New USO Public Service Announcement About Combat and PTSD

Military Heroes Talk Candidly About Their Battle with Invisible Wounds in New USO Public Service Announcement


In “Portraits,” the USO’s first PSA on invisible wounds of war, Americans learn how post traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury impacts lives and are called on to take action
Arlington, VA (PRWEB) January 23, 2012

Right now, across the United States, an estimated 300,000 American service men and women live with invisible wounds of war – known familiarly as post traumatic stress (PTS), depression and traumatic brain injury (TBI). As more troops return home, many more are expected to be diagnosed.

At home, these service members and their families now fight an intensely private war against despair, depression, and anxiety. In an effort to bring awareness to psychological and cognitive injuries, the USO has launched its first-ever Public Service Announcement (PSA) on the invisible wounds of war.

“Portraits” is a documentary style PSA that features service members who proudly answered the call to duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now live with invisible wounds. Service members speak candidly, and sometimes emotionally, about how these invisible wounds have changed their lives forever and ask Americans to take action.

“I never thought I would have PTSD. I thought I had enough coping skills.”- SGT Philip Romero's, Iraq 2005/2007

“It’s like a pressure cooker and you know, you want someone desperately to trip that valve- you know, lose all of that anger and angst.”- Capt Eric Thomas, Iraq 2003/2004

“Now I have such bad issues with it that I’m being released from the Army. I’m being medically retired from the Army because I can’t sleep, because I can’t function on a daily basis in the Army anymore.”- SSGT Jessica Paul, Iraq 2006

“Get educated. Don’t brush this aside and don’t count us out.”- MSGT Mike Martinez, Iraq 1990/2004
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Lack of compassion from other college students fuels troubles for some with PTSD

I am in my last semester at Valencia College for Digital Media Live Event Certification. I meet a lot of veterans, especially veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. PTSD is one of the things they talk about the most. I am old enough to be their Mom and married to a Vietnam Veteran so when they ask what I do, I tell them I work with veterans and then they open up.

During a Veterans Day event at East Campus, I interviewed four veterans and each one talked about their military service and PTSD.



These students are having hard time going from combat to college but that makes them even more remarkable. With all they are carrying around with them, they didn't give up on the next part of their lives and their dreams are worth working harder for. While most other students have the usual problems these men and women are returning from years out of their lives when their lives were in danger on a daily basis. While most college students have no idea what is going on in Iraq or Afghanistan, they are remembering it everyday.

Lack of compassion fuels troubles for some with PTSD
By Jaime Ortega-Simo

Published: Monday, January 23, 2012

Some students who come from military backgrounds and then decide to pursue a college education can suffer from the somewhat common disorder known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

PTSD is an anxiety disorder that can occur after someone has experienced a traumatic event that involved the threat of injury or death.

Roger Buck, the interim director of the Counseling Center at Hocking College, spoke at the event "Understanding Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" held at the Ohio Union on Jan. 19. Buck said one of the biggest problems for students with PTSD is that when coming back from the military culture, they didn't fit well with the college crowd.

"These veterans are older individuals, have more life experience and leadership," Buck said.

"Veterans with PTSD feel disrespected by the childish behavior of traditional teenage students."

Buck said for many veterans with PTSD, there is a lack of respect by faculty and staff on campus for the sacrifices of veteran friends killed and injured. Buck said the "non-compassionate" attitude of staff members toward veterans suffering from PTSD does not help solve the problem.

"These guys have seen horrible events, smelled horrible stuff and experienced extreme human emotions," Buck said. "People need to be more understanding."

In addition to a change in attitude from professors and faculty, one professor suggested that the best solution to PTSD-related complications is to seek medical treatment.

"There are thousands of soldiers that suffer from PTSD," said Joseph DeCola, director of clinical services at OSU's Anxiety and Stress Disorders Clinic.
DeCola suggested students who suffer from PTSD seek psychiatric therapy.

"No one wants to go to treatment, but it works well," DeCola said. "They are not going to get better by themselves. It's just like going to the gym: If you don't work out, you're not going to get stronger."

DeCola said people with PTSD can suffer a snowball-effect if they don't get treatment, which causes nightmares, depressions and flashbacks until it becomes uncontrollable.
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Burial problems found at VA cemeteries

Burial problems found at VA cemeteries

By Christian Davenport, Published: January 23

The Department of Veterans Affairs has found scores of misplaced headstones and at least eight cases of people buried in the wrong places at several military cemeteries across the country.

The review by the VA’s National Cemetery Administration follows the revelation of widespread burial problems at Arlington National Cemetery, which touched off congressional inquiries and a criminal investigation.

In addition to the cemeteries in Texas, he said, problems have been discovered at national burial grounds in Ohio, New Mexico, New Jersey, Maryland and Pennsylvania. The cemetery administration is waiting on reports from Golden Gate and San Francisco National Cemeteries.
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Seminole sheriff to reunite wounded son with puppy he found in Afghanistan

Seminole sheriff to reunite wounded son with puppy he found in Afghanistan
Donny Eslinger scheduled for more surgery this week
By Gary Taylor, Orlando Sentinel
6:44 p.m. EST, January 23, 2012

Donny Eslinger was on a mission in Afghanistan last August when he encountered perhaps the friendliest face of his tour of duty there.

It was a small puppy, and it was love at first sight.

Eslinger — son of Seminole County Sheriff Don Eslinger Sr. — rescued the puppy, stashing him in his backpack for the hike back to a checkpoint where he was stationed.

The puppy he named Smoke became an instant sensation when a photo of Eslinger with the puppy in his backpack made the cover of Army Life magazine.
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All-women team of Seabees makes history in Afghanistan

All-women team of Seabees makes history in Afghanistan
By KAY SAILLANT
Los Angeles Times
Published: January 23, 2012

It was an unusual job even for the Seabees, the U.S. Navy's construction forces trained to hold a hammer in one hand and a Beretta M9 in the other.

First, the team selected to build barracks high in the mountains of Afghanistan consisted of eight women, who are all stationed at Naval Base Ventura County. And second, the women completed the job far ahead of schedule.

Beating deadline made up for long days and freezing nights in tents without plumbing, building four 20-by-30-foot structures, said Gafayat Moradeyo, the mission commander. But when the women returned to Bagram air field, their Afghanistan base, they learned that they had nailed another achievement: a place in naval history.

Military officials say they are the first all-female construction team to take on a construction job from start to finish in the Seabees' 70-year history. And they did it in record time in the barren rocky mountains of Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold and the focus of recent combat efforts.
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