Monday, April 15, 2013
Bombs blow up in Boston during marathon
NECN has live coverage
There are at least 2 killed and 23 injured. This is shocking with at least two bombs. There is also something going on at the Kennedy Library but they are not sure what happened there yet.
At Army base, an aggressive campaign against suicide
This is a good story on paying attention to soldiers in trouble but it is not a good story on "resilience training" when they are still attempting suicide at high rates.
At Army base, an aggressive campaign against suicide
More service members killed themselves last year than were killed in Afghanistan. At Ft. Bliss in Texas, commanders have built a system of early intervention.
By David S. Cloud
Los Angeles Times
April 14, 2013
FT. BLISS, Texas — Army Pvt. John Jeffery stumbled into Kyle Boswell's barracks room at Ft. Bliss before dawn one day in February, his eyes glassy.
"I've done something," Jeffery mumbled to his buddy. "I can't tell anyone. It's going to happen."
He had just learned his girlfriend was cheating on him. The Army had decided to kick him out for using heroin. Now the 21-year-old veteran of Afghanistan had downed more than two bottles of Vicodin and Oxycodone, powerful prescription painkillers. Boswell rushed him to the emergency room, and he remains in the hospital psychiatric ward.
The case is a success of sorts — a soldier treated, a suicide prevented — and it reflects an encouraging shift at Ft. Bliss, one of the Army's largest bases, a vast Texas sprawl of 30,000 soldiers and row upon row of armored vehicles brought back from Iraq and Afghanistan.
With a suicide epidemic sweeping the military, commanders at Ft. Bliss have aggressively approached mental health problems, building an early warning system to identify and monitor distressed soldiers, and intervene at the first sign someone is considering suicide.
The goal is to change how the Army handles a mental breakdown, turning it from a silent ordeal borne alone by a soldier, maybe with help from a chaplain or psychiatrist, to a collective mission, in which the base community has responsibility for stopping a potential suicide.
read more here
Guardsman reveals PTSD struggles to alter perceptions after 6 tours
Guardsman reveals PTSD struggles to alter perceptions
William H. McMichael
The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal
April 14, 2013
Delaware guardsman is facing diagnosis head-on, accepting treatment and trying to dispel stereotype of crazed war veteran who becomes violent.
Wars do awful things to bodies, and Maj. Roger Rodriguez had been a frequent witness. The veteran flight nurse had five post-Sept. 11 wartime deployments under his belt, every one of them spent retrieving the torn and broken bodies of U.S. troops from battlefields and field hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For years, what Rodriguez had seen and heard gnawed at him, as he wrestled with, but pushed aside, sleep problems and nightmares. He had been resilient — as the military terms it.
On his sixth trip to the war zones, what had been welling up inside slowly burst through the emotional shield he had so carefully constructed. When the Delaware Air National Guardsman came home in December 2009, he felt overwhelmed.
"Every person has a breaking point," said Rodriguez.
Rodriguez, 44, asked to speak to a Delaware Air National Guard life skills counselor, who recommended he seek help at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Wilmington, Del. Because he was still in uniform, he ended up at the mental health clinic at Dover Air Force Base.
read more here
William H. McMichael
The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal
April 14, 2013
Delaware guardsman is facing diagnosis head-on, accepting treatment and trying to dispel stereotype of crazed war veteran who becomes violent.
Wars do awful things to bodies, and Maj. Roger Rodriguez had been a frequent witness. The veteran flight nurse had five post-Sept. 11 wartime deployments under his belt, every one of them spent retrieving the torn and broken bodies of U.S. troops from battlefields and field hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For years, what Rodriguez had seen and heard gnawed at him, as he wrestled with, but pushed aside, sleep problems and nightmares. He had been resilient — as the military terms it.
On his sixth trip to the war zones, what had been welling up inside slowly burst through the emotional shield he had so carefully constructed. When the Delaware Air National Guardsman came home in December 2009, he felt overwhelmed.
"Every person has a breaking point," said Rodriguez.
Rodriguez, 44, asked to speak to a Delaware Air National Guard life skills counselor, who recommended he seek help at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Wilmington, Del. Because he was still in uniform, he ended up at the mental health clinic at Dover Air Force Base.
read more here
Woman lies about service, reporter didn't fact check
WUSA news did an interview of an "Iraq veteran" with TBI and a Purple Heart, or so they thought.
They found out from This Ain't Hell they were wrong.
The thing that should really get us angry is not just the fact this woman lied about her service and being wounded, but that the original reporter failed to discover if she was for real or not.
This was not about a huge story. Anderson wanted a flag replaced. How did they get this story? Did she just call a reporter about it and they thought it would be a marvelous story?
There are so many other stories that are much more important and about real veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan joining the wounded from past wars and they are committing suicide at alarming rates. How about reporting on their stories and actually going out there to get the stories? How about talking to the families left behind? How about reporting on how much money is being spent on "prevention" when the numbers went up. Hell it is an important story and reporters have been AWOL!
Veteran caught lying about Purple Heart The Pentagon is disputing a Virginia woman's claims about being an Iraq War veteran and Purple Heart recipient. The Army says Chelle Anderson did serve, but nowhere near Iraq nor for nearly as long as the 10 years she claimed.
They found out from This Ain't Hell they were wrong.
The thing that should really get us angry is not just the fact this woman lied about her service and being wounded, but that the original reporter failed to discover if she was for real or not.
This was not about a huge story. Anderson wanted a flag replaced. How did they get this story? Did she just call a reporter about it and they thought it would be a marvelous story?
There are so many other stories that are much more important and about real veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan joining the wounded from past wars and they are committing suicide at alarming rates. How about reporting on their stories and actually going out there to get the stories? How about talking to the families left behind? How about reporting on how much money is being spent on "prevention" when the numbers went up. Hell it is an important story and reporters have been AWOL!
Sunday, April 14, 2013
New VA mental health center puts veterans and families under one roof
New VA mental health center puts veterans and families under one roof
By Megan McCloskey
Stars and Stripes
Published: April 14, 2013
BAY SHORE, NY — At a new VA mental health facility here, veterans go to the right, their families to the left — and their doctors meet in the middle.
The Unified Behavioral Health Center for Military Veterans and Their Families is a first-of-its-kind partnership between the Department of Veterans Affairs and private health care that will treat veterans and their families holistically under one roof.
One side of the small center houses VA psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and counselors, and the other side has counterparts from North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System, which provides care to veteran families at no cost.
The heart of the novel concept, the clinicians say, is their shared conference room.
With the patient’s consent, the clinicians from both divisions will “come together as a team and talk about the issues,” allowing them to coordinate treatment plans based on what’s happening with the entire family, said Charlene Thomesen, director of the VA side of the center.
“For example, we can better treat the wife because we’re informed of what’s happening to veteran,”said Mayer Bellehsen, a psychologist and Thomesen’s counterpart on the family side of the center.
At the center’s grand opening in December, Robert Petzel, the VA’s under secretary for health, spoke about how the VA wasn’t here “just to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, or depression, or substance abuse. We’re here to treat complex human beings.
“And bringing the families into the treatment equation is something we should have started doing years ago. It’s long overdue.”
read more here
All I can say is it's about time!
By Megan McCloskey
Stars and Stripes
Published: April 14, 2013
BAY SHORE, NY — At a new VA mental health facility here, veterans go to the right, their families to the left — and their doctors meet in the middle.
The Unified Behavioral Health Center for Military Veterans and Their Families is a first-of-its-kind partnership between the Department of Veterans Affairs and private health care that will treat veterans and their families holistically under one roof.
One side of the small center houses VA psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and counselors, and the other side has counterparts from North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System, which provides care to veteran families at no cost.
The heart of the novel concept, the clinicians say, is their shared conference room.
With the patient’s consent, the clinicians from both divisions will “come together as a team and talk about the issues,” allowing them to coordinate treatment plans based on what’s happening with the entire family, said Charlene Thomesen, director of the VA side of the center.
“For example, we can better treat the wife because we’re informed of what’s happening to veteran,”said Mayer Bellehsen, a psychologist and Thomesen’s counterpart on the family side of the center.
At the center’s grand opening in December, Robert Petzel, the VA’s under secretary for health, spoke about how the VA wasn’t here “just to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, or depression, or substance abuse. We’re here to treat complex human beings.
“And bringing the families into the treatment equation is something we should have started doing years ago. It’s long overdue.”
read more here
All I can say is it's about time!
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