Thank you my friend Joe

Thank you my friend Joe
Current mood: peaceful
Category: Life


MY BROTHERS now know why men who have been to war yearn to reunite.
Not to tell stories or look at old pictures.
Not to laugh or weep.
Comrades gather because they long to be with the men who once acted at their best; men who suffered and sacrificed, who suffered and were stripped of their humanity. I did not pick these men.
They were delivered by fate and the military.
But I know them in a way I know no other men.
I have never given anyone such trust.
They were willing to guard something more precious than my life.
They would have carried my reputation, the memory of me.
It was part of the bargain we all made, the reason we were so willing to die for one another.
As long as I have memory, I will think of them all, every day.
I am sure that when I leave this world, my last thought will be of my family and my comrades.
Such good men!"

120 War Vets Commit Suicide Each Week

120 War Vets Commit Suicide Each Week
By Penny Coleman, AlterNet
Posted on November 26, 2007, Printed on November 26, 2007

http://www.alternet.org/story/68713/

Earlier this year, using the clout that only major broadcast networks seem capable of mustering, CBS News contacted the governments of all 50 states requesting their official records of death by suicide going back 12 years. They heard back from 45 of the 50. From the mountains of gathered information, they sifted out the suicides of those Americans who had served in the armed forces. What they discovered is that in 2005 alone -- and remember, this is just in 45 states -- there were at least 6,256 veteran suicides, 120 every week for a year and an average of 17 every day.

As the widow of a Vietnam vet who killed himself after coming home, and as the author of a book for which I interviewed dozens of other women who had also lost husbands (or sons or fathers) to PTSD and suicide in the aftermath of the war in Vietnam, I am deeply grateful to CBS for undertaking this long overdue investigation. I am also heartbroken that the numbers are so astonishingly high and tentatively optimistic that perhaps now that there are hard numbers to attest to the magnitude of the problem, it will finally be taken seriously. I say tentatively because this is an administration that melts hard numbers on their tongues like communion wafers.

Since these new wars began, and in spite of a continuous flood of alarming reports, the Department of Defense has managed to keep what has clearly become an epidemic of death beneath the radar of public awareness by systematically concealing statistics about soldier suicides. They have done everything from burying them on official casualty lists in a category they call "accidental noncombat deaths" to outright lying to the parents of dead soldiers. And the Department of Veterans Affairs has rubber-stamped their disinformation, continuing to insist that their studies indicate that soldiers are killing themselves, not because of their combat experiences, but because they have "personal problems."

Active-duty soldiers, however, are only part of the story. One of the well-known characteristics of post-traumatic stress injuries is that the onset of symptoms is often delayed, sometimes for decades. Veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam are still taking their own lives because new PTSD symptoms have been triggered, or old ones retriggered, by stories and images from these new wars. Their deaths, like the deaths of more recent veterans, are written up in hometown newspapers; they are locally mourned, but officially ignored. The VA doesn't track or count them. It never has. Both the VA and the Pentagon deny that the problem exists and sanctimoniously point to a lack of evidence they have refused to gather.

They have managed this smoke and mirrors trick for decades in large part because suicide makes people so uncomfortable. It has often been called "that most secret death" because no one wants to talk about it. Over time, in different parts of the world, attitudes have fluctuated between the belief that the act is a sin, a right, a crime, a romantic gesture, an act of consummate bravery or a symptom of mental illness. It has never, however, been an emotionally neutral issue. In the United States, the rationalism of our legal system has acknowledged for 300 years that the act is almost always symptomatic of a mental illness. For those same 300 years, organized religions have stubbornly maintained that it's a sin. In fact, the very worst sin. The one that is never forgiven because it's too late to say you're sorry.

The contradiction between religious doctrine and secular law has left suicide in some kind of nether space in which the fundamentals of our systems of justice and belief are disrupted. A terrible crime has been committed, a murder, and yet there can be no restitution, no punishment. As sin or as mental illness, the origins of suicide live in the mind, illusive, invisible, associated with the mysterious, the secretive and the undisciplined, a kind of omnipresent Orange Alert. Beware the abnormal. Beware the Other.

For years now, this administration has been blasting us with high-decibel, righteous posturing about suicide bombers, those subhuman dastards who do the unthinkable, using their own bodies as lethal weapons. "Those people, they aren't like us; they don't value life the way we do," runs the familiar xenophobic subtext: And sometimes the text isn't even sub-: "Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women, and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York, in Washington and Pennsylvania," proclaimed W, glibly conflating Sept. 11, the invasion of Iraq, Islam, fanatic fundamentalism and human bombs.

Bush has also expressed the opinion that suicide bombers are motivated by despair, neglect and poverty. The demographic statistics on suicide bombers suggest that this isn't the necessarily the case. Most of the Sept. 11 terrorists came from comfortable middle- to upper-middle-class families and were well-educated. Ironically, despair, neglect and poverty may be far more significant factors in the deaths of American soldiers and veterans who are taking their own lives.

Consider the 25 percent of enlistees and the 50 percent of reservists who have come back from the war with serious mental health issues. Despair seems an entirely appropriate response to the realization that the nightmares and flashbacks may never go away, that your ability to function in society and to manage relationships, work schedules or crowds will never be reliable. How not to despair if your prognosis is: Suck it up, soldier. This may never stop!

Neglect? The VA's current backlog is 800,000 cases. Aside from the appalling conditions in many VA hospitals, in 2004, the last year for which statistics are available, almost 6 million veterans and their families were without any healthcare at all. Most of them are working people -- too poor to afford private coverage, but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid or means-tested VA care. Soldiers and veterans need help now, the help isn't there, and the conversations about what needs to be done are only just now beginning.

Poverty? The symptoms of post-traumatic stress injuries or traumatic brain injuries often make getting and keeping a job an insurmountable challenge. The New York Times reported last week that though veterans make up only 11 percent of the adult population, they make up 26 percent of the homeless. If that doesn't translate into despair, neglect and poverty, well, I'm not sure the distinction is one worth quibbling about.

There is a particularly terrible irony in the relationship between suicide bombers and the suicides of American soldiers and veterans. With the possible exception of some few sadists and psychopaths, Americans don't enlist in the military because they want to kill civilians. And they don't sign up with the expectation of killing themselves. How incredibly sad that so many end up dying of remorse for having performed acts that so disturb their sense of moral selfhood that they sentence themselves to death.

There is something so smugly superior in the way we talk about suicide bombers and the cultures that produce them. But here is an unsettling thought. In 2005, 6,256 American veterans took their own lives. That same year, there were about 130 documented deaths of suicide bombers in Iraq.* Do the math. That's a ratio of 50-to-1. So who is it that is most effectively creating a culture of suicide and martyrdom? If George Bush is right, that it is despair, neglect and poverty that drive people to such acts, then isn't it worth pointing out that we are doing a far better job?

*I say "about" because in the aftermath of a suicide bombing, it is often very difficult for observers to determine how many individual bodies have been blown to pieces.

Penny Coleman is the widow of a Vietnam veteran who took his own life after coming home. Her latest book, Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide and the Lessons of War, was released on Memorial Day, 2006. Her blog is Flashback.


Jere Beery
National Public Relations Director
Operation Firing For Effect
www.offe2008.org

WHY WE FIGHT

by Timothy Kendrick

First, we fight because we took an oath। Most importantly, we fight for our buddy next to us। Duty, Honor, Country, yes, ultimately it is for each other’s survival।
From my experience in dealing with the VA (Veterans Administration) the only people who are going to fight any battles for you with them (and win) is AMVETS or the DAV। Do not attempt to get through the red tape and political bureaucracy of the VA by yourself। Let AMVETS or the DAV do it for you। The best part, it will not cost you a dime!

I finally went to see an AMVETS representative, he was gracious, helpful and did almost all of the paperwork for me (hell, I could hardly write my name)। I received my compensation within 6 months। It would have taken the VA 3 or 4 years because of the backlog। The VA has assisted millions of returning veterans and I praise them for what they accomplish with their limited resources and funding।

If you were like me, you would keep putting off contacting the Veterans Administration until finally you gained enough leverage (pain) to take action। The VA much like our great countries political system has become a career for far too many who have far too little to offer। In all fairness, I have met angels and heroes at the VA that have passion for what they do by taking care of the great warriors who have served this nation.

I did go to a couple “Vet Centers” looking for help, but I did not find anything. You might, but I did not. It is not for everybody. In addition, AMVETS and the DAV can point you in the right direction with the VA as far as Vocational Rehabilitation and countless other benefits you have earned. Use whatever works for you. Alcoholics Anonymous is a great program also.





Blog Directory

Solitude

This is a subject that is one of perception. Think if you will the last time you actually did not have any distractions from the radio or TV or the telephone and you just set still closed your eyes and let the world come to you.
A great philosopher said “don’t do something, just sit and let the world come to you”. After all of these years I realize this person meant to let the world come to my inner self, or as Napoleon Hill puts it “your other self”.
Your other self consist of those things and dreams that have been buried inside of you because of all the external input that we allow to come at us on a daily basis. The other self is the dreamer who has goals and a vivid imagination of how his or her future will be. The other self directs the subconscious by the words and physiology that we use to maximize our strengths and minimize our weaknesses. To know that the only limits we have are self imposed by us and our references. Be still and know that the inner voice will guide you and when you have an intuitive thought ACT ON IT!!! Don’t hesitate.
Remember when you where a child you always could play “make believe”. Well, I am here to tell you that you can have make believe now and by believing you will receive. The subconscious mind cannot distinguish between what is real or imagined. This is one of the greatest secrets that I have learned. Any mistakes I have made in the past I go to my memory bank and relive them in solitude by visualizing the way I wanted them to come out. Then I can feel that emotion of happiness, joy, laughter, or prosperity.
The choice is yours Pain or Pleasure. I think we all have experienced enough pain in our lives to want pleasure. It is human nature to move from pain to pleasure don’t fight it when you fight it this only leads to frustration.
Remember Imagination without eventual mobilization leads to massive frustration. So act your way into right thinking only after you have looked inside for that beautiful creative “other self”

P S F

P S F
find the Problem; Solve it, and have Fun

Find the Problem, Solve it, and have Fun. Life is one shot. Dr. Wayne Dyer says, “If you knew who walked beside you every day you would never be afraid again.” Do not ever say, “I’ll laugh at this someday,” why wait laugh at it now. Enjoy the journey, live in the now; look at what you can bring to the table. Receiving is contingent upon your generosity. Give, give, give, and you will receive in return.

I once read “Anger is a dubious luxury.” Control your state and your emotions, one outburst of anger can destroy a beautiful day because it will snowball out of control.

The best advice I have received is from my brother Greg, he wrote it on the back of his senior picture he gave to me. It simply said, “Don’t walk in my footsteps, walk over them, and make your own path.” I still have that picture and have thought about that inscription over the years. Those were powerful words for an 18 year old to write to his younger brother. I stepped over his steps and made my own path, some wise and some unwise.


If you knew you could not fail, what would you do?