Super Bowl champion training as a Black Hawk mechanic at Fort Eustis
The Virginian-Pilot
By Brock Vergakis
Published: August 16, 2016
"I'm proud to sign my longest term deal of all time, 8 yrs and have enlisted in the Army National Guard," Daryn ColledgeU.S. Army Spc. Daryn Colledge, 168th Aviation Regiment UH-60 (Black Hawk) helicopter repair student, sits next to a retired Special Forces Black Hawk at Fort Eustis, Va., July 28, 2016. Colledge retired from the National Football League after nine seasons and a Super Bowl Championship, and enlisted in the Army National Guard in March 2016 out of Idaho.NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (Tribune News Service) — Daryn Colledge's time as an NFL player and Super Bowl champion allowed him to frequently travel and meet the troops defending this country, men and women he long admired.
DEREK SEIFERT/U.S. AIR FORCE PHOTO
Now he's one of them in Hampton Roads.
Colledge, a 34-year-old former offensive lineman for the Green Bay Packers, Arizona Cardinals and Miami Dolphins, joined the Idaho National Guard in March. He's stationed at Fort Eustis while he trains to be a Black Hawk helicopter mechanic with the 168th Aviation Regiment.
Colledge declined an interview request, but appeared in an internal Army news story at Fort Eustis earlier this month.
He likely didn't need the extra paycheck. During his nine seasons in the NFL, Colledge made more than $24.5 million, according to spotrac.com, a site that tracks professional athletes' pay.
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Wednesday, August 17, 2016
New Member of Idaho National Guard, Left NFL?
Special note to reader. Thanks for pointing out wrong state. Goes to show what happens when brain and fingers are having a communication problem.
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
First responder PTSD similar to combat vets
Finally someone has taken the different types of PTSD seriously! It is what experts I learned from over three decades ago figured out. Combat PTSD is different from others but so is the type first responders have. Risking your life as a career is a lot different than surviving trauma once in a lifetime.
First responder PTSD similar to combat vets: Report
TORONTO SUN
BY KEVIN CONNOR
FIRST POSTED: TUESDAY, AUGUST 16, 2016
A study of a group of Canadian firefighters showed rates of PTSD of more than 17%.
A separate study of 402 professional firefighters from Germany found that the PTSD rate was at 18%.
While no such study has been done in Toronto, the TPFFA believes the rates of PTSD would be similar.
TORONTO - Toronto’s first responders are experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder at rates comparable to combat veterans, new research shows.
Pulling a child from a car wreck or responding to a house fire with multiple victims is the same as seeing action on a battle ground, a report released Tuesday at the International Association of Fire Fighters conference says.
The report — PTSD and Cancer: Growing Number of Fire Fighters at Risk — says understanding the effects of the hazards is critical to keep first responders safe and on the job.
“Neither of these hidden hazards (PTSD and cancer from exposure to burning toxins) is adequately addressed in current protocols for treatment and remediation,” the study says.
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Veteran Lives to Tell What Drove Him to Suicide to Save Others
Why veterans die by suicide, and how to stop it
Military Times
By Kristofer Goldsmith
Special to Military Times
August 16, 2016
In 2014, as a volunteer for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, I spent most of my free time advocating for the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Act. I spent the summer traveling the country telling Clay’s story to everyone who would listen in hopes of building a movement that would get Congress to finally take decisive action to address the suicide crisis in the veteran community.
I had never met Clay when he was alive, but thanks to my experience with IAVA, I now know Clay’s parents, Susan and Richard Selke. We don’t talk regularly or see each other much since the Clay Hunt bill was signed into law in early 2015, but I feel like I’ve got a unique sort of bond with them. It’s a bond that I’ve felt with lots of parents who have lost their son or daughter to suicide.
That bond exists because they see in me what they lost, and I see in them what I almost did to my own parents.
Military Times
By Kristofer Goldsmith
Special to Military Times
August 16, 2016
Try to picture a veteran who has recently chosen to take his own life, and you’ll probably think of someone like me: a 20-to-30-something man who served in Iraq or Afghanistan. That’s a result of countless hours spent by advocates to raise awareness about the issue.A veteran joins others to place flags representing veterans and servicemembers who had died by suicide in 2014 on the National Mall in Washington.(Photo: Charles Dharapak/AP)
In 2014, as a volunteer for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, I spent most of my free time advocating for the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Act. I spent the summer traveling the country telling Clay’s story to everyone who would listen in hopes of building a movement that would get Congress to finally take decisive action to address the suicide crisis in the veteran community.
I had never met Clay when he was alive, but thanks to my experience with IAVA, I now know Clay’s parents, Susan and Richard Selke. We don’t talk regularly or see each other much since the Clay Hunt bill was signed into law in early 2015, but I feel like I’ve got a unique sort of bond with them. It’s a bond that I’ve felt with lots of parents who have lost their son or daughter to suicide.
That bond exists because they see in me what they lost, and I see in them what I almost did to my own parents.
On a personal level, answering, “Why’d you try to kill yourself?” is incredibly frustrating. There was a lot going on at the time of my suicide attempt. I had been suffering from severe bouts of depression, frightening panic attacks, and paralyzing migraines — what I now understand to be the effects of severe post-traumatic stress disorder.
What made things worse before my suicide attempt is that when I asked for help, I was treated with suspicion by my Army doctors and later chastised by my company commander for taking the antidepressants that I had been prescribed.
Despite an otherwise stellar career, I felt like I had failed as a soldier and as a man. My personal relationships were a mess. My unit went downrange without me so that I could get some emergency surgery, and I spent the next month restricted to my quarters. In that time, I quit going to therapy, and I stayed home in a dark room watching the 2007 presidential primary debates, where my buddies in Iraq seemed to have been forgotten, and I was drinking myself to sleep most nights.
read more here
The two caring strangers saw me fall, thank you
Strange thing happened on the way home from work today. It was raining but I had to stop for gas. Walking out of the store, I slipped and fell. In less than a second, there was a man offering me his arm and a woman grabbed my other arm to help me up. I was grateful for the help and knowing that two total strangers wanted to help. Both wanted to make sure I was ok, and I was other than a couple of broken nails and my knee hurts. My pride sure took a beating and I even said that as I rubbed my behind walking away.
I pumped the gas thinking about how easy it is to accept help at times, while other times, needing it, we just do not even ask. Sometimes help shows up and other times, no matter what we do or how hard we try to get help, it just never seems to come.
Sitting here, I am thinking about all the folks around Orlando panhandling with their signs, just looking for whatever help folks want to give them. Sometimes the sign will have "homeless veteran" needs help. What do I do? Most of the time I judge them, wondering if they really were a veteran or not, instead of thinking what I can give them. By the time I decide, the light changes and traffic moves on. I leave them behind never knowing anything about them.
Did they ask for help and no one helped or did they hold in the fact they were in need of anything until it was too late they ended up on the streets?
So many questions flooding my head right now. It seems as if the difference is, folks will respond when they see "it" with their own eyes.
We know there are far too many veterans hurting, needing help to make it from one day to the next, but either they do not ask for help, or no one wants to help them. Wouldn't it be great if what they needed were as visible as a person falling to the ground? What if we could just see it and they did not have to say a word?
What would it be like if they understood "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall" and knew it did not have to happen? To be needing help and willing to ask for it, believing that it will come, can seem like a never ending cycle of suffering. Yet hope is what keeps us getting up in the morning. Hope that we will make a difference by touching someone else with acts of kindness and yes, even returning that feeling by letting them help us.
The two caring strangers saw me fall. They rushed to help. It is something that runs on on impulses fueled by compassion. It happened here in Orlando when the Pulse shooting happened and it was all over the news. Folks knew people needed help and they showed up, doing whatever they could to make things better. But I think it was also something more. They wanted to make sure the survivors understood there were more folks doing good than one bad man acting out of hating.
Knowing people are more apt to love than harm should provide us with comfort but imagine if we were all willing to not just offer help when we could, but be able to accept it when we needed it?
If you need help, let them help you get up so that you can turn around and help someone else who has taken a fall.
I pumped the gas thinking about how easy it is to accept help at times, while other times, needing it, we just do not even ask. Sometimes help shows up and other times, no matter what we do or how hard we try to get help, it just never seems to come.
Sitting here, I am thinking about all the folks around Orlando panhandling with their signs, just looking for whatever help folks want to give them. Sometimes the sign will have "homeless veteran" needs help. What do I do? Most of the time I judge them, wondering if they really were a veteran or not, instead of thinking what I can give them. By the time I decide, the light changes and traffic moves on. I leave them behind never knowing anything about them.
Did they ask for help and no one helped or did they hold in the fact they were in need of anything until it was too late they ended up on the streets?
So many questions flooding my head right now. It seems as if the difference is, folks will respond when they see "it" with their own eyes.
We know there are far too many veterans hurting, needing help to make it from one day to the next, but either they do not ask for help, or no one wants to help them. Wouldn't it be great if what they needed were as visible as a person falling to the ground? What if we could just see it and they did not have to say a word?
What would it be like if they understood "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall" and knew it did not have to happen? To be needing help and willing to ask for it, believing that it will come, can seem like a never ending cycle of suffering. Yet hope is what keeps us getting up in the morning. Hope that we will make a difference by touching someone else with acts of kindness and yes, even returning that feeling by letting them help us.
The two caring strangers saw me fall. They rushed to help. It is something that runs on on impulses fueled by compassion. It happened here in Orlando when the Pulse shooting happened and it was all over the news. Folks knew people needed help and they showed up, doing whatever they could to make things better. But I think it was also something more. They wanted to make sure the survivors understood there were more folks doing good than one bad man acting out of hating.
Knowing people are more apt to love than harm should provide us with comfort but imagine if we were all willing to not just offer help when we could, but be able to accept it when we needed it?
If you need help, let them help you get up so that you can turn around and help someone else who has taken a fall.
Monday, August 15, 2016
Law Firm Targeting British Troops Closed Down
Defeat of Iraq War vultures: Victory for the Mail as legal firm that spent taxpayer millions hounding our troops closes down
Daily Mail
By LARISA BROWN DEFENCE
CORRESPONDENT FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED:14 August 2016
After being stripped of public money Public Interest Lawyers will close at the end of this month.
Hundreds of service personnel will now escape being dragged into a taxpayer-funded witch-hunt.
Nearly 200 compensation claims made by suspected Iraqi insurgents will be thrown out and more than 1,000 potential claims scrapped. Phil Shiner, who ran PIL, may now face charges because the National Crime Agency is investigating the law firm.
The development is a victory for the Daily Mail, which has exposed the tactics of the ambulance-chasing solicitors. These include using touts to drum up business in Iraq in breach of legal rules.
read more here
Daily Mail
By LARISA BROWN DEFENCE
CORRESPONDENT FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED:14 August 2016
After being stripped of public money Public Interest Lawyers will close Hundreds of soldiers will now escape a taxpayer-funded witch-hunt Nearly 200 compensation claims made by suspected Iraqi insurgents These will now be thrown out and other potential claims will be scrapped
A British soldier escapes his Warrior armoured vehicle after it was petrol-bombed in Basra during the Iraq War (file photo)A legal firm that spent a decade hounding British troops is to shut down.
After being stripped of public money Public Interest Lawyers will close at the end of this month.
Hundreds of service personnel will now escape being dragged into a taxpayer-funded witch-hunt.
Nearly 200 compensation claims made by suspected Iraqi insurgents will be thrown out and more than 1,000 potential claims scrapped. Phil Shiner, who ran PIL, may now face charges because the National Crime Agency is investigating the law firm.
The development is a victory for the Daily Mail, which has exposed the tactics of the ambulance-chasing solicitors. These include using touts to drum up business in Iraq in breach of legal rules.
read more here
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