Westboro Baptist Church Vows To Defy Rules After Congressional Smackdown

Westboro Baptist Church Vows To Defy Rules After Congressional Smackdown
The Huffington Post
By Paige Lavender
Posted: 08/04/2012

Westboro Baptist Church plans to continue its notorious protests at military funerals despite new restrictions that could leave some protesters facing up to two years in prison.

The restrictions -- which say protesters must be at least 300 feet from military funerals from two hours before they start until two hours after they end -- are part of the "The Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012", a sweeping veterans bill recently passed by Congress. President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill on Monday.
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All this means is that Patriot Guard Riders

"A national organization of motorcycle enthusiasts created to oppose the Westboro Baptist Church, who attend funerals to honor fallen US military personnel."

will get a lot more members to do details like this.

Therapy at Roseburg VA helps veterans suffering from PTSD

Therapy at Roseburg VA helps veterans suffering from PTSD
Inka Bajandas
The News-Review
August 5, 2012

Gaila Lovelady was a teenager learning to be an Air Force jet engine mechanic when she accepted a ride home from her teacher.

Instead of taking her home, he drove in the opposite direction, stopped the car and raped her.

It happened 33 years ago, but Lovelady was haunted by painful memories that were debilitating and led her to abuse drugs. Now 50 and living in Crescent City, Calif., she never made peace with the trauma until recently.

“You wouldn't believe the parts of my life that were affected by it,” she said.

Lovelady found relief after taking part in a therapy program at the Roseburg Veterans Affairs Medical Center that hones in on a single traumatic event and forces veterans to relive the experience.

The therapy had a powerful affect on her, Lovelady said.

“It was the best thing that ever happened to me,” she said. “It makes you think of different ways to look at your trauma. It makes you OK with your trauma.”

Lovelady and other veterans learned to cope with traumatic experiences through cognitive processing therapy, said Bryan Nestripke, clinical director of post-traumatic stress disorder programs at the Roseburg VA.

The hospital started offering the therapy, which typically lasts 12 sessions, last year, and veterans are taking advantage of the service even more this year, he said.

Cognitive processing therapy helps veterans face their traumas head-on, said Kathryn Dailey, a licensed clinical social worker who offers the therapy at the Roseburg VA.

The therapy forces patients to confront their memories, she said.
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When tomorrow comes

When tomorrow comes
by Chaplain Kathie
Wounded Times Blog
August 5, 2012

There are some things I'll never know.

I don't know what it is like to go to sleep every night worried about where your husband is as you look at the empty side of the bed. Or what it is like to get the feeling the pit of your stomach while you're watching your kid's play that he's going through something terrible. I don't know what it is like to be young, wondering if you can stand to be alone while he's deployed or if this is the last time you are willing to do it.

I don't know because I am not young anymore. My daughter is about the age I was when war became a part of my life even though the man I fell in love with had been home from Vietnam for over ten years.

By the time I figured out that his past was a part of him, it was too late. I loved him too much to walk away without a fight. There were times I was sure he loved me. There were times when I didn't think he did. Times when I was sure if I loved him enough, I could make all his pain go away and he'd be happy. But other times I was sure I just couldn't find the right way to reach him.

Marilyn McCoo sang the words I was feeling in If I Could Reach You

But if I could reach you some way

if I knew the magic it would take to love you good enough on the outside and make you feel it on the inside maybe I could make you stay

I decided to fight. To learn as much as I could about what had such a hold on him. That's when I discovered the other part of Vietnam no one talked about. The battle afterwards.

What can you learn from someone old enough to be your Mom? You can know what to expect when tomorrow comes and you are where I was 30 years ago.

You can't love it away. You can love him enough to learn how to help him.

You can't just wait for him to get over it the way he did before. It will get worse and the strain on your relationship will make it harder to stay. You'll blame him, then you'll blame yourself but your kids will keep thinking it is all their fault.

Here's one of the first videos I made to help families understand what Combat PTSD is and what they can do about it. The first thing to ask yourself is, what made you fall in love with them in the first place. The second thing is to understand everything you loved about them is still there. You can help them find themselves again.

We've made it through the worst times and I knew I "found the magic it would take" to make him feel loved when we went food shopping one day, he took my hand. He looked like a man at peace with himself. He thanked me.

The Sound Of Silence
Simon and Garfunkel

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools", said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls"
And whispered in the sounds of silence

The Boxer Lyrics
Simon And Garfunkel
I am just a poor boy
Though my story's seldom told
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocket full of mumbles such are promises
All lies and jests
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest

When I left my home and my family
I was no more than a boy
In the company of strangers
In the quiet of the railway station running scared
Laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters
Where the ragged people go
Looking for the places only they would know

Lie la lie ...
Asking only workman's wages
I come looking for a job
But I get no offers,
Just a come-on from the whores on Seventh Avenue
I do declare, there were times when I was so lonesome
I took some comfort there

Lie la lie ...
Then I'm laying out my winter clothes
And wishing I was gone
Going home
Where the New York City winters aren't bleeding me
Bleeding me, going home

In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of ev'ry glove that layed him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving"
But the fighter still remains

There are more songs on this video to help you feel the words used. May it help you to understand what you can do today when tomorrow comes and you know he won't get over it without help.

Point Man of Winter Park is a 501c3

Veterans suffer in silence on a harsh home front

Veterans suffer in silence on a harsh home front
Published: Saturday, August 04, 2012
By Mike Francis
The Oregonian

Jae C. Hong/Associated Press
U.S. Marines fill out research consent forms before taking psychological tests at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, Calif., on Sept. 29, 2009, in a program testing hundreds of Marines and soldiers before they ship out to search for clues that might help predict who is most susceptible to post-traumatic stress.

A Vietnam-era veteran suffering 40 years after he said he was victimized by a sexual predator in the military.

A veteran in jail after being caught with heroin.

A veteran charged with driving under the influence.

A young veteran with a gun in his mouth who, thankfully, put it down.

Families broken up under the stress of living with a veteran who is moody, alcoholic or who lashes out in anger.

These are just a few of the cases in this state that have come to me recently in phone calls, emails or personal conversation. They differ in the details and the degree of tragedy, but they speak to the emotional pain that is pulsing like an exposed nerve in every corner of the state.

How big a problem does it pose, this fragmented community of suffering veterans and current service members? That's maddeningly difficult to say. Even the military, which says it cares deeply about the issue but cultivates a warrior stoicism that discourages self-reporting, can't tell you. The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense have multiple, disconnected programs intended to address post-traumatic stress, depression and other widespread emotional and mental health issues, but nobody seems able to say how well they work.

A report in July from the Institutes of Medicine found that "no single source within the DOD or any of the service branches maintains a complete list of such (treatment) programs, tracks the development of new or emerging programs, or has appropriate resources in place to direct service members to programs that may best meet their individual needs."
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James A. Haley VA reports contradict its claims on covert camera

Haley VA reports contradict its claims on covert camera
By William R. Levesque
Times Staff Writer
In Print: Sunday, August 5, 2012

TAMPA — Officials at the James A. Haley VA Medical Center insist they told the family of a severely brain-damaged veteran about a camera disguised as a smoke detector before installing it in his hospital room.

Hospital officials told the Tampa Bay Times and another media outlet that one of the man's relatives even signed a release acknowledging the unusual camera.

But Haley's own records appear to show the hospital's defense is simply untrue.

An internal "contact report" by an assistant nurse manager involved in Joseph Carnegie's care said angry family members approached hospital staff complaining about the camera after discovering it themselves.

The report by a supervisory nurse shows they were told nothing confirming its installation or use.

Then hospital officials told a Fort Myers television reporter that the Carnegies signed a release acknowledging the camera had been installed.

The Times requested a copy of that document.

Haley released two "contact reports" to the Times with the names of hospital staff redacted. "Yes, the family was aware and attached is the signed release," Haley spokeswoman Carolyn Clark said in an email providing the reports.

But the forms are not signed releases at all. And they clearly contradict the heart of Haley's defense that the family knew about the camera before its installation.

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Hidden camera found in patient's room at James A Haley VA hospital

Deplorable conditions for America's war heroes at Haley VA