Honor Killing in Turkey

A Turkish sixteen year old girl was buried alive for talking to males who were not part of her family.

Study Suggests Discussion of Killing to Help Veterans Cope

The act of killing is as fundamental to war as oxygen is to fire. Yet it is also the one thing many combat veterans avoid discussing when they return home, whether out of shame, guilt or a deep fear of being misunderstood.

But a new study of Iraq war veterans by researchers in San Francisco suggests that more discussion of killing may help veterans cope with an array of mental health problems stemming from war.

This deserves a life sentence

ShareBy Dave Barry
It is with great verisimilitude that we present another installation of “Ask Mister Language Person, ” the column that answers your common questions about grammar, punctuation and unwanted body hair. This is the ONLY language column to receive the coveted Lifetime Bathroom Pass from The American Society of University Professors Who Are Never [...]

The Inevitability of PTSD

ShareBy BRUCE PATTERSON – The late comedian George Carlin did a bit about Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (back then it wasn’t called a Disorder). During WW1, Carlin reminded us, we called it “shell shock.” Now those two words pack some punch, don’t they? It’s shocking language, really. So during WW2 we started calling it “combat fatigue.” [...]

60 Minutes Gets an Honest Answer about Veterans defrauding the U.S. taxpayer!

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This is a follow-up to Gordon Duff’s special report  60 MINUTES RUNS FLUFF PIECE ON VETERANS WOES
Paul Sullivan posted what I believe to be the heart of the problem with the backlog of VA claims in his response to the ’stolen valor’ question raised by CBS reporter Bryan Pitts.
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/index.php/veterans-category-articles/1552-byron-pitts
This video went up on YouTube [...]

Facing Bad Memories at 'The Wall'…and Moving On

ShareIt was a day that started with tears and ended with hugs and smiles.
Paul Middleton arrived at The Wall on a rainy day in November. Officially, it is The Vietnam Veterans Memorial…but everybody calls it The Wall. He and his wife Annette had driven up from Charleston, South Carolina, specifically to experience The Wall.
It’s part [...]

ACTION ALERT – Contact DOT to Stop Potential Discrimination Against Disabled Vets

Share       Dr. Joan Esnayra, Ph.D., President and Founder of the Psychiatric Service Dog Society wrote a series of articles for Veterans Today on such service dogs and the social stigma and discrimination toward people with such companions. She has asked our readers who support the assistance such dogs can render to our Disabled Veterans to [...]

The Civilian Medical Resources Network – Seeks Troops to Treat

Share      Three days ago, we posted an opinion piece by Paul Sullivan of Veterans for Common Sense (VCS) titled American Needs a Discussion About Mental Health and the Draft. In Paul’s article he approached the potential need to consider possibly drafting Medical and Mental Health professionals into the Armed Forces as a last resort to [...]

The Forever War of the Mind

ShareApparently Max Cleland, author of “Heart of a Patriot: How I Found the Courage to Survive Vietnam, Walter Reed and Karl Rove," does not get—unlike neocons, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and Dr. Sally Satel—that veterans just need to avoid their ‘culture of trauma.’ Check out his piece in the New York Times.
“Every day I was in [...]

She Ran to Gunfire and Ended It

SharePhoto: Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By James C. McKinley Jr. The New York Times
KILLEEN, Tex. — The police officer who brought down a gunman after he went on a shooting rampage at the Fort Hood Army base here was on the way to have her car repaired when she responded to a police radio report [...]

The Good Soldier

ShareFrom Bill Moyers’ Journal – As America prepares to observe Veterans Day and President Obama weighs sending more troops to fight in Afghanistan, BILL MOYERS JOURNAL broadcasts a powerful documentary about the impact on soldiers of learning to kill – or be killed. THE GOOD SOLDIER follows four veterans – one from World War II, [...]

New VA Law Review

ShareI am posting this as it was written by a friend of mine and I think it should be read by the veterans community.

Ilona Meager met many of us, especially us veterans, through using this technology, especially in research and posting on interactive community boards, and her awaking interest in a subject she had never [...]

Stigma: We Shall Overcome!

Share This is the third of our series on Guide Dogs for the Mind. To read the previous Guide Dogs for the Mind article Training Your Own PTSD Service Dog select this LINK.
The Service Dog lifestyle is not for everyone. It is a LOT of work. You cannot simply put a cape or harness on [...]

The VA and it's New Approach to PTSD

SharePTSD: New War on An Old Foe 
Big changes underway at the VA could mean better treatment for thousands of vets. A bureaucracy in transition.
By Jamie Reno
They are the invisible wounds of war, the battered minds and bruised spirits we have come to recognize as posttraumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. By one estimate, more than 300,000 [...]

SPECIAL SERIES: Training Your Own PTSD Service Dog by Dr. Joan Esnayra

ShareThis is the second of our series on Guide Dogs for the Mind. To read the first article Service Dogs for People with PTSD select this LINK.
The Service Dog lifestyle is not for everyone. It is a LOT of work. You cannot simply put a cape or harness on your dog and be [...]

SPECIAL SERIES: Service Dogs for People with PTSD by Dr. Joan Esnayra

Share There is much information on the Internet related to Service Dogs for Veterans living with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). A simple ‘Google’ search using these terms produces prolific results. Where does one begin to sift through these data? Which websites are credible, and which are not? Which organizations [...]

Soap Operas Provide Comfort During Peace and War

Shareby Donna Teresa, Staff Writer
Soap operas have been around since the early 1930s. A source of entertainment that started in radio, soap operas have become a television favorite.
I admit, I’ve been a fan of daytime television for many years. It was inevitable I would, after all my grandmother was an avid soap [...]

Veterans of two wars work together

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Sergio Arias’ Marine unit served in Iraq in 2003
He says he has post-traumatic stress disorder, became addicted to drugs
Vietnam vets mentor other former service members in New Directions programs
Number of homeless veterans of Afghanistan, Iraq is increasing

By Paul Vercammen
LOS ANGELES, California – When Sergio Arias returned to civilian life in Oxnard, California, visions of war still [...]

Endless War: The Suicide of the United States

Shareby Dahr Jamail
A US soldier looks through netting at a medical tent in Logar Province, Afghanistan, on July 23. (Photo: Reuters)
"We hear war called murder. It is not: it is suicide."- Ramsay MacDonald, British prime minister 1931-1935
    Sergio Kochergin, back home from his second deployment in Iraq, held a gun in his mouth, trying [...]

MOST VETS SUFFERING PTSD ARE NOT SEEKING TREATMENT

ShareBy Sherwood Ross, Staff Writer
Veterans returning from the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq are displaying many of the same post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms of troops that fought in Viet Nam, yet most do not seek treatment, authorities say.  
“I’m not an alarmist but I think this is a serious problem,” Dr. Matthew Friedman, executive director [...]

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