Where was God when we needed Him?

This is the most asked question from veterans.

No matter what happened

they never stopped caring. 

Wounded Veteran Trades Wheelchair for Skis

Colorado veteran gets second chance to serve US in Paralympic Games
9News Colorado
Taylor Temby
March 2, 2014

DENVER - Americans choose to serve their country in different ways, but few of us are given an opportunity to serve like Coloradan Joel Hunt.

Hunt is an Iraqi war veteran who will be competing as an alpine skier in the Sochi Paralympic games this week, but his journey to skiing was rather unconventional.

Hunt joined the U.S. army back in 1998. He served for almost 10 years including three tours in Iraq. During his service, Hunt says he was hit with several roadside bombs. When he finally came home, he was bound to a wheelchair, suffering from a traumatic brain injury, paralysis in his leg and PTSD.

"I came home [and] found myself confined to a wheelchair in 2007 after I retired," he said. "I was confined to a wheelchair more for my traumatic brain injury, my dizzy spells and blackouts."
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UPI forgot there are 5 quadruple amputees

Could someone please tell UPI they missed two other quadruple amputees?

Actor Gary Sinise, perhaps best-known for his Oscar-nominated role as a badly wounded Vietnam vet in the movie "Forrest Gump" walks with wounded veteran Marine Corporal Todd Nicely in St. Louis on April 11, 2011. Sinise and his band will play a Memorial Day weekend concert on May 27th in St. Charles, Missouri for Nicely, one of only three surviving quadruple amputees from the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Corporal Nicely lost both arms and legs after stepping on an IED in Afghanistan in March 2010. Sinise announced that proceeds from every ticket sold for the May 27th concert will go towards construction of a Smart Home for Corporal Nicely, part of a project sponsored by the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation.
UPI/Bill Greenblatt

Sgt. Brendan Marrocco

Army Staff Sgt. Travis Mills

Marine Sgt. John Peck

Marine Cpl. Todd Nicely

Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Taylor Morris

Getting it wrong on Military Suicides

Getting it wrong on Military Suicides
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
March 2, 2014

There was a press release for American Foundation for Suicide Prevention giving an award to Senator Joe Donnelly.

"Donnelly Vows to Continue “Important Mission” to End Military Suicide, Recognized for Leadership on Military Suicide Prevention by AFSP."

Donnelly is trying and it seems as if everyone else has good intentions. The problem is, the numbers kept going up.

In 2012, approximately 349 members of the United States Military, including active duty, Guard, and Reserve, committed suicide, exceeding the total number of servicemembers who died in combat operations (295).

But this is the truth the numbers from the press release are not even close.

On February 12, 2014, Air Force Times reported these numbers for 2012 and 2013

Pentagon data provided to Military Times show 296 suicides among active-duty troops and reserve or National Guard members on active duty in 2013, down 15.7 percent from the 2012 total of 351.

Coming off a record-setting year in 2012, the Navy had the biggest drop, nearly 22 percent, from 59 to 46 sailor deaths. The Army also saw a large decline, down nearly 19 percent from 185 suicides in 2012 to 150 last year.

They also reported the numbers for the other branches.

The Air Force and Marine Corps both had near-record years in 2012; in 2013 they also experienced declines, with 55 airmen dying by suicide in 2013, down from 59 in 2012, and 45 Marines committing suicide in 2013, down from 48 the year before.

If you just look at the numbers the way there were reported, it is easy to assume that lower numbers are a good thing.

These are the numbers showing discharges just for misconduct alone.

The number of enlisted soldiers forced out for drugs, alcohol, crimes and other misconduct shot up from about 5,600 in 2007, as the Iraq war peaked, to more than 11,000 last year.

For enlisted airmen, the number ranged from a high of nearly 4,500 in 2002 to a low of almost 2,900 in 2013

"The number of Marines who left after court-martial has dropped from more than 1,300 in 2007 to about 250 last year."

The Navy went through a similar process. When the decision was made to cut the size of the 370,000-strong naval force in 2004, the number of sailors who left due to misconduct and other behavior issues grew. In 2006, more than 8,400 sailors left due to conduct issues.

That is not factoring in how many left the military because of cutbacks.  There were simply less to count.

Hiding PTSD Records Of Civil War Veterans?

What we know is that soldiers with what we now call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, were shot for being cowards. They often ran away and yes, even committed suicide. There was an excuse back then because no one really understood what psychological trauma was. So what is their excuse for not releasing these documents? Easy. Family members may have the proof to clear the record of their veteran after all these years. I doubt there could be any other excuse.

Hiding PTSD Records Of Civil War Veterans?
Even files of the long dead are off limits
Editorial
The Hartford Courant
February 28, 2014

Doesn't this sound familiar?

Some years ago, Connecticut scholars researching post-traumatic stress disorder in Civil War veterans won a state Freedom of Information Commission ruling providing the researchers access to records of patients treated at a Middletown mental health facility in the 1860s.

That researchers would want to search such records makes sense. As Matthew Warshauer, the Central Connecticut State University professor who petitioned for the records, has written, the history of Civil War soldiers has "stark relevance for today's soldiers returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan."
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The UK was doing it too.

At total of 304 men were executed during the First World War, while another 18 suffered the same fate while waiting to leave the army after the signing of the Armistice. Of those executed, the vast majority, 286, committed the offence while in the trenches on the Western Front.

Here during WWII

Nearly 50,000 American and 100,000 British soldiers deserted from the armed forces during World War II. (The British were in the war much longer.) Some fell into the arms of French or Italian women. Some became black-market pirates. Many more simply broke under the strain of battle.

These men’s stories have rarely been told. During the war, newspapers largely abstained from writing about desertions. The topic was bad for morale and could be exploited by the enemy. In more recent decades the subject has been essentially taboo, as if to broach it would dent the halo around the Greatest Generation.

“The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II,” by the historian and former ABC News foreign correspondent Charles Glass, thus performs a service. It’s the first book to examine at length the sensitive topic of desertions during this war, and the facts it presents are frequently revealing and heartbreaking.