With other recent news on Veterans and still active Military Personal following this Shout Out for not only Veterans participation but for those not Sacrificing, civilian population, to get more involved with the issues, it’s past your time, that face those who Serve You when serving in our Military and especially after Their Service is over!
MTV’s Choose or Lose campaign have gotten together with Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America-IAVA to produce “A Night for Vets: An MTV Concert for the BRAVE”, as the poster announces, tonight the 24th at 8PM. Paul Rieckhoff, of IAVA, has a post over at Huffington that gives some more information. I’ll give a few snippets in a minute.
But first you might want to take a visit to one of the MTV pages and read about just one of the issues facing the returning Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, many with multiple tours in these theaters. Its called Veterans Fight For An Alternative Justice System That Takes Their Trauma Into Account, everyone with feet on the ground in a combat theater, War and Occupation, is changed for life, not just those who are fighting but those Occupied as well, Everyone, and not enough Still has been done to understand not only the change but the mental suffering many go through, PTSD, as those memories of those days in Theaters keep returning over and over, sometimes triggered by that around them sometimes not, but for many they have the recurring nightmares in their sleep of what they’ve seen or done and those nightmares can and do invaded the mind when not sleeping.
This is a video with the above MTV report:
“I would see their tattoos,” he said. “Veterans are proud of their service, and a lot of them get these tattoos, so I would go up to them and ask about their service. I noticed a lot of them are doing what I call self-medicating. They come back from a combat zone, and they are not sure how to handle those feelings or what they are going through, or [how to] stop those dreams they are having. So they start using drugs or drinking alcohol real heavily. Nine times out of 10, that leads to some sort of criminal activity.”
Take a quick trip over and read the rest.
Now back to Paul Rieckhoff’s post at Huffington.
We worked closely with MTV on BRAVE, because there is a tremendous amount at stake for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans in this election. BRAVE includes the following calls to action:
• Properly treat veterans’ mental health issues.
• Prevent homelessness among veterans.
• Give disabled veterans the benefits they have earned in a timely manner.
• Fully fund veterans’ hospitals across the country.
• Compensate troops who are made to serve longer via Stop Loss.
Paul has more, including information on a CNN show he will participate in to be aired on saturday and sunday, take a quick trip over to find out more.
Here’s another video about MTV’s Advocacy for Veterans:
And here’s some recent news about Veterans, especially our most recent:
Report says Guard provides inadequate care
Veterans For America, a veterans advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., released a report on the Alaska Army National Guard Oct. 15 that stated the Guard does not adequately care for soldiers who return from deployment. The report accuses Gov. Sarah Palin of not taking action to address this issue.
The Veterans For America writeup can be found here along with the report in PDF.
And Veterans For America, busy as always, also has this recent report: VFA Report Release: Pennsylvania’s National Guard, Under Great Strain
The citizen Soldiers of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard have borne a disproportionate share of the burden of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Veterans for America (VFA) has found.
Between now and November 4th, it is essential that every presidential and congressional candidate and their surrogates campaigning in Pennsylvania address how they will relieve the great strain placed on the Pennsylvania National Guard.
You’ll find much more over at the Veterans For America site.
Now lets see what former Military Personal, now Veterans, and also Union Members, have to say about the upcoming Presidential Election.
More than 2 million union members and thousands of union retirees around the country have served their country in the armed forces, and through the AFL-CIO Union Veterans Council, union vets are reaching out to other union vets to talk about what’s at stake for them this election-as veterans and as workers.
Union Veterans: McCain’s Record Doesn’t Support Vets with this report from them and this video.
This next report is Extremely Troubling, as it’s been report before, a number of times. Apparently because this administration and country seems to want to continue these Occupations, especially in Iraq, it seems the past reports are being Ignored and what the military was doing has been ramped up putting our soldiers and their comrades in even more danger, self danger and extreme danger while on patrols!
This was reported last night on ABC World News: Mentally Unstable Soldiers Redeployed to Iraq by Bob Woodruff, Stretched Thin, the Army Puts the Vulnerable Back on the Frontlines. If you missed this report visit the link, and try to understand what this means, for the individual soldier who already had developed PTSD and possible TBI, from explosives devices, being sent back into the theaters that have caused their mental anguish, not only sent but sent with prescription drugs to help them coop with their depression and trauma while doing the same thing that caused it in the first place. They also greatly endanger their fellow soldiers, as one put it in the report:
Two weeks before his second deployment to Iraq last September, Army Specialist Michael DeVlieger broke down.
“At first, I thought it was something that everybody experienced,” DeVlieger told ABC’s Bob Woodruff, “and just through time and perseverance I guess it would pass.” It didn’t pass.
After an 11-day hospitalization, DeVlieger was given a diagnosis of major depressive disorder, three psychiatric prescriptions — and deployment orders.
“Eighteen hours after he got out of the hospital, he deployed to Iraq,” DeVlieger’s wife, Christine DeVlieger, recalled. He left for Iraq despite Pentagon policy requiring that service members establish three months of “stability without significant symptoms” before deploying.
“I was a ticking time bomb,” Michael DeVlieger said.
This is the ABC Video from last nights report
And the Military experts? are Spinning what they are doing, No Concern For The Soldier, seems just for the War Politicians and Profiteers, and the ‘chickenhawks’ who support them!
that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic