Military burials for 4 forgotten vets

Military burials for 4 forgotten vets
By Steven Dubois
The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday Aug 15, 2012

PORTLAND, Ore. — Four military veterans whose cremated remains sat unclaimed for decades in Oregon's state-run mental hospital have been laid to rest in Willamette National Cemetery.

Val Conley, the deputy director of the state Department of Veterans' Affairs, accepted the United States flag Wednesday on behalf of the men whose relatives could not be located.

They were Army Pvt. James Butler, Army Sgt. William Madson, Navy sailor Lanier Johnson and Navy Boatswain's Mate 2nd Class Frank Martin.
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Mom: Military needs to stop soldier suicides

Mom: Military needs to stop soldier suicides
WRAL.com

LILLINGTON, N.C. — U.S. troops committed suicide at a rate of roughly one a day in the first five months of this year, according to the Pentagon. Lillington resident Angie Selvia knows the sad statistics. She lost her daughter and soldier son-in-law on Feb. 4.

“It was the worst thing I’ve ever had to deal with in my life,” she said.

The Pembertons’ tragedy is one snapshot in the bigger picture of violence and suicide among active-duty military members.

The Pentagon reported 154 suicides among active-duty military members this year from Jan. 1 through June 3, compared with 124 killed in Afghanistan during the same period. The death toll has exasperated military leaders from Washington to Fort Bragg.

Selvia says she saw no sinister signs and felt no bad vibes last Christmas – the last time she saw her daughter, Tiffany Pemberton, and son-in-law, Jason Pemberton, 28. A little more than a month later, Jason Pemberton shot and killed his 25-year-old wife and then turned the gun on himself, committing suicide.

“She was his world, and he was her world,” Selvia said. “I really did not (see any signs) … If he had been in his right mind, he never would have done that. Never.”
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Combat PTSD on the Home Front

Combat PTSD on the Home Front
by Chaplain Kathie
Wounded Times Blog
August 15, 2012


Lately this has been in the news but for military families, it has been our lives for years.

This is one of my videos from 2006.


Come In From The Rain
Melissa Manchester

Well, hello there
Good old friend of mine
You've been reaching for yourself
For such a long time
There's so much to say
No need to explain
Just an open door for you
To come in from the rain
It's a long road
When you're all alone
And someone like you
Will always choose the long way home
There's no right or wrong
I'm not here to blame
I just want to be the one
Who keeps you from the rain
From the rain
And it looks like sunny skies
Now that I know you're alright
Time has left us older
Wiser, I know I am
'Cause I think of us
Like an old cliche
But it doesn't matter
'Cause I love you anyway
Come in from the rain
And it looks like sunny skies
Now that I know you're alright
Time has left us older
But Wiser, I know I am
And it's good to know
My best friend has come home again
'Cause I think of us
Like an old cliche
But it doesn't matter
'Cause I love you anyway
Come in from the rain
Come in from the rain
Come in from the rain

Pay attention to this article now that know this.

Couples Therapy Cuts PTSD, Improves Relationships
By KATIE MOISSE
ABC News
Aug. 15, 2012

Former Army Captain Michael Waldrop and his wife, Marnie, credit counseling for their lasting marriage. (Courtesy Marnie Waldrop)

Michael Waldrop came home from work with a bottle of Jack Daniels and a letter that read, "Report for duty in 30 days."

The married father of two young children – a member of the Army's Inactive Ready Reserve – had been plucked from his job as vice president of a contracting company to serve on the front lines in Afghanistan.

It was 2005, four years into Operation Enduring Freedom. And Waldrop – businessman-turned-Army Captain – found himself leading 60 soldiers through some of Afghanistan's most violent villages.

"All I wanted was to return to my family," said Waldrop, who earned a Purple Heart and two Bronze Stars during his 18-month deployment. "I thought coming home would be like heaven. I never thought there would be adjustment issues."

But Waldrop had changed. Long after the scars of a shrapnel wound healed, the painful memories of fallen friends and injured civilians lingered. He had post-traumatic stress disorder – anxiety in the form of anger, numbness and nightmares.

"I knew he was a different person. And I was, too," said Marnie Waldrop, who was forced to juggle work and single parenthood amid the looming fear of her husband's death. "But the last thing I wanted was to end up divorced like the statistics say."

According to statistics, veterans with PTSD are twice as likely to separate from a spouse or divorce. But a new study suggests couples therapy can cut PTSD symptoms and keep families together.

"The best way to think of it is as a PTSD treatment that happens to be delivered to couples," said study author Candice Monson, professor of psychology at Ryerson University in Toronto. "We tried to take what we know about trauma recovery – that social support and interpersonal relationships are some of the most important factors for overcoming traumatic events – and incorporate that into PTSD treatment."
read more here

Families are on the front lines of helping them to heal. We can make life harder for them if we don't understand, settle for the excuse of we can't understand when the truth is we didn't want to bother to try. Or we can learn as much about what PTSD is doing to them as we took the time to learn enough about them to fall in love. If you love them, then know them before and remember what they were like after PTSD became a part of them. They are still in there. You can help them come in from the rain! I did. Next month will be 28 years of being married to my Vietnam Vet husband. We did it when no one was talking about PTSD, the internet was not in every home and no one was talking about PTSD. It was a secret.

If you want to know what our life was like click the tab at the top For the Love of Jack. It covers 18 years of our life together. This is the point I have been focused on for the last 30 years. Families matter and they actually need more support than the veteran does because we provide the support to the veteran.

We are the ones with them all day, every day but above that, we love them.

I have no patience when I hear someone say they cannot understand them, it is too complicated to learn. If I could learn, so can you. You don't have to spend 30 years or invest countless hours a day. I can cut it short for you and you can avoid all the mistakes I made in the beginning. You don't have to feel alone or frustrated and you can have the tools to make your family stronger.

This is one of the reasons why I am working with Point Man International Ministries. They understood how important families are in 1984. We have Home Front for the families and Out Posts for the veterans. If you have a group, I can come out and talk to you, give you common sense answers in plain English so you won't have to read all the technical terminology in clinical books or spend hours in training sessions. Best of all is that it is all free.

I ask for a donation for the book but if you can't afford to make a donation, just email me and I'll get you a pdf of it. My videos are online, for free and you can find the PTSD videos on the Great American tab at the top of this blog.

If it is too late to save your marriage, you can still learn so that you will forgive them and yourself. If it is too late because someone you loved committed suicide, you can still learn that it was not your fault. No one told you what you needed to know to cope any better than you did.

None of this is hopeless!

If you live in Florida and would like to help other families, I am the State Coordinator and we need help to reach the other families and give them the support they need.

Medal of Honor Marine Dakota Meyer helping veterans

In this interview Dakota Meyer proved once again how humble he is.

"Look at it like this—you take the worst day of your life, and everybody wants to recognize you for the worst day of your life."

After the Medal of Honor service is over, we don't usually hear much about them. Dakota Meyer is doing what many of them did after "the worst day" of their lives. He kept serving others. It is part of the reason he was able to risk his life to save others. He cares. Meyer is showing he still cares about the men and women serving this nation and that care did not end just because they came home.

Marine Dakota Meyer Steps Up to Help Veterans Find Success Back Home
US News Aug 15, 2012

Dakota Meyer, the first living Marine to receive the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War, talks about war, coming home, his new project to help veterans land jobs—and why time hasn’t healed him.

Dakota Meyer is the only person who served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to receive the Medal of Honor, and the first living Marine to do so since the Vietnam War. (Luke Sharrett / Getty Images)

Dakota Meyer, a United States Marine Corps veteran who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, received the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration, for his bravery that saved the lives of U.S. service members and Afghan soldiers facing a savage ambush in eastern Afghanistan. He is the only person who served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to receive the medal to date, and the first living Marine to do so since the Vietnam War.

Meyer spoke to Daily Beast editor Harry Siegel on Tuesday about his service, his difficult homecoming—detailed in his book, Into the Fire: A Firsthand Account of the Most Extraordinary Battle in the Afghan War, including a suicide attempt a year after the battle of Ganjgal—and his new project with Toyota and the Chamber of Commerce’s Hiring Our Heroes initiative to create a personal branding guide to help veterans translate their skills into terms that appeal to civilian employers.

Look at it like this—you take the worst day of your life, and everybody wants to recognize you for the worst day of your life. You feel like a compete failure and you’re getting the nation’s highest award. I accepted the award not for me but for all the guys who died that day, for all the men and women who have passed before, and for all the men and women still serving now.

It’s all about opportunity and holding yourself accountable with that and going out and trying to make a difference.

That’s why we teamed up with the Toyota and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, to go out and make a difference and help get veterans jobs. We just launched the personal branding initiative to try and give veterans another tool in their toolbox, to set them up for success when reaching out to a potential employer.

You take my experience, for example. I was a sniper in the Marine Corps, and I tell you I put that on my résumé. I don’t know if anybody knows this, but there aren’t too many corporations around with a high need for snipers. So how can you break that down and translate it to the civilian world, for the everyday person?

Shooting was only 10 percent of my job. I was also a team leader. I was able to manage troops: accountability, discipline, teamwork, being on time, logistics are all things I can translate into being an asset to an employer. read more here

Congressman links Swenson, Peralta MoH cases

Congressman links Swenson, Peralta MoH cases
By Dan Lamothe
Staff writer
Army Times
Posted : Tuesday Aug 14, 2012

A congressman has called for Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to give “fair and due consideration” to a controversial Medal of Honor nomination, said to be sitting on his desk, for an Army captain, linking it to a stalled high-profile case for a deceased Marine sergeant.

The case for former Army Capt. Will Swenson to receive the nation’s top combat valor award for heroism in eastern Afghanistan has been “unfairly derailed by what appears to be nothing more than bureaucratic influence and arbitrary reasoning,” said Rep. Duncan Hunter in a letter to Panetta on Monday. Hunter compared Swenson’s case to that of late Marine Sgt. Rafael Peralta, who died in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004 while covering a grenade, but was later denied the Medal of Honor.

“Peralta’s Medal of Honor is long overdue while Swenson never received the thorough and unbiased review he deserved,” Hunter said. “There are others who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan who fit into these same categories, but a favorable decision for Peralta in particular will go a long way toward restoring credibility to a process that has failed to deliver the proper recognition for heroic acts worthy of the Medal of Honor.”
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