Reason why they don't ask for help...getting kicked out!

We tell them they need to ask for help but when they do, too many end up regretting it. If you want to know one more reason why they come home suffering more, here is one of the biggest reasons.

Suffering from a ‘Personality Disorder’: How My Promising Military Career Was Cut Short by a Dubious Diagnosis

Huff Post
Joshua Korsbr
January 6, 2016
In March, Senior Airman Nicole Dawson called me and pleaded for help.

Dawson had served three years with the Air Force and won multiple commendations for her service as a medic at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. Her success was cut short when she sought out medical care herself, requesting some counseling following a family tragedy. Soon she was diagnosed with “personality disorder,” declared unfit to serve, and discharged from the military.

Since 2006, I have been reporting on these “personality disorder” discharges, which the military is using to terminate the careers of service members seriously wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, or those who report being raped during their service, or those like Dawson who simply seek out care from the base’s medical facility.

Because personality disorder is a pre-existing condition, the military can deny these service members a lifetime’s worth of disability and medical benefits. Since 2001, the Armed Forces has discharged over 31,000 service members with personality disorder, at a savings to the military of over $17.2 billion in disability and medical benefits.

Dawson had read my articles and watched my TED talk about the scandal. She asked me, “Would you tell my story?” Instead, I connected her with Disposable Warriors, a nonprofit organization that assists soldiers discharged with personality disorder. And I offered her this: the opportunity to tell her own story, here, in HuffPost.

Sadly, to my command, CMRN’s medical evaluation had no value at all. On March 24 the Air Force discharged me under code JFX: Discharge due to Personality Disorder.read more here

Read her story and then understand that she did everything experts, and oh, by the way, military brass keeps saying then need to do. Next suicide report when they act dumfounded as to why there are so many, remember this story.

Gulf War Navy Veteran fighting for life...from flu

Father of 4 in ICU After Catching the Flu: 'The Thought of Losing Him Is Unbearable,' Wife Says
PEOPLE
Jason Duaine Hahn
January 5, 2018

“Shawn is a great man, he’s a stubborn, big-hearted softie that has a hard exterior,” Jennifer says of Burrough, a U.S. Navy veteran who fought in the Gulf War who she has been with for 17 years. “But he’s all mush on the inside.”

A father of four from Southern California is in a fight for his life after he contracted influenza during an intense flu season that has put stress on many of the nation’s hospitals as their emergency rooms continue to fill up with patients experiencing symptoms.

Shawn Burrough, 48, is now heavily sedated and breathing with the help of a ventilator at Sharp Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa, California, after first showing signs of influenza over the Christmas holiday.

“His symptoms were a cough, body aches, runny nose, congestion, low-grade fever—typical symptoms,” his wife, Jennifer Burroughs, 36, of Lakeside, California, tells PEOPLE. “Things got worse about day five when he said his chest was tightening and he said it was hard for him to get his breath.”

On Dec. 30, Burrough went to urgent care, where doctors prescribed ibuprofen and an inhaler and advised him to rest. Yet, because he is the sole provider for his four children, Burrough—an aerospace quality assurance inspector—felt compelled to continue working as his health worsened. On New Year’s Day, Jennifer found her husband on the couch in their living room rocking back and forth struggling to breathe.

Jennifer took her husband to the emergency room, where doctors discovered Burrough had contracted influenza type-B and was experiencing renal failure. Additionally, his white blood cell count was high and he had a severe case of pneumonia.

More than 36,000 people die and more than 200,000 are hospitalized each year in the United States because of the flu, and since the virus can sometimes lead to pneumonia, it becomes increasingly deadly. According to the CDC, the flu and pneumonia combination was the eighth leading cause of death in 2016.
read more here

Navy Dentist Murder-Suicide Investigation

Navy dentist, thought to have been killed by ex, known for compassion and charity work
Chicago Tribune 
Ted Gregory, Karen Berkowitz and Vikki Ortiz Healy 
January 5, 2018

Linette Lowe remembers that first impressions of Claire VanLandingham could be misleading.

Claire VanLandingham, 27, died of multiple gunshot wounds in Lake Forest on Jan. 3, 2018. (University of Louisville)

“She may have come off as a little bit shy or quiet,” said Lowe, a staff member at the church VanLandingham attended while earning her degree in dentistry at University of Louisville from 2013 through 2017. “But her compassion for people overwhelmed that in pretty short order. She was able to reach out.”

Lowe and others made heartbreaking recollections of the example VanLandingham set Friday, two days after authorities said she died in Lake Forest from multiple gunshots wounds. Police confirmed Friday that they are investigating her death as a suspected murder-suicide at the hands of a former boyfriend.

“That’s the best working theory we have right now. But we are still interviewing people and trying to put all the facts together,” Lake Forest Deputy Chief Robert Copeland said.

“So we cannot say conclusively that is what happened,” the deputy chief added, but said authorities “have no reason to believe there is another gunman somewhere.”

Police say VanLandingham, 27, was found with gunshot wounds outside a Dunkin’ Donuts on Western Avenue in Lake Forest early Wednesday and was pronounced dead at Lake Forest Hospital. A man later identified as Ryan Zike, of Louisville, Ky., was found dead at the scene with a gunshot wound to the head, officials said.
read more here

Iraq Veteran did not settle for joining VFW, he took command

Iraq War veteran becomes new Valley Stream VFW commander

LI Herald
By Melissa Koenig
January 5, 2018

Since he returned from his second tour in Iraq, Peter Yarmel has helped renovate the basement, add new sheetrock and fix the plumbing of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 1790’s building, at 65 East Merrick Road in Valley Stream. 

Now, he serves as the commander of the post he helped restore.

Yarmel, a 39-year-old Valley Stream native who currently lives in Lynbrook, also served on the post’s bartending and cleanup committees, according to Al Goldberg, a Vietnam veteran. “He’s a hard worker, cares deeply for the post and put in a lot of time,” Goldberg said.

Yarmel did not campaign for the commander position. As the senior vice commander, he took over in November after Commander Joe Marando died of lymphoma at age 84. “I got really close to Joe… so he kind of handed the reins over to me when he was starting to get sick,” Yarmel said. He became the senior vice commander over a year ago.

Yarmel served in the Marine Corps for two tours in Iraq, both of which lasted seven months.

His first tour was from January 2003 to July 2003. During that time, he served as a radio field operator for a shock trauma platoon. Yarmel radioed for Medivacs to get injured soldiers off the battlefield and transport them to a hospital.

“We were right there in the battlefield,” Yarmel said. “We went and got ’em, surgeons did what they had to real quick and patched them up, and sent them back to the real hospitals.”

read more here

Vietnam Veterans Going to Super Bowl For Winning

Vietnam forged their friendship — their story is taking them to the Super Bowl
Chicago Tribune
Mary Schmich
January 6, 2018

Randy Kusiak can’t recall winning anything, ever, except a few accordion lessons when he was a kid, so when he received Jim Zwit’s email on Christmas morning, he wasn’t convinced that his luck was about to change.

Zwit was writing to say that he’d entered a Chicago Bears contest to win two tickets to the Super Bowl. As a season ticket holder, all he’d had to do was submit a 2,000-character essay on who he’d bring and why.

The contest letter went on to describe the months that followed, the men’s shared jungle patrols, their disputes over baseball and shared love of the Bears, and how on an April evening Zwit was severely injured in a firefight. Kusiak was one of the comrades who carried him to safety. 

Eight men in their Army unit died that night. Odds were that Zwit would too. He didn’t.He spent 18 months in hospitals, in Vietnam, Japan and back in Illinois, and wherever he was, Kusiak sent him letters and pictures. When both men made it home, Kusiak came to visit. 

“Randy NEVER forgot about me,” Zwit wrote, concluding his contest entry by noting that Kusiak and his wife had retired in Florida a few years ago. read more here