Veteran Veritas

The following story was televised on ABC News Channel 7 in Arlington, Va. The technology that has been developed to objectify the unseen and frequently undiagnosed injuries of war; head injuries and post traumatic stress are going to tax the disability system to the maximum. Is this not the irony of 21st Century war? The cost of the aftermath of war may soon become so onerous that we can no longer afford to wage it!

And to think of how frequently the syndrome and symptoms of head injuries have occurred in the veteran population since the Civil War, which would have been the advent of huge blast injuries. So for 150 years we have had vets out there compromised in executive functioning and both they and the health professionals never knew what was up.

When grampa was on the front porch acting a little dink dauy and maybe drinking too much whiskey. The chances are real high that he was just clocked in the trenches of France in WWl.

Head Injuries have now become the signature wound of the War on Terrorism. Oddly this was the prevalent injury in WWll and Korea. In Vietnam it was small weapons fire and booby traps.

Is it not spooky that primitive warriors always find a way to enter combat with stronger Armies, both in weaponry and financing? Is there ever going to be an end to this insanity? Notice this is not a political question. It is the same one that the Generals have to deal with, because they have to replace these soldiers in the bush. So we got a bloody numbers game going on—-exactly like the days of William Westmoreland. Except this time the soldier survives to live a war of homeland disability. Isn’t this like a terrorist memo sent home?

One thing I have never understood is why we now state that PTSD was once defined as, “shell shock.” That is not really very accurate, because shell shock is its own baby as is PTSD. I know, I have experienced both.

The good news is that VA knows this and we now have some of best care in the world for our returning combatants. Tucson VA has is ranked as one of the best in the nation and its poly-trauma unit personnel are the unsung heroes of the day.

ABC NEWS STORY

Washington – Powerful scans are letting doctors watch just how the brain changes in veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and concussion-like brain injuries – signature damage of the Iraq (web | news) and Afghanistan wars. It’s work that one day may allow far easier diagnosis for patients – civilian or military – who today struggle to get help for these largely invisible disorders. For now it brings a powerful message: Problems too often shrugged off as “just in your head” in fact do have physical signs, now that scientists are learning where and how to look for them.

“There’s something different in your brain,” explains Dr. Jasmeet Pannu Hayes of Boston University, who is helping to lead that research at the Veterans Affairs’ National Center for PTSD. “Just putting a real physical marker there, saying that this is a real thing,” encourages more people to seek care.

Up to one in five U.S. veterans from the long-running combat in Iraq and Afghanistan is thought to have symptoms of PTSD. An equal number are believed to have suffered traumatic brain injuries, or TBIs – most that don’t involve open wounds but hidden damage caused by explosion’s pressure wave.
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Many of those TBIs are considered similar to a concussion, but because symptoms may not be apparent immediately, many soldiers are exposed multiple times, despite evidence from the sports world that damage can add up, especially if there’s little time between assaults.

“My brain has been rattled,” is how a recently retired Marine whom Hayes identifies only as Sgt. N described the 50 to 60 explosions he estimates he felt while part of an ordnance disposal unit.

Hayes studied the man in a new way, tracking how water flows through tiny, celery stalk-like nerve fibers in his brain – and found otherwise undetectable evidence that those fibers were damaged in a brain region that explained his memory problems and confusion.

It’s a noninvasive technique called “diffusion tensor imaging” that merely adds a little time to a standard MRI scan. Water molecules constantly move, bumping into each other and then bouncing away. Measuring the direction and speed of that diffusion in nerve fibers can tell if the fibers are intact or damaged. Those fibers are sort of a highway along which the brain’s cells communicate. The bigger the gaps, the more interrupted the brain’s work becomes.

“Sgt. N’s brain is very different,” Hayes told a military medical meeting last week. “His connective tissue has been largely compromised.”

There’s a remarkable overlap of symptoms between those brain injuries and PTSD, says Dr. James Kelly, a University of Colorado neurologist tapped to lead the military’s new National Intrepid Center of Excellence. It will open next year in Bethesda, Md., to treat both conditions.

Yes, headaches are a hallmark of TBI while the classic PTSD symptoms are flashbacks and nightmares. But both tend to cause memory and attention problems, anxiety, irritability, depression and insomnia. That means the two disorders share brain regions.

And Hayes can measure how some of those regions go awry in the vicious cycle that is PTSD, where patients feel like they’re reliving a trauma instead of understanding that it’s just a memory.

What happens? A brain processing system that includes the amygdala – the fear hot spot – becomes overactive. Other regions important for attention and memory, regions that usually moderate our response to fear, are tamped down.

“The good news is this neural signal is not permanent. It can change with treatment,” Hayes says.

Her lab performed MRI scans while patients either tried to suppress their negative memories, or followed PTSD therapy and changed how they thought about their trauma. That fear-processing region quickly cooled down when people followed the PTSD therapy.

It’s work that has implications far beyond the military: About a quarter of a million Americans will develop PTSD at some point in their lives. Anyone can develop it after a terrifying experience, from a car accident or hurricane to rape or child abuse.

More research is needed for the scans to be used in diagnosing either PTSD or a TBI. But some are getting close – like another MRI-based test that can spot lingering traces of iron left over from bleeding, thus signaling a healed TBI. If the brain was hit hard enough to bleed, then more delicate nerve pathways surely were damaged, too, Kelly notes.

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EDITOR’S NOTE – Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.

On Thursday, November 19th, 2009 from 5:45pm to 7:45pm at Himmel Park Library, located at 1035 N. Treat Ave, near Tucson Blvd. and Speedway, there will be a Forum for dialogue with the community about veterans of war returning home. The topic is:

VETERANS OVERCOMING TRANSITION ISSUES OF EXITING WAR AND ENTERING POLITE SOCIETY

Join us in a “Coming Home” dialogue that intends to inform and engage the whole community in learning new ways of viewing the veterans you know and love. This is the first in a series of panel discussions and is intended for veterans of all ages and families from all generations. An extensive question and answer session is scheduled.

For information call Sue Parker at Himmel Library 520-594-5305 ext.3

Following is a letter forwarded to me by a local combat veteran of the Marine Corps. His name has been deleted, but he has given permission to publish his petition for explanations for the declination of life insurance as a result of having a PTSD diagnosis. ( Note. Since this was posted the author has elected to share his name. It is Pete Bourret. He is a combat veteran of the Marine Corps who served in Vietnam.)

I am familiar with this very sad fact of life. I am equally conversant with its prevalence and the gross lack of justice involved. The impunity embedded in our nations Insurance industry is soon to become a national disgrace. The irony of the fact that a warrior can defend his/her nation and its system of capitalism and in turn not be qualified for life insurance, is beyond comprehension.

Someone, somewhere, has created some bogus science that states that Post Traumatic Stress shortens ones life span. This veteran is asking to see proof of this assertion. I am asking to see studies, from either the National Institute of Health or the VA, that indicate this confabulation.

Can you imagine the impact on a young soldier with a family when they learn that the mental health care they received on the heels of war is preventing them from protecting their very own family’s finances. I see rage on the horizon. I see class action law suits. And worse, I see the myriad of caring outreach programs at Vet Centers and VA clinics backfiring when the word travels that you are sealing off your future financial options. Who do these folks think they are? Maybe we should just draft all executives in the insurance industry first.

So the citizen soldier who is wounded in war is rendered incapable of being a full citizen in the country they just upheld. Is there a more poignant hypocrisy to be found?

We will be re-visiting this open wound in the veteran community over the next several months. Possibly, the parent company of the Citizen, Gannett, can help us out with a feature article in USA Today, which is known for its veteran and military coverage. Or are they too owned by the Insurance Industry?

November 11, 2009

Pruco Life
PO Box 8660
Philadelphia, PA 19176-8660

Denise Holmgren
Vice President, Underwriting:

This letter is in response to your companies response to my request for specific information, which I have requested on multiple occasions yet have failed to receive; a copy of your original letter will not suffice.

Please advise me if I should conclude that your determination of my uninsurability was based on my Post Traumatic Stress Disorder diagnosis in general. I ask this because I have repeatedly requested the specific information (three times) that you utilized in your determination; however, I only received several hundred pages of my VA mental health records without any specific details. Let me be as clear as I can be: I expect you to submit to me the specific language that caused your organization to draw the conclusion that I am not an appropriate candidate for life insurance.

This is my last request for this information that you have an obligation to provide to me in a timely manner. I find it ironic that I am writing this letter to your organization on Veterans’ Day, yet it seems that your company fails to honor veterans who served and became casualties of war. The fact that your organization believes that a veteran with a PTSD diagnosis is a poor candidate for a life insurance policy shows that there is great ignorance about this diagnosis within your organization. Had you bothered to check with my psychiatrist because of a concern, you would have discovered that I am much more than the basic notes that he wrote. You were too busy to do that because we know that the business of American business is the bottom line. For veterans like myself, when I volunteered to serve as a combat Marine in Vietnam in 1967 and 1968, my bottom line was to defend your freedom and to protect my fellow Marines. I guess our values do not coincide.

In closing, I ask you to re-evaluated your process for determining insurability in the area of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Regardless, it only makes sense that potential recruits to the Armed Forces should be made aware through full disclosure that serving is also hazardous to their insurability should they be traumatized by of combat. As a retired English teacher with too much time on his hands, I will gladly set the educational process in motion. I think it is time that people learn how your organization actually “supports” the troops.

Happy Veterans’ Day,

Peter Bourret/USMC

Now ladies and gentlemen of the TucsonCitizen.com this is funny stuff. This salute to veterans has been sitting here all day in a draft form. So,I will share some humanity with you… It is possible that the Marine Corps Birthday was a bit too spirited, therefore effecting the memory of Grampa! I just now realized that I did not post it,as I have had more phone calls today inbound and outbound, with cheers for Vets then ever in personal history. What a treat. What respect. Respect is good for the soul. Makes me feel energized and appreciated. I do hope one day we can celebrate the “Last Warrior.” Is it possible?

Join us tonight at Laffs for a show entitled “Comics for Courage” that benefits the Wounded Warrior Project. Show time 7pm. Suggested donation $12. You know what is funny? They don’t have any Marines on stage. They don’t know us huh? So my one liner;You know why there is no such thing as a former Marine?….. you can’t reverse a lobotomy!!

234 years of Semper Fidelis;Always Faithful. Happy Birthday fellow Marines. The title cannot be inherited. Nor can it be purchased. You and no one alive can buy it for any price. It is impossible to rent and cannot be lent. You alone and our own have earned it with your sweat. blood and tears. You own it forever’ the title ‘United States Marine.”

Be safe Marines. Mike Brewer/ 7th Marines/ 1st Marine Air Wing.

Salpointe Catholic High School
Home of the Lancers

Please join us for our annual Veteran’s Day Mass
in honor of all Veteran’s and those Salpointe alumni who died in active military service.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009
7:15 a.m.
Salpointe Chapel (campus map)
1545 E Copper St
Tucson, AZ

Reception to follow in the Carmelite Conference Room.
Please share this invitation with family members and friends.

The Gregory W. Stewart – Vietnam 1968 Memorial Plaque
Remembering Salpointe’s Alumni Who Died In Active Military Service
Frederick X. Bir ‘56 – California 1964
Joseph P. Moclair, Jr. ‘60 – Connecticut 1963
James R. Cronin ‘65 – Vietnam 1967
John J. Roberts ‘65 – Vietnam 1967
John A. Delozier ‘66 – Vietnam 1968
Timothy M. Harrington ‘66 – Vietnam 1968
John E. Malone ‘62 – Vietnam 1968
William J. Whitehead ‘58 – Vietnam 1968
Paul Bourret ‘63 – Spain 1970
William A. Pahissa ‘65 – Vietnam 1970
Hugh J. Shevlin ‘67 – Vietnam 1970
Michael J. Paulsen ‘68 – Vietnam 1970
Timothy E. Sullivan ‘68 – Vietnam 1970
James L. Feeney ‘64 – Sea of Japan 1974
Peter M. Brady ‘70 – North Carolina 1979
David A. Barba ‘75 – Arizona 1981
Alfred M. Espinoza ‘84 – Philippines 1988
John W. McClure ‘70 – Texas 1995
Gilbert Munoz ‘93 – North Carolina 2005
Rest In Peace, Lancers

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Tucson Chapter 106 of Vietnam Veterans of America presents:

The 22nd Annual

NAM JAM

November 7, 2009
Kennedy Fiesta Park
9:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.

FREE Parking & Admission
Beer Sales Start at Noon
Bike Show & Poker Run with Los Vatos South Siders Tucson

PARTICIPATING BANDS

The Rowdies
Angel Perez & Band
Blue Horse Blues Band
Sarge Lintecum
Dirtnap
Bobby Soto & Los Recuerdos
Steel Ribbon
Vicki Nelson presents The Veterans

For further information, go to www.TucsonNamVets.org

A recent study of a 15 year-old Defense Department Program that has the intent of training and placing veterans in teaching positions showed some very encouraging results. A Florida schools study showed that students who completed the Troops to Teachers program, scored higher in reading and math, compared to teachers of the same subject, in the same school and with the same experience.

Troops to Teachers, has placed some 11.500 teachers since 1994. About 82% of the veterans turned teachers are men compared to about 25% of teachers nationwide. Some 40% of these teachers are minorities.

Several States have seen a doubling in the enrollment in the Troops To Teachers program.

The graduates of this program receive a $5000 stipend to pay for their education, and those who elect to teach in ‘High Need” Schools can get another $10,000.00 bonus.

For more information,access www.proudtoserveagain.com

I cannot imagine a more creative way to allure young men and women to the teaching profession. Kudos, to the creator of this program.

My former English teacher at Rincon High School 64′ , was a retired Army Col. named Leo Croteau. He was the most inspiring teacher I had ever encountered. His son Dave Croteau and I speak of him often to this day.

Many of our nations notable writers were both teachers and novelists and veterans of war. Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, William Manchester, William Buckley, William Styron, Ernest Hemingway for a few. All were warriors first. It clearly broadens your perspective on humanity and affords a depth for students that may not get such richness elsewhere.

These are indeed some very sobering statistics. As a combat veteran of Marine Corps having served in Vietnam, I have always known that we seem to have a mortality clock that ticks a bit faster than then that of the standard for insurance actuaries. Might any of our readers speculate about why this may be? I have a few observations, but I will let you all go first.

This isn’t good news for us “in country vets”…. Like I always said ….we died in ‘Nam , just haven’t fallen over yet….Too bad all the imposters don’t die just as quick or quicker.

*********

In case you haven’t been paying attention these past few decades after you
returned from Vietnam , the clock has been ticking. The following are some
statistics that are at once depressing yet in a larger sense should give you a HUGE SENSE OF PRIDE.

“Of the 2,709,918 Americans who served in Vietnam, less than 850,000 are estimated to be alive today, with the youngest American Vietnam veteran’s
age approximated to be 54 years old.”

If you’re alive and reading this, how does it feel to be among the last
1/3rd of all the U.S. Vets who served in VietNam ?!?!? …don’t know about
you guys, but kinda gives me the chills, considering this is the kind of
information I’m used to reading about WWII and Korean War vets…

So the last 14 years we are dying too fast, only the few will survive by
2015…if any.. If true, 390 VN vets die a day so in 2,190 days from today,
lucky to be a Vietnam veteran alive….. in only 6 years..

These statistics were taken from a variety of sources to include: The VFW
Magazine, the Public Information Office, and the HQ CP Forward Observer –
1st Recon April 12, 1997.

INTERESTING CENSUS STATISTICS. THOSE TO CLAIM TO HAVE “been there”:
1,713,823 of those who served in Vietnam were still alive as of August,
1995 (census figures).

During that same Census count, the number of Americans falsely claiming to
have served in-country was: 9,492,958.

As of the last Census taken during August, 2000, the surviving U.S.
Vietnam Veteran population estimate is: 1,002,511. This is hard to believe,
losing nearly 711,000 between ‘95 and ‘00. That’s 390 per day.

During this Census count, the number of Americans falsely claiming to have
served in-country is: 13,853,027.

Well over a million troops have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since the advent of, “Shock and Awe” in March of 2003. A recent study by the VA has indicated that approximately 30% of the returning combat veterans are experiencing post traumatic stress disorder upon returning to civilian life. Most of these are young men and women are the future of our communities and our country. If these young and some not so young, as we have seen a much larger population of career soldiers and Marines in this conflict, are not diagnosed soon after coming home they frequently turn to substance abuse and behaviors that may interrupt relationships with family, friends and superiors. The Vietnam experience witnessed vets being reviled, rejected, misunderstood, and misdiagnosed,(PTSD entered the DSM in 1980). Many of these men and women isolated themselves, rebelled and eventually drained our society of its most precious resource; their productive lives. Will history repeat itself for this new generation of veterans? This must not come to pass again

There is a sacred place here in Arizona that is duty bound to prevent and ease the pain of transition to polite society. It is called the Merritt Center in Payson, Arizona. The Veteran Program that is now in its fourth year has been the source of healing and camaraderie for combat veterans from 7 Wars. From WWll to Tekrit the Merritt Center has hosted men and women who have one thing in common; War.

Since its founding in 1987, the Merritt Center, a non-profit organization has been working with individuals seeking positive ways to move past traumas that have disrupted their lives. The Center has a virtual potpourri of offerings from Sweat Lodges to native talking circles and deep massage therapy so as to get back in touch with the body and its ways of holding pain and emotion. The professionals who volunteer their time are all highly skilled in alternative techniques that bring a sense of closure to past bodily and emotional disruptions.

By observing the needs of the new returning veterans, by way of there trained mentors who are spread across Arizona, and noting the sad history of neglect by their predecessors- the Center has chosen to offer a free program for returning veterans of war.. A series of 4 weekend retreats over the course of 5 months, separate ones for men and women bring a perspective of healing and renewal to the veteran who will most likely not find anything quite so potent inside conventional medicine and therapy.

Over these four weekends the participants are given presentations about the core nature of trauma, its signs and symptoms, and guided at all times by combat veteran mentors who are graduates to the program, many of whom have been helping their comrades for years. A few of the techniques that are learned are; trauma release exercises, body energy work, guided visualizations, drumming, journaling, and Native American talking circles that are quite popular with the vets. Concluding the program is a Sweat Lodge ceremony to purge the toxins of the mind, body and spirit. At the final session the veterans new and home families gather in harmony to celebrate their strong bond and new commitment to healthy living.

The four weekend program seeks to achieve the following goals.

* learning to recognize and release the triggers of trauma
* releasing the negative experiences of combat
* learning new skills to reduce nightmares, flashbacks, and hostile behavior
*reprogramming the mind to expect and trust safety
*creating a new “band of brothers and sisters” who will share the lessons and spread the word
to others vets returning to civilian life.

The nearby ancient Pueblo Ruins coupled with the spa, forest paths, flower garden, hammocks, meditation areas and a ton of quiet places, makes the Merritt Center one of the most unique places in all the west. I for one have been enriched beyond words with the honor to be one of the mentors for this most blessed program that is 100% FREE

For information, contact Betty Merritt at 928-474-4268 or visit the website at;”www.MERRITTCENTER. ORG”