Monday, June 7, 2010
Vietnam War veteran meets Iraq wounded soldier he helped save
By AUDREY PARENTE, Staff Writer
June 7, 2010 12:05 AM
Blood-splattered blue jeans -- worn two years ago by veteran photojournalist Jim Wade -- have never been washed.
Wade brought the well-preserved jeans with him from West Melbourne to show former Army corporal and Purple Heart recipient Walter "Matt" Bailey.
The recent reunion in a quiet gated Palm Coast condominium community was their first since an explosion in Iraq on March 30, 2008, wounded Bailey, then 19. He was driving the armored military vehicle in which Wade was a passenger.
Then a private, Bailey was injured by an improvised explosive device that sprayed molten-hot shrapnel.
"The last thing I remember seeing was Jim," said Bailey, 22. "He was wrapping up my foot."
In addition to losing part of his foot, Bailey suffered injuries to both legs, severe nerve damage to his right arm and serious emotional trauma.
The explosion left a crater, said Wade, a 60-plus-year-old Vietnam War veteran -- who leaped out of the back passenger door of the vehicle to help Bailey and others in the Humvee. A retired aircraft mechanic and Seabee, Wade was embedded with Wade's unit, and has been back and forth to the war zone capturing war footage.
read more here
Iraq veteran reunites with rescuer
Accidental overdoses alarm military officials
Alcohol is a huge no-no! Drinking will change how the medications work on the brain. Take mind focused drugs, don't drink. Simple as that. Plus the other thing is that when you stop drinking, the medications work better. Is having a lot of beer with the guys worth the price your healing pays? You are trying to not be depressed but alcohol adds to it.
Added to these warnings is the one you cannot control and that is being given drugs that work against the others. Be pro-active and check the warning signs of all medications you are on and talk to your doctor. Do not adjust them on your own. You have to talk to your doctor first.
The Army deaths have shocked that service’s medical community and prompted an internal review. But despite a “safety stand down” in January 2009, the number of fatalities continued to rise last year — to 15 in 2009, up from 11 the year before. Meanwhile the total number of soldiers assigned to the 29 WTUs nationwide dropped from about 12,000 to about 9,000.
Accidental overdoses alarm military officials
By Andrew Tilghman and Brendan McGarry - Staff writers
Posted : Sunday Jun 6, 2010 18:22:42 EDT
Prescription drug cocktails have lead to at least 32 accidental overdoses among Marines and soldiers since 2007, bringing military medical practices for treating physical and psychiatric problems under scrutiny.
At least 30 soldiers and two Marines overdosed while under the care of Army Warrior Transition Units or the Marine Corps Wounded Warrior Regiment, created three years ago to tightly focus care and attention on troops suffering from injuries as a result of combat.
Most of the troops had been prescribed “drug cocktails,” combinations of drugs including painkillers, sleeping pills, antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs, interviews and records show. In all cases, suicide was ruled out.
Army officials say the deaths are often complicated by troops mixing medications with alcohol, taking their own medications incorrectly or without a prescription.
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Sunday, June 6, 2010
Search continues for soldier feared drowned in Taylorsville lake
Posted by Charles Gazaway
TAYLORSVILLE, KY (WAVE) - Search crews continued patrolling Taylorsville Lake on Friday, hoping to find a Fort Knox soldier who disappeared while swimming on May 29.
High water and debris on the lake continued to hamper the search for 23-year old Specialist Anthony Carter, who was assigned to the Warrior Transition Battalion.
go here for the rest
http://www.wave3.com/Global/story.asp?S=12597370
Veteran missing in Yellowstone has PTSD
Gazette Staff Posted: Friday, June 4, 2010
An Oklahoma man missing in Yellowstone National Park is a former Marine suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder he incurred after surviving two bomb blasts while serving in Iraq.
The news is the latest information released by park officials in a search for Peter Louis Kastner, 25, whose car was found parked at the Hellroaring Trailhead on Monday. The investigating ranger found that the red Cadillac STS sedan with Oklahoma plates had been rented a month earlier and was two weeks overdue.
Kastner is 6 feet, 1 inch tall, weighs 185 pounds and has brown hair and hazel eyes.
According to information provided to the Park Service by Kastner’s family, he was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps after serving four years. During his service, he was twice injured by improvised explosive devices in Iraq. He had moved to Oklahoma City from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area to attend college. His family is concerned about his mental state and said he was suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome.
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Veteran missing in Yellowstone has PTSD
Search continues for man missing in Yellowstone
Peter Louis Kastner
Courtesy of National Park Service
Rangers and investigators are still hoping the public can help with the ongoing search for Peter Louis Kastner, who has been missing in Yellowstone National Park since Monday, May 31,2010.
Rangers and investigators are still hoping the public can help with the ongoing search for a man missing in Yellowstone National Park since Monday.
A rental car belonging to Peter Louis Kastner, 25, of Oklahoma City, Okla., was discovered early Monday morning at the Hellroaring trailhead in the northcentral section of Yellowstone.
An investigation revealed the red Cadillac STS sedan with Oklahoma plates had been rented a month earlier and was two weeks overdue.
Family members told investigators they had not been in touch with Kastner in recent weeks. He had been honorably discharged from the Marine Corps after serving for four years and was twice injured by improvised explosive devices in Iraq, according to his family. He had moved to Oklahoma City from the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn., area to attend college.
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Search continues for man missing in Yellowstone
As loved ones go to war, military families face private battles
I had to make the same decisions spouses make everyday. Do we stay or do we go? Can we stay and fight for them? Do we have what it takes to do it? Can we every break down that wall pain built? Will we ever be happy again? Will today be the day he walks away? So many questions we face each and everyday married to a stranger.
Sitting here, after being married for almost 26 years, I can assure you that you can stay together and help them heal if you love them enough to want to. You need to invest a lot of time in trying to understand PTSD so that you know what is causing all the reactions they have. You will also learn what you can do to help them instead of fighting against them. We can help them heal or we can make their lives worse.
One thing not talked about enough is domestic violence. If they are violent to you or your kids, if they are emotionally abusive to the point where you are in fear, you need to get yourself and your kids out of harms way. You also need to know that if there was no history of violence in them before deployment, PTSD is usually the cause of it after. First be safe then learn. Even if you decide to end the marriage, you should learn why it fell apart, for your sake and for the sake of the kids. You will end up either hating him or blaming yourself when in most cases, neither of you are to blame for PTSD taking over your lives. There is so much damage done to families that lasts a lifetime when we don't know what caused it. Knowing brings the ability to heal and above all, to forgive. Forgive them and forgive ourselves for the mistakes we made simply because we didn't know any better.
If violence is not an issue, then you need to decide if you love him enough to stay and fight to help him get out of the darkness he's in. Before deciding, learn what PTSD is. This will also give you a tool to help you know where all of it is coming from. We can make it worse for them or we can help them heal.
As loved ones go to war, military families face private battles
12:18 AM CDT on Sunday, June 6, 2010
By DAVID TARRANT / The Dallas Morning News dtarrant@dallasnews.comYet "there are not enough mental health providers to meet the demand, case managers and providers are overwhelmed, wait times are too long for appointments and between appointments for those in need of mental health and other services," the report stated. The institute's two-year study was mandated by Congress to help veterans readjust to civilian life.
The story of war is not just about combat on the battlefield. It's also about the families who remain behind to fight their own private battles.
It's the story of Aimee Ybarra, a mother of two grade-school children, whose husband came home after his fifth combat tour and told her he wanted to leave their 15-year marriage because he had gotten used to being gone. It's the story of Lisa Bernreuther, who's steeling herself for her husband's sixth deployment; he's only been home from his last tour since April. She keeps his Army boots by the door, she says, "because sometimes I forget I even have a husband."
read more here
Military families face private battles
I married into a war that ended long before I came along. It is even harder for you than it was for me because I didn't have the worry about my husband deploying. You need all the help you can get to get through all of this. Invest the time to learn so that your future does not have to be suffering instead of healing.
Vietnam Veteran Mentors Soldiers in Iraq
13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary)
Story by Sgt. Chad Menegay
06.04.2010 VICTORY BASE COMPLEX, Iraq —As a point man during the Vietnam War, Marine Pfc. Willie Yarbrough guided his platoon through rugged jungles and fierce guerilla warfare near the Ben Hai river. He learned a lot about the North Vietnamese soldiers, developed a knack to sniff out an ambush and a capacity to stay focused on the moment.
As a radio operator in Vietnam, another highly targeted position, he became a skilled communicator under pressure and did what was necessary to stay alive.
Later in the war, as a Marine corporal and squad leader, Yarbrough made battlefield decisions and managed men in his squad.
During his 16-year tenure in the U.S. Marine Corps, Yarbrough served as a platoon sergeant, drill instructor, career counselor and a school instructor.
After a 22-year break in service, Spc. Yarbrough,
a logistics specialist for the 812th Quartermaster Company, 373rd Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, 3rd Sustainment Brigade, 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), and a Beaumont, Texas, native, now works in the Camp Liberty Oasis water treatment facility at Victory Base Complex, Iraq, to make sure Soldiers receive purified drinking water.
Forty years removed from Vietnam, the 59-year-old Yarbrough volunteered to deploy with the 812th, leaving his home unit, the 1002nd Quartermaster Company, out of Beaumont, Texas, which he joined three years earlier.
"A recruiter asked me did I ever think about going back in," Yarbrough said. "I told him, man, at my age, you must be out of your mind. He said, no, you could do it."
He's done it, and he's made an impact along the way, mentoring Soldiers.
read more here
Vietnam Veteran Mentors Soldiers in Iraq
Former Marine Killed By Off-Duty Police Officer
BALTIMORE (WJZ) ― Click to enlarge1 of 1
A U.S. Marine is dead after being shot by an off-duty police officer.
CBS
A U.S. Marine is killed at the hands of an off-duty Baltimore City police officer.
The big question now is did alcohol play a role in the deadly shooting? Suzanne Collins reports the family has gathered to mourn the loss of the man who was a husband and father.
The family says they can't understand why a police officer would shoot Tyrone Brown.
They say he's a former Marine, he's a hard worker, a father, and a law-abiding citizen.
Brown's family is hugging, crying, and trying to come to terms with his death.
Scott's sister was present around 1:30 Saturday morning outside a tavern on Eager Street when the off-duty officer fired multiple shots at her brother.
read more here
Former Marine Killed By Off-Duty Police Officer
Homeless Veterans shine on America's Got Talent
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Gen. Charles “Hondo” Campbell retires after 40 years
Army Gen. Charles “Hondo” Campbell, the only remaining four-star general in the Army who served in combat in Vietnam, retired June 3, capping a 40-year career in the service.
Forces Command head retires after 40 years
By Michelle Tan - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Jun 5, 2010 9:53:17 EDT
Gen. Charles “Hondo” Campbell marked the end of a 40-year Army career on Thursday, one that began in the jungles of Vietnam and culminated in a ceremony at historic Fort McPherson, Ga.
Campbell, who was the only four-star general in the Army who served in combat in Vietnam, received his commission in 1970 from Louisiana State University.
He served as the commander of a Special Operations A-team in Vietnam before going on to serve in multiple command positions, including in an armor battalion in the 3rd Armored Division and a mechanized brigade in the 2nd Infantry Division. He also was commanding general of the 7th Infantry Division and later commanded 8th Army in Korea.
Campbell closed his Army career as commander of Forces Command, the Army’s largest organization responsible for training, mobilizing, deploying, sustaining and transforming today’s soldiers.
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Exorcizing the demons of war that come home with the warrior
By BOB BROWN
Special to the Star-Telegram
Our brave men and women in uniform have risked life and limb and made unimagined sacrifices to defend our country. Many return to lead happy productive lives. But for some the horrors of war leave crippling scars on their souls.
This is not new. We called it shell shock suffered by the airborne trooper who jumped in Normandy, battle fatigue for the Navy gunny who piloted boats up the rivers of Vietnam and now post-traumatic stress disorder suffered by the Texas Guard medic after her third tour in Iraq. Among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, PTSD and major depression are as real as a gunshot wound and strike 1 in 5 service members nationally.
These combat veterans deal with their experiences and memories differently, but they all must face them. The effects of their experiences may manifest themselves in nightmares, anger, family violence, criminal activity, job problems, relationship problems, and self-medication with alcohol or drugs. These warriors deserve nothing less than our fully resourced effort to fight those demons they brought home with them. Today we know these problems can be addressed with adequate mental health treatments.
Texas has more than 1.6 million veterans, almost half a million of whom have served in the Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan. In Tarrant County alone, there are more than 125,000 veterans, many of whom need treatment for PTSD, addictions or other mental health problems directly related to their combat service.
Read more: Exorcizing the demons of war that come home with the warrior
Achy heart, breaky soul
Achy heart, breaky soul
by
Chaplain Kathie
But don't tell my heart, my achy breaky heart
I just don't think it'd understand
And if you tell my heart, my achy breaky heart
He might blow up and kill this man
When we hear God breathed life into Adam, we tend to forget Adam was already formed from the earth,
Genesis 2:7
the LORD God formed the man [a] from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
,,,so the image of God is not flesh and bones.
God does not have flesh growing old or becoming ill. God does not have bones that can be broken. God is, as always and always shall be, the same as He created within each of us, the same image as our soul. We cannot see the soul but we can see the results of the soul at work within us. We can see it when we love and rejoice just as surely as we can see it when we are in pain and grieve.
The soul within us came from God and there is a connected relationship we have with Him. When we pray, our soul is crying out to God. I'm not talking about repeating Bible verses or memorizing the Creed. I'm talking about when our souls reach out to heaven for help or offer a prayer of thanks when no words can measure it properly.
We live subjected to events in our lives and subjected to the actions of others. We hear them say things that twist around what we thought we knew to the point where we can question everything we believed. On the flip side, they can feed us and restore faith, hope, remind us we are worthy of being loved and that we matter to someone out there.
When we do the right thing, do what our souls call us to do on this planet and suffer for it, we wonder where God is. Did we do it wrong? Didn't we do what He wanted? Wasn't our "heart" in the right place even though our body was in the wrong one? So many questions fueled by our suffering after doing something unselfishly. How could God want us to do something and then walk away leaving us on our own, letting us fall and suffer without helping us? So we call out to God again as our heart aches for help, for answers, for directions, and perhaps above all, to know we do still matter to Him.
We call out to God over and over and over again while our lives fall apart searching for one sign God hears us but there is only silence. Then we can't feel anything greater than the pain in our heart and we pull back from God. Much like a relationship with an unfaithful friend, we believe we are better off without them but we end up wanting to know what we did wrong, why we were left to suffer when they mattered so much to us, we do the same thing with our relationship with God. Our soul pulls away from God and the connection between us breaks. We are lost, feeling hopeless as a part of us feels as if it is falling so far down into the pit of despair there is no hope of anything getting better.
People we love say the wrong thing at the wrong time trying to make us feel better. When what they say fails to provide relief, they then end up telling us how wrong we are feeling the way we do. As if that's supposed to be helpful? When Job was trying to tell his friends he didn't do anything wrong, they started out comforting him but soon they ended up blaming him so sure he had done something wrong and God was in fact punishing him. Job suffered from what was happening to him just as much as he suffered from what was happening around him but what made him suffer more was losing the connection he felt to God.
Job 1
Prologue
1 In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. 2 He had seven sons and three daughters, 3 and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.
4 His sons used to take turns holding feasts in their homes, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 5 When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would send and have them purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, "Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts." This was Job's regular custom.
Job's First Test
6 One day the angels [a] came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan [b] also came with them. 7 The LORD said to Satan, "Where have you come from?"
Satan answered the LORD, "From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it."
8 Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."
9 "Does Job fear God for nothing?" Satan replied. 10 "Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face."
Job lost everything and his friends ended up walking away. Soon even his wife couldn't stand it anymore and told him to curse God so that he could die. God ended up restoring everything Job lost plus more but had that been any one of us, we would be remembering that pain and wondering when the next time would come when God was going to test us again. We know how unfair that was to Job but what we know and what we believe in times like this end up at war with each other. This is what is behind the notion "God only gives me what I can handle" meaning God sends all the bad into our lives, or allows it. We get it all twisted around so nothing makes sense. How can God love me at the same time He pulls a temper tantrum against me and sends me all kinds of pain and loss and grief? Satan managed to focus in on Job but we're not Job and nowhere near as perfect in our faith as Job was. We only have to deal with what other people do, say and fail to do. The tiny voices invade their own soul and cause them to ignore God's calling them to help, ignoring the words they need to say and take the actions they need to take in order to fill our requests to God.
The truth is, God is sending us what we need to get through it, to make us stronger, to make us able to ask others for help, just as much as He is wanting us to help someone else in times of need only we can understand. Do you hear Him? Is He telling you that "this too will pass" and your pain will be replaced by rejoicing? Is He telling you that He loves you even if you feel as if there is nothing worthy of love within you? Did you ever feel loved by God or someone else? Then there was something worthy of being loved there once and thus, is still there since your soul cannot vanish as much as you try to vanquish it.
Our hearts/soul can feel so much pain that becomes all we know. We wait for help to find hope again and we get passed by while it seems everyone around us is finding what we need or able to walk away from something that has us trapped, crushing us and killing off the last thread of hope we had. But then something happens. Something unexpected comes into our lives reminding us we do matter even if it is just something as quiet as a glimmer within our soul filling us with a second of warmth.
It is so easy to be thankful when we have all we need, like Job did. It would have been very difficult for him to understand pain, suffering and questioning everything had he never been subjected to it himself. Most of us have a hard time understanding pain if we never experienced it. How can you understand someone falling apart if all you've ever known is a happy life? How can you understand the pain of someone losing everything they had if you have always had everything you needed? How can you understand if you have never been pulled from God sucked into the abyss of doubts.
This is what pain looks like when someone is waiting for prayers to be answered. This is what it seems like as they suffer waiting and wondering when a reason to believe in hope will ever come into their lives again. When they did the right thing for the right reason and ended up suffering for it they wonder what it was all for. Did they matter at all? Did their suffering mean anything to anyone? Did God even notice they did what they were supposed to do? When they are surrounded by people looking for reasons for the suffering instead of searching for what they can do to really help, they add to the suffering instead of being the answer to the prayer.
Hungry people need food, not blame by the well fed. Homeless people need shelter, not people heading off to the other side of the street so they don't get bothered by the wretched beggar. People grieving need comfort, not someone telling them they shouldn't feel the way they do. Survivors of trauma need to be reassured they are loved and worthy of love, not subjected to someone telling them to "get of it" without even trying to help them heal.
God does not snap His fingers to answer our prayers. He calls to others to do the work. He tries to send us to answer the prayers because we understand what it is like to lack hope at times just as much as we remember what it was like when we came out of the darkest despair in our own lives. Do we hear Him? Are we willing to go where He's sending us? Are we willing to re-experience the pain in order to help someone experience the joy again?
If we do not, if we are not willing to help someone, then a soul is being subjected to breaking apart the connection to God. If we refuse to help with the help that is needed, even if it is beyond our own comfort level, then we have just refused God. If we close the calling to our soul because we have something more important to do, then we close off hope to someone.
If someone is in pain, be there to listen and spend time with them without trying to fix them quickly so that you can get back to your own life.
If someone is ill and suffering, show up and visit without looking at your watch to see if you spent enough time there.
If someone has lost someone they love, don't tell them God needed them more than they did.
If someone is hungry, feed them. If they hunger to know God has not forgotten them, don't offer only to pray for them instead of trying to really fill the need they have.
We will all question our lives when our hearts ache and no one tries to strengthen our souls so they do not break. Can you bind up the wounds of others? Can you remember your own pain in your own life long enough to reach out to someone else and help them get to where you are? Is God asking you to do some of the work for Him right now?
If you have come out of the abyss of trauma induced afterlife, then speak out and help someone else. If you are falling into the abyss, reach out for help so that you can heal and then promise to turn around and help someone else out. You may be a Soldier or a Marine, or cop or a firefighter, but you are still just human like the rest of us and like the rest of us, events in your life can have you questioning your life but you feel it deeper because you cared more to begin with.
Friday, June 4, 2010
National Guard's Major's death rule suicide
Guardsman's death labeled a suicide
Last update: June 3, 2010 - 9:45 PM
A Minnesota National Guardsman serving his second tour of duty in Iraq killed himself last October, the Army reported Thursday.
According to the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, Maj. Tad Hervas, 48, died of a self-inficted gunshot wound to the head.
Hervas, of Coon Rapids, was a winner of the Bronze Star for his performance during his first deployment to Iraq.
Previously, the Army had ruled his death was non-combat-related.
Hervas was deployed to a base in southern Iraq and was working in military intelligence, his family has said.
read more here
Guardsman death labeled a suicide
Vietnam vets urged to seek help for emotional scars
By Michael King • The News-Record • June 4, 2010
Phil Moore was awarded three Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart for service during the Vietnam War.
But the 63-year-old Menasha man knows he will get no honors for his behavior as a husband and father after the war ended.
Like many Vietnam veterans, Moore didn’t share much about his Army service in the years following the military fighting. It wasn’t until several years ago that he sought help for a variety of mental health issues — torments that originated in the war-torn jungles and villages of Southeast Asia.
Shrapnel from an enemy grenade that exploded near Moore’s head on Dec. 28, 1969, tore some 60 wounds in his shoulder, arms, hands, neck, face and one eye. While his helmet likely saved his life, protective gear and weapons could not shield him from the less-obvious emotional scars that emerged during the next four decades and touched nearly every facet of his life.
“There have been a lot of negative impacts on me personally — my job, my wife, my children, people around me — because of (post-traumatic stress disorder),” Moore said.
read more here
Vietnam vets urged to seek help for emotional scars
PTSD Soldier Punished by Army
Friday 04 June 2010
by: Dahr Jamail, t r u t h o u t Report
Iraq war veteran Eric Jasinski, after seeking treatment for his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), is being punished by the Army.
Jasinski turned himself in to the Army late last year, after having gone absent without leave (AWOL) in order to seek help for his PTSD. Help, he told Truthout, he was not receiving from the Army, even after requesting assistance on multiple occasions.
He was court-martialed and jailed for 25 days for having gone AWOL, during which time he was escorted in shackles to therapy sessions for his PTSD. After being released from prison, he was informed that he would be given an other-than-honorable discharge, which means he is likely ineligible for full PTSD treatment from the Veterans' Administration (VA) after he leaves the service.
Jasinski enlisted in the military in 2005, and deployed to Iraq in October 2006 as an intelligence analyst with the U.S. Army. He collected intelligence in order to put together strike packets - where air strikes would take place.
Upon his return to the U.S. after his tour, Jasinski was suffering from severe PTSD due to what he did and saw in Iraq, along with remorse and guilt for the work he did that he knows contributed to the loss of life in Iraq.
read more here
PTSD Soldier Punished by Army
If you can't see PTSD, you're not looking
by
Chaplain Kathie
There are many people calling PTSD an invisible wound. Frankly I'm guilty of this too. It's a lot easier to explain it that way without taking the time to really define it. The largest problem with this seems to be the people doing the explaining, don't really understand it. It is only a wound you cannot see if you are not aware of what you're looking at.
If I said childbirth was extremely painful, you may not have a hard time understanding that. After all, pushing a baby out of your body doesn't seem to be very easy and it isn't. We can see the pain in a woman giving birth. She screams, her face turns red as blood pressure fills her head and her body goes through abnormal movements. All in all, the signs of pain are there for anyone to see. You wouldn't have to give birth to understand pain comes with it because you've been exposed to it by people you know or seeing it on TV.
After 9-11 we saw a lot of pictures of people in pain following the Twin Towers coming down.
We didn't have to be there to see it in order to understand the pain other people felt.
The pain caused that day caused two military occupations, over 5,000 fallen troops and over 10,000 wounded treated at Walter Reed Hospital alone. We understood what it was like to see that kind of horror one day, for most of us, just from our TV sets in the safety of our own living rooms. It hit us so hard, for weeks none of us could get our eyes off the news when we were home. Every year on the anniversary, the shock of that day, the pain of that day comes back to everyone across the nation.
So hard should it be for us to understand what we're looking at when it comes to PTSD? How hard should it be to understand what that kind of pain looks like? Perhaps the most important question is; Why aren't we looking for the signs? These men and women are only human so it shouldn't be that hard to understand what it would feel like when it the pain cuts that deeply when we seem to have no problem understanding pain caused by other reasons.
Make an effort to bring peace to our troubled veterans
Ann Woolner, BLOOMBERG NEWS
He is wearing an orange prison jumpsuit during the TV interview, so you figure life hasn't turned out so well for this open-faced young man with an engaging smile.
What you can't see is the Purple Heart Jose Barco earned when, as a teenage soldier stationed in Iraq, he ignored his own wounds and pulled burning wreckage off two Army buddies pinned beneath it, even as his own clothes were aflame.
These days Barco lives in a Colorado prison, where he's serving a 52-year sentence for twice shooting randomly at party-goers in Fort Collins, Colo., after his second tour of Iraq. No one was seriously injured, although a pregnant woman was shot in the leg. Barco was convicted of two counts of attempted murder.
Troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have been getting short shrift on several fronts. But, as Barco's case shows, the legal system usually cuts them no slack and sometimes slams them extra hard precisely because they wore a U.S. uniform.
Prison is where "Frontline" interviewed him for the documentary "The Wounded Platoon." He is one of 17 men returning to the Army's Fort Carson in Colorado, who, over a five-year period, were convicted or charged with homicide or attempting it. Most of them seemed to suffer from a condition that has plagued combat veterans as far back as anyone noticed.
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Make an effort to bring peace to our troubled veterans
ND Guard members work to bring PTSD into the spotlight
Fargo, ND (WDAY TV) - It would be easy to get lost in the numbers and percentages. Those returning North Dakota guard members who suffer P-T-S-D. That is until you see a face, a name. Today, the hard work and perseverance of a few North Dakota guard members paid off when Senator Kent Conrad met with them and focused the spotlight on a problem kept in the dark too long.
By: Kevin Wallevand, WDAY
Video
PTSD awareness
It would be easy to get lost in the numbers and percentages. Those returning North Dakota guard members who suffer P-T-S-D. That is until you see a face, a name. Today, the hard work and perseverance of a few North Dakota guard members paid off when Senator Kent Conrad met with them and focused the spotlight on a problem kept in the dark too long.
Friends will tell you Joe Biel was a soldier's soldier. Confident, a battle buddy who served the North Dakota guard in Kosovo with two tours in Iraq.
“He was amazing, just amazing that is one word that wraps it up. He was selfless and would give you the shirt off his back. He would give you the last ten dollars in his wallet.”
But just months after Joe returned from Iraq to the Dakotas, PTSD pushed him over the edge. He took his own life at the age of 36.
“We did not recognize it. We were all going through the same thing and we were all having our own issues and having our own problems at the same time and there just wasn't enough support there for him.”
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http://www.wday.com/event/article/id/34380/
Kirk, 5 terms in congress shows no respect for combat veterans
The Mayaguez incident involving the Khmer Rouge government in Cambodia on May 12–15, 1975, marked the last official battle of the United States (U.S.) involvement in the Vietnam War. The names of the Americans killed are the last names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, as well as those of three Marines who were left behind on the island of Koh Tang after the battle and who were subsequently executed by the Khmer Rouge while in captivity. The merchant ship's crew, whose seizure at sea had prompted the U.S. attack, had been released in good health, unknown to the U.S. Marines or the U.S. command of the operation, before the Marines attacked. It was the only known engagement between U.S. ground forces and the Khmer Rouge.
Even though the names of the fallen are on the Vietnam Memorial Wall, the veterans of this are not considered "Vietnam Veterans" because they did not enter into Vietnam. Imagine that. When politicians use wrong terms, they should be called out for it and if it's an honest mistake of choice of words, forgiven. However if they deliberately try to pass themselves off as combat veterans, it is beyond forgivable. It looks as if we've just discovered someone wanting to have a political life off of real combat veterans.
The furor over Kirk's military record heated up last week when he acknowledged that, contrary to his many statements over the years, he hadn't won the Navy's award for intelligence officer of the year.
Illinois Senate candidate apologizes for misstatements on military service
Republican hopeful Mark Kirk admits to inaccuracies, but declines to characterize them as intentional embellishments.
Times wire services
June 3, 2010 9:16 p.m.
Reporting from Chicago — Republican Senate candidate Mark Kirk of Illinois apologized Thursday for making inaccurate statements about his 21-year record as a Navy Reserve intelligence officer and acknowledged more discrepancies between his service and the political rhetoric describing his actions.
Appearing before the Chicago Tribune's editorial board, Kirk would not directly answer questions about whether the misstatements amounted to an effort to embellish his military history as he takes on Democrat Alexi Giannoulias for the seat formerly held by President Obama.
Kirk, a five-term congressman, acknowledged that his campaign's promotion of him coming under fire while aboard an intelligence reconnaissance plane in Iraq may not be correct because there is no record of his aircraft being fired upon.
read more here
It also looks as if he's been at it a long time making claims that are not true but we should be wondering why on earth no one discovered this before now. How is this possible? Didn't anyone check his record before now? 5 terms in Congress?
One of the jobs a senator has is to decide about sending young men and women to risk their lives in combat. Making claims like this, shows a total lack of respect for what it means to be able to risk your life when Kirk decided his real service just didn't look good enough. How is it they manage so well to "respect" them enough to want to pretend to be them but never manage to actually do anything worthy of them?
Man faces charges in death of homeless veteran
Victim Dies 13 Months After Sustaining Injuries
By Steve Tellier/WLKY
POSTED: 8:20 pm EDT June 3, 2010
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Police said a man beat a war veteran to death in a homeless camp. Now, 15 months after the alleged crime, police are charging that suspect with murder.
Police said they found William Brian, 52, a war veteran, severely beaten at a homeless camp near Campbell and Geiger Streets in March 2009.
"Most of his injuries were due to blunt force trauma, he was severely beaten, and then, obviously, that's why we took over the case back then due to the severity of his injuries," said Lt. Barry Wilkerson, with the Louisville Metro Police Homicide Unit.
Police quickly arrested Donald Ulrich, 37, for assaulting Brian.
"He was seen by witnesses at that location shortly after the incident took place. He was arrested a short time later," Wilkerson said.
Police said they don't know what the dispute was about. And for the next 12-plus months, Brian fought for his life. He eventually lost that fight on April 23.
"Mr. Brian was in the VA Hospital for a long time and then went to a nursing home, and then his health decreased and went back to the hospital where he died," Wilkerson said.
read more here
http://www.wlky.com/news/23787463/detail.html
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Indiana soldier presumed dead after swimming accident
Fox59
11:36 AM EDT, June 2, 2010
Specialist Anthony Carter along with four other soldiers rented a boat over the Memorial Day Weekend in Taylorsville, Kentucky. Carter's friends said he was swimming and went under as he tried to get back to the boat.