Sexual Violence and the Military

Sexual Violence in the Military

The rate of sexual assaults on American women serving in the military remains intolerably high. While an estimated 17 percent of women in the general population become victims at some point in their lives, a 2006 study of female veterans financed by the Department of Veterans Affairs estimated that between 23 percent and 33 percent of uniformed women had been assaulted.

Homeless Veterans in New York

http://shnny.org/budget-policy/federal/veterans/

According to recent estimates, there are nearly 6,000 homeless veterans in New York. Across the state, the Network and its members are working to lower that number to zero.

Veterans Affairs Crisis Line

CANANDAIGUA, N.Y. -- Hi, this is Tricia. Thank you for calling the Veterans Crisis Line. What’s going on tonight?
Tricia, a crisis line operator, is talking with someone we'll call Steven. Her long black hair frames her face as she bends over her desk, eyes closed, listening and then replying softly.
Steven, will you take a few deep breaths for me, it’s really important that I understand what you are experiencing.
In a few cramped rooms inside a dark red brick veterans mental institution built here in the 1930s, Tricia Lucchesi, along with some two dozen mental health professionals and veterans, fields the calls that come in every minute through the Veterans Crisis Line.
Tricia is 52 and has years of experience in teaching and mental health care; her son is an enlisted airman in the Air Force. Her headset is decorated with blue sparkles. She listens, oblivious to the bustle and ringing phones around her. When she responds she speaks slowly, pouring warmth down the phone line.

David Wood: Huffington Post 3/8/2012

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/08/veterans-crisis-line_n_1322423.html

VA funds to surge as troops return

The nation’s 22 million military veterans would receive more federal funding for health care, fighting homelessness and finding jobs under President Barack Obama’s proposed budget for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

The plan calls for VA spending to grow 10.5 percent to $140.3 billion in the next fiscal year, up from $126.9 billion this fiscal year. The proposal comes as other segments of the military prepare for big cuts.

The White House wants to spend more on mental health services, health care needs of women veterans, and $1 billion over five years on a Veterans Jobs Corps to put 20,000 former soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines to work.

The jobs would focus on building roads and trails on public lands.

By Barrie Barber

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-news/va-funds-to-surge-as-troops-return-1328730.html

Yoga For Veterans in New York

Taught by veterans, classes are FREE for all veterans, family members and providers. Yoga for Vets NYC classes focus on the specific needs of veterans. Experience the benefits of yoga to relieve stress, recover from trauma, focus the mind, and heal the body.

All veterans are welcome regardless of age or physical ability. No previous yoga experience is necessary. Mats, props and lockers are provided. Please bring comfortable clothing and avoid eating at least one hour before class.http://yogaforvetsnyc.org/

New program helps veterans in prison

MECKLENBURG COUNTY, N.C. — 

More than 1 million veterans are in jails and prisons in the U.S. More than 2,000 of them are in North Carolina prisons, arrested for crimes ranging from theft, to drugs, to murder.

Many incarcerated veterans suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, traumatic brain injury or other mental health issues. The problems are side effects of their service that they might not recognize until it’s too late.

But there is a new effort in Mecklenburg County to help them.

Wesley Woodling will never forget the night he killed an innocent man, someone he mistakenly thought was trying to rob him.

By Erica Bryant

http://www.wsoctv.com/news/news/local/new-program-helps-veterans-prison/nHX2R/

JBLM program reaches out to soldiers with PTSD, TBI

Joint-Base Lewis McChord has been in the news a lot lately and much of it hasn't been good: From soldiers behaving badly to increased suicide rates.

Now there is a program at the base that's showing success and giving hope to soldiers dealing with PTSD and traumatic brain injury [TBI].

Retired Sgt. Josh Renschler is leading the Men of Valor at JBLM. He says the program is a combination of the best practices from the medical and mental health communities.

Renschler says the program finds men when they're in crisis. "If evil things happen to me, if I get blown up over there, if I watch my buddy die, where is this great God that loves me?" he says the often ask.

Tony Miner

http://mynorthwest.com/108/621604/JBLM-program-reaches-out-to-soldiers-with-PTSD-TBI

Veterans train service dogs to help PTSD

(EmaxHealth) The Research Center for Human-Animal Interaction at the University of Missouri haa teamed up for a study to help veterans with PTSD. Veterans are paired with dogs for obedience training and then move on for specialized training to become service dogs for service members suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.

The idea it to pair veterans with dogs that would otherwise be euthanized.

Service members are given the opportunity to help animals heal. The meaningfulness of the activity could help veterans suffering from PTSD feel better

By Kathleen Blanchard

http://www.emaxhealth.com/1020/veterans-train-service-dogs-help-ptsd

Specialized rehab rare for brain-injured soldiers

When Army Sgt. Victor Medina returned home from Iraq in the summer of 2009, his life was a shambles. His tour had been cut short after he suffered a concussion during a roadside blast. Though his injury wasn't visible, he struggled with balance and noticed that his ability to read, think and even talk had changed for the worse.
But in the spring of 2011, Medina became one of the first patients at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence, the military's $65 million, state-of-the-art treatment center for brain-injured soldiers.
During his three weeks at the Bethesda, Md., center, the staff developed a rehabilitation program designed specifically for Medina. His recovery has progressed rapidly ever since, he and his wife, Roxana Delgado, told ProPublica and NPR.
Medina has continued to work from El Paso, Texas, by videoconference with a speech therapist based at the center, and he said his stutter is improving. After his injury, he had struggled to read more than a paragraph; now he says he can read and absorb two pages in one sitting. Medina also was ordered to stop driving after his injury, but he told ProPublica and NPR that he has regained his ability to do that, too.
"It's like night and day," Delgado said of his improvement.

 By:  Joaquin Sapien & Daniel Zwerdling
http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/nationworld/report/013012_soldierbraininjury/specialized-rehab-rare-brain-injured-soldiers/

Reunited troops, families face stresses of reconnecting

FORT HOOD, Texas – Jesse "Jay" Collins didn't expect to be home for Christmas this year. He thought he would spend the holidays in Iraq, far from his wife and kids.

Then weeks ago, he packed up as part of the last sustainment brigade in Iraq and headed back to theUSA, to resume the life he'd left behind 10 months before.

He and his wife know it won't be quite the same. His family is forever changed.

Now that the war is over, Collins and thousands of other soldiers are home, with visions of holidays and reunited families — and no new deployments looming on the horizon. Whether they make it to "happily ever after" depends in large part on how well they reconnect with family in the short-term as well as the long haul.

By Sharon Jayson

http://yourlife.usatoday.com/parenting-family/story/2011-12-20/Reunited-troops-families-face-stresses-of-reconnecting/52119966/1

After war, a new fight begins

Houma native Brad Hebert was a Marine corporal during the siege of Fallujah in 2004 when he was injured by a roadside bomb that fractured his back, blew out his knee and left him with a traumatic brain injury.

When he got home, he faced a new struggle familiar to many veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan: He had trouble selling himself to potential employers.

“When I first got out, I went on several job interviews. They always ask what your work experience is, and I was a machine gunner. So they'd ask, ‘How does that relate to what you want to do now?' It doesn't. I wanted to expand my horizons, to try something new,” Hebert said. “But if your prior work experience doesn't qualify you, if you've been in for four, eight, 12 years and it doesn't relate to the job you're applying for, you probably won't get the position.”

Hebert eventually found work as an audio-visual integrator specializing in video conferencing, but his injuries have worsened, and he has moved to New Orleans to be closer to the Veterans Affairs Hospital as he seeks treatment to avoid getting risky back surgery.

Cara Bayles

http://www.houmatoday.com/article/20120123/ARTICLES/120129898

Vet Families Can Access Mental Health Tools Online

MONTROSE, N.Y. – The VA Medical Center in Montrose has become the epicenter for a new online veteran’s mental health initiative. “Family of Heroes” is a website which uses avatars, realistic animations of people, to allow people to anonymously work through conversations with veterans recently returned from deployment.

“We’re trying to help families attain some skills,” said Benny Linneman, a therapist for residents of the Montrose VA. “A lot of vets think the problem is theirs, and that they can deal with it,” he said about veterans afflicted with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The program was launched on Veterans Day, Nov. 11.

“Family of Heroes”is meant to provide those who know a veteran recently returned from deployment with the skills to defuse arguments, approach a veteran who may need help and recognize signs of PTSD. The metropolitan area has about 34,000 veterans home from theaters of war, according to Linneman, and there are about two million veterans nationwide who served in both the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters.

“Family of Heroes” is only available to residents of southern New York and New Jersey as it undergoes development.

by Jessica Glenza

http://www.thedailyarmonk.com/wellness/vet-families-can-access-mental-health-tools-online

Veterans Bill of Rights Petition to Help Homeless Veterans and Military Families

http://www.prweb.com/releases/ProjectFoot/VeteransBillofRights/prweb9131945.htm

A Veterans Bill of Rights petition is being circulated by Project Foot, a Florida based charity for homeless veterans and military families. The Veterans Bill of Rights addresses key issues with the Department of Veterans Affairs such as veteran homelessness, PTSD, discrimination, reintegration and hidden government programs.

Reunited troops, families face stresses of reconnecting

FORT HOOD, Texas – Jesse "Jay" Collins didn't expect to be home for Christmas this year. He thought he would spend the holidays in Iraq, far from his wife and kids.

Then weeks ago, he packed up as part of the last sustainment brigade in Iraq and headed back to theUSA, to resume the life he'd left behind 10 months before.

He and his wife know it won't be quite the same. His family is forever changed.

Now that the war is over, Collins and thousands of other soldiers are home, with visions of holidays and reunited families — and no new deployments looming on the horizon. Whether they make it to "happily ever after" depends in large part on how well they reconnect with family in the short-term as well as the long haul.

By Sharon Jayson

http://yourlife.usatoday.com/parenting-family/story/2011-12-20/Reunited-troops-families-face-stresses-of-reconnecting/52119966/1

Veterans train service dogs to help PTSD

(EmaxHealth) The Research Center for Human-Animal Interaction at the University of Missouri haa teamed up for a study to help veterans with PTSD. Veterans are paired with dogs for obedience training and then move on for specialized training to become service dogs for service members suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.

The idea it to pair veterans with dogs that would otherwise be euthanized.

Service members are given the opportunity to help animals heal. The meaningfulness of the activity could help veterans suffering from PTSD feel better.

The study, titled “Mutual Enrichment – Walking and Training Service Dogs”, is being led by Rebecca A. Johnson, PhD, RN, FAA.

By Kathleen Blanchard RN

http://www.emaxhealth.com/1020/veterans-train-service-dogs-help-ptsd

Ending Nightmares Caused By PTSD

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/01/16/144672190/ending-nightmares-caused-by-ptsd?ps=sh_stcathdl

Everyone has nightmares sometimes. But for people with PTSD, it's different.

Sam Brace doesn't want to talk about what he saw when he was a soldier in Iraq eight years ago. In fact, it's something he's actively trying not to dwell on. But what he can't control are his dreams.

They're almost always about the same explosion. "When I was overseas, we'd hit an IED," Brace says. "When I have a nightmare, normally it's something related to that."

Healthy dreams seem kind of random, according to Steven Woodward, a psychologist with the National Center for PTSD at the VA Medical Center in Menlo Park, Calif. "They're wacky," he says. "They associate lots of things that are not normally associated."

PTSD dreams are the same real-life event played over and over again like a broken record. "Replicative nightmares of traumatic events ... repeat for years," Woodward says. "Sometimes 20 years."

 

Scientists wanted to find out the reason why people with PTSD can't sleep and dream normally. One theory comes from Matthew Walker, a psychology researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. His particular interest lies in rapid eye movement, or REM. It's the time during sleep when a lot of dreaming occurs.

by AMY STANDEN

Taking the ‘D’ Out of P.T.S.D.

http://battleland.blogs.time.com/2012/01/17/taking-the-d-out-of-p-t-s-d/

Ever since Battleland raised this issue with then-top-Army doc Lieut. General Peter Schoomaker four years ago, there’s been a whirring debate over changing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder to Post-Traumatic Stress, or some other less-stigmatizing label. The logic is pretty simple: in the nooks and crannies of our brains where bad thoughts live, no one likes to concede I have a disorder. Especially when perhaps one in five troops deployed to war zones come home with some elements of it.

Over lunch with some VA pals last week, the topic came up again. One noted that a problem with changing the name is that there isn’t a medical diagnosis for PTS, which would complicate troops’ efforts to get disability pay for it. That may be about to change, according to Lindsay Wise, writing in the Houston Chronicle over the weekend:

The president of the American Psychiatric Association says he is “very open” to a request from the Army to come up with an alternative name for post-traumatic stress disorder so that troops returning from combat will feel less stigmatized and more encouraged to seek treatment.

Read more: http://battleland.blogs.time.com/2012/01/17/taking-the-d-out-of-p-t-s-d/#ixzz1jv6vwd35

By MARK THOMPSON 

PTSD a priority at Omaha med schools

http://www.omaha.com/article/20120113/LIVEWELL01/701139905/1161

Dr. Charles Youngblood served in Iraq when treating post-traumatic stress disorder meant giving a Marine a day or two off before he returned to the fight.

Now Youngblood is Creighton University Medical Center's point man on a national plan meant to ensure that veterans living with PTSD are properly diagnosed and treated in ways that would have been unimaginable in Iraq at that war's outset

Omaha's two medical schools have signed on to the Joining Forces initiative, which was co-founded by first lady Michelle Obama.

The idea: Get the nation's top medical schools thinking about the best ways to train doctors to detect and treat PTSD, as well as traumatic brain injuries, often caused by roadside bomb blasts.

Then get those medical schools — more than 100 have signed on — to agree to share information, making it more likely that a struggling veteran in Omaha could get a new kind of medication or therapy that's proving effective in Orlando.

Even the initiative's supporters say Joining Forces is somewhat symbolic — after all, there's no new funding set to flow to Creighton University Medical Center or the University of Nebraska Medical Center to study PTSD or combat-related brain injuries.

But the symbolism does matter, say administrators from both schools.

After a decade of war, most of the country's medical schools are pledging to better help veterans living with PTSD. Research suggests that up to 18 percent of troops who deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan might have post-traumatic stress disorder when they return home, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

By Matthew Hansen 

Use Of Acupuncture By The U.S. Military To Treat Battlefield Injuries, PTSD

http://www.asianscientist.com/health-medicine/medical-acupuncture-used-by-united-states-armed-forces-for-brain-injuries-ptsd-2012/

The United States Armed Forces is incorporating acupuncture, one of the oldest healing practices in the world, to assist in the medical care of its personnel.

AsianScientist (Jan. 10, 2012) – The latest issue of the journal Medical Acupuncture reveals that the United States Armed Forces is incorporating acupuncture, one of the oldest healing practices in the world, to assist in the medical care of its personnel.

First recorded in the Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon (黄帝内经), an ancient Chinese medical text written more than two millennia ago, acupuncture is a traditional Chinese method of encouraging the body to promote natural healing and to improve functioning by inserting needles and applying heat or electrical stimulation at very precise acupuncture points.

Before the 1990s, the U.S. military hardly used acupuncture in its treatment of military personnel. In 2001, however, Dr. Richard C. Niemtzow, Editor-in-Chief of Medical Acupuncture and Director of the USAF Acupuncture Center in Maryland, developed an acupuncture technique designed for military use.

Battlefield acupuncture (BFA), as it is called, is a modified auricular acupuncture technique that introduced physicians to a military-centric style of acupuncture that was quick, simple, and efficient.

CHRISTINE TEO

Jerry Davich: Help is available for vets with PTSD

David Cox answered my phone call in great spirits as he detailed his intentions for firsthand input into today’s column.

The 61-year-old war veteran from Highland has served six tours of duty in the Iraq War as a critical care nurse for the Indiana Air National Guard. He helped transport roughly 500 critical patients during 156 combat missions, body after body, injury after injury, death after death.

It all caught up to him in 2007 when he lost 57 pounds in just one month while serving overseas. That’s when he stopped sending photos of himself back home to his wife, Kim. That’s when he couldn’t shake the nightmares and the sadness. That’s when Kim knew something was wrong with her husband of 30-plus years, but she couldn’t do anything from 7,500 miles away.

On his flight home, he suffered an emotional meltdown and, later, an explanation that didn’t surprise many experts: Cox had post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD.

http://posttrib.suntimes.com/news/davich/9820376-452/jerry-davich-help-is-available-for-vets-with-ptsd.html

T2 Treatments for PTSD Get Virtual

A service member puts on a headset with a screen for each eye.He’s given a joystick that’s built with low-frequency vibrations and sounds, mirroring the vehicle he drove while on the battlefield. As he navigates through the virtual combat world, his head movements are tracked with an orientation system. Pre-fabricated smells mimicking burning rubber and weapons firing are released into the air, and the service member ventures into virtual war.

This is the new Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) being studied by National Center for Telehealth and Technology (T2), a Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury center. T2 is currently researching this therapy, which places service members face-to-face with their unique experiences on the battlefield to help treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and to help service members process memories. Once the study is completed, this unique treatment will be offered to service members and veterans.

“The whole treatment is customized to their memory, down to the day, time, weather conditions, location in the convoy and the combat stimuli themselves,” said Dr. Greg Reger, T2 lead psychologist. “The purpose is to activate the experience to increase emotional engagement, so they can process that memory.”

The study reviews the effectiveness of VRET by comparing it to prolonged exposure therapy. T2 conducted the trial based on growing evidence that VRET is an effective treatment for PTSD and because this form of therapy may help reach service members who might otherwise avoid traditional talk therapies because of perceived stigma.

 by JULIE WECKERLEIN

http://science.dodlive.mil/2012/01/04/t2-treatments-for-ptsd-get-virtual/

Friendship Inspires Art Project About Daily Life in Iraq

http://culture.wnyc.org/articles/features/2012/jan/05/art-brooklyn-artist-army-soldier/

Across the street from the noisy construction of the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn stands a brick five-story structure. The building's exterior is nondescript, but inside, delicate watercolors painted in pastel desert hues hang on the walls of artist David Pierce's studio.
The watercolors, by Pierce, depict the life of his high school buddy, army infantry specialist Justin Wilkens, while he was deployed in Iraq.

Pierce, 36, first heard his friend was enlisting in 2005.
“And I called him up and I said 'I think this is a really bad idea. Please don’t do it,'” he said, adding that he was worried about his friend’s safety. “And you know, we were 30 at the time, maybe late 20s. You can’t really tell your friend who is 29 years old how to live his life. So, that was the decision he made and I said, ‘You know, OK, but let’s do a project while you’re there.’”
Pierce asked Wilkens to email him photographs of life, as he was seeing it, in Iraq. Although his buddy had never taken pictures before, he started sending snapshots during his first six-month deployment in Iskandariya. During a second 13-month stint, Wilkens sent hundreds more photos from Baghdad that he or his fellow soldiers took.

By Abbie Fentress Swanson

Providing comfort to soldiers with brain injuries

Three NATO troops were killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan Wednesday. That kind of attack has caused nearly 40 percent of fatalities in Afghanistan and Iraq. It often causes the what's considered the "signature wound" of these wars: brain injuries. CBS News correspondent Clarissa Ward in Afghanistan says the military is taking a new approach.

Getting treated by Capt. Amy Gray can entail playing with dogs, watching movies, even getting massages.

An occupational therapist, Gray heads the concussion care center at Forward Operating Base Fenty where a simple technique is making the world of difference in treating soldiers with mild traumatic brain injury, known as brain sprain.

"I tell them, 'Your mission when you are with me is to sleep, relax and get better,'" she said.

By

Clarissa Ward

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57349476/providing-comfort-to-soldiers-with-brain-injuries/