Antiwar Clinton supporters: She has "stature, strength, experience" to end war
As Sen. Barack Obama readies for two Iraq speeches this week in North Carolina and West Virginia, Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign released this "open letter" from Clinton's Congressional supporters who are members of the Out of Iraq caucus.
As firm opponents of the Iraq war, we believe there is no higher priority for the next President of the United States than ending this war, and we believe there is no one better prepared and more committed to bringing this war to a responsible conclusion than Hillary Clinton. The best way to honor the sacrifices of our brave young men and women in uniform is to bring them home.
We support Hillary Clinton because she is the candidate with the stature, strength, and experience needed to end this war as quickly and responsibly as possible.
Hillary has put forward the most comprehensive plan for bringing our troops home, with troop withdrawals beginning within 60 days of taking office. She bravely pressed the Pentagon to begin planning for the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq. And she has introduced legislation to bar the Bush administration from unilaterally negotiating a long-term security agreement with the Iraqi government and thereby tying the hands of the next administration.
Hillary's commitment to ending this war is matched by her experience. Her knowledge of the armed forces, her service on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and her extraordinary efforts on behalf of our veterans have earned her the respect of our men and women in uniform.
We are proud to support her because we know that she is the candidate ready to bring our troops home.
Del. Donna Christian-Christensen (D-VI)
Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY)
Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY)
Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX)
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA)
Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA)
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ)
Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA)
Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY)
Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA)
Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY)
Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH)
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
Rep. Diane Watson (D-CA)
Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)Clinton Supporters in Washington Times
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Antiwar Clinton supporters: She has "stature, strength, experience" to end war
The "last soldier to die for a mistake"--Vietnam and Iraq
The "last soldier to die for a mistake"--Vietnam and Iraq
GregMitch [Subscribe]
Tue Mar 18, 2008 at 02:08:28 PM EDT
At the fifth anniversary of the attack on Iraq -- marked, among other things, by last weekend's "Winter Soldier" hearings and the approach of 4000 U.S. deaths in the war-- I would like to update John Kerry's famous question in 1971: "How do you ask someone to be the last American soldier to die for a mistake?"
This has caused me to wonder: Well, who was the last soldier to die for the Vietnam mistake? And what can we learn from that example?
To my surprise, with a little research, I discovered that there is a consensus on who that individual was. We'll get to his name in a moment, but what's most relevant is that he died almost exactly -- get ready -- five years after that "mistake" was widely acknowledged. How many will die from now until the last American perishes in Iraq? Gallup and other polls show that a clear majority of Americans have already labeled the Iraq invasion a "mistake."
We are at a haunting juncture in the Iraq war. Forgive me for another "back in the day" reference, but I recall very well that the public only turned strongly against the Vietnam conflict with the mass realization that young American lives were not only being lost but truly wasted.
Now, who was that last American to die in Vietnam?
According to Arlington National Cemetery, and numerous other sources, he was Army Lt. Col. William B. Nolde, a 43-year-old father of five. He was killed Jan. 27, 1973, near An Loc--just 11 hours before the U.S. signed the Paris Peace Accords--when an artillery shell exploded nearby.
This is how Time magazine reported it the following week: "The last hours of the Viet Nam War took a cruel human toll. Communist and South Vietnamese casualties ran into the thousands. Four U.S. airmen joined the missing-in-action list when their two aircraft were downed on the last day. Another four Americans were known to have been killed--including Lt. Lieut. Colonel William B. Nolde, 43, of Mt. Pleasant, Mich., who was cut down in an artillery barrage at An Loc only eleven hours before the ceasefire. He was the 45,941st American to have died by enemy action in Viet Nam since 1961."
His Wikipedia entry opens: "Born in Menominee, Michigan, Nolde was a professor of military science at Central Michigan University before joining the army. As an officer, he served in both the Korean War and the Vietnam War, acting as an advisor to the South Vietnamese forces in the latter. . . .
"While other Americans lost their lives after the truce was enacted, these were not recorded as combat casualties. During his time in the armed forces, he had accumulated four medals, including the Bronze Star and Legion of Merit."
His full military funeral was so momentous--it included the same riderless horse who that accompanied President Kennedy's coffin--it was covered on the front page of The New York Times on Feb. 6, 1973. That story began, "The Army buried one of its own today, Bill Nolde. And with him, it laid to rest--symbolically, at least--its years of torment in Vietnam."
How many more years of torment and wasted lives remain in Iraq?
*
Greg Mitchell's new book, hailed by Daily Kos's SusanG, Arianna, Bill Moyers, Glenn Greenwald and others, is So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq. It features a foreword by Joe Galloway and preface by Bruce Springsteen.
Col.: DOD delayed brain injury scans
It's always about the money, not the soldier, not the veteran.. delay, deny, etc
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For more than two years, the Pentagon delayed screening troops returning from Iraq for mild brain injuries because officials feared veterans would blame vague ailments on the little-understood wound caused by exposure to bomb blasts, says the military's director of medical assessments.
Air Force Col. Kenneth Cox said in an interview that the Pentagon wanted to avoid another controversy such as the so-called Gulf War syndrome. About 10,000 veterans blamed medical conditions from cancer to eczema on their service.
The Pentagon did not acknowledge the syndrome until Congress created a committee to study it in 1998.
For troops who think they may have a condition not designated as war-related, Cox said, often "they're reacting to rumors, things that they've read about or heard about on the Internet or (from) their friends."
That uncertainty, Cox said, means "some individuals will seek a diagnosis from provider to provider to provider." It also makes treating veterans "much more difficult and much more costly," he said.
Asked whether mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) could turn into another Gulf War syndrome, Cox said, "It could."
"That's baloney," says Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., founder of the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force. "There was no need to delay this."
In a January 2006 report, scientists at the federal Defense and Veteran Brain Injury Center urged that troops be screened for TBI "immediately." The Pentagon will soon require that troops be checked as they come home, according to Cox.
Cox says research shows screening is the most appropriate step.
An Army mental health report last month indicated that 11% of 2,195 soldiers surveyed in Iraq and Afghanistan show signs of mild brain injury, but fewer than half were identified and evaluated in the field.
That's more proof of the need to screen troops as they leave Iraq, says Air Force Lt. Col. Michael Jaffee, a neurologist who heads the brain injury center. Screening includes a series of questions about a soldier's experience and symptoms relating to head injury, such as balance or memory.
About 1.6 million U.S. troops have served in Iraq.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., says, "Here we are five years into this war, and the Pentagon is just now coming to grips with how to track and treat those … with TBI." Murray is a member of the Senate appropriations subcommittee that oversees spending on veterans issues.
One concern, Cox says, was that mild TBI symptoms often resemble simple problems such as a lack of sleep or stress.
Screening for brain injury is vital to the health of troops in the field, says Staff Sgt. Marcus Brown, 30. He was transferred to Fort Carson, Colo., where the Army has operated a pilot screening program for traumatic brain injury since 2005. There, Brown was screened for brain injury for the first time after serving two tours in Iraq and surviving three IED blasts.
Doctors need to screen soldiers for brain injury as they leave the war zone, Brown says, because "most soldiers, especially NCOs (noncommissioned officers), are not going to show any type of weakness in front of their soldiers."
DOD fails on Brain Scans
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As a Desert Storm/Gulf War veteran I take offense as being the reason DOD has refused to do the necessary brain scans, that excuse is ludicrous. The amount of veterans with the "supposed" Gulf War Syndrome is not 10,000 as of the last count the VA is paying compensation to more than 528,000 Gulf War One veterans many of them for undiagnosed illnesses, hardly a few thousand, the DOD has bought and paid for numerous IOM reports that do not deal with actual issues, but touches on the edges and ignores mustard agents, known medical studies on the effects of Sarin published by respected international organizations such as SIPRI and the National Institute of Health, however their studies would make the DOD and the VA liable for billions in compensation for such problems as cardiovascular problems, pulmonary and gastrointestinal and yes nuerological problems. Hardly of no consequence as the DOD would have the nation believe.
Attorney Robert Walsh a well respected Veterans advocate
My special guest for Wednesday ,March 19th, at SVR Radio will be Robert P. Walsh, the highly regarded and well known veteran's attorney from Battle Creek Michigan. Bob provided us with a very compelling show on January 16th and this return visit will also be quite enlightening.
Mr Walsh teaches at the University of Detroit Law School and his law practice involves VA claims as well as Social Security Disability claims.
As a veteran Mr. Walsh was in the US Army Reserves and the National Guard-and also is a Vietnam veteran who was with the 101st Airborne in-country.
Many of you are familiar with his name as he has represented veterans before the VA in regards to numerous types of claims.
Also he handled the FTCA case, Brown V. Veterans Administration regarding Leishmaniasis.
He has experience in all facets of VA case law and wants to share with you all his provocative thoughts on the VA “Death Tax”.
This is something that can affect any one of us !!!! –the VA “Death Tax”- and Bob will explain this in detail.
Calls in are toll free at 1-877-213-4329
And the show is easily accessible via PC with any media player at
http://www.stardustent.com/ SVR 6:30 to 8:00 PM EDT March 19th, 2008
Veterans Affairs closer to deploying comprehensive e-Benefits portal
the new e vet
VA CLOSER TO DEPLOYING COMPREHENSIVE e-BENEFITS
WEB SITE -- The new version of the e-Benefits portal will
present both healthcare and benefits information.
Story here... http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0308/031408bb1.htm
Story below:
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Veterans Affairs closer to deploying comprehensive e-Benefits portal
By Bob Brewin
bbrewin@govexec.com
The Veterans Affairs Department has started inching toward deployment of an online comprehensive health care and benefits portal recommended by the President's Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors in an August 2007 report. VA expects to have a bare-bones site operating in the next few weeks on Army Knowledge On-Line (AKO), the Army's enterprise Web portal.
The Wounded Warriors Commission recommended that VA and the Defense Department develop within a year a Web-based portal to provide patients with health care and benefits information from the two departments. On March 11, top VA and Defense officials told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee that they intend to develop Web portals that integrate veterans' heath records on a comprehensive Web site, which also provides information on follow-up services.
Retired Air Force Col. Peter Bunce, father of Justin Bunce, a medically retired Marine Corporal severely wounded in Iraq, said in an interview that a Web portal was only as good as the information it contained. He urged that Web-based systems established by Defense and VA contain information on a range of clinical resources, including care available outside the VA and Defense health systems. Bunce said he found health care and specialists for his son Justin, who also suffers from traumatic brain injury, without VA's help.
Bunce said any comprehensive Web portal should provide information based on geography, and the departments needed to devise a way to supply specialized care and benefits information to patients and their families, rather than expecting them to find it. VA also should ensure that each patient had a case manager who coordinated care -- including home visits -- and one lead doctor to manage clinical care, he added.
Dr. Paul Tibbits, VA's deputy chief information officer for enterprise development, wrote in an e-mail that the initial, unsecured eBenefits Web site available through AKO will link to other sites for use by wounded, ill and injured service members, veterans and their families. By this fall, he said, VA anticipates having a secure eBenefits portal site operational, based on the log-on model of Army Knowledge Online and its Defense Knowledge Online counterpart. This version of the eBenefits portal will present health care and benefits information as recommended by the Wounded Warriors Commission, Tibbits said.
Kevin Carroll, a consultant who previously served as program executive officer for Army's enterprise information systems, said AKO was safer and more efficient because VA will be able to tap into the AKO and DKO personnel directories and leverage those portals' already developed applications. The department then could take a "cut-and-paste" approach to development, rather than start from scratch, he said.
VA also is developing an advanced Web portal called My eBenefits, which is scheduled to go live in fiscal 2009, according to Tibbits.
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posted by Larry Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
I am surprised it has taken them this long to expand the web sites and their capabilities, I have been ordering my meds on line thru the VA site for almost 2 years, I don't understand why I can't communicate with my doctor by e mail or at least a clinical nurse, get copies of treatment notes, it is way past time for the VARO to digitize our claims files, I remember decades ago when they made microfiche copies of everyone's 201 files so they could mail them around the world cheaper, promotion boards etc. Computers didn't just happen and the VA regional offices are in the stone age still, many documents of evidence are ignored because they are buried in 6 feet of paperwork rather than a digital file they can click on by the Doctors name or a word search of the file to find documents that pertain to the medical problem and the treatment and diagnosis. I doubt if it all ever gets completed in my lifetime, my father and grand father both rode in the real "calvary" in the days gone by, my grandfather in the Calif 4th Volunteers 1861-1865 and my Dad and Uncle Gideon rode with D Troop of the 7th Calvary while stationed at Camp Douglas, in Douglas, Az in 1914-1916, they made the now famous march into Mexico with General Blackjack Pershing after Pancho Villa. I have their paper records and they are not much different than mine, rank, name and service numbers and how much we all got paid. All I can say to the VA welcome to the computer age it's about time the claims side joined the advances the medical side has made, they are the leaders in digital treatment records, many civilian hospitals have adopted the VA's open source system, that is quite a testament to it's soundness.
VA Putting Mobile Pharmacies on the Road
VA Putting Mobile Pharmacies on the Road
Peake: VA Reaches Out to Vets, Families in Need
WASHINGTON (March 18, 2008) -- To support veterans and their families
during major emergencies, especially natural disasters, the Department
of Veterans Affairs (VA) has begun to deploy mobile pharmacies that will
provide vital medicine when patients are unable to fill their
prescriptions. VA will also open up the facilities to help communities
during major disasters and other emergencies.
"The mobile pharmacies give VA the ability to provide critical
medications to veterans when disaster strikes," said Secretary of
Veterans Affairs Dr. James B. Peake. "VA is committed to ensuring our
veterans receive their care and prescriptions as soon as possible during
an emergency."
Each VA mobile pharmacy is housed in a 40-foot-long solid steel trailer
built to withstand winds in a Category 3 storm. The units include a
satellite connection with VA's Consolidated Mail Outpatient Pharmacy
system, a computerized, automated state-of-the-art mailout pharmacy that
can process more than 1,000 prescriptions hourly.
Pharmacists can use the satellite system to obtain a veteran's
prescription data to dispense the drugs on site. In addition, VA can
send replacement medications during an emergency by mail or another
carrier to a veteran's home or temporary address.
VA recognized the need for mobile pharmacies in 2005 after hurricanes
Katrina and Rita severely damaged VA medical centers along the Gulf
Coast. The Department deployed several mobile medical clinics as part
of its response to the disasters.
The first mobile pharmacy was unveiled on Sept. 11, 2007 in front of
VA's Washington, D.C., headquarters. The unit was displayed recently at
a meeting of the American Society of Health System Pharmacists in Las
Vegas. A second mobile pharmacy is expected to be delivered in March
2008.
To ensure rapid response to a wide range of emergencies, VA's mobile
pharmacies will be strategically placed across the nation. Plans now
call for one of the three mobile pharmacies to be stationed at Dallas;
Murfreesboro, Tenn.; and Charleston, S.C. The Department also expects
to acquire a fourth unit that will be placed in the western part of the
country.
Each mobile pharmacy is divided into five compartments, including a work
area for pharmacists, an entryway accessible to patients and a sleeping
area with a bath and shower for VA personnel.
Pharmacy personnel from across the country have already volunteered to
staff the units in the event of a natural disaster or other emergency.
Six pharmacists who were part of a regional disaster drill have already
completed their training and can deploy on short notice.
"Our mobile clinics enabled us to provide critical services during
hurricanes Katrina and Rita not only to veterans but also to thousands
of others in the area who were adversely affected by the storm," said
Michael Valentino, VA's pharmacy chief. "These new mobile pharmacy units
will ensure that we are even better prepared for future emergencies."
Monday, March 17, 2008
Slipping through the cracks
VA Watchdog
Slipping through the cracks
By BRANTLEY HARGROVE,
News-Record Writer
The yellow ribbons came down and the roses wilted. The rah-rah ebbed and the flags held in the hands of a row of other proud veterans who fought other wars stopped fluttering. The “welcome home, soldier” celebrations ended. There were no more slaps on the back.
Life for everyone else went back to normal. It followed the normal rhythms of the everyday, the mundane, even the complacent or ambivalent, half a world away from the Middle East.
But the euphoria of making it home alive dissipated for Scott Carey after he returned from Iraq in the spring of 2003.
While everyone else went about the day-to-day, he tried to figure out what exactly that meant for him. The former Marine Corps combat engineer caught a bullet through both elbows and his left hip in Iraq. While he was waiting to be evacuated, a mortar detonated nearby and shrapnel pierced his back.
Life as he knew it ended before that day, though. The things he’d seen came home, too. He looked death in the face in the form of improvised explosive devices he routinely cleared. That hyper-alert awareness that evolved inside him — an adaptation in combat — became a liability in civilian life.
How does one shift from fifth gear to first, where such behavior is seen as paranoia, not caution?
It changed him, body and mind. The skinny private first class became more lineman than lean soldier in the years after his return. Wearing a camouflage UFC T-shirt and a camouflage cap covering close-cropped hair, Carey has eyes that are both melancholy and direct at times.
For six months he was a VA inpatient on a heavy regimen of anti-depressants — about 1,300 milligrams of Seroquel for his anxiety and depression, and Trazadone for sleep. He felt like he was losing sight of himself in the drugs.
After his medical discharge at the beginning of 2005, Carey didn’t want to be thought of as a pill-popper, a mental health stigma the VA and the military are trying to turn on its head. The rationale among soldiers is if you make it out alive, you can take care of yourself afterward. You should rely on your combat buddies, not some head shrinker who wasn’t there, who doesn’t understand. But his buddies scattered to the four winds to reclaim their own lives. There was no one around who understood.
He wasn’t a part of that family that gave him place and purpose. It’s a common theme among vets. Many still in the service will keep it together, vets say. That military structure girds their traumatized minds. When it’s gone, they crumble.
“When I got medically discharged, it was like ... they took me away from something I was good at.”
So he treated himself with that socially acceptable drug of choice. One that can be laughed off or shrugged off as a young man’s folly. Carey began drinking heavily. He hung out in bars, systematically diluting his memories with each drink. When a fight would break out, he’d mind his own business. But when the fight came to him and he got bumped accidentally, he’d fly into a black rage. He’d lose control and several bouncers would be pulling him off the guy. He went to the local VA clinic only once during this time. The battlefield mindset proved hard to shed.
“If you went to a shrink, it made you think you weren’t trusted anymore,” he said. “That weighs heavily on somebody out on the front line.”
Carey found other outlets for his anger.
“I’d be David going up to Goliath and taunting him,” he said.
His self-esteem suffered. Because his knees were worn out, his elbows were shot, his joints were arthritic and his back was nearly out of commission, he gained weight. He isolated himself from his family. They still don’t know the whole story, he says. He wonders if his mother could love him, knowing where he’s been and what he’s done.
He racked up three DUIs — a felony — with the last one in Spearfish, S.D. Because of his situation, he got off with three years of supervised probation.
Carey slipped through the cracks.
Because Carey was discharged, the Marines weren’t checking in on him and no one from the VA sought him out. He’s since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s a condition that is disconcertingly prevalent, particularly among those who are injured, according to the American Journal of Psychiatry.
When soldiers return from Iraq, they may go through several post-deployment health assessments, but that system is fundamentally flawed. It’s the old Revolutionary War problem. When Gen. Washington asked his soldiers if they would stay or go, you can imagine what many of the answers were. It’s the same now.
“How are you doing,” a counselor might ask? “Doin’ great,” a soldier might reply, whether that’s true or not. They say this knowing that if they admit they’re having problems, it could put them on “med hold” and delay the one thing that has sustained them through dark times — family and home.
Many military men and women will return home from Iraq or Afghanistan with their own demons. More than 15 percent of the 1.5 million men and women deployed to these countries since 2001 will return with mental problems, according to the New England Journal of Medicine. Perhaps 23 percent to 40 percent actually will seek care.
Traumatic brain injury, dubbed the signature injury of this war due to the insurgents’ fondness for IEDs, is thought to increase a soldier’s likelihood for developing PTSD. Of those who report losing consciousness due to an IED blast or some other violent injury, 43.9 percent of them will meet the criteria for PTSD, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.
Of the 2,000 veterans of this war living in Wyoming, only 846 of them are enrolled in the VA.
The resources are there. The connection isn’t. A bill sponsored by the Wyoming Select Committee on Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services will bridge the gap. In rural Wyoming, where vets may be far from the nearest VA clinic or hospital, HEA49 will reimburse them for travel. Child care and some other expenses will be covered. For the men and women who are too busy trying to get their lives back on track, it provides extra funding for two social workers whose purpose is to seek them out and get them help.
Capt. Leon Chamberlain, a mental health officer for the National Guard, is already traveling across the northern reaches of Wyoming. He and his counterpart in the southern and more populous half of the state have located 228 veterans since December. Nearly 40 percent of them needed some sort of mental health referral.
Many of them are in the Guard or the Reserve, for whom there are registries. But for men and women who were on active duty, it can be like finding a needle in a haystack. The estimate of 2,000 Iraq/Afghanistan veterans in Wyoming is conservative at best. It’s no secret there is a diverse mix streaming into the state from all corners of the nation for the plentiful jobs, particularly in the energy industry. The stigma of mental health issues will keep many away.
“Most of these people still want to stay in the Guard or the Reserve,” Chamberlain said. “They’re concerned that if they get diagnosed with a mental health issue, they can’t stay in the military, or they’ll get their security clearance yanked or lose a promotion.
“When you look at these stigmas it’s remarkable that we get any of these people to come at all.”
As the numbers indicate, many don’t.
“George,” a soldier recently returned from Iraq, calls the health assessments a “horse and pony show.” George, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is still on active duty in the National Guard, said the military needs to check up on soldiers after deployment on a state and individual level. And according to policy, they do. They’re assessed before they leave the theater. They’re assessed when they return, then after 60 days, then 90 days, according to Maj. Shane Croft, state mobilization officer. They’re called post-deployment health reassessments.
This came as a surprise to George. An evaluation three months later was something he recommended, not something he actually experienced. He only completed a post-deployment health assessment, and that was online.
“The Wyoming National Guard has done absolutely nothing,” he said.
George has been diagnosed with PTSD since his return. He isn’t registered with the VA. The one time he did visit with a counselor, he did so with a private practice, and discreetly. He arranged to have it paid for by Military OneSource, a sort of military insurance, but a mistake occurred during billing and he ended up eating it. It’s a problem those familiar with the process concede is a product of the bureaucracy of any insurance claim, but recently returned military personnel usually lack the time and the patience.
“Am I on some medication? Yeah,” he said. “Is it documented anywhere in my medical records? No.”
Getting help on the sly may prove troublesome for vets with private insurance. Some insurance providers, including Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wyoming, won’t pay for problems that are “the result of disease or injuries due to war, civil war, insurrection, rebellion, or revolution...” according to an October 2007 study by the Wyoming Department of Health Mental Health Substance Abuse Services Division.
Reserve and National Guard troops seem to be at a disadvantage. They don’t get the kind of decompression time that the rest of the military gets. A man in the Marines, for example, could have weeks or months on base after a deployment. It gives him time to settle down and adjust. In the National Guard or Reserve, you can be in Baghdad, Iraq, on Monday and back at work in Basin, Wyo., on Friday.
And they also don’t have the benefits. Where Carey will be entitled to VA care for the rest of his life, George will have five years when he retires, recently increased from two, according to Larry Barttelbort, retired colonel and executive director of the Wyoming Veterans Commission.
Our understanding of what combat does to the human mind, and even the nomenclature itself, has evolved over the years. From shell shock to combat fatigue to PTSD.
It was 30 years before Lee Alley, president of the Wyoming Veterans Commission and a veritable Vietnam War hero, heard the acronym that defined the last several decades of his life. Alley led an Army reconnaissance unit in the Mekong Delta in 1967-68. He returned to San Francisco, then the University of Wyoming when the anti-war movement was in full swing. He heard the name “baby-killer” and began to question what he had done over there. He put away his uniform and his medals and separated himself from his service.
He isolated himself and his experience from family, an action as relevant today as it was 30 years ago despite the differences in climate and era.
“How do I sit down with my wife and mother and look at the blood on my hands,” Alley said. “I did some things and was in some situations I don’t want my family to know about.”
Though the public is more supportive of the soldiers, public opinion of the war has gone south in recent years. Regardless of whether the war is right or wrong, Carey doesn’t want his sacrifice and those of his comrades to have been in vain.
He, Carey and George are proof that there is hope for these men and women if they get help.
George still avoids loud noises and crowds whenever possible. The flashbacks are more infrequent. But life is holding together. He says if it wasn’t for his wife and his older age, he would have almost certainly become an alcoholic.
And Carey is going to school now. He started his first semester at Gillette College, studying secondary education and photography. He wants to teach history. He says his experience gives him something to say about current events.
He goes to counseling at the VA regularly. But he still goes to school early so he can get the seat where his back is against the wall. Battle-ingrained instincts still compel him to cover his back and watch the exits.
There are many others like him who are dealing with it on their own. They’re throwing themselves into work so they don’t think about it as much. They’re getting divorced and losing sleep. Some even commit suicide.
For them, the hardest part is just asking for help.
HOW TO FIND HELP
- If you or someone you know is having a hard time dealing with combat experiences, help is out there.
- Leon Chamberlain is the advocate for vets in the northern part of Wyoming, and he can find you help. He can be reached at (307) 359-2430.
- The number for the VA clinic in Gillette is 685-0676.
- The number for the VA Medical Center in Sheridan is (307) 672-3473.
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posted by Larry Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org
