinics that integrate primary and mental health care are more successful at getting veterans mental health and social work evaluations than a standard VA primary care clinic, according to a study of Iraq and Afghanistan vets.
According to lead author Karen Seal, M.D., M.P.H., under the conventional VA model, patients are seen by a primary care physician and, if they screen positive for mental illness they are referred to a mental health provider.
Notably, the referral appointment would not necessarily be available the same day, nor in the same clinic.
Under the integrated care model, all patients are referred immediately by their primary care physician to a mental health provider, called the “Post-Deployment Stress Specialist,” and a social worker, called the “Combat Case Manager.” All visits take place during the same appointment, in the same clinic, with no waiting.
The study also showed, however, that the rate of follow-up mental health care – the number of subsequent visits with mental health providers that took place after initial evaluation – was not any higher under the integrated care model than under standard care.
Overlooked and cut loose by the Army, veteran’s life spirals to an end
Former Army Spc. Jacob Andrews Andrews in a photo taken during his deployment to Afghanistan during 2009. PHOTO COURTESY OF LAURI TURNER
By BILL MURPHY JR.
Stars and Stripes
Published: June 7, 2011
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — By last September, the Army had had just about enough of infantryman Jacob Andrews, so it gave him a general discharge and a one-way bus ticket home to Kansas City.
He had plenty to think about on the 30-hour trip from Fort Drum, N.Y.
There were the alcohol-fueled mistakes that had led to the end of his military career, and the memories of good friends who had been killed the year before in Afghanistan. There was, in particular, his horrific discovery of the body of one friend who had been crushed to death in a Humvee accident.
There was the night back at Fort Drum when he’d tried to commit suicide.
Friends and family members say the Army was more than happy to take Andrews when it needed new soldiers for an unpopular war, but that it punished and abandoned him when he returned from Afghanistan, despite clear signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and possible traumatic brain injury.
Those actions, they charge, put Andrews on the path to his tragic demise. In April, as the government hounded him for repayment of his re-enlistment bonus, and after he was incorrectly denied the educational benefits he’d counted on to help make a new start, Andrews, 22, hanged himself in a wooded area near his parents’ home in Kansas City.
“He tried. The kid asked for help,” said Andrews’ mother, Lauri Turner. “But to them, he was just a number.”
read more here Overlooked and cut loose by the Army
HOUSTON — Trial opens in a lawsuit filed by a Texas woman who says she was raped by co-workers in Iraq while employed by a former Halliburton Co. subsidiary.
Jury selection is to begin Monday in Houston in the suit filed by Jamie Leigh Jones against Halliburton and its ex-subsidiary, KBR Inc.
Source: Cpl. James Jessen Found At Campground In East County
June 12, 2011
SAN DIEGO -- A missing Miramar-based Marine has been found safe.
10News confirmed Cpl. James S. Jessen, 22 –who is stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar– was found late Saturday night at a campground in the East County, according to a Marine source.
read more here Missing Miramar-Based Marine Found Safe
For Military, Different Wars Mean Different Injuries
by NPR STAFF
June 12, 2011
There's a new type of tourniquet being issued to every Marine in Afghanistan, former military physician Dr Ron Glasser writes in his new book, Broken Bodies Shattered Minds: A Medical Odyssey from Vietnam to Afghanistan. It's called a combat action tourniquet — essentially a plastic cinch soldiers pull to tighten.
Marines, without anyone ordering them to do so, have begun heading out on foot patrols with the tourniquets already loosely strapped around their thighs, so they can be tightened quickly if a foot or a leg is blown off.
Officers don't like it.
"They view it has a kind of defeatism on the part of the troops," Glasser tells weekends on All Things Considered host Rachel Martin.
The officers feel that by wearing the tourniquet, Marines are resigning themselves to the fact they'll be wounded.
"But the Marines don't care," Glasser says. "The basically say, 'The hell with it. We're going to wear it anyway. If our legs get blown off, at least we'll survive.'"
read more here
For Military, Different Wars Mean Different Injuries
Search resumes for Utah soldier missing in desert
BY LYNN DEBRUIN
The Associated Press
Jun 11, 2011 11:19PM
Kevin Bushling marked his oldest son’s 27th birthday last week at home, curtains closed, reflecting on happier times. Now he’s bracing for a Father’s Day spent believing both his boys are dead — the youngest by suicide last year and the other, an Army soldier, missing for more than a month in the remote Utah desert.
Authorities were planning to search again Sunday for Army Spc. Joseph Bushling, who disappeared May 8 from the U.S. Army’s Dugway Proving Ground after telephoning a fellow soldier to tell him he was out of gas, cold and walking without shoes, according to a sheriff’s document.
The Dugway site was established in 1942 to study chemical and biological warfare and covers nearly 800,000 acres in the desert along the Nevada border. About 850 people live on the isolated base.
Bushling’s father fears the worst — that his son died of exposure or possibly that he stumbled upon unexploded munitions or even mustard gas. He fears the Army may be hiding something. Dugway officials deny any such assertion.
“I am glad they are still searching,” Kevin Bushling said from his home in Russellville, Ark. He said he was shocked to learn several weeks ago that the search had been called off but is pleased with the resumption.
read more here Search resumes for Utah soldier missing in desert
Manuel says more than 3,000 veterans have been deported since 1996. The Valenzuelas are trying to help all of them.
Although they've been to court four times, Manuel and Valente Valenzuela -- both Vietnam veterans -- are still fighting deportation issues. NF5 first spoke with the two veterans a year ago, and now Manuel says not much has changed.
"They still have a deportation issue on us," says Manuel.
The Valenzuelas are still arguing against the deportation with the same point.
"Due to my mother being a born-American mother, we're American citizens," explains Manuel. He says that it was a misdemeanor charge from 25 years ago that the government was using to deport him; he says it was a similar issue for his brother, Valente.
Immigration Services couldn't talk to us about the Valenzuela's case, but they say you can lose legal status for committing a crime.
"If you are here on some sort of a temporary status, and you commit certain crimes, you lose that status," says Tim Count, with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
So Manuel and his brother continue to fight, but as they do they're finding disturbing news; lots of other veterans have been in the same situation.
"I have files and files of paperwork here," says Manuel. "It is, it's a shame."
It doesn't matter if you go to church or not but if you were raised in a Christian home, it is part of your foundation. That connection between you, Christ and God remains no matter how much you may ignore it and even avoid it at times.
For combat veterans, the feelings of guilt after what you went through cut deeper than what any other survivor of trauma will ever know. For someone to sit there and tell you that you have nothing to feel guilty about leaves you thinking your feelings have just been dismissed by someone with no clue what's going on inside of you.
Maybe you don't really have anything to be forgiven for by them or anyone else but yourself. Feeling guilty you came home with all of your arms, legs and eyes or guilt over the fact you survived but your buddy didn't? Feeling guilty because a civilian was killed or even a child? We could tell you all the tired lines about what happens in war but again it would only dismiss what you feel inside.
The first step in healing is acknowledging the guilt you feel along with your pain, then taking a good, long look at the pain itself. How can you feel pain over the suffering of someone else if you are evil? That kind of blows that theory you have going on. How could you feel compassion in the midst of all the horrors of war if you were evil? The two do not go together.
Take a look at what you were like as a kid growing up. Were you a heartless jerk trying to hurt someone else? Did you grow up wanting to kill and destroy? If you did then the likelihood of joining the military would have been just about zilch. Selfish people don't join.
What were you like if you were drafted? It makes PTSD a bit worse when you were forced to be there topping off everything you had to go through, but you still need to ask yourself the same questions. The fact is, it was a choice to go because you could have taken the coward's way out and went to Canada instead.
You need to find forgiveness but you need to find it within yourself and forgive yourself first for what you had to do. You need to find peace with the fact you are still here and the death of your friend was not a judgement against them or in favor of you. No one can ever explain why a child dies but a person can live past 100 or why some family has everything they had taken away from a tornado but a neighbor's home is just missing a few shingles. You lived and now it's time to find a way to use the rest of your life with a sense of purpose. How can you do that if you feel as if you didn't deserve to survive?
You have it in you to want to do some good in this world, to serve and help others. Many veterans want to help other veterans and that's a wonderful thing but you won't be able to do it until you can honestly look them in the eye and tell them they are worth helping. You can do it once you have forgiven yourself.
God knows what you did but beyond that, He knows what you intended to do as much as He knows what was in your heart. Look at yourself and remember what you were feeling. Most of the time you realize there is nothing to be forgiven for but if you feel as if you need it, remember there is nothing you cannot be forgiven for. Christ forgave the hands that nailed Him to the Cross.
PTSD is not a judgment against you but more a reflection of the state of your soul. The fact you can feel that depth of pain means you had to care deeply in the first place.
Finding peace: Veterans visit monastery to heal traumas of war
On a recent Tuesday morning, a group of military veterans, along with a few of their wives, gathered at the Monastery of Holy Spirit to hear what Father Anthony Delisi had to say about anger and forgiveness as it relates to war.
Reporter: By Karen J. Rohr, Features Editor
Jun 11, 2011
CONYERS — On a recent Tuesday morning, a group of military veterans, along with a few of their wives, gathered at the Monastery of Holy Spirit to hear what Father Anthony Delisi had to say about anger and forgiveness as it relates to war.
“What if we can’t forgive ourselves?” asked a Vietnam veteran.
“How do we handle memories that give guilt and shame?” inquired another.
“What about the anger that was directed to our spouses and children?” remarked another.
"Why should veterans be treated differently than any one else?" I get that question a lot. The answer is, they are different than anyone else. Less than 10% of the population can call themselves Veteran and less that 1% serve today in the military. Think that makes them very different from the rest of us just with that, but top off the fact these men and women survived a year at a time in combat. We can understand civilians with PTSD after a tornado, car accident, crime or sudden death of someone they loved, but we can't seem to manage to understand a combat veteran coming home with PTSD because their traumatic events aren't counted on one or two fingers, but many need a calculator.
There are Veterans' Courts opening up across the country to treat them because they are different than the rest of the population. While many think this is a rare thing, even the Law Enforcement officials recognize confronting people with Mental Illness is confronting someone in crisis. Between 2008 and 2010 there were several of these trainings I attended and I can tell you first hand, it makes a huge difference in how you look at people and how you are able to judge someone needs help.
Police training makes a difference in crisis
by Lori Caldwell lcaldwell@post-trib.com
June 11, 2011
“I don’t believe in jail for the mentally ill, but the resources aren’t there. They need an advocate. I’m glad for this program, it works.” Judge Pro Tem Itsia Rivera
GARY — The mentally ill have 31 new advocates.
Last-week’s graduates of the Police Department’s five-day Crisis Intervention Team program learned diagnostic, communication and response skills that go far beyond handcuffs and jail cells.
“You are joining the rank of a very specialized team,” Danita Johnson-Hughes, president of Edgewater Systems for Balanced Living, told the group Friday afternoon. She and other speakers at the graduation ceremony, including Mayor Rudy Clay, thanked the officers for participating in the program.
Since 2003, the Gary Police Department, with Methodist Hospitals, Edgewater Systems for Balanced Living and the National Alliance on Mental Illness have been training officers in ways to quickly evaluate and assist mentally ill people.
“Take what you’ve learned and utilize it,” Chief Gary O. Carter said at the closing ceremony. “It’s self-rewarding.”
Police from Gary, Indiana University Northwest, Schererville and Hammond attended the class along with Gary Community School Corp. supervisory aides and Davis Security employees.
read more here Police training makes a difference in crisis
For veterans in rural areas, health care can be a battle
Associated Press
Posted: Sunday, June 12, 2011
WASHINGTON • Frank Munk earned his veteran's medical benefits more than four decades ago in Quang Tri province, a hard-fought, bloody piece of ground in Vietnam. Yet he doesn't always choose to use them.
Munk, 64, a truck mechanic from western Kansas, instead spends $2,500 out of his own pocket on a private doctor for such things as hearing tests. It's either that or drive nearly 300 miles to a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Wichita or Denver.
"I can't afford to take two days off," said Munk, who's self-employed. "The VA care is getting cost-prohibitive for people in the rural areas because of the time, and a lot of them can't drive themselves."
Other veterans who live beyond America's cities and suburbs share Munk's dilemma. Long distances and restrictive rules have become obstacles to health care for many of the more than 3 million rural veterans enrolled in the VA health system. They account for 41 percent of enrollees.
But the agency's effort to aid rural veterans has other problems as well. An April internal VA audit found that it couldn't determine whether much of the money spent on rural health care in recent years did any good.
The VA Office of Inspector General, the agency's internal watchdog, concluded that the VA "lacked reasonable assurance" that its use of $273 million of the $533 million in rural health funding it received in 2009 and 2010 had "improved access and quality of care" for veterans.
"We basically couldn't tell how effective each of these projects was because of the lack of project performance measures," said Gary Abe, a director in the inspector general's office who oversaw the audit. "The report's message was the VA couldn't determine if it was money well spent."
read more here For veterans in rural areas health care can be a battle
DWI shooter gets two-year sentence
DIAGNOSED WITH PTSD: Fort Drum soldier told he's lucky to have avoided a murder charge
By BRIAN KELLY
TIMES STAFF WRITER
SUNDAY, JUNE 12, 2011
A Fort Drum soldier diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder said Friday he does not know why he shot a stranger from a motorcycle on Gotham Street.
read more here DWI shooter gets two-year sentence
After fighting for his country, Iraq vet fights for a job
BY ROB HOTAKAINEN
MCCLATCHY WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- Eric Smith calls himself one of the lucky ones, returning home from the war in Iraq in 2008 with two arms and two legs.
U.S. Navy veteran Eric Smith considered himself lucky to return home to Baltimore, Maryland, after tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. But Smith has found finding full-time employment rough and his VA disability check too small to cover expenses, forcing him to move back in with parents while waiting for his luck to turn. Doug Kapustin / MCT
But his luck has yet to produce a full-time job. In the past year, the 26-year-old Baltimore veteran has found part-time work as a bartender — which paid $4 an hour, plus tips — and as a mail sorter, which paid $8 an hour. And when he was desperate enough for income, he volunteered to be a test patient in a drug study, which earned him $1,200 for a four-night hospital stay.
It’s not exactly what Smith had in mind.
After getting bored with high school, he quit as a 15-year-old sophomore and enlisted in the Navy two years later, serving two deployments in Iraq. He became a senior hospital corpsman, leading a four-man team in a 20-bed intensive care unit, gaining experience that he thought would easily translate into a good-paying civilian job.
Volunteers Build Home On S.I. For Iraq War Vet
June 11, 2011 8:00 PM
NEW YORK (CBS 2) — Volunteers unveiled a labor of love for Army Specialist Brendan Marrocco. He lost both arms and both legs 26 months ago when an explosive hit his vehicle in Iraq, and spent the last two years in physical therapy at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
On Saturday, family and friends gave 25-year-old Marrocco a homecoming at a house designed especially for him on Staten Island.
“It still doesn’t feel real to me. It really hasn’t from the beginning, but it’s amazing, really, for me to have a place as my own,” he said. “Without them this wouldn’t be possible.”
read more here and see video Volunteers Build Home On S.I. For Iraq War Vet
Top al Qaeda operative killed in Somalia, officials say
By the CNN Wire Staff
June 11, 2011 1:16 p.m. EDT
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: U.S. official confirms that al Qaeda leader is dead
He was killed as he refused to stop at a Mogadishu checkpoint
Fazul Abdullah Mohammed was wanted in connection to 1998 embassy bombing.
(CNN) -- A top al Qaeda operative in East Africa, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, was killed at a Somali checkpoint in Mogadishu, Kenyan and U.S. officials told CNN Saturday.
Mohammed, a citizen of both Kenya and Comoros, was long sought in Somalia for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Mohammed was stopped at a roadblock manned by forces of the Somali transitional government, but he sped through, sparking the troops to shoot him, a senior official in neighboring Kenya said.
"We commend the good work by the (transitional government). Fazul's death removes one of the terrorist group's most experienced operational planners in East Africa and has almost certainly set back operations," said a senior U.S. official, who was not authorized to speak on the record.
read more here
For A Navy SEAL, Balance Between 'Heart' And 'Fist'
by NPR STAFF
June 11, 2011
Eric Greitens was a gifted young college student when a question from a Bosnian woman changed his life. It was the summer of 1994, and he had gone to the Balkans to work in refugee camps. He was on a train when he met her, and she asked him, "Why isn't America doing anything to stop the ethnic cleansings, rapes and murders?" Greitens thought he was.
"I felt like I was really making a difference," Greitens tells NPR's Scott Simon, "but when I got to Bosnia, it was clear that her question was a question that was on everybody's mind. I remember there was a guy in one of the camps who told me, 'Don't misunderstand me. We appreciate the shelter that's here for my family and I appreciate that there's food available and there's a kindergarten that's here, but if people really cared about us, they would be willing to protect us.' And I realized later that what he said was true. Whenever we love or care for anything in our lives we're willing to respond with care and with compassion, but if something that we love or someone we love is threatened, we're also willing to respond with courage."
Since that encounter, Greitens has gone on to do humanitarian work in Rwanda and Gaza, among other locations, and earned a doctorate as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford. After his studies, Greitens became a U.S. Navy SEAL, serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, and founded a group called The Mission Continues, which works with wounded or disabled war veterans to contribute to their communities at home. In a new book, The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL, Greitens makes the case that humanitarianism and military missions need each other.
read more here
Marines showed extraordinary bravery 'when the world became fire'
By Larry Shaughnessy, CNN Pentagon Producer
June 11, 2011 8:55 a.m. EDT
Staff Sgt. Juan Rodriguez-Chavez, left, and Capt. Ademola Fabayo, awarded the Navy Cross, are now trainers
Quantico, Virginia (CNN) -- Capt. Ademola Fabayo and Staff Sgt. Juan Rodriguez-Chavez are both immigrants to the United States, both Marines and, most important of all, both heroes of a rare order.
On Friday, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus presented both men with the Navy Cross during a ceremony at the National Museum of the Marine Corps. The Navy Cross is the second-highest award for valor in the military, surpassed only by the Medal of Honor.
read more here Marines showed extraordinary bravery
Founded in 2000, EMBRACE is a nonprofit organization that provides social and physical wellness programs serving underprivileged communities in San Diego, CA. Embrace programs are designed to connect college students to the multi-cultural community through volunteerism and service-learning. The organization is built on the philosophy of UNITY and encourages serving less fortunate members of civilian and veteran communities by bringing people together irrespective of their race, religion or cultural upbringing.
Sean Sheppard, founder of EMBRACE was leading a group of college student volunteers to serve the homeless and while serving, Mr. Sheppard met Debbie Clark who played the character “Storm” on American Gladiators from 1991 to 1993. Clark, now 47 became homeless after an injury to her knee which ended her American Gladiator career. Sean Sheppard helped the homeless Ex-American Gladiator and her son by providing shelter and food and reached out to others for assistance. The media became aware of his efforts to aid mother and son, including AOL News, who wrote an article on this unfortunate story of an American Gladiator that was now homeless.
More Homeless Veterans and Families on Central Florida Streets
Friday, June 10, 2011
By: Tom Parkinson
June 10, 2011
Audio Report
WMFE - This year's homeless head count shows a substantial increase in the number of military veterans and families with children on the streets. Every year, volunteers visit homeless shelters, parks, streets and camps to determine how many people are homeless in Central Florida on that day.
This year the group counted all the homeless people the volunteers could find on the night of January 28th 2010 in Orange, Osceola and Seminole Counties. Results of the “Point-in-Time” homeless census are being released next week. Cathy Jackson, Executive Director of the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida gave 90.7 news an early look at some of that data.
Jackson says the group counted 4950 homeless children attending public schools in the tri-county area. That’s a substantial increase from the 3825 children that were counted in January of 2009.
Among the more disturbing figures, Jackson said, is the count of more than 2200 homeless military veterans on the streets and in the 150 homeless camps in Central Florida. That number is up from by about a thousand from the same time a year ago.
Does the Department of Defense send troops into combat or does the President and members of congress send them? Are these people just there or are they elected? Then they are supposed to represent the American people. Congress and the President are also responsible for the Department of Veterans Affairs. If we just assume all is well with the VA and the DOD, then they should be taking care of the men and women serving leaving us with no reason to feel ashamed they have lost their dignity because they do not get what they need when they come home.
Think about it. This country was worth it to them to risk their lives for. We allowed them to beg, borrow and suffer because they were not getting what they needed as soon as they came home. Backlog of claims not only meant lack of proper care but it also meant lack of money to pay their bills and keep a roof over their heads. We allowed them to wait in endless lines for appointments as long as we could just go on with our days not having to be reminded their wars are not over just because they are back home.
More troubling than the numbers of regular military coming home is the fact that almost half of the National Guardsmen are suffering in their hometowns but getting even less care without the support system in place to help them.
Soldiers' mental health can't be treated by VA alone, expert says in Missoula
By JOE NICKELL of the Missoulian
Posted: Saturday, June 11, 2011
"One percent of our population defends us," said Marks. "The least we can do is care for them when they get back. ... It's all of our responsibility - employers, educational systems, the whole gamut - because they defended and fought for all of us."
With 38 percent of soldiers, 31 percent of Marines, and 49 percent of National Guardsmen reporting some symptoms of mental health problems upon return from combat, Marks said it is important that entire communities embrace their obligation to help those who have given so much to their country.
Given today's frequent media focus on the psychological wounds of war, one might assume that soldiers who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and other post-deployment mental health issues would come home to a welcoming web of support networks and resources.
But it's that very assumption that hamstrings much important work, says Dr. Michael Marks, a former Missoula psychologist who now serves as the lead psychologist and director of the PTSD Outpatient Clinic of the Southern Arizona Veterans Affairs Health Care System.
"Too often, for all kinds of reasons, when people find out someone's a veteran, it's like, ‘Let the VA deal with it,' " says Marks. "But we don't have enough people; we can't treat everyone, and a lot of veterans don't want to come to the VA anyway."
read more here Soldiers' mental health can't be treated by VA alone
Accused sit in jail as military courts drag feet on appeals
By MICHAEL DOYLE
McClatchy Newspapers
Published: June 10, 2011
Gunnery Sgt. Brian Foster spent more than nine years waiting for his court appeal to be heard after being convicted on rape charges by his ex-wife. After finally winning his appeal, he returned to the Marines. PETER MAROVICH/MCT
WASHINGTON — Marine Corps Gunnery Sgt. Brian W. Foster served nearly a decade in Leavenworth for a crime he didn't commit.
Foster is now free and serving his country once more. The military appeals system that failed him, meanwhile, is still trying to right itself.
"It's a terrible system," Foster said. "The judges and attorneys who had the opportunity to stand up and say 'this isn't right,' they didn't do that."
The court that finally freed Foster in 2009 called him a victim of "judicial negligence" and "intolerable" errors. The nine-year delay between conviction and appeal was "unacceptable," the U.S. Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals acknowledged.
While Foster's experiences were extreme, they were not entirely unique. Other soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines have likewise languished in appellate limbo.
A McClatchy review of thousands of pages of court and military documents reveals persistent delays that have long frustrated repeated reform efforts. These appellate delays can interfere with the ability of veterans to find jobs, secure benefits and, sometimes, regain their freedom.
read more here Accused sit in jail as military courts drag feet on appeals
If you're in doubt about how beneficial something like this is, then watch this.
Semper Fly
With wounded warriors in quiet waters
JUN 20, 2011, VOL. 16, NO. 38
BY MATT LABASH
And so last month, I came here to meet an outfit of hope merchants, led by a retired Marine colonel, Eric Hastings, cofounder and head of Warriors and Quiet Waters. Since 2007, Hastings and his merry band of 276 guides, drivers, cooks, board members, and volunteers—nobody is paid, including him—carry out a mission that is simply stated: “to employ the therapeutic and rehabilitative qualities of fly fishing for trout on Montana’s rivers and streams to help heal traumatically wounded U.S. servicemen and women.” Hastings elaborates: “I know what it’s like to be in combat, and I also know that semper fi—always faithful—is more than just a slick motto. You can’t just walk off into the sunset. This is an honor contract between Americans and the people who were sent to war in their name. It’s about serving your fellow warriors.”
And serve they do. Relying on mostly modest donations from individuals, seven times a year Warriors and Quiet Waters (WQW) fly out a group of a half dozen wounded soldiers, sailors, or Marines from their hospital wards and rehabilitation programs for a weeklong stay (sometimes they hold couples retreats, too, since wives often suffer as much after the injury). These are warriors fresh off the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. They’ve been shot up, blown up, and every other up that man has designed to obliterate his enemy. Some arrive missing limbs and eyes and chunks of skull. All arrive missing other things they can’t quite articulate—the result of either Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI), or often both.
One of my favorite jobs was working for a small company back in Massachusetts. No one had any secrets there. It was an extended family with all the same problems any "family" had but all of us cared about our co-workers. When one of the employees suffered a loss of a family member, everyone showed up at the wake but the support didn't stop there. The worst loss was when one of the co-owners passed away due to cancer. He was not just a boss, he was part of our family.
We can all understand what it is like when someone in a "family" dies if we compare it to our own lives.
So far in Iraq it has happened 4,460 times and in Afghanistan 1,615 times according to Icasualties.org and even more when you consider deaths back home because of these wars.
If you have been unable to understand the depth of pain every member of a unit feels, this article may help you but it will help you more when you read it and connect it to your own lives.
"When he put his massive hand on your shoulder, you knew everything would be alright."
EMAIL FROM BAGHDAD
Fellow soldiers grieve for friend
Saturday, June 11, 2011
BY RANDY LUDLOW
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Spc. Bobby Hartwick was killed in a rocket attack on Monday in Baghdad.
Spc. Bobby Hartwick was killed in a rocket attack on Monday in Baghdad.
The band of brothers sat around the barracks in Baghdad yesterday, tossing out tales about a fallen friend.
Army Spc. Douglas Snow, a combat medic from Fairfield in Butler County, sat at the computer, condensing the conversation into an email.
You could almost see the wistful smiles and sense the loss underlying the words from Iraq as the platoon mates talked about Spc. Bobby Hartwick.
The 20-year-old medic from Hocking County had just finished a workout with his roommate. They were heading to the showers when the insurgents' rockets hit the base on Monday.
Hartwick; his roommate Spc. Emilio J. Campo Jr., 20, of Madelia, Minn.; Spc. Michael B. Cook, 27, of Middletown, Ohio; and two other soldiers were killed in the attack. It was the deadliest assault on American troops in Iraq in two years.
read more here Fellow soldiers grieve for friend
Probe: Keating was ‘tactically indefensible’
By Richard Lardner - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Jun 10, 2011 12:21:35 EDT
WASHINGTON — A military investigation says command failures left American soldiers in an indefensible position without adequate support when hundreds of insurgents attacked their remote outpost in northeastern Afghanistan with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and guns.
Eight U.S. troops were killed and 22 were wounded during the October 2009 attack on Combat Outpost Keating, one the deadliest battles during the nearly decade-long war. The investigation released Friday by U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., recommended giving four officers letters of admonition or reprimand for putting the 53 American troops in a vulnerable position at the outpost in mountainous Nuristan province near the Pakistan border.
read more here Keating was ‘tactically indefensible’
Fort Pierce man to be awarded Distinguished Flying Cross
By Joe Crankshaw
Posted June 9, 2011
FORT PIERCE — Forty-three years after a desperate battle in the jungles of Laos, three survivors of that fight gathered at the National Navy UDT/SEAL Museum Thursday morning to celebrate their perseverance and courage.
"Without that man," said retired Army Maj. Richard Chapman, 65, of Fort Pierce pointing at former medic and retired Army Sgt. Richard Crawford, 69, of Lakeland, "I would not be here. He saved my life."
Although Chapman credits Crawford for heroism, it's Chapman, who co-piloted a helicopter for the 101st Airborne Division in that battle during the Vietnam War, who will receive a Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions later this year.
read more here Fort Pierce man to be awarded Distinguished Flying Cross
Man Accused of Threatening to Shoot Down Planes At Shrinersfest
Reported by: web producer
An Evansville man is accused of threatening to shoot down planes at this weekend's Shrinersfest.
Prosecutors say Russell McNeely called the Shriner's office May 4th and threatened to shoot down the Blue Angels if they made an appearance at this year's Shrinersfest. McNeely allegedly told the Shriners the planes would add to post traumatic stress disorder he and other veterans have.
read more here Man Accused of Threatening to Shoot Down Planes At Shrinersfest
With war games selling millions of copies every year, it is stunning that few people even care about the real ones going on. Make believe heroes show up the next time you start a game, but in real life, they don't get up again. For the wounded, they live the rest of their lives wondering who is going to care about them, but when they think about the devotion gamers have to the make believe heroes, it cuts deeper than simple ambivalence to their real lives.
Do you ever wonder what life would be like for them if these gammers cared about them as much as they do about their games?
Brothers in Arms: Furious 4 Preview E3 2011
By Jake Gaskill - Posted Jun 09, 2011
Brothers in Arms Furious 4 Preview:
Don't worry. Gearbox Software isn’t done with Sargent Matthew Baker of the 101st Airborne Division and his fellow Brothers in Arms that gamers have come to know from the developer’s acclaimed World War II shooter. Rest assured, there are plenty more stories to be told around Baker and his band of brothers. But Brothers in Arms: Furious 4 is not one of those stories. Think of it more as an alternative take on the BIA universe.
Parents of jailed Oklahoma soldier discuss documentary “Purple Hearts: A Requiem for Mad Dog 5”
BY ADAM KEMP
Published: June 10, 2011
Movie director Mike Wilkerson said that when he met the parents of Michael Behenna, he knew the soldier wasn’t guilty of premeditated murder. That’s not the way the soldier was raised.
Wilkerson will premiere a documentary, “Purple Hearts: A Requiem for Mad Dog 5,” at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Kerr Auditorium in the SandRidge Energy Complex as part of this year’s deadCenter Film Festival.
The documentary focuses on U.S. Army 1st Lt. Behenna, an Edmond native, and the soldiers he led in 5th Platoon, Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division.
Behenna was charged in 2009 with unpremeditated murder and sentenced to 25 years of confinement at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., a U.S. disciplinary barrack. The sentence later was reduced to 15 years, but Wilkerson said his documentary points out several flaws during the trial and evidence that he thinks would support Behenna’s innocence.
Homeless homecoming: Bank refuses to delay foreclosure on home of soldier returning from Iraq
By DANIEL BATES
Last updated at 9:33 PM on 10th June 2011
When Tim Collette’s son Aaron comes home from serving in Iraq, he wants nothing more than to welcome him into their home with open arms.
There is just one problem - they won’t have a home.
Mr Collette’s bank has decided to foreclose on the property in Bend, Oregon, even though it means Aaron, 20, will have nowhere to go.
After being made to jump through hoops for a year, the bank will now force him out later this month, weeks before his son is due to return home for two weeks’ leave.
The eviction will be in breach of the law which bans banks from foreclosing on the families of serving soldiers, but JPMorgan Chase will carry on regardless.
‘I just want him to come home and know he can be safe for 15 days,’ Mr Collette said.
‘I don't want him thinking about coming home and having it not be there.’
The nightmare with JPMorgan Chase bank began back in 2008 when Mr Collette, who had been making regular payments on his mortgage, asked for financial help.
Iraq Veteran Matthew Perkins Facing Death Penalty
June 09, 2011 05:50 PM EDT
Matthew Perkins--a Coffee County, Tennessee soldier--is facing a death sentence. He stands accused of murdering his girlfriend and her two small boys in September of 2010. He has claimed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and there are several documented cases of him asking the Army for mental help. Prosecutors are asking for the death penalty.
Months before the murders, Perkins was found standing in an open field firing his weapon believing he was experiencing warfare.
Officer Guilty Of Manslaughter In Marine Shooting Case, Victim’s Family Speaks Out
June 9, 2011 11:59 PM
BALTIMORE (WJZ)— Guilty of manslaughter—not of murder. That’s the judge’s decision for the city police officer on trial for the shooting death of a Marine.
Gigi Barnett explains the victim’s family is happy with the verdict.
Despite Officer Gahiji Tshamba not being found guilty of the harsher first- or second-degree murder charges, the family is calling the verdict a victory.
The judge spared Tshamba a murder conviction, but said he believed he was drunk and that he never should have pulled out a weapon when a man touched his female friend’s buttocks. He found him guilty of manslaughter and a felony handgun crime.
Tshamba was driven off in a correction van minutes after a judge found him guilty of the felony crimes. He faces 30 years in prison for killing unarmed Marine Tyrone Brown outside a nightclub in Mount Vernon.
read more here Officer Guilty Of Manslaughter In Marine Shooting Case
If they really want to stop this then they better stop holding hearings on the problem and start holding them on what to do about them! Congress has to start finding out what really does work and stop funding research programs passed off as treatment.
Death of a Sibling: Overlooked Grief
By SUZANNE PHILLIPS, PSY.D., ABPP
It was some time after spending weeks in ICU with our youngest son, that I realized – If we had lost him, we would have also lost his brother.
In times of crisis, we too often overlook the bond between siblings and the unique but unrecognized grief suffered when a brother or sister dies.
Karen Hickman, founder of Gold Star Siblings shares that when her brother was killed serving in Vietnam, she felt like an outsider at the funeral,
“I had to grieve alone and where my parents couldn’t see me because I had to be strong for them and my younger brother.”
Author, T.J. Wray describes that the year her adult brother died she forgot how to breathe – but no one noticed. People tried to console her with comments like,
“Thank goodness, it wasn’t your husband or one of your children.”
read more here Overlooked Grief
Haunted by war, troubled nurse dies
Article by: PAT DOYLE , Star Tribune Updated: June 9, 2011 - 8:10 PM
Siblings say their brother, retired Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jim Pierce, couldn't shake images of Iraq war.
Eight years ago at a U.S. military medical tent in Iraq, a local man who said he was shot while walking home asked if he was going to die.
"Not today," replied Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jim Pierce, an intensive-care nurse from Bird Island, Minn.
"Thank you very much," the Iraqi man said.
Pierce tended to Iraqis in the Iraq war with the same care he gave wounded Americans. But those who knew him well say he never recovered from the experience -- especially the sight of severely injured children -- and returned stateside traumatized, depressed and suicidal.
"He was blown up psychologically," said a sister, Amy Bursch of Foley, Minn.
Pierce, 52, a retired officer, died May 23 at his home in Goodview, Va. Authorities have not ruled on a cause of death; a medical examiner said it is under investigation.
By DAVID TAUBE--dtaube@poststar.com
Posted: Thursday, June 9, 2011
U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Caleb Austin served multiple tours of duty overseas, and was ready for another tour in Afghanistan, said his father, Kevin Austin, of Houghton, in western New York.
"He certainly loved his country, he loved his God, and he loved his wife," said Austin, after his son died Sunday in a car crash in West Virginia.
Caleb Austin, a Long Lake Central School District graduate, served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Though one of his close friends had died on his last tour of duty and he had suffered from symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, Kevin Austin said his son planned to return to Afghanistan because he believed that's where God wanted him to be.
Caleb Austin took his faith seriously, and had a number of Christian tattoos, including a cross draped with dog tags that listed the last names of three friends, his father said.
One of those friends, Steven Clark, and Austin's squad leader from Afghanistan will escort his body from West Virginia to Long Lake for his funeral on Saturday and military funeral on Sunday. He will be laid to rest in Long Lake Cemetery.
Kevin Austin last saw his son when he and his wife visited New York City for Fleet Week, a celebration that honors the U.S. sea services.
"It just made a world of difference to him to know that there are people who really do genuinely care and are grateful," Austin said.
red more here Marine from Long Lake dies in car crash
Group's 1st Florida canine-therapy dog finds a friend in Orlando Army veteran
By Richard Burnett, Orlando Sentinel
June 9, 2011
David Cantara gave away one of his "children" in Orlando on Wednesday, and he couldn't have been prouder.
The professional dog trainer from North Carolina presented 14-month-old Marley, a golden retriever mix, to Kyle Evans, an Army veteran from Orlando who was wounded in the war in Iraq. It was the first companion-therapycanine that Cantara's nonprofit group, Carolina Patriot Rovers, has placed in Florida.
"It's always a little bittersweet to do this; we have such a strong bond with the dogs," Cantara said. "But it is still wonderful when we are able to make placements like this for such a good cause."
About two dozen people gathered Wednesday morning for a modest "passing of the leash" ceremony at Orlando Executive Airport. Amid a patriotic display of American flags and military-veteran volunteers, this was no ordinary pet adoption.
read more here Florida canine-therapy dog finds a friend in Orlando Army veteran
It may end up being something but mice do not commit suicide, do not grieve or care when one of their own is killed right in front of their eyes. They may freak out but I doubt they fall down on their knees regretting they lived.
REPORT AIR DATE: June 8, 2011 Search for Effective PTSD Treatments Shows Some Promise
SUMMARY
As part of a new partnership with the NewsHour, Jay Shefsky of WTTW's "Chicago Tonight" reports on scientists' search for effective treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Transcript
JUDY WOODRUFF: We have a science story about the search for effective treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. It comes from WTTW Chicago Tonight, and is reported by Jay Shefsky
JAY SHEFSKY, WTTW correspondent: On the face of it, the cause of post-traumatic stress disorder seems obvious. If you live through a terrifying event, you may be left with fears and memories that can take over your life. What's not so obvious is how PTSD could be prevented once someone has experienced the trauma.
Well, Northwestern scientist Dr. Jelena Radulovic thinks the key to preventing PTSD may lie in understanding the emotion of fear on a molecular level. She runs what they call the fear lab at Northwestern's medical school.
DR. JELENA RADULOVIC, Northwestern University: In most (inaudible) so many levels in terms of psychology and cognitive science and neurobiology and neuroscience. So we study the molecular basis of fear.
SHEFSKY: In this study, they wanted to figure out the chemical changes that occur in a brain as it develops PTSD. They did this by looking at the brains of mice, but first, they subjected the mice to severe stress in two stages. In stage one, they immobilized the mouse for an hour by taping it to a board.
read more here Search for Effective PTSD Treatment
Families of wounded vets get new home away from home ...
Posted by: Jeremy Olson Updated: June 9, 2011
As dignitaries celebrated the construction of a second Fisher House at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center today, it seemed appropriate that Terry Maxwell and her husband, Bill, were on hand. Terry has stayed at the first Fisher House -- a home away from home for relatives of veterans undergoing treatment -- so much over the past year that she has become its den mother.
Other families there know she has an open door policy, so they can talk to her if they are stressed or if their loved ones are struggling with treatment across the street at the Minneapolis VA. They also can look to her to enforce house rules about noise or curfews, and can count on her making mean cheesesteaks or stuffed peppers for everyone.
"I love cooking," said Terry, 46, "so I cook meals for the house. I shop if they need shopping. I help wherever I can. Financially, I can't do much. But physically, while I'm here, I do all I can."
The first time Bill needed to come from central Wisconsin to the Minneapolis VA for prolonged treatment, Terry was skeptical about what she perceived as "government housing" at the Fisher House. She worried it wouldn't be comfortable for her and her two grade-school children during tests and treatments for her husband's heart condition and breathing problems. What she discovered on that first trip last year was that the rooms were larger and more comfortable than most hotels, and that the camaraderie of other families at the house was irreplaceable. Her family has stayed there a dozen times, and arrived Wednesday in time for today's dedication ceremony of the second Fisher House on the VA campus.
read more here Families of wounded vets get new home away from home
Maltreated and hazed, one soldier is driven to take his own life
By MEGAN MCCLOSKEY
Stars and Stripes
Published: June 7, 2011
For Army Spc. Brushaun Anderson, there was no escaping his torment.
The senior noncommissioned officers who ruled his life at a remote patrol base in Iraq ordered him to wear a plastic trash bag because they said he was “dirty.”
They forced him to perform excessive physical exercises in his body armor over and over again.
They made him build a sandbag wall that served no military purpose.
Anderson seemed to take it all in stride. Until New Year’s Day 2010, when the once-eager 20-year-old soldier locked himself inside a portable toilet, picked up his M4 rifle, aimed the barrel at his forehead and pulled the trigger.
Anderson left behind a note lamenting his failures in the military, and some soldiers in his unit immediately said that Anderson had been driven to kill himself by leaders bent on humiliating him.
“No matter what Spc. Anderson did, no matter how big or small the incident was, his punishment was always extremely harsh, [and] a lot of the time demeaning,” one corporal later told Army investigators.
“Spc. Anderson’s punishments were not like anyone else’s in the platoon,” another corporal said. “Spc. Anderson was singled out.”
The U.S. Army is confronting an unprecedented suicide crisis. Since the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, more than 1,100 soldiers have taken their own lives, with the numbers escalating each year for the last six years. Last year alone, 301 soldiers committed suicide — a new record.
read more here ONE ARMY, TWO FAILURES
Alternative treatment promoted for soldiers suffering from PTSD
By Charley Keyes, CNN Senior National Security Producer
June 8, 2011 -- Updated 2106 GMT (0506 HKT)
Donna Karan and David Lynch attend a December function for Lynch's foundation, which aims to relieve PTSD in veterans.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Transcendental meditation can help tackle PTSD, a medical researcher says
Dr. Norman Rosenthal says he has facts, figures and testimonials to back him up
Star-studded events this week are kicking off a campaign to teach veterans how to meditate
Washington (CNN) -- Celebrities and a medical researcher want to convince the Defense Department this week that meditation could help the increasing number of military personnel suffering from post-traumatic stress.
Star-studded events in New York and Washington are bringing together people experienced in transcendental meditation with soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
Designer Donna Karan hosted a reception in Manhattan on Tuesday evening, and movie director David Lynch ("Blue Velvet," "Mulholland Drive") and CNN anchor and correspondent Candy Crowley will headline a Washington event Wednesday to kick off a campaign the sponsors hope will teach 10,000 veterans how to meditate.
A Georgetown Medical School clinical professor, Dr. Norman Rosenthal, said he has the facts, figures and testimonials to show that meditation can be a low-cost, low-risk alternative to strong narcotics often prescribed by government doctors.
The Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs "are big institutions," Rosenthal said in a telephone interview. "Our hope is someone will raise an eyebrow and say, "Well, well."
He includes case studies in his new book, "Transcendence-healing and Transformation through Transcendental Meditation."
read more here Alternative treatment promoted for soldiers suffering from PTSD
News: DOD opens Safe Helpline for sexual assault victims
Story by Lance Cpl. Lia Adkins Follow This Journalist
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. - Service members are regularly given statistics – numbers that show deaths from motorcycle crashes, drug abuse, suicides, or even the number of Marines and sailors who were arrested for driving under the influence every year. One statistic that gets taken too lightly is the number of sexual assault victims in the military.
Data collected from Naval Criminal Investigative Services shows that 1.1 percent per every 1,000 people reported a sexual assault in the Marine Corps during fiscal year 2010. While it may sound like such a small percentage, there are nearly 203,000 Marines, which turns that 1.1 percent into nearly 2,233 reports.
A single company, for example Headquarters Company, averages 150 to 200 Marines. These numbers mean that in 2010, the number of Marines that reported sexual assault would be enough to create more than 14 companies, or nearly five battalions. The 1.1 percent does not look as small anymore. And these are only the reported incidents.
read more here DOD opens Safe Helpline for sexual assault victims
Bill to help Camp Lejeune water victims faces uphill fight
BY BARBARA BARRETT
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
WASHINGTON -- Legislation that could offer health care to hundreds of thousands of victims of water contamination at Camp Lejeune, N.C., continues to have trouble gaining traction on a debt-wary Capitol Hill.
Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, who sponsored the bill, would like to see it approved in the coming month by the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, where he's the top Republican.
"I hope my colleagues will agree that this is the right thing to do," Burr said.
But the bill is controversial. At a hearing in the committee Wednesday, both the Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs said they oppose the legislation, calling it overly broad and possibly unnecessary.
And some of the nation's veterans service organizations say they have serious problems with it, too.
Burr's bill, the Caring for Camp Lejeune Veterans Act of 2011, would require Veterans Affairs to pay for the health care of any veteran or family member whose ailment can be linked to water contamination at Camp Lejeune. He submitted it during the previous Congress as well.
It was one of about three dozen veterans-related bills discussed at the meeting. Committee members will decide which should be brought forward for detailed discussion and a committee vote, called a mark-up.
Up to a million people are thought to have been exposed to contaminated water from the mid-1950s through 1987.
Dugway soldier now missing 1 month
Published: Wednesday, June 8, 2011
By Steve Fidel, Deseret News
DUGWAY — One month has passed since Army Spc. Joseph Bushling disappeared from his duty station at Dugway Proving Ground on May 8.
The biggest update in the search for him came six days later when the borrowed car he was driving was found in a ravine off a gravel road some distance from the military post. Some distance away, Bushling's hat was also found.
But that is the only substantive update officials have talked about since.
Tooele County Search and Rescue has a search planned Sunday, according to the Sheriff Doug Park. Dugway spokeswoman Paula Thomas said Wednesday that Dugway personnel would assist in a county-led search.
"Soldiers and civilians may search any time on non-duty hours," she added. "There are no new findings to report from Dugway."
Bushling's parents live in Russellville, Ark., and Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., has weighed in on behalf of the family and spoke Wednesday with Dugway commander Col. William E. King IV.
read more here Dugway soldier now missing 1 month
TOM ROEDER
THE GAZETTE
Bill Walsh peered at black panes of steel Wednesday morning, looking for a friend from the 198th Infantry Brigade.
Other men nearby found their buddies and cried.
As Fort Carson marks 50 years since the first American troops headed to war in Vietnam, veterans gathered outside the post’s main gate to mourn at a traveling replica of the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial. Called “The Wall That Heals”, the memorial carries more than 58,000 names of troops killed or still missing from the war.
“I’m going to get upset, I always do,” said burly but graying Bruce Draper, a retired Army chief warrant officer who served as a helicopter crew chief in Vietnam during 1969.
For Draper and Walsh, the exhibit, open to the public from dawn to dusk through Friday, gives them a chance to pause and mourn youthful friendships ended by America’s most controversial war.
“I was in a straight leg infantry outfit,” Walsh said, recalling the heat, the land mines and the friendships formed under fire.
“I’m not a hero, these guys are,” Draper said gesturing to the 58,000 names.
ACLU's lawsuit against the VA is a step in vet's recovery steve.lopez@latimes.com
Greg Valentini hopes the case will help other veterans who ended up traumatized and homeless
Combat veteran Greg Valentini slept in Wednesday morning in Hollywood, the day he sued the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Actually, Valentini didn't file the suit himself, and he was only one of four plaintiffs in what could become a class-action case. The ACLU of Southern California argues in the suit that the VA has mismanaged and underutilized its sprawling West Los Angeles campus even as mentally impaired homeless vets sleep on the city's streets.
If there's money to wage two wars, there ought to be money to restore abandoned medical buildings at the VA and fill them with some of the estimated 8,200 homeless veterans in Greater Los Angeles, as well as provide them the rehab services they need. That's how the ACLU's Mark Rosenbaum described the thinking behind the lawsuit to me this week.
As the suit notes, the VA campus has enough space for private companies to store buses and rental cars and for a hotel laundry facility, but no permanent housing for veterans, even though the property was deeded to the government more than 100 years ago specifically to house veterans.
As for Valentini, his involvement in the lawsuit came as a surprise to me, even though I've been shadowing him for several months in a series of columns about his efforts to rehabilitate himself. He told me he was sworn to secrecy until the suit was filed.
On Wednesday morning I visited him at the Hollywood rehab center where he has lived since last August along with a few dozen other veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Valentini, 33, hadn't seen the lawsuit, so I delivered a copy.
Valentini, who grew up in Lakewood, wasn't entirely comfortable being named in the suit. He doesn't enjoy reviewing the harrowing details of his combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq and his later descent into suicidal fantasies, homelessness and drug addiction. But he was willing if it would help others.
read more here ACLU's lawsuit against the VA is a step in vet's recovery
Can someone please explain to me how easy it is to accept the fact these men and women, managed someone to survive combat, but died back home because of it? Isn't that what we're really talking about here? They live through the worst man is capable of doing, watching out for their "brothers" and "sisters" but when they come home, the pain is so deep, they cannot fight that battle alone. We're supposed to be there for them. That's why the VA started. To take care of the wounded. For heaven's sake going all the way back to General Washington, we we've been reminded about the fact the wounded are just as much our responsibility as they are when they are sent to fight OUR COUNTRY'S BATTLES, no matter what you think about those battles.
Congress has no problems at all coming up with the money to train them, send them and arm them, (especially defense contractors) but they have not managed to use the same level of planing when it comes to then coming home. No war should ever be started until the VA is ready to take care of the wounded. They should be included in on every single funding request but above that, congress needs to stop the insanity of funding programs that are not working and make sure that when a business comes to them saying they need funding to help, they can prove it works. To have programs with no data to back up the claims is nothing more than funding research using the wounded as lab rats.
But congress is not the only problem the veterans have. The elected come and go but a combat veteran is a combat veteran for the rest of his/her life. They will see politicians elected and defeated while the state of their lives blows with the changing political party in charge at the time. Why? Do we owe these veterans for what they did for us or don't we?
William Hamilton's sister Angela left a comment on a blog post I put up about the Veterans for Common Sense Law suit against the VA.
This is my little brother and I am so happy people are getting his story out to help and encourage others and force the VA to help these people that have put their lives on the line for us.
William did what he was supposed to do and he went for help, but ended his life by stepping in front of a train. The train hit him but the lack of proper care he was given pushed him into thinking there was no reason to spend one more day on this earth. Anyone wondering why he managed to want to spend one more day deployed into hell enough so he managed to stay alive there? Anyone wondering why back home, he wanted to die? Anyone finally understanding that we pulled the trigger when we didn't demand that congress and our communities do all it takes to make them want to spend as many days as possible back home?
Troubled Veterans and Early Deaths After Iraq
By AARON GLANTZ
Published: May 28, 2011
This month, the Department of Veterans Affairs informed the parents of William Hamilton, an Iraq war veteran, that it was not responsible for his death.
Mr. Hamilton had been admitted nine times to a V.A. psychiatric ward in Palo Alto. He saw demon women and talked to a man he had killed in Iraq. His parents allege that the V.A. illegally turned away Mr. Hamilton — three days before he stepped in front of train on May 16, 2010, at the age of 26.
The agency denied the wrongful-death claim in a one-page letter: “The VA did not breach a legal duty,” wrote Suzanne C. Will, the agency’s regional counsel in San Francisco.
Mr. Hamilton’s death was recorded in an obscure government database called the Beneficiary Identification Records Locator Subsystem death file, which contains records for all veterans receiving benefits since 1973. The file provides a detailed portrait of the mental and physical wounds of veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the high rate of suicides and risky, sometimes-fatal behaviors.
Original post
Veterans for Common Sense Lawsuit on Veteran Suicide on KGO/ABC Veteran's suicide reveals problems in VA system
VCS Lawsuit on Veteran Suicide on KGO/ABC
Written by Dan Noyes
Saturday, 12 February 2011 10:44
Two Part KGO News Investigation Reveals VA Turned Away Suicidal Veteran in California in 2010
Part One:
February 8, 2011, San Francisco, California (KGO ABC 7 News) - Three hundred thousand of the military veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, according to a recent study. But many are not getting the care they need and the results can be tragic.
New data shows that veterans are more than twice as likely as other Californians to commit suicide.
William Hamilton enlisted in the Army at 19 and served two tours in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne Division. His mother Diane says he loved the discipline and camaraderie.
"Every time he came back the commander said he did such a wonderful job," she said. Hamilton was guarding a rooftop in Mosul in 2005 with his best friend Christopher Pusateri when insurgents attacked.
Angela said...
This is my little brother and I am so happy people are getting his store out to help and encourage others and force the VA to help these people that have put their lives on the line for us. Please see the links below.
Here is the I-TEAM investigation they did back in Feb.. It was a two night report they did. They guy who wrote the article from the NY Times found that the Congressman from the I-TEAM investigation never actually did anything after the TV report aired!
Hypertension: More Soldiers die from silent killer than from combat
June 7, 2011
By Patricia Deal
FORT HOOD, Texas, June 7, 2011 -- Many people think that combat is the most life threatening event for Soldiers, when actually more Soldiers may die off the battlefield fighting a common enemy.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. About every 25 seconds, an American will have a coronary event, and about one every minute will die from one, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Between 70 and 89 percent of sudden cardiac events occur in men, and as part of Men’s Health Awareness Week June 13 through 17, 2011, the medical professionals at the Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center want to make sure male beneficiaries know the best way to help reduce their risk.
There are several risk factors affecting heart disease. High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, is the leading cause of stroke, according to the American Heart Association.
Hypertension has been labeled "the silent killer" because there are no symptoms. It may remain unnoticed for many years.
A significant number of Soldiers are affected by hypertension, according to the Department of Defense's 2008 Survey of Health Related Behaviors. Approximately 17 percent of Soldiers have reported high blood pressure since they entered the Army.
Another 1.7 percent said they never had the condition checked, and 12.7 percent reported they didn't know or remember what their blood pressure was.
read more here More Soldiers die from silent killer than from combat
9 Soldiers Injured in Training Exercise
June 08, 2011
Seattle Times
SEATTLE -- Nine Soldiers were injured Tuesday morning in a military vehicle accident at the Yakima Training Center, according to a spokesman for Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
Two of the Soldiers were seriously injured and airlifted to a nearby hospital but are in stable condition, said Joe Kubistek, a Lewis-McChord spokesman.
The other Soldiers were evaluated by medical personnel on scene, he said. They were treated and returned to duty at the training center.
read more here 9 Soldiers Injured in Training Exercise
Local Family Proud Of Fallen Marine Selected For Navy Cross Heroism Medal
June 7, 2011 10:20 PM
SAN CLEMENTE (CBS) — His family is so proud. And rightly so.
They don’t have their son back — Marine Lance Corporal Donald Hogan didn’t return from war alive. But he was a hero nonetheless.
For his heroism he is being awarded the prestigious Navy Cross.
Akron: Marine steps in to accept brother's diploma
2:10 AM, Jun 8, 201
Written by
Jennifer Lindgren
AKRON -- When Thomas Roberts left the night before his high school graduation to go to U.S. Marine Corps boot camp, his brother, Cpl. Robert Roberts, walked the stage and accepted his diploma.
In a way, it was a thank you for what Thomas did four years ago.
