Disabled Veterans Still Able to Zoom

Leon's Triathlon honored to serve disabled military veterans

North West Times

Jim Peters

June 4, 2017

Just back from a deployment in April 2008, Navy hospital corpsman Gabriel George went out for a motorcycle ride one night off base in Jacksonville, Florida.

Gabriel George of Jacksonville Florida trains for Sunday's Leon's Triathlon during a camp Friday at Munster High School (John J Watkins/The Times)

The driver of a car making a U-turn pulled in front of George, causing an accident that resulted in horrific injuries.

George suffered two fractured vertebrae, bruised and collapsed lungs, a broken collarbone and scapula, six broken ribs, a traumatic brain injury and paralysis on his right side. He was on a ventilator and in a coma for three weeks.

The fact that he'll be competing in Leon's Triathlon today at Wolf Lake Park is a testament to the strength of the human spirit, a motivating force for race founder and director Leon Wolek.

"A lot of disabled veterans use triathlons as a means to cope with their challenges," Wolek said. "What they've done is an inspiration. There are absolutely no words."

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Master Sgt. Joseph Schicker is a forgotten man

Wounded soldier who came back a hero from Afghanistan was then demoted
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By TONY MESSENGER
Published: June 3, 2017

In 2015, he found out the Missouri Guard had lied to him. At least two other soldiers — both higher ranks than Schicker — were granted exceptions to the rule the Guard cited in forcing him to take a demotion.

In January 2013, Sgt. Joe Schicker was Missouri’s hero.

A member of the Missouri National Guard, he had been injured while deployed in Afghanistan. When he returned to Missouri, none other than Gov. Jay Nixon pinned the Purple Heart on Schicker’s battle fatigues. Then Schicker stood in the House gallery in his dress blues as Nixon gave his annual State of the State address and received a standing ovation from state lawmakers.

“Just hours after his team arrived at their base, Taliban insurgents attacked,” Nixon said of Schicker. “In successfully repelling the attack, several Missouri Guardsmen, including Sgt. Schicker, were wounded. … Sgt. Schicker, you represent every man and every woman who has ever fought to defend our great nation, in every era and on every field of battle.”

Four years later, Master Sgt. Joseph Schicker is a forgotten man.

“They paraded me around the state when I came back and said, ‘Look, he’s one of our heroes,’” Schicker said. “Now, they don’t care. I’ve been wronged and no one wants to help me.”
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Navy SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown Memorial

Navy SEAL honored with underwater memorial
Sentinel-Record | Associated Press
By DAVID SHOWERS
Published: June 4, 2017

Fearless Rock - the Adam Brown Underwater Memorial

FEARLESSROCKMEMORIAL/FACEBOOK

MOUNTAIN PINE, Ark. — Adam Brown was said to have lived life with an uncommon resolve, so it's not surprising how the underwater memorial honoring the fallen Navy SEAL found its place at the toe of Blakely Mountain Dam.

The scuba divers who wanted to celebrate the life of the Lake Hamilton alumnus after reading "Fearless: The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown" had intended to put the memorial 47 feet below the surface of Lake Ouachita.

"That's where the dam ends, and the lake bed is smooth, it becomes like the surface of the moon," said William Stevens, the founder of the Fearless Rock Underwater Memorial Fund. "In May of 2013 a tornado hit the lake and ruined visibility for the rest of the year. If you dove past 30 feet you'd need a flashlight."

That June, the Fearless Rock divers began scouting shallower depths to put the memorial until they could decide on a final location. On July 23, they tied it on a crate and took it to the lake bed.
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How Does A Slogan Prove Worth?

Allison Jaslow wrote "The VA needs to fix its woman problem starting with this motto"

The Department of Veterans Affairs has a woman problem. Need evidence? Look no further than its motto: “To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan.”

That motto – engraved on plaques outside VA buildings across the country, featured proudly in VA presentations and on the agency’s website – comes from President Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address. It was an eloquent and well-meaning statement in its time. But the face of U.S. troops, and veterans, has drastically changed since then.

Today women are nearly 20 percent of recruits, 15 percent of the active duty and 18 percent of the reserve component. We have been on the battlefields of every U.S. war and conflict over the past decade, with more than 345,000 women deployed since Sept. 11, 2001. And we will be the fastest growing segment of the veteran population over the next five years, with our numbers expected to top 2 million by 2020.

Is she right? 

Female Vietnam Veterans

Though relatively little official data exists about female Vietnam War veterans, the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation estimates that approximately 11,000 military women were stationed in Vietnam during the conflict. Nearly all of them were volunteers, and 90 percent served as military nurses, though women also worked as physicians, air traffic controllers, intelligence officers, clerks and other positions in the U.S. Women’s Army Corps, U.S. Navy, Air Force and Marines and the Army Medical Specialist Corps. In addition to women in the armed forces, an unknown number of civilian women served in Vietnam on behalf of the Red Cross, United Service Organizations (USO), Catholic Relief Services and other humanitarian organizations, or as foreign correspondents for various news organizations.

Women Veterans Population
The total Veteran population in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Territories/Foreign, as of Sept. 30, 2016, was 21,368,156. The population of women Veterans numbered 2,051,484. States with the largest number of women Veterans were Texas, California, Florida, Virginia and Georgia. State-by-state totals are as follows:

Alabama 44,190
Alaska 10,283
Arizona 54,953
Arkansas 21,361
California 163,332
Colorado 46,793
Connecticut 16,626
Delaware 8,797
District Of Columbia 3,843
Florida 154,820
Georgia 93,251
Hawaii 12,820
Idaho 10,153
Illinois 55,458
Indiana 36,245
Iowa 15,512
Kansas 18,528
Kentucky 25,351
Louisiana 32,411
Maine 10,081
Maryland 58,413
Massachusetts 25,711
Michigan 45,499
Minnesota 25,891
Mississippi 20,777
Missouri 39,157
Montana 8,613
Nebraska 11,853
Nevada 21,592 Nevada Female Veteran Suicides
New Hampshire 8,706
New Jersey 33,197
New Mexico 17,173
New York 65,756
North Carolina 86,791
North Dakota 4,991
Ohio 67,554
Oklahoma 30,948
Oregon 28,207
Pennsylvania 71,319
Puerto Rico 5,322
Rhode Island 5,213
South Carolina 47,442
South Dakota 6,609
Tennessee 46,358
Texas 183,597
Utah 11,885
Vermont 3,338
Virginia 111,034
Washington 65,405
West Virginia 10,586
Wisconsin 33,916
Wyoming 3,815
Territories/Foreign 10,010
Total Women Veterans 2,051,484

Women Veterans Need More Support, So When Do We Do It?
"In comparison, the age-adjusted rate of suicide among female veterans has increased 85.2 percent. And among veteran women ages 18 to 29, the risk of suicide is 12 times the rate of nonveteran women."

Yes, she is right but taking care of all of our veterans has to be more than a slogan. It has to be a mission that is being accomplished for all generations!

You Survived "It" Now Defeat It

Kick PTSD in the Ass Again!
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
June 4, 2017

"A picture is worth a thousand words" Fred R. Barnard attributed this saying to,

The actual Chinese expression "Hearing something a hundred times isn't better than seeing it once"

Reading about something horrific causes us to use our imaginations. Great thing about that is we can shut it off at will. We stop reading and refocus our minds onto something else. After all, it is just a bunch of words. Seeing something horrific is like our brain clicking the shutter and having it implanted into our memory.

When I was young, I loved horror movies. I bought books by Stephen King. As a matter of fact, I was reading Misery when I was in labor, or at least, trying to read it. I knew it was the work of a fabulously strange mind. It wasn't real but I could imagine the house, characters and the pain inflicted on Paul Sheldon.

When the movie came out, it was different than I imagined it to be. It was not the case with Nightmare on Elm Street. That movie came out a few years before Misery. I did not read the book and was not prepared to have it follow me home. My friend and I left the theater, stood outside my car and checked the back seat. The images were part of my brain even though it was all "make-believe" because everyone is supposed to feel safe in their own beds.

We are all supposed to feel relatively safe doing what is "normal" and going about our days. Sure we think about the usual stuff, like having something stolen or getting into an accident, but not enough to stop us from doing what we want to do. That is, unless you have already experienced the bad stuff. Then it is a lot deeper than just a thought. It becomes a concern. After time, the memory is still there but has lost its power.

There is a story on the Guardian about the images captured by cell phones on the Manchester bombing when one person decided to do an evil thing, yet a greater number decided to do good for the sake of strangers. Not only did they help wounded survivors get to safety, they have been gathering in huge numbers to raise funds. Those images can cause PTSD in people who were not even there. Pictures, much like images from a movie, make it real!

How the brain stores traumatic images and triggers flashbacksImages from the Manchester bombing are likely to cause post-traumatic stress disorder, says Daniel Glaser
"The unmediated phone footage that has been shared is unlikely to lead to PTSD itself, but seems to risk the creation of disturbing memory traces. Something about its horrifying nature has an impact on how they are stored. Pleasant memories don’t seem to recur to the same extent, but deeply traumatic ones can; the emotional shock when a memory is laid down is often re-evoked when it is recalled."

That is what a flashback is like. When you see something, it comes back in images trapped within your memory. Yet, if you were there, the images you saw come back with the sounds and smells, as well as your own body reacting to that event you survived.

That word, survived, is not used often enough. You survived it! That means you were stronger than that thing that happened. You are still stronger! If you are not starting to experience the power eroding from it within 30 days, get professional help to take back your future. 

I was lucky when my family made sure stuff was talked about "to death" and I was done talking about it in the safety of "now" even though they gave really lousy advice. I knew I was loved and they cared enough to spend time and listen to what I needed to say.

Understand that events like that are a part of you but that does not give "it" permission to take over the rest of your life. Kick PTSD in the ass and take control of your life back!