PTSD Presumption For Canadian First Responders?

Attitudes evolving toward PTSD, police chief says
Sudbury.com
Darren MacDonald
April 21, 2017

“The team provides immediate peer support and access to resources for members who have been involved in potentially traumatic events,” the report said. “The goal is to monitor members post event and off support services where identified.”

Attitudes toward post-traumatic stress disorder and policing have changed considerably since he began his career, Greater Sudbury Police Chief Paul Pedersen said this week. (File photo).

Attitudes toward post-traumatic stress disorder and policing have changed considerably since he began his career, Greater Sudbury Police Chief Paul Pedersen said this week.

"I've been in the profession a very long time,” Pedersen said. “There was a time when these types of things were not only unrecognized, but were hidden. There was a stigma associated with mental illness that suggested there was a weakness of character."

The chief was speaking after a police services board meeting this week, in which the force outlined its policies for helping front-line workers with PTSD.

Police had until April 23 to do so under the Supporting Ontario's First Responders Act, passed in the Ontario Legislature this month. It creates a presumption that PTSD diagnosed in first responders is work-related.
read more here

Veteran Documents Lives of Others with PTSD

Phoenix Veteran Uses Photography to Document PTSD
SCOTTSDALE, AZ, UNITED STATES 
DVIDS 
Story by Alun Thomas U.S. Army Recruiting Battalion - Phoenix 
 04.21.2017

“One of the veterans is my nephew, who’d contemplated suicide. Before he sat down to work with me, five of his fellow Marines had previously committed suicide,” he said. “A year after I photographed him he came up to me and said ‘thank you.’ I asked him ‘for what’? He said if I hadn’t taken those photos of him he would not have gone out and gotten help.” 

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – There’s a noticeable tremble in the voice of Christopher O’ Shana as he recounts his experiences dealing with veterans afflicted with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Christopher O’ Shana, waiver analyst, Phoenix Recruiting Battalion, talks about his photographic project ‘The Invisible Scar’ at a Community Action Committee meeting, April 12, Scottsdale Marriott Old Town, Scottsdale, Ariz. For the last three years O’ Shana has, has been documenting the struggles of veterans traumatized by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, with a series of photos intended to bring awareness to those afflicted by PTSD. (Photo by Alun Thomas, USAREC Public Affairs)

For the last three years O’ Shana, a waiver analyst for the Phoenix Recruiting Battalion, has been documenting the struggles of those traumatized by PTSD, in a photographic project titled ‘The Invisible Scar.’ 

He recounted the story behind his project at a Community Action Committee meeting, held by the Phoenix Rec. Bn., April 12, Scottsdale Marriott Old Town, Scottsdale, Ariz. O’ Shana said he developed a passion for photography upon leaving the Navy and pursued it through a variety of courses, leading to being awarded a grant and working space at a studio called The Monorchid in Phoenix.  

“I was looking for something unique to use as a subject when a lightbulb went off in my head,” O’ Shana said. “What about PTSD? 

Very few know what PTSD looks like. That’s when I developed the ‘Invisible Scar’ concept.” O’ Shana said he was overwhelmed initially, having to find veterans for his project and learning to how use a studio correctly, in order to enhance his photos for public release. “It was a daunting task. I was going to school and married with five kids,” O’ Shana continued. “But I began the project and its one that continues today.” read more here

PTSD on Trial: Former Police Officer, Veteran Marine

Former Norfolk officer testifies he had PTSD when he shot the man who's suing him

• By Jonathan Edwards 
  The Virginian-Pilot
• 2 hrs ago

The ex-officer being sued by the man he shot more than four years ago testified Friday that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder at the time and struggles to deal with stressful situations in which he doesn’t have control.

Robertson, a Marine who served in the Middle East, was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder for symptoms that had been happening before that day. Because of his PTSD, he struggled when he wasn’t able to move freely. 

Robertson, who worked as a Norfolk officer for six years, quit the force in December 2015. His lawyer, Alan Rashkind, said his client had to retire because of how badly he was hurt when Mitchell dragged him, which required two shoulder surgeries and fusion of two vertebrae in his neck. read more here

The question is, when do we actually prove we are a grateful nation?

This morning I got into an email exchange with Rick Stacy over at 105.9 FM. I listen to his show everyday and he never fails to make me laugh. He's the type of guy who can insult you and you end up hugging him for it. That is, other than this morning when he was talking about POTUS extending the privatization of veterans healthcare like it was a good thing.

Ok, I'm sure you know that made my head explode! I tried to call the station but they didn't answer the call. I collected my senses, sort of, and let my blood pressure almost go back to normal, before I fired off an email.

I didn't expect and answer, but he answered it when he was off the air. It took a couple of tries but he understood what I was trying to say and I understood where he got his information from. I told him I still think he's smart and a couple of other things and have no regrets being a daily listener.

I'm sure you can see this got to me but not for the reasons you think. I know he cares about our troops and our veterans. So why would he think treating veterans like civilians was acceptable? Why would he think that sending veterans into the same mess the rest of us deal with was worthy of their service?

This is the thing that gets to me all the time. Folks seem to think this is the best this country can do for our veterans? Seriously?

So why do we have a Congress? Why did they want to serve on the House Veterans Affairs Committee and produce these disgusting results? Yet, we the people, electing these yahoos simply let them pull off this crap all the time.

They show up at the DAV, VFW and American Legion conventions, make their speeches while begging for votes instead of begging for forgiveness? 

Revolutionary WarThe next morning on June 20, the State House was mobbed by as many as 400 soldiers demanding payment. The soldiers blocked the door and initially refused to allow the delegates to leave. Alexander Hamilton, then a delegate from New York, persuaded the soldiers to allow Congress to meet later to address their concerns. The soldiers did allow the members of Congress to peacefully adjourn that afternoon.^[3] That evening, a small Congressional committee, headed by Hamilton, met in secret to draft a message to the Pennsylvania Council, asking them to protect Congress from the mutineers. The letter threatened that Congress would be forced to move elsewhere if the Council did not act.^[2]

Civil WarIt wouldn’t be until the Acts of 1818 and 1832 that full remediation of pensions would take place. Fraudulent claims abused the provisions of these Acts as enough time had elapsed to make it difficult to prove (or disprove) that a claimant had qualifying service.The Civil War wasn’t much better. Confederate soldiers had to rely on state-level pensions, while Union soldiers didn’t get much better treatment from the federal government. It wasn’t until the 20th Century that many of the pensions were paid to Civil War veterans and their widows.

WWIAs many as 20,000 former soldiers and their families had converged on Washington in the summer of 1932, the height of the Great Depression, to support Texas Congressman Wright Patman’s bill to advance the bonus payment promised to World War I veterans. Congress had authorized the plan in 1924, intending to compensate the veterans for wages lost while serving in the military during the war. But payment was to be deferred until 1945. Just one year earlier, in 1931, Congress overrode a presidential veto on a bill to provide, as loans, half the amount due to the men. When the nation’s economy worsened, the half-bonus loans were not enough, and the unemployed veterans now sought the balance in cash. Known as Bonus Marchers, they came in desperation from all across the nation, hopping freight trains, driving dilapidated jalopies or hitchhiking, intent on pressuring Congress to pass the legislation. The administration vehemently opposed the measure, believing it inflationary and impractical given the $2 billion annual budget deficit.

Getting the idea, you can look up more of the stuff Congress forgot to put on their "to do list" after they sent men and women to fight the country's battles.

Congress had been given the jurisdiction over all of it back in 1946 when the first Veterans Affairs Committee was putting their butts in their chairs and have been sitting on that awesome responsibility ever since.

Jurisdiction of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs

1. Veterans' measures generally.
2. Pensions of all the wars of the U.S., general and special.
3. Life insurance issued by the government on account of service in the Armed Forces.
4. Compensation, vocational rehabilitation, and education of veterans.
5. Veterans' hospitals, medical care, and treatment of veterans.
6. Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief.
7. Readjustment of servicemen to civilian life.
8. National Cemeteries.

But why would they want to actually do their jobs? Why would any of us actually demand accountability from any of them? Why would we when the press fails to even mention any of the history military families have been dealing with since the Patriots were not just fighting off the best military in the world but had to hide from their fellow citizens wanting to keep things just they way they were?

Easy, because if you are not part of a military family, it is all too easy to forget these men and women are willing to pay any price for defending this nation and dying for each other but the one price they should never, ever, have to pay is our finding any of this acceptable.

The question is, when do we actually prove we are a grateful nation?

Seven Homeless Veterans Laid to Rest With Honor

 7 homeless veterans buried with military honors


All seven served in United States Army with duty spanning the World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf War eras. 

Private First Class Steven E. Womack, age 67, born in Knoxville, Tennessee on February 26, 1949.

Staff Sergeant William Donald Good, age 55, born September 16, 1961, home of record is Gardena, California and enlisted in service at Los Angeles, California

Sp4. James D. Wood, age 68, born March 23, 1948, in Knoxville, Kentucky, passed away November 15, 2016. Sp4 (T) Wood served in Vietnam. He enlisted in 1968 and served multiple tours in Vietnam while serving in the United States Army.

Sp4 Glendon Llewellyn Swift, age 67, born March 23, 1949 in Norfolk, Virginia passed away August 23, 2016. Sp4 Swift served with Co B. 1/38 Infantry, 2d Infantry Division and Company A, 1/14 Infantry 25 Infantry Division; stationed at Camp Howze, Korea. He was a former resident of Williamston, North Carolina.

Ronald Eugene Pollock, age 81, of Knoxville, born March 8, 1935, passed away April 9, 2016. Ronald served honorably in the United States Army in the 1950s.

Private First Class Claude R. Petree, age 88, born October 15, 1927, of Maynardville, Tennessee passed away July 26, 2016.

Specialist 3rd Class Benny Burton Solomon, age 83, born May 29, 1933 served with the United States Army in Korea from October 22, 1953 to October 21, 1955. Sp3. Solomon passed away November 13, 2016.