Slowly, Toxic Vets Get Recognition

"Some two million men and women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since the wars began in 2001. Little did these individuals know that surviving the improvised explosive devices and insurgent gunfire wouldn't necessarily guarantee their health or survival once they got home." Slowly, Toxic Vets Get Recognition. Read more.

“The End of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” edited by J. Ford Huffman and TammyS. Schultz

Marine Corp University's book on the end of DADT presents an argument for the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act. 

"'The End of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell' is a timely and necessary book...and goes far beyond to articulate and make fully human the toll of DADT on many military service members and their loved ones." 

Read More:  Opinion on The End of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Natalie Dell: VA Researcher and Olympian

"VA Employee and Medal Winning Olympian Natalie Dell on Veterans and Never Giving Up:

The Olympics are filled with inspirational stories that bring the country together in celebration of exceptional accomplishment and national pride. And we at VA are very proud to share an inspiring story from one of our own, Natalie Dell—a Bronze Medal winner at the Summer Olympics."

Read more: Natalie Dell: VA Researcher and Olympian

Care for Those Who Risked it All...

One Shot, One Kill | Carl Prine

One Shot, One Kill | Carl Prine

"It blew to the right, 2 o’clock from the gun, and I’d just taken out the plug to listen to the patrol leader below, twisting the turret and me away from the steel shavings rising like black fireflies from the shoulder of Route Michigan.

Hours later I held a throbbing skull and my left ear felt like someone jabbed a broken chopstick through the drum."

Read more: http://www.lineofdeparture.com/2012/05/17/one-shot-one-kill/#ixzz1vEzXya77

Personality Disorder-Trashing Our Army for Profit | Veterans Today

Personality Disorder-Trashing Our Army for Profit | Veterans Today: "In a report today, the New York Times acknowledged the Army’s practice of diagnosing troops with Post Traumatic Stress as having “personality disorders.”
This makes them ineligible for benefits.  The number diagnosed as such is unknown, 26,000 at one point years ago, much higher now."

Toxic Trash Pits Take Toll on U.S. Soldiers - Wild Green - Utne Reader

And yet still another article on the subject of burn pits and their affects on Soldiers health.

Toxic Trash Pits Take Toll on U.S. Soldiers - Wild Green - Utne Reader:

'via Blog this'

Toxic Trash: The Burn Pits of Iraq and Afghanistan :: Oxford American - The Southern Magazine of Good Writing

Billy McKenna and Kevin Wilkins survived Iraq—and died at home. The Oxford American sent filmmaker Dave Anderson and journalist J. Malcolm Garcia to Florida to investigate this deadly threat to American soldiers.

Toxic Trash: The Burn Pits of Iraq and Afghanistan :: Oxford American - The Southern Magazine of Good Writing

What’s Choking U.S. Troops? Feds Have No Idea.

In a 2010 study of 80 soldiers who struggled to run two miles, half of them were huffing and puffing because of undiagnosed bronchiolitis.

And the feds have no idea why.

The military’s widespread use of open-air burn pits — massive heaps of Styrofoam, human waste and plastic water bottles, in flames around the clock — seemed to be the most obvious answer.

But results of a study published today by the Institute of Medicine, and commissioned by the Department of Veterans Affairs, are frustratingly inconclusive — largely because the military didn’t collect adequate data for researchers to do their jobs.

Read more >>

Lawmaker: Shift Active Duty Troops to Reserves

An interesting perspective. Lawmaker: Shift active-duty troops to reserves - Military News | News From Afghanistan, Iraq And Around The World - Military Times

Want to Fix the Deficit Problem?

Then contact your elected officials and pressure them to put an end to fraud, waste and abuse such as this.

DoD IG Blasts Army LMP Program

VA Awards New Contract for Debunked PTSD Drug

Someone is lining their pockets with YOUR hard earned money.

Remembering those we've lost to war and military suicide this Memorial Day

Our military faces an epidemic of trauma among troops who are sent back into war without treatment for their hidden wounds. At Fort Hood, Texas, 10,000 soldiers each month get mental health evaluation and treatment, and more sit on waiting lists. This is only the tip of the iceberg. It is estimated that 20-50% of those who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from PTSD.

Congress members who vote to continue spending for these wars don't take into account the full costs that our society will be paying for decades to come.

This summer, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans from the Operation Recovery Campaign are at Fort Hood investigating the epidemic of trauma and organizing soldiers there to do something about it. Operation Recovery aims to defend a soldier’s right to heal and calls for an end to redeploying troops who already suffer from PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injuries, and Military Sexual Trauma.

This Memorial Day, let us remember those who have died in Iraq, Afghanistan and past wars. But let's also think of the thousands who have committed suicide as a result of their war trauma, and those for whom we can prevent a similar fate.

Iraq Veterans Against the War has launched the Operation Recovery campaign to stop the deployment of troops suffering from PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury, and Military Sexual Trauma. Thousands of troops are being re-deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq despite suffering from serious trauma from previous combat tours.

Take the Pledge to Stop the Deployment of Traumatized Troops!

Send a letter to the editor of your local newspaper!

Note: Copy taken from IVAW material.

Changing the Effective Date of Reserve Early Retirement

Since 9/11/2001 the Reserve Component has changed from a strategic Reserve to an operational Reserve that now plays a vital role in prosecuting the war efforts and other operational commitments. This has resulted in more frequent and longer deployments impacting individual Reservist’s careers. Changing the effective date of the Reserve early retirement would help partially offset lost salary increases, lost promotions, lost 401K and other benefit contributions.

Read an excerpt from The Statement of the Military Coalition (TMC) before the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel.

"Operational Reserve Retention and Retirement Reform – Congress took the first step in modernizing the reserve compensation system with enactment of early retirement eligibility for certain reservists activated for at least 90 continuous days served since January 28, 2008. This change validates the principle that compensation should keep pace with service expectations and serve as an inducement to retention and sustainment of the operational reserve force.

Guard/Reserve mission increases and a smaller active duty force mean Guard/Reserve members must devote a much more substantial portion of their working lives to military service than ever envisioned when the current retirement system was developed in 1948.

Repeated, extended activations make it more difficult to sustain a full civilian career and impede Reservists' ability to build a full civilian retirement, 401(k), etc. Regardless of statutory protections, periodic long-term absences from the civilian workplace can only limit Guard/Reserve members' upward mobility, employability and financial security. Further, strengthening the reserve retirement system will serve as an incentive to retaining critical mid-career officers and NCOs for continued service and thereby enhance readiness.

As a minimum, the next step in modernizing the reserve retirement system is to provide equal retirement-age-reduction credit for all activated service rendered since Sept. 11, 2001. The current law that credits only active service since January 28, 2008 disenfranchises and devalues the service of hundreds of thousands of Guard/Reserve members who served combat tours (multiple tours, in thousands of cases) between 2001 and 2008.

The statute also must be amended to eliminate the inequity inherent in the current fiscal year retirement calculation, which only credits 90 days of active service for early retirement purposes if it occurs within the same fiscal year. The current rule significantly penalizes members who deploy in July or August vs. those deploying earlier in the fiscal year.

It is patently unfair, as the current law requires, to give three months retirement age credit for a 90-day tour served from January through March, but only half credit for a 120-day tour served from August through November (because the latter covers 60 days in each of two fiscal years).

In addition, the law-change authorizing early reserve retirement credit for qualifying active duty served after 28 Jan 2008 severed eligibility for TRICARE coverage until the reservist reaches age 60."

Read the full Military Coalition Armed Services Statement: http://armed-services.senate.gov/statemnt/2011/04%20April/Strobridge-Barnes-Moakler-Puzon%2004-13-11.pdf


Other Helpful Links

Early Retirement Talking Points: http://www.roa.org/site/PageServer?pagename=early_retirementtalkingpoint

Congress Overlooking Reserve Sacrifice Prior to 2008: http://reserveofficer.blogspot.com/2011/03/data-shows-congress-overlooking-reserve.html

Contact Your Legislatures: http://www.themilitarycoalition.org/contact.htm

More on Meditation

I had my MBSR class last night and I can honestly say it was quite a challenge -- not physically but mentally. I just found the whole evening to be a pain in my mental butt. Sometimes I felt like I was in Mr. Rodgers neighborhood with this woman quietly talking at the front of the room. “Okay boys and girls, let's get ready to meditate.” Instead of being soothing, it was irritating. I just wanted her to be quiet.

And to complicate matters, people were droning on about this and that after each routine. "Well, during that first stretch I was really hoping I wouldn't fall over which would be really embarrassing and it made me think about when I fell off the bleachers in high school.  Then I saw we were changing forms and I can arch my back REALLY WELL. That reminds me of my cat and I am not sure I changed the litter box this morning. It feels good to stretch though. I spend so much time hunched over my desk at work all day... maybe I should stand up and do cat stretches two or three times a day. People might think it was weird but I can tell them it's part of my new class. OH, squats, I can do those but it reeeeeally pulls my hamstrings. Not sure I can block that out... maybe I should just be more mindful of it and work thru it... "   and blah blah blah blah blah, etc.

In my mind, I was thinking... "Oh for Christ sake... get over it, lady!"

It's hard to be mindful of your own processes if everyone else in the room is talking about theirs at every opportunity. I think this is because I don't really like to share my inner workings and I'm puzzled (and irritated) by people who do.  Most people have a hard time being "mindful" and therefore probably need to verbalize some of it.... or all of it, as the case may be.  I guess it is part of the process for them.... but irritating to introverts like myself who don't see "mindful" as necessarily a time for "group sharing."

The military teaches its members to learn to deal with a myriad of distractions, loud noises, fast movements, and ultimately to make good and sound decisions within the midst of utter chaos. In order to achieve that, the brain has to alter the way it processes information, emotions and to suppress our fight or flight, built-in survival mechanisms. Basically, we're taught to ignore the emotional part of our brains and to rely on the parts of our brains that are good at analyzing and planning. But in highly stressful environments, it's difficult for the brain to totally suppress the urge to make snap judgments, like to run if a circus lion leaps into the stands and tries to chew your head off... or to cower and hide if you're shot at.

The areas most affected in the brain by prolonged, stressful stimuli are the hippocampus and the amygdala. The hippocampus records new sensory experiences and tries to place them into long-term memory and our belief systems. The amygdala senses input from the eyes, ears, nose -- our sensory organs. The amygdala is the part of the brain which sets our "triggers", our reflex behaviors. It's what causes us to freeze or to react dramatically when we are startled. It doesn't take a lot of exposure to stressful stimuli to alter the neurocircuitry of the amygdala. Under severe and prolonged stress, these systems can become altered to the point that the result is often depression, anxiety and PTSD.

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH),"Practicing meditation has been shown to induce some changes in the body...Some types of meditation might work by affecting the autonomic (involuntary) nervous system." The sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system are two divisions of the autonomic nervous system of the body. The sympathetic nervous system is responsible for our reaction to stress or fear and is colloquially known as the "fight-or-flight" system. The parasympathetic nervous system is active during times of rest and associated with "rest and digest". The NIH goes on, "It is thought that some types of meditation might work by reducing activity in the sympathetic nervous system and increasing activity in the parasympathetic nervous system."

Translation: Meditation may be able to help reverse some of the long term negative effects of exposure to combat, other stressful, traumatic stimuli and the resulting changes in brain function/chemistry.

So... I'm going to stick with it... even though it is irritating and frustrating at times.

To my friends in the medical field, I apologize for the gross over-simplification of the brain and its inner workings.

Thanks to my friend Melissa B. for her contribution to this article.

Recommended reading:

Combat Stress Injury: Theory, Research, and Management, by Charles R. Figley, William P. Nash

On Killing, by Grossman, Lt. Col. Dave

Veterans and Suicide - We Must Overcome