Sunbury man faces eviction, terminal illness The Daily Item By Rick Dandes and Justin Strawser 6 hrs ago
SUNBURY — Terminally ill and facing eviction, a Vietnam veteran and his wife are fighting the Veteran’s Administration for full disability benefits that would help them stay in their Sunbury home.
Robert Inglis The Daily Item
Dennis and Donda O'Brien of Sudbury talk about the prospect of losing their housing because of financial difficulties.
Dennis and Donda O’Brien this week sat quietly in their Edison Street home, a rental, wondering how long they’ll be able to stay. “We need more money for rent, and utilities,” said Donda, his wife of three years. “Fighting the government costs a lot of money. We’ve been going in circles, repeating the application processes, writing letters to the V.A., to our congressmen, to presidents Obama and Trump.”
There are 21.8 million veterans of the U.S. armed forces as of 2014. The number of veterans with a service-connected disability rating in 2014 was 3.8 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Trauma trickles down
The frustration shows on Dennis’s face. At 61, he said he has cancer of the throat, is terminally ill in the last stages of emphysema, and has a heart condition, broken neck and broken back. He has vertigo, headaches, and has trouble focusing his attention — all resulting, he believes from the head trauma originally suffered more than 40 years ago. An injury, O’Brien is convinced, the Veterans Administration has never fully addressed.
read more here
Oceanside Military Surplus Store Donates Dress Blues to Family of Marine Who Committed Suicide The Marine's funeral is on Tuesday in Florida NBC San Diego By Brie Stimson Feb 17, 2018
The Marine Foster helped this weekend committed suicide, which hit home for him because one of his cousins who was a Marine, killed himself when Foster was still in high school. “I’ve always remembered him and I remember the heartache that it caused for our family, and unfortunately it’s an epidemic that is going through every branch of the military,” he said.
On Thursday, a customer reached out to Gearhound Surplus, a military surplus and used uniform store, saying the family of a Marine he’d served with needed dress blues to bury him in.
“We stopped everything we were doing here, grabbed all the uniforms, mounted the ribbons for them and sent it straight over to the post office overnight, and it arrived about two hours ago so the Marine will be buried in his uniform on Tuesday,” Joseph Foster, the owner of Gearhound, told NBC 7. “The family was just ecstatic that it arrived on time and that they’re going to honor the Marine how he wanted to be honored.”
The fallen Marine’s “step-sister called just to see if we could have everything and really stressed that the funeral is Tuesday morning and they needed the dress blues right away,” he explained. “When I called her back she was like, ‘how much do I owe you?’ And that’s the biggest relief for us and for them, just saying, ‘no, we’re not taking money from you.” read more here
Wolf puts funds for vets' PTSD treatment on chopping block
CNHI News Service By John Finnerty 1 hr ago
HARRISBURG — The state Legislature set aside $750,000 to help veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in the 2017-18 budget.
Gov. Tom Wolf’s 2018-19 budget proposal would eliminate the program even before it’s rolled out.
Wolf’s budget proposes an 8 percent increase in total spending for the state Department of Veterans and Military Affairs, but it zeroes out the money allocated on the new behavioral health support for veterans.
Joseph Butera, a spokesman for the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, said the department has not yet completed an outline for how the money allocated for the current budget year would be used.
Butera also said that the money for PTSD services had been included in the budget by the Legislature and while the governor’s spending plan doesn’t call for another year of funding for it, the administration hasn’t ruled it out either.
Butera said the administration can’t say how many people stand to benefit from the spending because the department hasn’t even figured out how exactly it proposes to spend the money. read more here
The only thing veterans have to fear...is Congress! Combat PTSD Wounded Times Kathie Costos February 18, 2018 FOX News wanted to discuss how the Secretary of the VA has not reformed the VA fast enough. Well, while that is true, it is also true that none of the others managed to fix the VA when they were up against others trying to make sure it did not work right.
While the number of disabled and eligible veterans has grown, the VA is till short on doctors, therapist, nurses, claims processors and everyone else needed to treat our veterans properly. After all, they did pre-pay for their healthcare needs the day they joined the military. Anyway, FOX said they wanted to interview groups willing to defend the latest Secretary in the hot seat, but they all declined. According to FOX the only one interested was from Concerned Veterans For America. What Concerned Veterans For America folks do not tell you is that every Secretary of Department of Veterans Affairs has been subjected to all the blame since President Reagan made it a Cabinet level position and this article is still up on The New York Times going back to November 11, 1987.
"Under the Reagan Administration, some veterans have been required for the first time to pay a portion of the costs of their treatment at Veterans Administration hospitals. ''Some feel the V.A. is run now by the Office of Management and Budget,'' said Representative G. V. (Sonny) Montgomery, Democrat of Mississippi, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee."
And pay close attention to this part too,
The Veterans Administration has more than 240,000 employees and an annual budget of more than $27 billion. It would become the second largest Federal department in employment, behind the Defense Department. It spends more than $15 billion a year on benefits programs to veterans and their dependents, including pensions and compensation for injuries.
In the FY 2019 Budget, President Trump proposes a total of $198.6 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). This request, an increase of $12.1 billion over 2018, will ensure the Nation’s Veterans receive high-quality health care and timely access to benefits and services. The 2020 AA request includes $79.1 billion in discretionary funding for Medical Care including collections; and $121.3 billion in mandatory funding for Veterans benefits programs (Compensation and Pensions, Readjustment Benefits, and Veterans Insurance and Indemnities accounts).
The other thing they do not tell you is that Congress has had jurisdiction over the care of veterans since the first Committees were seated in 1946!
If the VA is still not able to meet the needs of our veterans, then blame them, and the others pushing to privatize the VA while refusing to admit killing it is what they wanted to do all along. You know, like Concerned Veterans of America.
Guess they don't want to mention that sending veterans into for profit healthcare providers has left them with this!
Fear of debt leaving veterans choosing death over the ER
UPDATE Here is another image..
Members of the American Federation of Government Employees protest outside the Department of Veterans Affairs headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 13. Since a travel scandal broke on day later, VA Secretary David Shulkin has been under attack from outside critics questioning his ethics and internal rivals unhappy with his policy moves. (Leo Shane III/Staff)
“Right now it doesn’t look like anyone is in charge,” said Paul Rieckhoff, chief executive officer of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “It looks like chaos. It’s brutal political trench warfare, and veterans are caught in the middle.”
Do we notice the goodness in the midst of evil? Combat PTSD Wounded Times Kathie Costos February 17, 2018 There is joke that pops up when someone is talking about some type of physical abnormality and someone says "They have a pill for that!" But what about when the wound cannot be healed by medicine alone? After all, when something in or on our body becomes wounded or sick, we know that healing is the only thing we can seek. We know our body will never be the same, but bones can heal. Skin can regrow to the point where if we're lucky, without leaving a scar. Hair can grow back...well most of the time. Organs, that have to be taken out, don't grow back but some of them can get replaced because someone else decided to be an organ donor. Did you know that your spiritual wound can also heal? There is a God for that and He has proven His love since He sent us here.
It has been a long battle that we seem to be losing, all too often. We read about servicemembers, veterans, police officers, firefighters and others who have put the lives of others ahead of their own. Simply amazing what they are willing to subject themselves to, but sadly, they suffer beyond what simple humans are designed to overcome alone. Among civilians, we know that there are over 7 million with PTSD, just for ordinary life getting messed up by events we had no control over. It can be just one event for us, but for them, it is over and over again. They still get up everyday, willing to face it all over again. Some say that courage is in their DNA. I think it is in their souls, and that is where PTSD attacks. The truth is, we do control what comes next. What happens to us depends on what we do or what we are willing to settle for. If you think that you deserve to suffer, then you'll settle for that. If you believe there is a reason you survived, then you'll fight to make the best of your extra time. You may wonder why you had to be where you were, when you were there. You may try to figure out why someone did not survive or was hurt a lot worse than you were. You can ask "why" a million times, but never know for sure. Don't try to make sense out of anything you will never be able to know. What most ask after something horrific happens, is "Where was God?" There are times when I also wonder the same thing. But then after the horrible news, comes images and reports of others showing courage and compassion and I know that God was there. For that kind of love to live through the worst that can happen fed by evil, the love must be fed by God or it would not outnumber the evil acts. I wrote this a long time ago and I hope it helps make sense out of something that may give you some comfort. Repost from 2012 Looking for God in the wrong places by Chaplain Kathie Wounded Times Blog September 12, 2012 Last night I was watching The Four Crosses at Ground Zero.
"As rescue and recovery began, fireman, police, and rescue workers would be forced to endure the nightmare of working and living inside Ground Zero. Minutes turned into hours, hours turned into hopelessness as the reality of what had happened sunk in. While working in Building 6 in the World Trade Center complex, workers discovered a cavernous type hole in the debris."
As I listened to some of the people there, while I thought it was a beautiful story, I kept thinking of what was missing from the program. It is easy to wonder where God was on that horrible day as other people decided such evil acts were justified when they used everything in their power to kill. Where was He? Why didn't He stop it? How could a loving God allow it to happen?
We ask those questions all the time. We suffer in our lives, then try to figure out why God thought we deserved it. What did we do to make Him turn away from us? If we search for Him in the dirt and debris we are looking for Him in the wrong place.
God was on those planes that hit the Twin Towers and the Pentagon as much as he was on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. He was not the pilot but He was the comforter. When one hand reached out to comfort someone else, He was right there. Whenever people push past thoughts for themselves to think of someone else, He is there...
Many wonder why He didn't just cause the hijackers to suffer a heart attack an spare so many innocent lives. Others wonder why He just didn't stop them from doing it. The truth is in the Bible that God does not interfere with freewill so He would not have just snatched the hijackers out of their seats. Still how do we know He didn't try to get them to change their hearts?
It is natural for us to ask what caused other humans to do such horrible things but we miss the other question about what causes so many to do compassionate things afterwards.
What caused the police and firefighters to rush into the buildings after pure evil struck them? What caused them to climb the stairs over and over again trying to save as many lives as possible after others tried to kill as many as possible?
While the evil that man does is apparent, the good they do is inherent. It was not just public employees risking their lives that day, there were average citizens in the Towers thinking of others instead of their own lives. Some of them could have survived had they used the time they had to think of their own lives, but they had the lives of others in their thoughts and actions. It was God driving them to do for others and they had the freewill choice to allow His voice to guide them or not.
But then there were smaller miracles. Survivors reached out to help others. Strangers took the hands of other strangers, put their arms around people they would have normally just walked past under normal circumstances. Then people rushed to the area to give whatever help they could.
Days passed while more and more people showed up to help find survivors and recover bodies. God was still there hearing the prayers of the nation and comforting the weary as they refused to leave. Families of the missing were comforted by others while the time of hope faded into thinking of funerals for when the remains were found. Every street across the country became decorated with flags and so did our cars. We were all thinking of others glued to our TV sets and reminded to be kinder to other people.
Even members of Congress joined together on the steps side by side. And we know it took a miracle to do that. Whenever we look for God in what has been lost, we miss where He was all along.
*******
For me, I wonder more and more what it will take for all of those who would sacrifice their own lives saving others, to begin to value their own lives and save themselves.
And this is why. To lay down his life for the sake of his friends September 26, 2007 Do you think God abandoned you still? Come on and admit that while you were in the center of the trauma, you either felt the hand of God on your shoulder, or more often, never felt further from Him. In natural disasters, we pray to God to protect us. Yet when it's over we wonder why He didn't make the hurricane hit someplace else or why the tornadoes came and destroyed what we had while leaving the neighbors house untouched. We wonder why He heals some people while the people we love suffer. It is human nature to wonder, search for answers and try to understand. In times of combat, it is very hard to feel anything Godly. Humans are trying to kill other humans and the horrors of wars become an evil act. The absence of God becomes overwhelming. We wonder how a loving God who blessed us with Jesus, would allow the carnage of war. We wonder how He could possibly forgive us for being a part of it. For soldiers, this is often the hardest personal crisis they face. They are raised to love God and to be told how much God loves them. For Christians, they are reminded of the gift of Jesus, yet in moments of crisis they forget most of what Jesus went through. Here are a few lessons and you don't even have to go to church to hear them.
( Matthew 8:5-13) As he entered Caper'na-um, a centurion came forward to him, beseeching him and saying, "Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, in terrible distress." And he said to him, "I will come and heal him." But the centurion answered him, "Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes, and to another, 'Come,' and he comes, and to my slave, 'Do this,' and he does it." When Jesus heard him, he marveled, and said to those who followed him, "Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth." And to the centurion Jesus said, "Go; be it done for you as you have believed." And the servant was healed at that very moment.
This sounds like a great act Jesus did. You think about the Roman Centurion, powerful, commanding, able to lead men into combat, perhaps Jesus even knew of the other men this Centurion has killed. Yet this same man, capable of killing, was also capable of great compassion for what some regarded as a piece of property, his slave. He showed he didn't trust the pagan gods the Romans prayed to but was willing to trust Jesus.
Yet when you look deeper into this act, it proves that Jesus has compassion for the warriors. The life and death of Jesus were not surprises to Him. He knew from the very beginning how it would end. This is apparent throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament. He knew He would be betrayed, beaten, mocked, humiliated and nailed to the cross by the hands of Romans. Yet even knowing this would come, He had compassion for this Roman soldier. The Romans had tortured and killed the Jews since the beginning of their empire as well as other conquered people. The Roman soldiers believed in what they were doing, yet even with that, there was still documentation of them suffering for what they did.
Ancient historians documented the illness striking the Greeks, which is what we now call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There is evidence this illness hit every generation of warriors. Jesus would be aware that saving the Centurion's slave, because of the faith and trust He placed in Jesus, would be reported from soldier to soldier. Jesus showed compassion even to the Romans.
How can we think that He would not show compassion to today's soldiers? How can we think that He would look any differently on them than He did toward the soldiers who would nail Him to the Cross?
God didn't send you into combat. Another human did. God however created who you are inside. The ability to be willing to lay down your life for the sake of others was in you the day you were born. While God allows freewill, for good and for evil, He also has a place in His heart for all of His children. We humans however let go of His hand at the time we need to hold onto it the most.
When tragedy and trauma strike, we wonder where God was that He allowed it to happen. Then we blame ourselves. We do the "if" and " but" over and over again in our own minds thinking it was our fault and the trauma was a judgment from God. Yet we do not consider that God could very well be the reason we survived it all.
PTSD is a double edge cut to the person. The trauma strikes the emotions and the sense that God has abandoned us strikes at the soul. There is no greater sense of loss than to feel as if God has left you alone especially after surviving trauma and war. If you read the passage of Jesus and the Roman, you know that this would be impossible for God to do to you. Search your soul and you will find Him still there. For the last story on this we have none other than the Arch Angel Michael. The warrior angel. If God did not value the warrior for the sake of good, then why would He create a warrior angel and make him as mighty as he was? Michael has a sword in one hand and a scale in the other. God places things in balance for the warriors.
And in John 15: 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
When it comes to waging war, issuing orders, God will judge the hearts and minds of those who sent you and He will also know your's. If you feel you need to be forgiven, then ask for it and you will be forgiven. Yet if you know in your heart the basis of your service was that of the willingness to lay down your life for your friends, then ask to be healed. Know this. That if Jesus had the compassion for a Roman how could He have any less compassion for you? Because the military is in enough trouble already trying to evangelize soldiers for a certain branch of Christianity, understand this is not part of that. It's one of the benefits of having I don't care what faith you have or which place of worship you attended. If you were a religious person at any level before combat, your soul is in need of healing as well. There is a tremendous gift when the psychological healing is combined with the spiritual healing. If you have a religious leader you can talk to, please seek them out.
