When doctors get PTSD wrong, it could be because you did too

by
Chaplain Kathie

It is very easy for us to feel so overwhelmed when it comes to mental health that it is difficult to take active participation in the treatment of our own mental health or the treatment of someone we love. Understanding mental illness is often something we find impossible. This inadequacy gets in the way of proper treatment and above all, proper diagnosis.

There have been cases where someone is misdiagnosed because either someone did not know the right things to say or the doctor did not know the right questions to ask.

When average people are dealing with mental health professionals, we tend to not tell them everything they need to know. We just take their expert findings and settle for what they say. The problem with this is that if we do not really listen, take the time to read the information they give us, we could very well end up in a worse situation.

With Post Traumatic Stress Disorder the symptoms can be dismissed, disguised and denied for many years. PTSD follows a traumatic event. The term itself means "after trauma" but too often we do not connect a traumatic event with the changes. This is easy to happen especially when sometimes it takes years for PTSD to require medical intervention. How can this happen? Easy when PTSD is in a mild state. The VA has been seeing veterans as far away from the traumas of combat as World War II veterans presenting for the first time. Some of it is due to publicity focused on Iraq and Afghanistan veterans bringing understanding of this wound to them for the first time. Some of it is also due to age, life changes and another traumatic event in their lives. This is called a "secondary stressor" (Not to be confused with "secondary PTSD" which comes from living with someone with PTSD.)

Vietnam veterans are the same as older veterans, dealing with the same lack of connecting what is going on with their quality of life and relationships and what they went thru in combat. Many of them dismissed the changes in them, self-medicated or buried it all inside of them in a denial state believing they could hide what they were thinking. Changes witnessed by their families were misunderstood because of lack of knowledge and the veteran was blamed for the chaos they were perceived as causing instead of what was happening inside the veteran.

When years pass between the traumatic events and the admission there is a problem to be addressed by a doctor, we tend to withhold information from the doctor unknowingly because we do not connect something that happened so long ago with what we are seeing in now. This can cause a lot of problems with getting the right diagnosis and treatment.

The following is from the National Institute of Mental Health. It shows clearly how psychologist should be trained to look for what they specialize in, but if you are going to the wrong doctor because of lack of knowledge and do not tell them everything they need to know, you could end up with the wrong diagnosis.

How is bipolar disorder diagnosed?
The first step in getting a proper diagnosis is to talk to a doctor, who may conduct a physical examination, an interview, and lab tests. Bipolar disorder cannot currently be identified through a blood test or a brain scan, but these tests can help rule out other contributing factors, such as a stroke or brain tumor. If the problems are not caused by other illnesses, the doctor may conduct a mental health evaluation. The doctor may also provide a referral to a trained mental health professional, such as a psychiatrist, who is experienced in diagnosing and treating bipolar disorder.

The doctor or mental health professional should conduct a complete diagnostic evaluation. He or she should discuss any family history of bipolar disorder or other mental illnesses and get a complete history of symptoms. The doctor or mental health professionals should also talk to the person's close relatives or spouse and note how they describe the person's symptoms and family medical history.

People with bipolar disorder are more likely to seek help when they are depressed than when experiencing mania or hypomania.17 Therefore, a careful medical history is needed to assure that bipolar disorder is not mistakenly diagnosed as major depressive disorder, which is also called unipolar depression. Unlike people with bipolar disorder, people who have unipolar depression do not experience mania. Whenever possible, previous records and input from family and friends should also be included in the medical history.



How is PTSD detected?
A doctor who has experience helping people with mental illnesses, such as a psychiatrist or psychologist, can diagnose PTSD. The diagnosis is made after the doctor talks with the person who has symptoms of PTSD.
To be diagnosed with PTSD, a person must have all of the following for at least 1 month:


At least one re-experiencing symptom
At least three avoidance symptoms
At least two hyperarousal symptoms
Symptoms that make it hard to go about daily life, go to school or work, be with friends, and take care of important tasks.

What are the symptoms of bipolar disorder?
People with bipolar disorder experience unusually intense emotional states that occur in distinct periods called "mood episodes." An overly joyful or overexcited state is called a manic episode, and an extremely sad or hopeless state is called a depressive episode. Sometimes, a mood episode includes symptoms of both mania and depression. This is called a mixed state. People with bipolar disorder also may be explosive and irritable during a mood episode.

Extreme changes in energy, activity, sleep, and behavior go along with these changes in mood. It is possible for someone with bipolar disorder to experience a long-lasting period of unstable moods rather than discrete episodes of depression or mania.

A person may be having an episode of bipolar disorder if he or she has a number of manic or depressive symptoms for most of the day, nearly every day, for at least one or two weeks. Sometimes symptoms are so severe that the person cannot function normally at work, school, or home.

Symptoms of bipolar disorder are described below.

Symptoms of mania or a manic episode include: Symptoms of depression or a depressive episode include:
Mood Changes

A long period of feeling "high," or an overly happy or outgoing mood
This is not usually part of PTSD but the rest could be

Extremely irritable mood, agitation, feeling "jumpy" or "wired."
Behavioral Changes

Talking very fast, jumping from one idea to another, having racing thoughts
Being easily distracted
Increasing goal-directed activities, such as taking on new projects
Being restless
Sleeping little
Having an unrealistic belief in one's abilities
Behaving impulsively and taking part in a lot of pleasurable,
high-risk behaviors, such as spending sprees, impulsive sex, and impulsive business investments.

Mood Changes

A long period of feeling worried or empty
Loss of interest in activities once enjoyed, including sex.
Behavioral Changes

Feeling tired or "slowed down"
Having problems concentrating, remembering, and making decisions
Being restless or irritable
Changing eating, sleeping, or other habits
Thinking of death or suicide, or attempting suicide.
NIMH Bipolar

Borderline Personality Disorder
A brief overview that focuses on the symptoms, treatments, and research findings. (2001).

Raising questions, finding answers
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious mental illness characterized by pervasive instability in moods, interpersonal relationships, self-image, and behavior. This instability often disrupts family and work life, long-term planning, and the individual's sense of self-identity. Originally thought to be at the "borderline" of psychosis, people with BPD suffer from a disorder of emotion regulation. While less well known than schizophrenia or bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness), BPD is more common, affecting 2 percent of adults, mostly young women.1 There is a high rate of self-injury without suicide intent, as well as a significant rate of suicide attempts and completed suicide in severe cases.2,3 Patients often need extensive mental health services, and account for 20 percent of psychiatric hospitalizations.4 Yet, with help, many improve over time and are eventually able to lead productive lives.

Symptoms
While a person with depression or bipolar disorder typically endures the same mood for weeks, a person with BPD may experience intense bouts of anger, depression, and anxiety that may last only hours, or at most a day.5 These may be associated with episodes of impulsive aggression, self-injury, and drug or alcohol abuse. Distortions in cognition and sense of self can lead to frequent changes in long-term goals, career plans, jobs, friendships, gender identity, and values. Sometimes people with BPD view themselves as fundamentally bad, or unworthy. They may feel unfairly misunderstood or mistreated, bored, empty, and have little idea who they are. Such symptoms are most acute when people with BPD feel isolated and lacking in social support, and may result in frantic efforts to avoid being alone.

People with BPD often have highly unstable patterns of social relationships. While they can develop intense but stormy attachments, their attitudes towards family, friends, and loved ones may suddenly shift from idealization (great admiration and love) to devaluation (intense anger and dislike). Thus, they may form an immediate attachment and idealize the other person, but when a slight separation or conflict occurs, they switch unexpectedly to the other extreme and angrily accuse the other person of not caring for them at all. Even with family members, individuals with BPD are highly sensitive to rejection, reacting with anger and distress to such mild separations as a vacation, a business trip, or a sudden change in plans. These fears of abandonment seem to be related to difficulties feeling emotionally connected to important persons when they are physically absent, leaving the individual with BPD feeling lost and perhaps worthless. Suicide threats and attempts may occur along with anger at perceived abandonment and disappointments.

People with BPD exhibit other impulsive behaviors, such as excessive spending, binge eating and risky sex. BPD often occurs together with other psychiatric problems, particularly bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety disorders, substance abuse, and other personality disorders.
NIMH Personality Disorder

Looking at the symptoms of bipolar or even personality disorder and compare them to PTSD, they can be easily confused. If you do not listen to the doctor explain bipolar and hear

"A long period of feeling "high," or an overly happy or outgoing mood" which does not come with PTSD unless they are self-medicating, then you will not be able to tell them that is not the case with someone you love or yourself. There are mood-swings with PTSD, but the happy feeling does not last long. Depression lasts longer. If you simply tell the doctor about mood-swings and do not disclose the periods of being overly happy come with drinking or doing drugs, they will not know. Then you end up with the wrong diagnosis. If you do not know what PTSD and do not look for a truly traumatic event in the life, then you will not feel the need to share the information dismissing the event. They need to know! You have to not only know the right questions to ask, you need to know the right information to share with the doctor.

Take an active part by finding the information you need to know to share with the doctor. There is nothing wrong with telling a doctor "too much" because the more you share with them, the more they will understand someone you know a lot better than they do. Read what is part of the mental illnesses they have been trained to treat and if you know there is something else going on, you need to share it with them. If they were not trained to understand PTSD, they will not be looking for it.

Take a break,,,,we all need it

Lately it seems that I am in one meeting or training than doing anything else. Today it was DEEP Training,,,,Disaster and Extreme Event Preparedness. It is to help first responders and be there for them and when they are not in need, for the survivors. Thursday nights it's NAMI Family to Family training to help support families living with mental illness. This came after a conference call with NAMI Veterans Council. Seems like there are weeks when it just never ends.

The point to all of this is the mood I'm in right now. Usually I get to have Friday to do something fun with my husband. Yesterday I had a meeting to go to instead, so all we ended up just getting a late lunch and then back home, back to work online. The difference is that I really needed a break this week. It's very important for anyone working with stressful situations they take a break! I'm emotionally exhausted and drained physically. We all need a break, to step away from what we do, what we read and yes, even helping others.

I'm great at lecturing friends when they feel they need to keep going no matter how they feel, what they are dealing with or how stressed out they are. Great at giving the advice but not at taking it.

This will be the only post today because I am forcing myself to listen to what all the experts say about doing this kind of work. I'm taking a break tonight. I plan on playing a game online, then having something to eat and then, finding some kind of funny movie on cable and just relax. If you work with others, trying to give your all away to help them, take some time to refill your tank too or you won't do them any good at all.

Veterans suffer when claims are tied up or denied

Every time I read reports like this, it takes me back to the days when it seemed everyone knew my husband had PTSD, including the people working at the VA hospital but the only people out of the loop were the very people our lives depended on. Claims processors!

Don't get me wrong here, they have rules they have to go by even though most of the rules are pretty stupid. An MOS can trap a veteran out if it's the wrong type. Go figure. An MOS that is not combat related, but more support related, was never considered to have been able to become wounded by PTSD. Even though, much like today, no one is exempt from traumatic events. Not in Vietnam and not in Iraq or Afghanistan. Yet if a claims processor was allowed to finish reading the claim, they would find things like "shrapnel" or bullet wound, or even in some cases, missing limbs. We faced this catastrophe for six years between the time I finally managed to get my husband to even go to the VA and the time they finally honored his claim. It is the worst thing to go thru while dealing with a life threatening actual combat related disability and having the people in charge of your life denying all of it.

In this article you'll read about a disabled veteran, finally having his claim approved, after he lost his home. Again, a reminder here, these are men and women trusted enough to be fully armed and trained to hold the future of this nation in their hands. They were trusted enough to go where they were sent but they are not trusted enough to process their claims before it's too late to save their homes, their financial standing, their families and in too many cases, save their lives.

Are there some capable of fraud? Absolutely but they are a tiny fraction of the honorable claims being presented and with each number of waiting claim, comes a veteran and a family. This is wrong.

On this blog you've read countless stories of how Vietnam veterans are finally being honored for their service in cities and towns across the nation with celebrations, parades and parties. Yet look at how many years it took us to do this for them. How many years are you willing to wait to really honor them and the newer veterans seeking treatment and compensation for the wounds they came home with?

Backlog of VA claims and appeals is nearing 1 million
Over 80,000 cases are added monthly
By Lou Michel
NEWS STAFF REPORTER


The U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs is closing in on a milestone, and it’s not a happy one.

It’s approaching the 1 million mark in the number of outstanding claims by veterans.

The VA’s Web site shows more than 722,000 current claims, along with more than 172,000 appeals, for a total of about 900,000. That is up from about 800,000 total claims in January, according to the site.

Even though the VA says the average wait for a claim is 120.9 days, Welch, a Vietnam veteran, says he works with veterans who are “waiting anywhere from six to 14 months.”

It’s a disaster for them financially, he added.

“Part of the issue that’s happening with traumatic brain-injured veterans is they are unable to work and what happens is some lose their homes,” Welch said.

One of the vets who lost his home was Kreiger, he noted.

Kreiger, an Iraq veteran who eventually was classified 100 percent disabled, said he has been approached by dozens of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans denied benefits for post traumatic stress claims.

“Easily 50 veterans have come to me because the VA proved their PTSD was something they had before going to war, which makes them now ineligible for the benefit. The VA doesn’t even call it PTSD anymore. They refer to it as a personality disorder,” he said in citing bureaucratic struggles faced by returning veterans.

go here for more

http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/708119.html

US Horse Soldiers story told in best seller

Prologue: UPRISING
by Doug Stanton,
Author of Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan

Qala-i-Janghi Fortress
Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan


November 24-25, 2001

Trouble came in the night, riding out of the dust and the darkness. Trouble rolled past the refugee camp, past the tattered tents shuddering in the moonlight, the lone cry of a baby driving high into the sky, like a nail. Sunrise was no better; at sunrise, trouble was still there, bristling with AKs and RPGs, engines idling, waiting to roll into the city. Waiting.

These were the baddest of the bad, the real masters of mayhem, the death dealers with God stamped firmly in their minds. The city groaned and shook to life. Soon everyone knew trouble had arrived at the gates of the city.

Major Mark Mitchell heard the news at headquarters nine miles away and thought, You're kidding. We got bad guys at the wire?

He ran downstairs, looking for Master Sergeant Dave Betz. Maybe he would know what was happening.

But Betz didn't know anything. He blustered, "One of the Agency guys came down and told us we got six hundred Taliban surrendering. Can you believe that?"

Surrendering? Mitchell couldn't figure out why. He thought the Taliban had fled from the approaching forces of the Northern Alliance to Konduz, miles away. American Special Forces and the Northern Alliance had been beating them back for weeks, in battle after battle, rolling up territory by coordinating airstrikes from the sky and thousands of Northern Alliance soldiers on the ground. They now stood on the verge of total victory. Konduz was where the war was supposed to go next. Not here. Not in Mazar. Not at Club Mez.

Besides, these guys didn't surrender. They fought to the death.

Die fighting and you went to paradise.

Mitchell stood at the dirty plate-glass windows and watched. Here they came, a motley crew of the doomed, packed into six big trucks, staring out from the rancid tunnels of their scarves. Mitchell could see their heads over the barricade that ringed his headquarters, a former schoolhouse at the junk-strewn edge of the city. The prisoners -- who surely included some Al Qaeda members -- were still literally in the drivers' seats, with Northern Alliance soldiers sitting next to them, their AKs pointed at the drivers' heads. The prisoners turned and stared and Mitchell thought it was like looking at hundreds of holes punched in a wall.

"Everybody get away from the windows!" said Betz.

Major Kurt Sonntag, Captain Kevin Leahy, Captain Paul Syverson, and a dozen other Special Forces soldiers knelt behind the black and white checked columns in the room, their M-4 rifles aimed at the street. Behind them, in the kitchen, the local cook was puttering -- the air smelled of cooked rice and cucumber -- and a radio was playing more of that god-awful Afghan music that sounded to Mitchell like somebody strangling a goose.

He had been looking forward this morning to overseeing the construction of the medical facility in town, and the further blowing up of mines and bombs that littered the area like confetti. Each day, a little bit more of the war seemed to be ending. Mitchell had even started to wonder when he would get to go home. He and a team of about a dozen Special Forces soldiers had moved into the schoolhouse only forty-eight hours earlier. Their former headquarters inside the Qala-i-Janghi Fortress, nine miles off, in Mazar's western quarter, had given them the shits, the croup, and the flu, and Mitchell was glad to have moved out. It seemed a haunted place. Known as the House of War, the fortress rose like a mud golem from the desert, surrounded by struggling plots of wind-whipped corn and sparse cucumber. Its walls towered sixty feet high and measured thirty feet thick under the hard, indifferent sun.

The Taliban had occupied the fortress for seven years and filled it with weapons -- grenades, rockets, and firearms, anything made for killing. Even Enfield rifles with dates stamped on the bayonets -- 1913 -- from the time that the Brits had occupied the area. Before their hurried flight from the city two weeks earlier, the Taliban had left the weapons and smeared feces on the walls and windows. Every photograph, every painting, every rosebush had been torn up, smashed, stomped, ruined. Nothing beautiful had been left behind.

After three years of Taliban rule, there were old men in Mazar with stumps for hands. There were women who'd been routinely stoned and kicked on street corners. Young men who'd been imprisoned for not wearing beards. Fathers who'd been beaten in front of their sons for the apparent pleasure of those swinging their weapons.

The arrival of Mitchell and his soldiers on horseback had put an end to that. The people of Mazar-i-Sharif, the rugmakers and butchers, the car mechanics and schoolteachers, the bank clerks and masons and farmers, had thrown flowers and kisses and reached up to the Americans on their horses and pulled affectionately at the filthy cuffs of their camo pants. The locals had welcomed the balding, blue-eyed Mitchell and two dozen other Special Forces soldiers in a mile-long parade lining the highway that dropped into town out of the snowy mountains. Mitchell had felt like he was back in World War II, his grandfather's war, riding into Paris after the Nazis fled.

Now thirty-six, Mitchell was the ground commander of the Fifth Special Forces Group/Third Battalion's Forward Operating Base (FOB). It had been a distinguished nearly fifteen-year career headed for the top of the military food chain. His best friend, Major Kurt Sonntag, a thirty-seven-year-old former weekend surfer from Los Angeles, was the FOB's executive officer, which technically meant he was Mitchell's boss. In the tradition of Special Forces, they treated each other as equals. Nobody saluted, including less senior officers like Captain Kevin Leahy and Captain Paul Syverson, members of the support company whose job it was to get the postwar operations up and running, such as providing drinking water, electricity, and medical care to the locals.

Looking at the street now, Mitchell tried to figure out why the Taliban convoy was stopping. If anything went bad, Mitchell knew he was woefully outnumbered. He had maybe a dozen guys he could call on. And those like Leahy and Syverson weren't exactly hardened killers. Like him, these were staff guys, in their mid-thirties, soldiers who had until now been largely warless. He did have a handful of CIA operators living upstairs in the schoolhouse and eight Brits, part of a Special Boat Service unit who'd landed the night before by Chinook helicopter, but they were so new that they didn't have orders for rules of engagement -- that is, it wasn't clear to them when they could and could not return fire. Doing the math, Mitchell roughly figured that he had about a dozen guys available to fight. The trained-up fighters, the two Special Forces teams that Mitchell had ridden into town with, had left earlier in the day for Konduz, for the expected fight there. Mitchell had watched them drive away and felt that he was missing out on a chance to make history. He'd been left behind to run the headquarters office and keep the peace. Now, after learning that 600 Taliban soldiers had massed outside his door, he wondered if he'd been dead wrong.

The street bustled with beeping taxis; with donkeys hauling loads of handmade bricks to the city-center bazaar; with aged men gliding by on wobbling bicycles and women ghosting through the rising dust in blue burkhas. Afghanistan. Never failed to amaze him.

Still the convoy hadn't moved. Ten minutes had passed.

Without warning, a group of locals piled toward the trucks, angrily grabbing at the prisoners. They got hold of one man and pulled him down -- for a moment he was there, gripping the battered wooden side of the truck, and then he was gone, snatched out of sight. Behind the truck, out of sight, they were beating the man to death.

Every ounce of rage, every rape, every public execution, every amputation, humiliation -- every ounce of revenge was poured back into this man, slathered on by fist, by foot, by gnarled stick. The trucks lurched ahead and when they moved on, nothing remained of the man. It was as if he'd been eaten.

The radio popped to life. Mitchell listened as a Northern Alliance commander, who was stationed on the highway, announced in broken English: The prisoners all going to Qala-i-Janghi.

Remembering the enormous pile of weapons cached at the fortress, Mitchell didn't want to hear this. But his hands were tied. The Afghan commanders of the Northern Alliance were, as a matter of U.S. strategy, calling the shots. No matter the Americans' might, this was the Afghans' show. Mitchell was in Mazar to "assist" the locals in taking down the Taliban. He figured he could get on a radio and suggest to the Afghan commander presiding over the surrender that the huge fortress would not be an ideal place to house six hundred angry Taliban and Al Qaeda soldiers. But maybe there was a good reason to send them there. As long as the prisoners were searched and guarded closely, maybe they could be held securely within the fort's towering mud walls.

And then Mitchell thought again of the weapons stockpiled at Qala-i-Janghi, the piles and piles of rockets, rifles, crates of ammo -- tons of violence ready to be put to use.

Not the fort, he thought. Not the damn fort!

Belching smoke, grinding gears, the convoy of prisoners rumbled past the fortress's dry moat and through the tall, arched entrance. The prisoners in the trucks craned around like blackbirds on a wire, scanning the walls, looking for guards, looking for an easy way out.

In deference to the Muslim prohibition against men touching other men intimately, few of the prisoners had been thoroughly searched. No hand had reached deep inside the folds of their thin gray gowns, the mismatched suit coats, the dirty khaki vests, searching for a knife, a grenade, a garrote. Killer had smiled at captor and captor had waved him on,Tashakur. Thank you. Tashakur.

The line of six trucks halted inside the fort, and the prisoners stepped down under the watchful eye of a dozen or so Northern Alliance guards. Suddenly one prisoner pulled a grenade from the belly-band of his blouse and blew himself up, taking a Northern Alliance officer with him. The guards fired their rifles in the air and regained control. Then they immediately herded the prisoners to a rose-colored, plaster-sided building aptly nicknamed "the Pink House," which squatted nearby in the rocks and thorns. The structure had been built by the Soviets in the 1980s as a hospital within the bomb-hardened walls of the fortress.

The fort was immense, a walled city divided equally into southern and northern courtyards. Inside was a gold-domed mosque, some horse stables, irrigation ditches encircling plots of corn and wheat, and shady groves of tall, fragrant pine trees whipping in the stiff winds. The thick walls held secret hallways and compartments, and led to numerous storage rooms for grain and other valuables. The Taliban had cached an enormous pile of weapons in the southern compound in a dozen mud-walled horse stables, each as big as a one-car garage and topped with a dome-shaped roof. The stables were crammed to the rafters with rockets, RPGs, machine guns, and mortars. But there were more weapons. Six metal Conex trailers, like the kind semitrucks haul down interstates in the United States, also sat nearby, stuffed with even more guns and explosives.

The fortress had been built in 1889 by Afghans, taking some eighteen thousand workers twelve years to complete, during an era of British incursions. It was a place built to be easily defended, a place to weather a siege.

At each of the corners rose a mud parapet, a towerlike structure, some 80 feet high and 150 feet across, and built strong enough to support the weight of 10-ton tanks, which could be driven onto the parapet up long, gradual mud ramps rising from the fortress floor. Along the parapet walls, rectangular gunports, about twelve inches tall, were cut into the three-foot-thick mud -- large enough to accommodate the swing of a rifle barrel at any advancing hordes below.

In all, the fort measured some 600 yards long -- about one third of a mile -- and 300 yards wide.

At the north end, a red-carpeted balcony stretched high above the courtyard. Wide and sunlit, it resembled a promenade, overlooking a swift stream bordered by a black wrought-iron fence and rose gardens that had been destroyed by the Taliban. Behind the balcony, double doors opened onto long hallways, offices, and living quarters.

At each end of the fort's central wall, which divided the interior into the two large courtyards, sat two more tall parapets, equally fitted for observation and defense with firing ports. A narrow, packed foot trail, about three feet wide, ran around the entire rim along the protective, outer wall. In places, a thick mud wall, waist-high, partially shielded the walker from the interior of the courtyard, making it possible to move along the top of the wall and pop up and shoot either down into the fort, or up over the outer wall at attackers coming from the outside.

In the middle of the southern courtyard, which was identical to the northern one (except for the balcony and offices overlooking it), sat the square-shaped Pink House. It was small, measuring about 75 feet on each side, too small a space for the six hundred prisoners who were ordered by Northern Alliance soldiers down the stairs and into its dark basement, where they were packed tight like matchsticks, one against another.

There, down in a dank corner, on a dirt floor that smelled of worms and sweat, brooded a young American. His friends knew him by the name of Abdul Hamid. He had walked for several days to get to this moment of surrender, which he hoped would finally lead him home to California. He was tired, hungry, his chest pounding, skipping a beat, like a washing machine out of balance. He worried that he was going to have a heart attack, a scary thought at age twenty-one.

Around him, he could hear men praying as they unfolded hidden weapons from the long, damp wings of their clothing.

The above is an excerpt from the book Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan by Doug Stanton. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.



From Horse Soldiers by Doug Stanton. Copyright © 2009 by Reed City Productions, LLC. Reprinted by permission of Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc, NY.

Author Bio
Doug Stanton, author of Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan, is the author of the New York Times bestsellerIn Harm's Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors. A former contributing editor at Esquire, Sports Afield, and Outside, Stanton is now a contributing editor at Men's Journal and has written on travel, entertainment, and adventure, during which time he nearly drowned in Cape Horn waters, played basketball with George Clooney, and took an acting lesson from a gracious Harrison Ford.

Stanton lives in his hometown of Traverse City, Michigan, where he is a member of the advisory board of the Interlochen Center for the Arts' Motion Picture Arts Program and a trustee of the Pathfinder School.

He has taught writing at the college level and worked as a commercial sports fisherman and caretaker of Robert Frost's house in Vermont. Stanton graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan and Hampshire College in Massachusetts, and also received an MFA the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. He and his wife, the investigative reporter Anne Stanton, have three children. For more information please visit: http://books.simonandschuster.com/Horse-Soldiers/Doug-Stanton/9780743580816

Julie Harabedian
Publicist

Congressman Paul Hodes Suicide Prevention Legislation for Reservists and National Guard

Congressman Paul Hodes Introduces Suicide Prevention Legislation for Reservists and National Guard

June 11, 2009

Washington, DC--- Congressman Paul Hodes introduced legislation that would implement the Connect/Frameworks Suicide Post-vention Program which trains key service providers and community members to provide an integrated community response to reduce risk and promote healing in the aftermath of a suicide.

Effective post-vention is an essential component of suicide prevention, and the legislation recognizes that post-vention training should be incorporated into any comprehensive suicide prevention effort.

"It is tragic that our service members who sacrifice for our country don’t have all the necessary resources to deal with post traumatic stress and confront suicide prevention," Congressman Paul Hodes. "This program has proven successful for the New Hampshire National Guard and I believe it can be successful to prevent suicides for National Guard members and Reservists across the country."

The focus of the training is to create an integrated, coordinated community response that
(1) enhances collaboration and coordination to provide the most effective intervention
(2) assures outreach and prevention through rapid and comprehensive communication, including best practices, safe messaging, appropriate memorial services, and media guidelines; and,
(3) engages resources to help survivors and the community with grieving and healing.

The Connect/Frameworks Postvention protocols were developed through coordination and facilitation of statewide, interdisciplinary working groups that included a variety of stakeholders and experts. Training activities and materials based on these protocols were developed by Connect/Frameworks staff in consultation with experts in training and best practices in suicide prevention, and then tested and evaluated prior to implementation.
http://hodes.house.gov/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=1713#.

HUD and VA announce $75 million for homeless veterans

Recent VA News ReleasesTo view and download VA news release, please visit the followingInternet address: http://www.va.gov/opa/pressrel

Secretaries Shinseki and Donovan Host First Meeting of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness under the Obama Administration

Secretary Donovan Elected New Chair of the Council

HUD and VA announce $75 million for HUD-VASH program to provide rental housing and support for homeless veterans

WASHINGTON (June 18, 2009) - The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) met today for the first time under the Obama Administration. U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki chaired the meeting, at which U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan was elected rotating Chair for the upcoming yearand U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis was elected Vice Chair. U.S.Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Melody Barnes, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, attended themeeting.

The mission of the USICH is to coordinate the federal response tohomelessness and to create a national partnership with every level ofgovernment and the private sector to address homelessness in the nation."It is simply unacceptable for individuals, children, families, and our nation's Veterans to be faced with homelessness in this country," said President Obama. "I am confident that the Interagency Council on Homelessness, under Secretary Donovan's leadership, will have a renewedfocus on coordinating efforts across federal agencies and working closely with our state, local, community-based, and faith-based partnersto address these serious issues."

"Ending the continuing tragedy of homelessness demands thoughtful and focused leadership," said HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan. "President Obama and I are committed to working through the USICH, the agencies it represents and our state, local and non-profit partners to build athoughtful and compassionate response to this crisis. The bottom lineis that through our combined efforts every man, woman and child in thisnation should have access to a safe, affordable place to lay their headat night."

Secretaries Donovan and Shinseki also announced the allocation of $75million to local public housing authorities across the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam to provide permanent supportive housing and dedicated VA case managers for an estimated10,000 homeless Veterans. This innovative joint initiative is called Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing Program (HUD-VASH). This funding will provide local public housing agencies with approximately 10,000 rental assistance vouchers specifically targeted to assist homelessVeterans in their area. Public housing authorities, that administer HUD's Housing Choice Voucher Program, work closely with Department of Veteran Affairs medical centers to manage the program. In addition tothe rental assistance, VA medical centers provide supportive servicesand case management to eligible homeless Veterans. "It is shameful that after serving our nation so well, some of ourVeterans leave their military life only to fall into homelessness," said Donovan. "

Working closely with the Department of Veterans Affairs, we're able to offer a permanent home, along with critically needed supportive services, to the very people to whom we owe so much." "No one, especially Veterans who have faithfully served our country should become homeless," said VA Secretary Eric Shinseki. "This council's work is critical to providing for those at risk and on thestreets. This interagency partnership allows us to leverage ourresources, programs, talent and experience to create viable solutionsthat will eliminate homelessness.""With new service members returning home every day and the economy sputtering, we must step up our efforts to provide all Veterans with housing and the dignity that comes with it," said Senator Murray,Chairman of the Senate Housing Appropriations Subcommittee.

"For too long homeless Veterans have been forgotten heroes. HUD-VASH grants are making a real difference in ensuring that those who have sacrificed for our nation are not coming home to sleep on our streets."

Under HUD-VASH, HUD will provide housing assistance through its Housing Choice Voucher Program (Section 8) which allows Veterans to rent privately owned housing. The VA will provide to eligible homelessVeterans clinical and supportive services through its health care systemacross the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam.VA addresses the needs of the more than 100,000 homeless Veterans whoaccess VA health care annually. The USICH is an interagency council made up of members from federal agencies, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department ofEnergy, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of HomelandSecurity, Department of Interior, Department of Justice, Department ofLabor, Department of Transportation, Corporation for National andCommunity Service, Social Security Administration, General ServicesAdministration, and United States Postal Service.

M-88 armored vehicle fire burns 3 Fort Stewart Soldiers

3 Ga. soldiers injured in Army vehicle fire
Atlanta Journal Constitution - GA, USA
Associated Press

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Fort Stewart — Three Fort Stewart soldiers are being treated for injuries from an explosion inside an armored vehicle on the southeast Georgia Army post.

Fort Stewart spokesman Kevin Larson said Wednesday none of the injuries are life-threatening. One soldier was taken to the Augusta burn center with second-degree burns. The others were treated at Fort Stewart for minor burns and dehydration.


Larson said the soldiers were driving an M-88 armored vehicle on a tank trail when they heard a hissing sound, followed by an explosion inside the crew compartment. The blast threw one of the soldiers out of the vehicle.

The M-88 is an armored tow truck used to move tanks and other heavy vehicles.

The Army is investigating what caused the blast. The soldiers’ identities were not immediately released.

VA's Suicide Prevention Message Carried on 21,000 Buses

VA's Suicide Prevention Message Carried on 21,000 Buses



WASHINGTON (June 19, 2009) - The telephone number for the suicide
prevention "lifeline" of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is now
being carried on more than 21,000 city buses in 124 communities across
the United States and will run until Sept. 1, 2009.



The advertisements carry a message of hope for those who have served
their country and are undergoing an emotional crisis.



"We continue to look for new, innovative ways to reach our Veterans,"
Assistant Secretary Tammy Duckworth said. "VA wants to make sure to
exhaust all avenues to reach those in need of our services."



VA is partnering with Blu Line Media, an outdoor advertising company
which specializes in helping businesses and government tell their
stories through educational outreach campaigns, cause-related social
marketing and integrated communications.



Since its inception in July 2007, the VA Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1
800-273-TALK, has rescued more than 3,000 Veterans and provided
counseling for more than 120,000 Veterans and their loved ones at home
and overseas. The lifeline is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week
by trained mental health professionals prepared to deal with immediate
crises.



Marketing the lifeline through mass transit campaigns was piloted in the
Washington D.C. area during the summer of 2008 with great success.



VA has also promoted awareness of the toll-free number through national
public service announcements featuring actor Gary Sinise and television
journalist Deborah Norville. The bus advertisement and public service
announcements are available for download via YouTube and at
www.mentalhealth.va.gov/suicide_prevention
.

Suicide Prevention
Suicide Prevention is everyone's business, and VA is enhancing its efforts in this vital area of veteran health.
Blue Ribbon Report on Suicide Prevention in the Veteran PopulationKnow the SignsWatch for these key suicide warning signs, and provide the Lifeline number to anyone exhibiting them.
Talking about wanting to hurt or kill oneself
Trying to get pills, guns, or other ways to harm oneself
Talking or writing about death, dying or suicide
Hopelessness
Rage, uncontrolled anger, seeking revenge
Acting in a reckless or risky way
Feeling trapped, like there is no way out
Saying or feeling there's no reason for living.
How to recognize when to ask for help (MS Word) Signs, Myths and Realities
Suicide Risk Assessment Guide (pdf pocket card)

Vets Who Repress Traumatic Memories May Not Be Worse Off

Knowing the way the blog world has reacted to articles like this, I'm sure you're about to see this headline all over the place, so I decided that I would post the rest of the report they will probably not even pay attention to. Also notice that this study does not in anyway, shape or form, dismiss PTSD or suggest talking about it is not a good thing. It only implies that in some cases, not talking about it is not always going to make it worse,,,,,this part,,,more has to be done on.

Vets Who Repress Traumatic Memories May Not Be Worse Off
06.19.09, 04:00 PM EDT
New study finds they fared as well as those who unearthed the pain


FRIDAY, June 19 (HealthDay News) -- Veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may not be plagued by poor health and shortened lives if they repress their combat experiences, new research suggests.

"The finding goes against the grain," acknowledged study author and Vietnam army veteran Joseph Boscarino, a senior investigator at the Geisinger Center for Health Research in Danvillle, Pa. "Because the concept that talking about your trauma and analyzing your fears and emotions is always the best policy goes back to Sigmund Freud, and for decades it's kind of been taken as a given."

"But this has never really been truly validated," Boscarino noted, "and it may be an overgeneralization. And we found that in some cases not talking about it and actually repressing traumatic thoughts and experiences may not translate into a more adverse outcome."

Dr. Matthew J. Friedman, executive director of the department of Veterans Affairs National Center for PTSD, took a cautious view of the findings.

"Over the last 10 to 15 years, we've found how complex memory really is," he said. "And I don't think that there is any longer a widely held belief in the classic psychoanalytic theory that suggests that somehow if you suppress your stress and angst that the distress will manifest itself in negative symptoms."

"Certainly, difficulty in retrieving memories can be adaptive and promote good health and longer life in some cases, and can be maladaptive in others," noted Friedman, who is also a professor in Dartmouth Medical School's department of psychiatry and department of pharmacology and toxicology. "But this paper suffers from a lack of conceptual clarity. The notion of 'repression' connotes different things to different people. The concept is fuzzy. So the authors should be commended for opening up a very interesting line of inquiry. But at the same time I think we need to be very, very careful about how we interpret these results."
go here for more
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/hscout/2009/06/19/hscout628249.html

Couple hid ownership of other homes from charity

Nonprofit won’t give home to injured vet
The Associated Press Posted : Friday Jun 19, 2009 11:43:42 EDT

PASADENA, Md. — A nonprofit group that builds homes for injured U.S. troops won't be turning over the keys to a Maryland home to a family of an Iraq veteran as planned because officials say the family concealed that they already own two homes.

Taunton, Mass.-based Homes for Our Troops planned to present Sgt. David Battle with the $800,000 home built by hundreds of volunteers in Pasadena, Md., on Thursday.

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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/06/ap_amputee_home_061909/

UPDATE
Sgt. David Battle's side

Charity Denies Injured
Vet Donated Home
Updated: Saturday, 20 Jun 2009, 11:08 PM EDT
Published : Saturday, 20 Jun 2009, 9:33 PM EDT

Chris Shaw
FAYETTE COUNTY, Ga. (MyFOX Atlanta) - The family of Army Sgt. David Battle said confusion over a charity's gift and their use of injury pay from the Army has placed a dark cloud over the injured veteran's homecoming and his future.

Two years ago, Sgt. Battle lost an arm and two legs when he stepped on a roadside bomb during his second tour in Iraq.

On his first trip back to Georgia, he wasn't sure if he would be cheered or booed.

As soon as Battle touched down in Atlanta, there was applause. A patriot guard escorted him home to Fayette County where everyone from the fire department to the neighbor kids, stopped by with gifts.

It was not what he and his family expected.

"I've been on the Internet, looking at blogs from different people, and one that hit me the most was, 'Sgt. David Battle: Hero or Fraud?'" said Battle. It was a painful question for the soldier.

Battle has been getting treatment at Walter Reed Medical Center. Because he still has years of therapy ahead him, a non-profit charity, "Homes For Our Troops," built a $800,000 house in a Baltimore suburb, near the hospital, for the Battles and their four children.

However, the day before they were set to get the keys to their new home, the charity decided not to give it to the family -- calling them deceptive.

"I'm not a fraud. I didn't hide anything," said Battle.
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Charity Denies Injured

I don't know what to think now. First, all of these people stepped up to build this house thinking Battle did not have a place to live, a home of his own. Then they find out they owned two of them but they said they were not going to live in either of them. The point is, they had two homes they could live in, when other veterans have nothing at all. When they are in the military, they live on base with their families or are given funds to help house them. When they are wounded and discharged, that's it. They are left to find their own.

PTSD study shows little chiropractic relief for PTSD veterans

Chiropractic in Military Medicine


June 19, 2009 — Chiropractic services are offered at several United States military bases and veterans healthcare locations; however some healthcare providers are not aware that chiropractic services are available or when to refer patients for chiropractic care.

An article in the June 2009 issue of the journal Military Medicine addresses these issues in an effort to increase awareness and improve interdisciplinary collaboration. The article titled “Chiropractic in US military and veterans’ health care” by Drs. Bart Green, Claire Johnson, and Anthony Lisi provides a brief overview of chiropractic services and helps to inform readers and healthcare providers who may be unfamiliar with how chiropractic services are utilized within the Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare environments.

This study found that patients with post-traumatic stress disorder had significantly lower levels of improvement than those without post-traumatic stress disorder on self-reported outcome measures of neck and low back disability.
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Chiropractic in Military Medicine

Army veteran accused of faking paralysis

How does this happen? Real claims trapped in a backlog and this fake claim gets approved?

Army veteran accused of faking paralysis
By Robert Patrick
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
06/18/2009

EAST ST. LOUIS -- Federal prosecutors have accused an Army veteran of faking paralysis to receive disability benefits and avoid deploying to Iraq.

Jeffrey W. Rush was indicted on four charges: conspiracy to commit wire fraud, making false statements to the Social Security Administration, conspiracy to commit mail fraud and mail fraud. His wife, Amy L. Rush, was indicted on five charges: conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit mail fraud, mail fraud and making false statements to both the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services.

The indictment, handed down by a grand jury in federal court in East St. Louis and made public Thursday, lays out the case this way:

Jeffrey Rush was involved in a one-vehicle accident on Nov. 5, 2004, while stationed at Fort Riley, Kan., with the 24th Transportation Company.
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Army veteran accused of faking paralysis

Serbia:Years After the War, Veterans relive Nightmares

Years After the War, Veterans Relive Nightmares
Sarajevo, Zagreb, Belgrade 17 June 2009 By Nidzara Ahmetasevic, Merima Husejnovic, Goran Jungvirth and Zelimir Bojovic

Many ex-fighters in the Yugoslav conflict now suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome. Some are working together, fighting to recover their mental health and their rights.


Ivan J, aged 52, and Milan, aged 54, may well have fought each other in 1991. What they have in common is their past life in the same country and the war that brought them to the frontlines.

Today, Ivan from Croatia and Milan from Serbia have other things in common: nightmares and a syndrome known a post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD.

“The worst thing is dreaming about my friends being shattered to pieces,” Ivan explains. “At one stage everything was fine. The weather was sunny and we were playing card games… but a moment later there was shooting and explosions… and then we were carrying their shattered bodies wrapped in canvas.”

Milan’s traumas started shortly after he returned from the battlefields in Vukovar, eastern Croatia.
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http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/analysis/20310/

Health Effects Of 2008 Floods On Iowa Students

Health Effects Of 2008 Floods On Iowa Students
Submitted by ruzik_tuzik on Jun 17th, 2009
Posted under: General Health Articles
The historic floods of 2008 hit the University of Iowa campus hard, closing buildings, halting classes and displacing numerous programs and departments. Because natural disasters can have significant health effects on affected populations, researchers from the UI Injury Prevention Research Center distributed a university-wide survey to better understand students' flood experiences and the impact on health.

The survey also asked about the health impacts of the flood. Although few students (3 percent) reported physical injury during the flood, the toll on mental health was greater. The researchers found that 7 percent of the respondents had symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The most commonly reported PTSD symptom was feeling emotionally upset, which was experienced half the time or almost always by nearly 12 percent of students. About 7 percent of students indicated increased drug and/or alcohol use after the flood.

"College-aged youth are particularly vulnerable to the mental health effects of a disaster such as a flood since the majority are living independently for the first time without direct parental guidance and support," Ramirez said.

In addition, the researchers found students whose job was disrupted, who were evacuated, or whose home was damaged were four to six times more likely to experience symptoms of PTSD than students who were not affected by any of these factors.

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http://www.emaxhealth.com/2/24/31780/health-effects-2008-floods-iowa-students.html

Nashville Veteran Says He Cannot Trust VA For Healthcare

Nashville Veteran Says He Cannot Trust VA For Healthcare
Cindy Carter
Walter McRae no longer trusts his government. "I feel like the government saying has turned their back on anybody that's in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam or anywhere else. They turned their back on them and they've let the veteran's down," McRae said.

The former Marine is upset because the Alvin C. York Medical Center in Murfreesboro is one of several VA hospitals under fire for exposing patients to dirty instruments.

McRae has relied on the Murfreesboro hospital for years to take care of his medical needs which included a colonoscopy. Then it was discovered that 10,000 veterans might have been exposed to HIV and other infections because equipment used for colonoscopies in Murfreesboro and other clinics wasn't property sterilized.

"They (Alvin C. York) sent me a letter stating what had taken place and they wanted me to come out and be tested," McRae said.

click link for more

PTSD and misdiagnosed?

by
Chaplain Kathie

Schizophrenia, bipolar, personality disorder, drug and alcohol addictions, depression, look up any of these mental illnesses and see how easy it would be to have PTSD misdiagnosed. The key to getting the right diagnosis is PTSD come after a traumatic event.

What are the symptoms of schizophrenia


The symptoms of schizophrenia fall into three broad categories:

Positive symptomsare unusual thoughts or perceptions, including hallucinations, delusions, thought disorder, and disorders of movement.
Negative symptomsrepresent a loss or a decrease in the ability to initiate plans, speak, express emotion, or find pleasure in everyday life. These symptoms are harder to recognize as part of the disorder and can be mistaken for laziness or depression.
Cognitive symptoms(or cognitive deficits) are problems with attention, certain types of memory, and the executive functions that allow us to plan and organize. Cognitive deficits can also be difficult to recognize as part of the disorder but are the most disabling in terms of leading a normal life.

Depression: A Treatable Illness (Fact Sheet)
Depression is a serious medical condition that involves the body, mood, and thoughts. It affects the way a person eats and sleeps, the way one feels about oneself, and the way one thinks about things.Date: 2004

Borderline Personality Disorder
What is Borderline Personality Disorder?
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious mental illness characterized by pervasive instability in moods, interpersonal relationships, self-image, and behavior. More about borderline personality disorder >>

Last year I was asked to explain what PTSD was to hospital chaplains in training. They asked what they needed to look for to know if it was PTSD or something else. I told them the simple answer is, to listen. Listen to the families, listen to the patient. Hear what they say. The clue is found usually in the words, "suddenly changed."

If you hear those words, the next question is, "when" did they change. Most of the time it's after an accident, death, crime, natural disaster, fire, or any other life threatening event where they were either a victim or witness.

When it comes to the veterans or National Guards, police, firefighters or emergency responders, that answer is no as easy to track down. It's more of an occupational hazard. Anyone treating people in this category needs to actually read their chart or ask what they do for a living, ask if they were in the military or a veteran of any of these occupations.

I am on the NAMI Veterans Council and taking Family to Family training for people living with mental illness. The Veteran's family to family was not available in my area. In the process of reviewing the training I became more aware than ever before how easy it is to have PTSD misdiagnosed as something else.

In the case of a flashback, they can hear voices, along with see the event repeated so vividly they have the same physical responses as when the event happened. They have increased heart rates, sweat, muscles tense up and they are hyper-aroused. This can be confused with hallucinations or hearing voices.



Mood swings, short term memory loss, decreased level of personal hygiene, detachment, paranoia, rage, obsessive compulsion constantly checking doors and windows or patrolling the "perimeter" of the home, constant worry, easy to confuse, inability to focus, easily distracted, diminished ability to think rationally and process information. All of this is a part of PTSD. Usually there are also physical signs like twitches, talking to themselves, inappropriate outbursts and lashing out.

Nightmares are common and waking them up the wrong way can produce a physical response with a fist, often confused with battery and has resulted in the arrest of many sleeping veterans with no clue what happened or why they did it. Stunned wives trying to figure out why their loving husband of years suddenly became a "wife beater" just because she woke him up from a nightmare.

Decreased sexual interest or unusually increased obsession. Lack of emotional connection.

Detachment from family members, unable to feel anything for them or take an interest in them, becoming oblivious to family members. Wives have reported husbands no longer notice changes in weight or color changes of their hair for months, then suddenly notice something is different.

There are so many ways PTSD can be misdiagnosed and until the last few years, many mental health professionals have been only doing what they know instead of learning about PTSD. The problem is there are still many clueless psychologists as well as family doctors, usually first consulted when family members are clearly in need of help.

There are things that happen inside of us that change us, the way we act and relate to others, but there are also things that happen outside of us, out of our control and we respond to those events, sometimes in "unusual ways" after an abnormal event. If the person we look to for help gets it wrong, then time is lost, the wrong medication is given and therapy is focused on the wrong thing.

If you experienced, or someone you love, has been through a traumatic event, it is important your doctor knows about this so they can look to see if it is PTSD and not something else. Many people have also been treated for addiction to alcohol or drugs, when they were not addicted to the chemical itself but were seeking relief from feeling. This is called "self-medicating" and is usually confused with addiction. There are also many with addictions and PTSD, which makes things even more complicated for doctors to diagnose. Again, full disclosure from a family member or patient is vital in treating this properly. Your doctor cannot know what you do not tell them. When you look up the signs and symptoms of mental health illnesses, you can see how easily it is for them to get it wrong.

Be proactive in your healthcare and remember that your doctor only knows what you tell him/her.

PTSD on Trial:Georgia Supreme Court denies new trial for Iraq vet

State high court denies new trial for Iraq vet

By Bill Rankin
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/08/08
The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday upheld the murder conviction against Alberto Martinez, a former soldier who killed a fellow infantryman shortly after returning from heavy combat in Iraq.

The court rejected claims that Martinez deserved a new trial because his lawyers failed to tell jurors he suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder when he killed Spc. Richard Davis, 24.

Justice Harris Hines, writing for a unanimous court, said PTSD might explain why Martinez would snap and do something in reaction to some stimulation. But the disorder "could not explain Martinez's subsequent actions of repeatedly stabbing Davis and engaging in a conspiracy to cover up the murder," Hines said.

The grisly Muscogee County murder loosely inspired the movie, "In the Valley of Elah." Davis died on July 12, 2003, shortly after the soldiers returned to Fort Benning from a six-month tour in Iraq and Kuwait.
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http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2008/07/08/soldier.html

Mourners remember Sgt. Franklin D. "J.R." Barnett Jr

Tuesday, Jun. 16, 2009
'He was just a flat-out character': Mourners remember Belleville soldier
BY WALLY SPIERS - News-Democrat

Family, friends and admirers of Sgt. Franklin D. "J.R." Barnett Jr., spoke of the courage, love of life and humor of the soldier at his funeral Monday.

"He had a big heart. He had been through the test of time," said Tim Rankins, pastor of New Destiny Church in Belleville, lamenting the loss of a young man he had counseled for much of his life.

Jeff Babcock, the person who taught J.R. to juggle, called J.R. an American hero.


"He had plenty of his own challenges and then he grew up and pulled someone out of the fire," Babcock said.

Barnett, 29, of Belleville, had survived a suicide bombing attack in Afghanistan last year, pulling his lieutenant to safety despite injuries to his own lungs. He was a member of the Army National Guard, assigned to the 927th Engineer Company as a combat engineer.

When he returned to the United States, he was assigned to C Company of the Warrior Transition Battalion at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, on Oct. 15. On June 7, he was discovered dead of unknown causes in his room.
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http://www.bnd.com/372/story/809447.html

In VA backlog, a one in a million, you!

by
Chaplain Kathie

You've read about the backlog of claims increasing and a lot of their stories about being trapped in the waiting line. While this piece on AP may not be news to you, you should read it because it has several stories about veterans, not just numbers. These are real people, with real lives, real families and real wounds.

Aside from the economy getting in the way of them finding work after they served in the military, the National Guards have a harder time because if they are still active, employers don't want to risk hiring them and see them redeploy again. There is also the issue of the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan being viewed as "damaged" because too many do not understand what PTSD is or the fact there are different levels of it. Mild PTSD, if they have it, does not make them unemployable nor does it make them hard to work with. As a matter of fact, if they are treated for mild PTSD the result is a better employee. Considering they survived combat, if nothing else, it shows they care about others and are able to think fast on their feet. They are able to follow instructions and usually dutifully follow orders of superiors. One other factor to consider is that if they are able to work and they are hired, there is also the sense of appreciation for giving them a job and you have a grateful employee.

For chronic or high level of PTSD when they cannot work, there is nothing for them while their claim is trapped in the backlog. They are just one in a million waiting for what they already earned. That's right, they earned it. They earned it by saying they would go and risk their lives, ending up wounded for having done it. The VA compensation is not a hand out, or as some Republican elected have stated in the past, welfare.

(If you are stunned by this, then you do not watch CSPAN and hear their own words coming out of their mouths. Hearings have been going on for many years and when the Republicans had control over the funding, their excuse for not increasing the VA budget to meet the challenge of taking care of the wounded warriors was there was not enough discretionary money to do it. It was really easy for them to be in front of a group of veterans when they wanted their votes to say they appreciated their service and then make statements against veterans on the floor of Congress. Senator John McCain was one of them. Check his voting record when it comes to veterans then maybe I can stop hearing how much better he would have been as President. As bad as it is, at least President Obama has increased funding and is trying to fix the mess the VA is in. While he has a long way to go, McCain wanted to hand out cards so that veterans could just go to private doctors and disappear. )

What is being done has not stopped the backlog of claims from increasing. It's time to take a good look at the lives these claims represent. These are our veterans!

One part of the citizens of this nation can get the veterans to seek help for PTSD, get them to understand what it is so that they realize there is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of at all because they carry this wound. This translates into also getting older veterans to seek help at the same time newer veterans are seeking help and this cluster of veterans should have been foreseen. Plans should have been in place many years ago to prepare for this, but no one was paying attention. At the same time there were two military campaigns going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, no one was preparing for the increase in veterans needing care. Now they are trying to play catchup at the same time the numbers are increasing.

It's time to take a leap of faith in our veterans and just approve the claims already in the backlog. Stop looking for proof and just rate the ones already there, then take a look at them later when the emergency situation for them is over. Fraudulent claims are not the problem right now. In addressing fraudulent claims the VA should issue a warning that if a claim turns out to be fraudulent, then the claimant will not only have to repay the VA but will also have to pay with interest and other legal options are on the table. They should have the opportunity to remove their claim first, something along the line of a month before the other claims are to be approved. The new claims processors are not enough to meet the challenge right now, but when most of the backlog is cleared, they will have plenty of time to review the claims to make sure they are legitimate.

Congress has already taken a baby step in helping veterans with PTSD by making it easier to prove their claim. They will no longer have to find the stressor that caused PTSD and there is already an assumption of honesty in these veterans. So why not go all the way?

I know what suffering is when trying to have a claim approved and I know what it does to a PTSD veteran still struggling with the diagnosis along with what it all comes with. I know what it's like to see another denial in the mail being read by a veteran wounded by his service and then assaulted by the denial accusing him of lying. My husband saw his claim tied up for six years. He sought help but was forced to pay for his treatment because his claim was not approved. Our insurance company wouldn't pay for his mental health care, even though we were paying for it, because the VA doctors linked it to Vietnam. We nearly lost everything and I nearly lost him. Why was his claim tied up? A social security number typed wrong on his Bronze Star award. When he received it, he told his commander it had the wrong number on it and he was told they would correct it. It ended up on his DD214 but was not fixed all the way through the paperwork chain. Once this was corrected, his claim was approved but it took a general to do it.

How many others are suffering the same right now? How many in the backlog fast approaching a million? How many other families are seeing all hope slip away? How many are wondering what the words "grateful nation" really mean when they are living with the wound caused by serving this nation?

Number of VA claims poised to hit 1 millionBy KIMBERLY HEFLING – 5 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Veterans Affairs Department appears poised to hit a milestone it would rather avoid: 1 million claims to process.

The milestone approaches as the agency scrambles to hire and train new claims processors, which can take two years. VA officials are working with the Pentagon under orders from President Barack Obama to create by 2012 a system that will allow the two agencies to electronically exchange records, a process now done manually on paper.

"They keep talking about a seamless transition, but I can tell you I haven't seen it being very seamless," said John Roberts of Houston, who is national service director for the nonprofit Wounded Warrior Project, which helps veterans such as David Odom, 29, of Haleyville, Ala.
Odom, a former Army staff sergeant who did three tours in Iraq, said he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. With symptoms such as anxiety and anger, he finds it difficult to work. He said he's waited months to learn the outcome of an appeal that would give him higher compensation.
"It's added quite a bit of stress because I don't know what's going to happen. I want to know either way so I can figure out what my next step is," Odom said.

Former Marine Cpl. Patrick Murray, 25, of Arlington, Va., who was severely burned and had his right leg amputated after a roadside bomb explosion in 2006, considers himself fortunate. He got a job once he was discharged from the military, making for an easier wait as his case is processed.
"For someone that gets out of the military and doesn't have a job lined up, they have no income," said Murray, who works for a construction company. "They are sitting there making zero money, either racking up credit card bills or taking out loans, whatever it may be, all the while waiting."
Murray said the first claim he filed was lost. The second ended up at a VA office in Colorado, and the third was finally processed after a couple of months. It was mind-boggling, he said, to have spent 11 months in Walter Reed Army Medical Center and in outpatient care with stacks of medical files, only to find out he had to mail his records to the VA to prove he was injured.
On the Net:
: Veterans Affairs Department
: House Committee on Veterans Affairs
: Wounded Warrior Project
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Army Sgt. 1st Class Kevin Dupont wounded in Afghanistan succumbed to injuries

Army Sgt. 1st Class Kevin Dupont, who grew up in Chicopee, dies from injuries following explosion in Afghanistan
by The Republican Newsroom
Wednesday June 17, 2009, 2:41 PM

By HOLLY ANGELO
hangelo@repub.com

CHICOPEE - Army Sgt. 1st Class Kevin A. Dupont succumbed to his battle injuries Wednesday morning following a three-month fight for his life.

Dupont, a 1976 Chicopee High School graduate, was burned over 65 percent of his body on March 8 after the Humvee in which he was riding in Afghanistan ran over an improvised explosive device. He died at Brooke Army Medial Center in San Antonio, Texas, where he had been treated for deep third-degree burns and had undergone weekly skin grafts.

"He developed bacteria in his blood," said Bruce E. Socha, a close family friend who went to high school with Dupont. "I always held out hope because Kevin was never a guy down for the count. I realize his quality of life would have been an issue if he pulled through, but we just wanted to hear his voice."
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Army Sgt. 1st Class Kevin Dupont