While I Was Walking

  This is one of those blogs I don't know if I will ever post simply because it is being written at a very onerous time in my life. It has nothing to do with my environment, for I love my home, this city and many of its people. I will state that I am not at all pleased with the employees of either of the VA hospitals in this city because nearly all of them are very defensive upon initial approach and are not very competent in their duties. I have pondered on giving the work force another try, but with each visit to the VA I am convinced that my condition will become agitated, as it did in Kentucky, and I would find myself hospitalized again. When I worked I was a friendly and caring employee. I found it to be no problem to go to the fullest extent to aid both patient and co-worker.  My internal motto was "There is no such thing as "Can't". I do not see such a mindset very often today. Many years ago the Veterans hospitals were seen as the lowest system of health care in the country. Our Veterans were treated more like inmates than the heroic persons that they were. The "physicians" who worked there were not of the highest caliber and because the government believed they owned the soldier, (hence the term G.I. meaning "Government Issue"), oftentimes soldiers who were in these VA hospitals were experimented on via mind control, chemicals,(such as LSD), and germ warfare; to name a few. Recently reports of such experiments on soldiers at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland from 1950 - 1975 have been filed in court.  
  Sometimes you can get into a certain place in life where you feel as if you have reached your pinnacle; that you have arrived to the exact place that God has ordained for you to be. I remember I once read a book concerning pastors and their church and how it stated that a pastor may feel that the church he presides over is God's will for him, when in fact the truth of the matter is that the church is dead and has been dead for many years; perhaps even before the man of God began officiating over it. What am I saying? Merely this: Sometimes a situation can be kept alive by unnatural procedures.  Imagine how a hospital will provide oxygen to a comatose patient. The patient is considered "alive" but yet he has no true quality of life.  We sometimes believe that since we have attained a certain status, i.e. a fine home(s), nice cars, money, belonging to "the right" clubs, and certain grade levels on our jobs, that we have crossed the finish line. Outwardly we appear as the epitome of true success, but inwardly, (where it counts), we are selfish, manipulating, evil, calculating and dishonest. We stand on the necks of others in order to appear bigger than we ever will be. We love standing close to anything spiritual in hopes that some of this purity will affix to our dilapidated and unforgiving souls, not remembering that light and darkness can never occupy the same space. We appear to move about with a purpose but in reality we are hooked to an oxygen tube.
  I often find myself longing for more simple times when I knew nothing of prejudice, never felt the stinging darts of jealously, when I would freely give my heart to the ones I loved with no fear of ever being hurt or betrayed, and a time when we all shared what we had because as the old Sunday School song says "My whole body belongs to God.  Now, more than ever before, I understand what Jesus was saying to Nicodemus when he said "You must be born again". (John 3:7).  
  On my morning walks I talk freely to God and I question His will for me; I ask him to lay His hands upon me that I may be who I truly am to be while here on this earth.  I have learned that if I am to ever experience a true peacefulness in my soul I must be unafraid to make certain changes in my life.  I have discovered that there are some things that I must cut away. I have learned that there are some things I must keep. 
 I hope to speak to you again soon.
 Dennis    

A Pittance For The Warriors

  I listened intently to the newscaster as she described the recent killing of 16 Afghan civilians by a 38 year old Army sergeant stationed in Afghanistan with his Army unit.  PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) immediately came to mind and as I researched more into the incident I learned a troubling fact concerning the soldier: He had already served three tours in Iraq, where he suffered a traumatic brain injury, according to news reports.  There is a military base in Washington State known as Lewis-McChord. Not only is the soldier who allegedly committed these killings from Lewis-McChord, but there seems to be a string of other incidents which have emanated from this now infamous Army base:

•  A 28-year-old Army specialist from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, recently home from Afghanistan, had walked into a parking garage in Salt Lake City with a full set of body armor, ammunition clips and his AR-15 rifle.
• Spc. Brandon Barrett had gone absent without leave after a drunken-driving arrest near the sprawling military base in Washington state and had begun sending ominous messages to friends. “About to show the world they shouldn’t (mess) with soldiers back from a deployment,” he said in one. Barrett died after firing at a police officer, and Lewis-McChord was rocked by questions about how a soldier so angry had been able to go AWOL in plain sight for weeks.
• This week, accusations that a Lewis-McChord sergeant in southern Afghanistan shot to death at least 16 civilians were added to the dozens of cases of murders, suicides, assaults and other crimes linked to soldiers from the base.
• Lewis-McChord is one of the main infantry engines for Iraq and Afghanistan. Lately, the base has earned a reputation for a series of horrific crimes emanating from there, including those by a “kill team” of Stryker brigade soldiers accused of murdering Afghan civilians for sport, a father accused of water-boarding his child and a soldier accused of dousing his wife’s legs with lighter fluid and setting her on fire.
• Twelve suicides were reported last year among Lewis-McChord soldiers, and earlier this year, a 24-year-old Iraq war veteran shot and killed a park ranger at Mount Rainier National Park.
• In February, the head of the base’s Madigan medical center was temporarily removed from duty after reports that diagnoses were overturned for hundreds of soldiers scheduled to receive help for post-traumatic stress disorder, allegedly in some cases in an attempt to save money.
• Service members and their families have long complained about the difficulty of getting good mental health services at Lewis-McChord, saying that soldiers are discouraged by their local sergeants or face stigma among peers. Many say they are handed prescriptions for an anti-anxiety or sleeping medication and dismissed.

    As I read about the above incidents at Lewis-McChord as reported by the Los Angeles Times, I was both angry and personally troubled. My brother, Victor, and I recently had a lengthy conversation about our tour in Operation Desert Storm/Shield and the anxieties it brought upon us both during and after the conflict. However; this blog is not about that, but instead it concerns my ongoing lamentations for troubled soldiers who society will never be able to understand unless they have actually experienced their plight. Sympathy does not score any points when it comes to the needs of a soldier suffering from PTSD.

   It is largely because of the numerous accounts of "soldiers gone wild" at bases such as Lewis-McChord and many others, that a renewed focus has been placed on the treatment of returning war-time soldiers. Unfortunately, the military has not done very well in recognizing that these men and women need more than an annual or bi-annual visit with their primary care physician and certainly more than a 30 minute session with one of the many understaffed psychiatric clinics within the Veterans Hospitals.

  What is the answer? Heaven knows. It seems that many soldiers suffering from PTSD are handling their demons via self-medication and sometimes by partaking in risky behaviors.  I have also learned that because PTSD is an ongoing disorder, oftentimes a Veteran's family and friends will begin to dismiss their symptoms and confuse their behavior/mood/attitude/irritability as them simply being difficult. 
  I am mindful of the phrase spoken by the English evangelical preacher and martyr, John Bradford; "There but for the grace of God, go I." May God and His angels, both heavenly and here on earth, watch over soldiers and Veterans everywhere.

Dennis

Accountability

People have to live with the evil they have done to others.
Ignoring it does not set it right,
Dennis