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Five veteran suicide rescues in a two-hour period in one Oregon city—so John McCain blocks suicide prevention
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) Blocks suicide prevention measure
A small crisis group gets calls all the time from veterans in crisis. Considering these men and women know what it is like to face death on a daily basis, reaching the point where all seems hopeless indicates a crisis itself; we fail to grasp how serious this is. Yet on one night this same small crisis group had to rescue 5 suicidal veterans!
How this vampire Sen. John McCain keeps getting elected only proves he’s a good liar and veterans hate to think they’ve been betrayed by one of their own.
Suicide Prevention Workers See Spike In Calls
Oregon Partnership Reports Five Suicide Rescues In Two Hours
PORTLAND, Ore. — Workers with Oregon Partnership are calling on the public to get educated on the warning signs of suicide following an increase in the need for suicide rescues.A suicide rescue is when crisis line workers have to intervene in a suicide attempt by sending police to the person’s house, said Leslie Storm, Crisis Line Supervisor.
Last Wednesday, Storm said they had five suicide rescues in a two-hour period; an amount she calls unprecedented.
“We’ve never done five in one evening. I’ve been here four years, we don’t do five a week generally so this is very alarming to us,” Storm said.Oregon Partnership is a non-profit organization that provides drug and alcohol awareness, drug prevention programs and a 24-hour crisis lines for suicide intervention. The organization also operates a crisis line for military members and their families, as well as a treatment referral line.
Suicide Prevention Workers See Spike In Calls
Now you can try to pass all of this off the way Senator John McCain does as the veteran politician playing the role of veteran’s hero, but this man passes off everything veterans need instead of passing it on. He always loves to play up to veterans for their votes but then votes against them.
Rep. Holt: Sen. McCain Objected To My Military Suicide Prevention Bill
Amanda Terkel
aterkel@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting Become a Fan Get Email Alerts from this ReporterWASHINGTON — In 2008, a young sergeant named Coleman S. Bean took his life. After completing his first tour of duty in Iraq, he had come home and been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Nevertheless, he was deployed to Iraq a second time. Bean had sought treatment for PTSD but as a member of the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR), he found fewer resources available to him than to veterans and active-duty members.
In April, Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) introduced legislation named after the late soldier meant to provide more resources for suicide prevention to Reserve members. The House in May incorporated it into the National Defense Authorization Act for 2011, but it was stripped from the final version, and Holt is pointing the finger at the lead Republican negotiator on the Senate legislation, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
“Twice now, the Senate has stripped this legislation from our defense bill,” Holt told The Huffington Post Tuesday. “It’s hard to understand why. I know for a fact, because he told me, that Sen. McCain doesn’t support it. Whether he’s the only one, I don’t know. But there was no effort to try to improve the language or negotiate changes; it was just rejected, and I think that is not only bad policy, but it’s cruel. It’s cruel to the families that are struggling with catastrophic mental health problems.”
“He [McCain] said having these counselors check in with the Reservists every few months this way overreaching,” continued Holt, relaying a phone conversation he had had with the senator. “I asked him in what sense it was overreaching. Surely he didn’t think there wasn’t a problem, did he? I must say I don’t understand it.”
Read more here: John McCain blocks suicide prevention bill.
I ask veterans all the time why they vote for him or support him. They say he’s a Vietnam Vet, but they can’t say what he’s done for any Vietnam vet. They say he’s was a POW but they can’t say what he did for other POW’s like the ones from the Gulf War when they tried to sue Iraq for what Saddam did to them and he went against it. They hear the words come out of his mouth saying he cares and that is all they need to know. The real issue is they are suffering for the support they give to men like him. They never bother to look up his voting record.
So now we have troops committing suicide more and more every year along with veterans killing themselves yet McCain doesn’t care just like every other bill he has either tried to stop or voted against.
These lives matter to us but they don’t matter to him. The numbers coming into suicide prevention hotlines reflect how serious this has been but this one story on 5 rescues in one night out of Oregon Partnership should have everyone in congress running around like the House is falling down to get this done but McCain leads the way on running away from the veterans he loves to suck the life out of for their votes. How this vampire keeps getting elected only proves he’s a good liar and veterans hate to think they’ve been betrayed by one of their own.
UPDATE on this
Lawrence O’Donnell, The Last Word on MSNBC talked to Congressman Holt about this bill. Holt said that McCain called it “overreach” and said that “Maybe you need this in New Jersey but we don’t need this in Arizona.” You can watch the video and read more on my blog McCain blocks suicide prevention bill
This came on the heals of the report saying that;
Civilian soldiers’ suicide rate alarming By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
National Guard soldiers who are not on active duty killed themselves this year at nearly twice the rate of 2009, marring a year when suicides among Army soldiers on active duty appear to be leveling off, new Army statistics show.Eighty-six non-active-duty Guard soldiers have killed themselves in the first 10 months of 2010, compared with 48 such suicides in all of 2009.
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=68650
Posted by Chaplain Kathie on Dec 22 2010, With 0 Reads, Filed under Veterans Affairs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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I understand that John McCain is a scumbag, but this frack-you to veterans is extreme even for this POS.
McCain is a traitor; and he is slime!
He tried to block the GI bill because he said it would cause people to leave the military. He was against pay increase for the troops because it was “too generous” and if people look at the bills he was against, or watch the videos on this man, they would know exactly how anti-millitary he has been unless it happened to be for the sake of a defense contractor.
Just a chip off the old block, or Like Father Like Son. Here’s a good essay on how he and his old man have responded to the USS Liberty incident then and now:
http://dissidentvoice.org/July2004/Hughes0712.htm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Scott . Scott said: RT @veteranstoday: New post: Five suicide rescues in a two-hour period, McCain against saving them http://bit.ly/goc3Hf [...]
“How this vampire keeps getting elected only proves he’s a good liar and veterans hate to think they’ve been betrayed by one of their own.”
Can He get ANY lower than this?
Shame on you Mr. McCain
“Five veteran suicide rescues in a two-hour period—so John McCain blocks suicide prevention”
THE FUNDS FOR THIS PROGRAM ARE NEEDED TO SERVE A HIGHER PURPOSE,
BY BEING SENT TO ISRAEL & ALSO TO ARREST/PERSECUTE AMERICANS EXERCISING THEIR RIGHTS TO OPPOSE POLICIES DIRECTED BY MOLOCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ALSO THESE FUNDS ARE NEEDED TO RECRUIT,INDOCTRINATE,COAX,”NUDGE”,INSPIRE,ENTICE
..DUPES…. TO BE INVOLVED WITH ACTIVITIES TO FOOL THE PUBLIC & DIRECT PERCEPTIONS!!!! FOR THE AGENDAS OF MOLOCH
IN ADDITION, AIPAC WANTS MORE ISRAELI CANCER SCANERS PURCHASED FROM ISRAEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The McCains are poster boyz for the old adage Like Father Like Son. As it happens, they both have had a lot of connections with the USS Liberty incident. Here’s a good article about it: http://dissidentvoice.org/July2004/Hughes0712.htm
Fellow war zone veterans, please pay attention to the flag waving legislators from both parties and really check out their voting records and read the bills they voted for or against and find out why. Some of our fellow combat veterans in the Congress and Senate have very poor voting records for VA and other veterans legislation, especially during the Bush years. If veterans have mental problems because of war it may call the war into question especially Vietnam and all our invasions since. Those flag waving invaders cannot have this, so they try to deny the extent of the problem and try to take the VA clinical folks down that path. The VA Mental Health folks then conjure up this Emotional Resilience BS stuff for soldiers so they can be sent back for multiple deployemnts without having strong emotional reactions when killing or seeing people dead or killed. So what is normal responses to trauma is blocked with sophisticated psychological indoctrination, perversions of Stoicism, Cognitive-behavioral Therapy and Positive Thinking using contract hot shot Psychologists and Psychiatrists from major Universities while my brother and sister veterans and soldiers kill themselves, divorce, abuse OxyC. alcohol, and themselves and others and on and on while Support Our Troops is some vague bumper sticker that most Americans dont spend much time thinking/feeling about.
Tim, very true. When my husband goes to the VA, I try to go with him when I can. A couple of years ago I was wearing my chaplain gear (civilian) sitting outside in the smoking area, waiting for him to come out. Two newly discharged Marines were sitting at the table with me trying to get their paperwork done, asking a lot of questions. I told them to just be honest, don’t over blow it but above all, don’t hold back. After I said that last part, the Marine on my left side began to cry. He wiped his eyes apologizing. I took his hands and we talked for a while but sooner or later what he was trying to tell me was interrupted with more apologies.
He said, “Mam, you don’t understand. I’m a Marine. We’re not supposed to cry.” I asked him where he got that idea and then he told me it was his fault. “I didn’t train right.” I asked him if he was talking about Battlemind and he was shocked at first I knew anything about it, then he said, “We were supposed to train our brains to be tougher but I didn’t do it right.”
We talked some more about how he is a human and that PTSD, with all that comes with it, is a normal response to abnormal events. We talked about the fact he cares so that means he feels and the more he cares, the deeper he feels all of it, good and bad. PTSD basically eats away “good feelings” so the negative feelings get stronger. It’s like an infection.
If you get medical care right after you’re wounded, it prevents an infection and the wound heals fast leaving behind a tiny scar if any at all. Left untreated, it spreads, takes over more territory and cuts deeper. The longer the infection is allowed to spread, the more damage is done and the scar is bigger, deeper and more lasting. What happens when treatment of the infection is given? It stops getting worse, healing starts as the body has help to fight off the infection and the healed area is tougher. Trying to train anyone or prevent PTSD is possible but they are going at it the wrong way.
Civilians are trained to respond to crisis so that PTSD is prevented in many cases simply because there is someone there right away to be the antibiotic. Chaplains work with police officers, firefighters, first responders and survivors to address the emotional toll before PTSD has a chance to dig in. We know the odds of PTSD after one traumatic event and we know that the odds are greatly increased for each exposure to life threatening events. There is also a difference between military and police officers vs survivors and other responders. Military and law enforcement people are not just exposed to these events, they participate in them and they exposed to them more often. I am often disappointed with the DOD and the VA but on this it should have been the first thing they understood so they could adapt treatment to make up for lost time instead of wasting time trying to prevent PTSD the wrong way.
As for our elected, there has been a lot done over the last 4 years but the chances of anything more being done for the troops and veterans is slim to none come January. As it is, the GOP have already indicated they will not be veteran friendly when they allowed some Republicans to block the bill that would have given veterans the seniors a lousy $250 check to make up for the Cost of Living raise they will not get again. All citizens of this country have a job to do and that is to make sure these men and women put into office do the right thing. If they vote against what the troops need, nail them and make it public so they have to explain why they did it. If they vote against veterans, make sure every veteran in this country and their families know about it right away so they are again forced to explain why they did it. After all these are the same men and women showing up at events when they can be seen with the troops and veterans so they owe them even more than just a load of BS when their votes show how little they really care. The Army discovered that each redeployment increased the risk of PTSD by 50% but when congress tried to address this, people like McCain voted against it.
Chaplain Kathie, thank you for your comment on mine. Some of us in the counseling profession who are combat vets have known for many decades that at the beginning of the Vietnam War DOD was going to have 6 months in the Field deployments because of previous research that showed an overwhelm of the emotional/physical/congnitive system if deployed longer. After a short time into the Vietnam War the deployment in the field was changed to 12 or 13 months except for officers who kept the 6 month deployment. I guess the “experts” figured that the average enlisted man was more expendible then the officers. Officers were more likely to stay in the military after their deployment and most others were done with their committment after 2 to 4 years. Still, with the 1 year compared to 2 to 5 year current deployments, we still have at least 33% PTSD and other service connected nervous disordersin Vietnam Vets. To make a long story short here, some of the answers to these issues are 1. War or “Police Actions” should be very last resort self-defense. 2. No lies and deceptions because the arrogant policy makers think that they know better then the american people. 3. Everyone must pay a price once the informed decision is made to fight. That means taxes and rationing not spending and shopping. Also there must be some kind of draft so the “Senators Son” has to go also. And 4. There should be no question of cost for care of the soldiers and veterans. Do It. And what ever kind of victory might be obtained should not over celebrate, but honor the dead and suffering from all sides. The NVA and Viet Cong and South Vietnamese soldiers are forgotten at the Wall all too often by our fellow vets and the policy makers. I better quit know.
Thanks
McCain twice blocked legislation designed to prevent suicides happening in our military.
How anybody could oppose this law is beyond me, unless you look at McCain’s history and modus operandi.
Seeing that McCain was involved with covering up the massive drug laundering of Iran Contra by trying to prevent investigation into the 1980s S&L Scandal/Crisis, and seeing that his best friend, convicted criminal banker Charles Keating, tried to order the assassination of financial expert and investigator William K. Black who was investigating him, McCain’s position on this issue makes perfect sense.
When attempting to make a murder look like a suicide –such as was done to Gary Webb as evidenced by the fact that he had two bullet holes to the back of the head, as evidenced by similar questionable rulings by coroners like Clinton’sMalak, B oorda, and implicated by the 5questionable deaths inoneweek that happened at FortHood, which perhaps coincidentally has been involved in controversy, etcetera, etcetera– giventhemanyexamples, the fact that McCain is against a bill for the preventionofsuicide makes perfect sense.
Murder disguised as suicide would become much more difficult if suicide prevention programs were required for people who show signs of suicidal tendencies. The fact that many of these people who have supposedly committed suicide showed no signs of depression, but showed enthusiastic anticipation for coming future events would become more at issue if there were attendance to service members’ mental conditions. The question would be, why didn’t this person receive services? This suicide prevention bill would bring extra, unwanted attention to a method long used by leaders in the military to silence potential whislteblowers in the military.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/30/AR2010093006496.html
http://articles.latimes.com/1992-05-19/news/mn-118_1_medical-examiner
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/121304_gary_webb.shtml
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/higgs-e1.html
Hey all,
Again, it’s nice to see the facts finally coming out about our so-called Elected Officials that DO NOT help veterans! I can speak from first hand experience about how this so-called War Hero really helps veterans, He does not! I asked him for help when he was running for President, and even-though I had, and still have indisputable documents (most VA’s own, inner office emails, etc.) to prove the illegal acts against me and fellow veterans by the VA, etc. his office just let the VA lie to him without even bothering to look at the documents I have to prove what I was asking him help with! Some help huh? Yet I’m sure like all the rest of them, he got his payraise, but vets didn’t this year, AGAIN! Hopefully now people, and especially veterans will see that this country/US Government does not really care about us!
For future reference at voting time here’s a few other so-called Elected Officials that did not bother to help me stop the illegal acts of the VA, US Senators Bond(Mo.), McCaskill(Mo.), and US Congressman Carnahan(Mo.). Again, none would even bother to read the documents I had, and just let the VA lie to them!
As you can see I’m not afraid to give out my name and email address even-though I have been warned that if I continue to seek help with my “issues” I will be shut up one way or another! Yeah, I have actually been told this! Feel free to contact me if you wana know more.
Marc C. Daniele
100% Disabled US Army Veteran
Herculaneum, Mo.
m6c9d2000@yahoo.com
John McCain is an embarrassment to any military family, personnel or veteran. His level of political expediency is well known by those of us who have followed his career since his return from the Hanoi Hilton. He talks the talk but his voting record makes John Kerry look like a genius by comparison.
He is well financed, he married a millionaire, has connections with corporations that pour enough funds into this campaign coffers that he can play the “maverick” card and not have to worry about the repercussions for decades of benign neglect on issues like PTSD, health care, family benefits, the recent GI Bill and more recently suicides. His rhetoric may sound genuine, but his execution on these crises only prove what a professional politician he has been.
There are some issues that should transcend partisan politics. The welfare of our military and veterans is at the top of that list of priorities that should remain sacrosanct. McCain sees this issues as annoyances and too expensive. Maybe all that torture has him in denial about his responsibilities as a US Senator when it comes to our military personnel & veterans families.
You would think if anyone understood PTSD it would be him but hell no. We’ve all heard about “dry drunks” who think they have kicked it but with McCain maybe it is dry PTSD that makes him so nasty and hurtful. I’ve come across a lot of veterans like him over the years but thank God on a daily basis that I’ve met more great ones instead of hateful, nasty beasts. Maybe it was assumed in McCain’s case that he would need psychological help when he was released and he got it. I knew a lot of amputees that had psychological help right away and they point to that as the reason they didn’t end up with PTSD. It’s easy to assume someone needs mental health care after limbs are blown off just as it is easy to assume they need it when they have been a POW. I guess it’s harder to understand the suffering of others with not so obvious wounds.
If you followed the lives of the Five veteran suicide rescues in a two-hour period in one Oregon city, I think that you would find out that they were better of dead. What happens after you are rescued is terrible.
There are a lot of people feeling the same way when they survive. They wonder what the point of living was depending on what comes next. If it is worse for the veterans after they were rescued, then it is our fault because we still have not forced the government to do the right thing, come up with the right programs, educate families so their don’t make PTSD worse and have yet to prove that there are reasons to live on.
After my daughter was born, I had an infection from a catheter. The doctor put me on antibiotics but never checked to see if worked. I had no signs it was taking over my body. Eight months later I was in the hospital and my primary care doctor said he had never seen a bacteria count that high on a live patient. Confession is that I lost reason to recover. My husband was facing the worst PTSD had to inflict on him and the sadness I felt was more than I could stand. Then I thought about my 8 month old daughter. I had reason to fight to stay alive.
It was around that time that the help I was trying to give to Vietnam veterans kicked into high gear because I knew if it was that bad for us, it was worse for others because they didn’t understand any of it. I had another reason to live.
My husband got better with therapy and medications and we’ve been married for 26 years so I want everyone to have the same chance we had, so I have another reason to live.
This is not to say that even now I don’t have my moments of regrets and feelings of worthlessness but they pass sooner than they used to and truthfully, I have no regrets except I have not helped enough. That’s another reason to live. We can all find things in our own lives to drive us to make a difference in this world if we are willing to do it within whatever power we’ve been given to do it in great ways or small ways.
These “rescued” veterans survived more than once for a reason and I pray they find it within them to have no regrets they lived on if you know what I mean.