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Ilona Meagher

The Boston Globe | The military's post-traumatic stress dilemma - 0 views

www.boston.com/..._post_traumatic_stress_dilemma

blog army marines stigma shortfalls mullen recruitment iraq oif suicidal ptsd trauma stress opinion veterans

shared by Ilona Meagher on 15 Mar 09 - Cached
  • I was in Iraq in 2004. From the day we had arrived home to the day we were scheduled to return to Iraq was exactly nine months. The pressure to prepare ourselves quickly was intense. When the first Marine came to my office and asked to see the psychiatrist about some troubling issues from our time in Iraq, I was sympathetic. I said, "No problem." When another half dozen or so Marines approached me with the same request, I was only somewhat concerned.But when all of them and several more returned from their appointments with recommendations for discharge, I'll admit I was alarmed. Suddenly I was not as concerned about their mental health as I was about my company's troop strength.
  • As all those Marines in my company began filtering out, some from essential positions, I started to worry about the welfare of those remaining. I worried, quite naturally, that if the exodus continued, we might not have enough to accomplish our mission or to survive on the battlefield. My sympathies for those individuals claiming post-traumatic stress began to wane. A commander cannot serve in earnest both the mission and the psychologically wounded. When the two come in conflict, as they routinely do as a result of repeated deployments, the commander will feel an internal and institutional pressure to maintain the integrity of his unit. I did. And there begins a grassroots, albeit subconscious, resistance to Mullen's plan to destigmatize the people who seek help. Because as much as I cared about my Marines, it was difficult to look upon those who sought to leave without suspicion or even mild contempt.
  • Where psychological and traumatic brain injuries can still, to some extent, be doubted and debated, and when their treatment stands in opposition to troop strength and to mission accomplishment, the needs of those wounded service members will be subordinated.The result by necessity, which we are already witnessing today, will be dubious treatment protocols within the military aimed at retention, diagnosed soldiers returning to the battlefield, and a slowly diminished emphasis on screening. It will happen. It has begun already. There will be no policy shift. There will be no change in the language we hear from our leaders. But we will know all too well that our soldiers are still not being properly treated by the ever-increasing number of suicides that occur.
  • Ilona Meagher on 15 Mar 09
     
    WITH ARMY and Marine Corps suicide rates climbing dramatically, surpassing even those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan last month, the nation is increasingly disturbed and demanding treatment for veterans. But these suicide reports highlight an important distinction: A significant portion of those returning from war are not yet veterans; they are still active or reserve service members, which means, above all, that they probably will be going back to one of our theaters of operations. And that means that any treatment for post-traumatic stress will be positioned in direct conflict with the mission itself. As a former Marine captain and rifle company commander, I witnessed this conflict firsthand.
  • amita parmar on 29 Jul 11
Ilona Meagher

WBEZ | New Art Project Hopes to Help Vets Talk - 0 views

www.wbez.org/Content.aspx

art society blog veterans reintegration stories afghanistan vietnam suicide

shared by Ilona Meagher on 14 Mar 09 - No Cached
  • A lot of soldiers say war is hell, and then, they won't say anything else. That wasn’t good enough for one west suburban playwright. She’s created a new collaboration called the Vet Art Project. It brings veterans and artists together to make art out of  war. The group's vision is a big one: it aims to be a national model for how veterans can tell their stories and get the public to listen.
  • Matt Ping sits across the circle from Crist. He’s a young vet who served in Afghanistan. PING: That transition from 16 months of isolation on the side of a mountain, and being secluded from American society and American people and then coming back and trying to be the same person you were before, it's really -- I don’t know if it’s even possible. A recent study by the Rand Corporation found that nearly 20 percent of soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or depression. Only half, seek treatment. Ping says part of the problem is Americans don’t seem to know or care about the war or its soldiers. He recalls being in Afghanistan, in the thick of it, and soldiers not being able to reach anxious family members. PING: And that’s probably why the suicide rates are so high, because that’s the easiest out.  I mean, I'm not gonna lie. I sat there with a barrel of a gun in my mouth, thinking about pulling the trigger more than once. And you know I’m glad I didn’t because I was just in an altered state at the time.
  • Ilona Meagher on 14 Mar 09
     
    A lot of soldiers say war is hell, and then, they won't say anything else. That wasn't good enough for one west suburban playwright. She's created a new collaboration called the Vet Art Project. It brings veterans and artists together to make art out of war. The group's vision is a big one: it aims to be a national model for how veterans can tell their stories and get the public to listen.
Ilona Meagher

The Providence Journal | Afghanistan battle haunts Rhode Islander Craig Mullaney - 0 views

www.projo.com/...16-09_D2DMAF9_v23.2d3a51e.html

afghanistan oef combat stories veterans deployment military mullaney blog

shared by Ilona Meagher on 14 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Ilona Meagher on 14 Mar 09
     
    Deploying to Afghanistan, Craig Mullaney writes, "was a slow immersion, like Dante's descent into the Inferno."\n\nOne moment, Mullaney and his Army Ranger platoon waited in an airport terminal at Fort Drum, N.Y. Televisions were tuned to Major League Baseball games. The soldiers ate what one jokingly called their "Last Supper" - rubbery T-bone steaks with Mexican rice.\n\nThey received an intelligence briefing warning them of the dangers awaiting them in Afghanistan, including ticks, cobras and camel spiders that can run more than 30 mph. Then they marched onto a cavernous cargo plane. Two flights and 7,000 miles later, Mullaney and his men stepped out into the dusty, baking heat of an airbase in Kandahar. It was 128 degrees, in the shade.\n\nIn that summer of 2003, Afghanistan had fallen off the front page. Attention had shifted to the war in Iraq. Meanwhile, the Taliban regime that had been toppled by the U.S. invasion following 9/11 was resurgent. Operating from across the border in Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden was suspected to be hiding, Taliban and al-Qaida fighters harassed local villages and Western occupiers.\n\nMullaney's Army Ranger training did not cover desert warfare, which had been dropped in 1995. Studying modern military history at West Point, he took just one paragraph of notes on Afghanistan, involving the Russians' failed experience there in the 1980s.
  • amita parmar on 29 Jul 11
Ilona Meagher

Richmond Times-Dispatch | For these airmen, it's about surviving, not flying - 0 views

www.timesdispatch.com/...230311

air kia iraq oif airmen blog

shared by Ilona Meagher on 14 Mar 09 - Cached
  • The role of the Air Force in Afghanistan is crucial, especially as Taliban forces try to close a supply route through Pakistan's Khyber Pass and Kyrgyzstan seeks to shut a U.S. air base in that country. Nearly 600 airmen have been killed or wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks - and 96 percent of them have been on the ground, according to Air Force officials. Their mounting losses - partly due to expanded duties off base - prompted intensive training, begun three years ago, to help the ground airmen survive combat.
  • Ilona Meagher on 14 Mar 09
     
    Stats on Air Force combat-zone casualties.
  • amita parmar on 29 Jul 11
Ilona Meagher

Omaha World Herold | Vet Denied Gun Permit Over PTSD Care - 0 views

www.military.com/...gun-permit-over-ptsd-care.html

ptsd fallujah legal marine stateside local blog

shared by Ilona Meagher on 14 Mar 09 - No Cached
  • Tim Mechaley trained fellow Marines to fire .50-caliber machine guns. He qualified as a marksman. He fought in the battle for Fallujah and received a combat medal with a "V" for valor. Back home, he uses a rifle for target shooting. Yet, when Mechaley sought to buy a 9-mm Ruger pistol for protection at his midtown apartment, the Omaha Police Department rejected his application for a gun permit. "I was trusted by the {federal} government to carry a loaded weapon, but now I am not allowed to purchase one by my local government," he said. Mechaley, 32, has received counseling for post-traumatic stress disorder related to his service in Iraq. While completing an application for a gun permit, he responded "yes" to a question that asked whether he was being treated for a mental disorder. "I circled yes because I wanted to be completely honest," he said. As explanation, he wrote "PTSD from Iraq Marine combat veteran" on the form. Mechaley's application on Jan. 10 was rejected, he was told, because of that answer. After talking with police, Mechaley said he had been "too truthful" on the application.
  • Mechaley said his PTSD symptoms have improved with counseling. While serving in Iraq in 2004 and '05, Mechaley watched eight friends die in combat. When he returned home, he began to suffer from flashbacks and had trouble sleeping. He was diagnosed with PTSD and started going to counseling. In 2006, he was recalled to active duty to help train Marines to shoot. He still serves in the Marine Reserves. "I used to go in (to see the counselor) once a week while I was in the service, but everything is so much better now," he said. "I no longer have flashbacks or trouble sleeping, and I see the counselor only about once every three months."
Ilona Meagher

MSNBC | Army program helps ease stress of deployment - 0 views

www.msnbc.msn.com/29647854

blog ptsd army reserve family reintegration programs suicide stats stateside military veterans

shared by Ilona Meagher on 13 Mar 09 - No Cached
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  • Getting military personnel home safely requires much more than an airplane ride and a cursory post-deployment checkup, says Pat Canerdy, administrator of the Army Reserve's Chattanooga-based 591st Transportation Detachment. It's a lesson officials and families alike have had to learn the hard way throughout the global war on terror, which has led to historic highs in suicide and divorce rates.Just more than 5 percent of Army suicide victims had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a recent Department of Defense news release, and 17 percent reportedly had problems with substance abuse. Meanwhile, at least 60 percent had relationship problems.
  • Ilona Meagher on 13 Mar 09
     
    Army Reserve's Chattanooga-based 591st Transportation Detachment prepares to implement the new Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program.\n\nAll branches of the service have some form of the program, according to Lt. Col. Robin Smith Sr., chief well-being officer for the Army Reserve. The Yellow Ribbon program was launched "to prepare soldiers and their families for mobilization, sustain the families during mobilization and to help with reintegration with their families, communities and employers upon redeployment," he said.\n\nThe program began as part of a requirement outlined in the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2008 and became even more important as the steep suicide rates were recorded in recent months
  • amita parmar on 29 Jul 11
Ilona Meagher

US Army | First Lady visits Fort Bragg, vows support for military families - 0 views

www.army.mil/...-support-for-military-families

blog military family obama society army veterans reintegration bragg

shared by Ilona Meagher on 13 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Obama said her commitment to improving family support began two years ago at the beginning of her husband's campaign, after hearing about the challenges military spouses faced. "I spent a lot of my time talking about issues that really affected me as a working mom," Obama said. "I met more and more military families who were not just struggling with those basic issues that all civilians are dealing with, but they were tacking on multiple tours of duty and having to figure out how do you keep a family together when you moved 10 times in the same number of years." "I was moved by the power of those stories, and I committed to myself then that if I was blessed with the opportunity to be the nation's First Lady, then I would make the issues facing military families a top priority for me," she added. The First Lady said some of the issues military families faced included quality education on military posts, adequate childcare for families who live on- and off-post and for military spouses, how to balance higher education, careers and family support during deployments.
  • She said a lot of family members spoke to her about streamlining the available support so that it is more consistent at all bases. She said it is equally important to make information available to families to prevent hardships once they transfer to different bases.
  • Obama wants to put a call out to the nation to be mindful that we are a nation at war. "There are troops out there right now fighting for our freedom and our security," she pointed out. "When they go, they leave behind families. The First Lady extended the opportunity to help military Families to the rest of the nation, whether they lived in military communities or not. "It's incumbent upon us as a nation to look in our schools and figure out which child has parents that's deployed and be aware of that and be conscious of that," she said. "It's incumbent upon us to look in our own back yards to our neighbors and to figure out who's out there serving our country and what kind of support that they need. We need to make sure, as a community, that we're coming together around those families."
  • Ilona Meagher on 13 Mar 09
     
    First Lady Michelle Obama paid a visit to Soldiers and family members at Fort Bragg in what was her first tour outside the White House. During her visit, Obama said she was inspired by the spirit of the Fort Bragg community and said she was fully committed to improving support to all military families.
Ilona Meagher

The Journal News | Vets with post-traumatic stress fight for aid - 0 views

www.lohud.com/...2009903090343

incidents fallujah vietnam veterans stateside stigma stats blog combat stress trauma oif iraq

shared by Ilona Meagher on 14 Mar 09 - Cached
  • It was during his first deployment in Iraq that Marine Cpl. David Tracy, 23, of Peekskill earned his Purple Heart."I was up top behind the gun when we stopped at a checkpoint and a roadside bomb exploded on the other side of the barrier," said Tracy, an infantryman who served as a machine gunner in Baghdad and Fallujah.
  • Legislation introduced recently by Rep. John Hall, D-Dover Plains, would lift the burden of proof from veterans who served in combat zones and have a diagnosis of PTSD, allowing them to receive disability benefits without having to prove that a specific incident caused the disorder.In the Iraq and Afghanistan wars alone, more than 100,000 veterans have been found to have PTSD, but only 42,000 have been granted service-connected disability for their condition, said Hall, chairman of the Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs.The disability claims backlog at the VA tops 800,000. A large percentage of that number are Vietnam veterans seeking compensation for PTSD, Hall said.
  • Antonette Zeiss, deputy chief of the VA's Mental Health Services, said members of the current generation of veterans are being encouraged to come in sooner so they can get treatment, even if they are not eligible for benefits. State-of-the-art treatment should now be available without delays, she said.But PTSD is not the whole story, said Zeiss, a clinical psychologist. There are 442,862 veterans enrolled with the VA who have a diagnosis of PTSD out of a total 1,662,375 with some mental-health diagnosis, she said.Continuing conflicts mean those numbers will grow. Up to 17 percent of veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have PTSD, major depression or other mental-health problems, Dr. Joseph T. English told Congress last year. He is chairman of psychiatry at New York Medical College in Valhalla, which is affiliated with the VA hospitals at Montrose and Castle Point.
  • Ilona Meagher on 14 Mar 09
     
    Legislation introduced recently by Rep. John Hall, D-Dover Plains, would lift the burden of proof from veterans who served in combat zones and have a diagnosis of PTSD, allowing them to receive disability benefits without having to prove that a specific incident caused the disorder. In the Iraq and Afghanistan wars alone, more than 100,000 veterans have been found to have PTSD, but only 42,000 have been granted service-connected disability for their condition, said Hall, chairman of the Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs. The disability claims backlog at the VA tops 800,000. A large percentage of that number are Vietnam veterans seeking compensation for PTSD, Hall said.
Ilona Meagher

NYT - The Lede | A Glimpse of the Iraq War That Cost a Military Contractor Her Job - 0 views

thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/...-a-military-contractor-her-job

censorship iraq oif injustice photos military

shared by Ilona Meagher on 23 Mar 09 - Cached
  • In light of the review announced today, Susan Kelleher, a reporter for the Seattle Times, contacted Ms. Silicio, now living in Everett, Washington, to get her reaction. Ms. Kelleher writes: The news came as a salve for Tami Silicio, an Everett woman who was working as a military contractor when she took the first published photo of fallen U.S. soldiers’ coffins in 2004. Silicio’s photo, published in The Seattle Times, fueled a political firestorm over whether the U.S. was manipulating public opinion or protecting family privacy by blacking out images of the Iraqi War dead. It was a debate Silicio said she neither welcomed nor intended when she initially shared the photo with family and friends. “It was a passionate picture that they turned political,” she said on Tuesday. “They should be honored coming home. They should be addressed. What parent doesn’t want their child honored when they come home?” Allowing coffins to be photographed more widely, she said, would put the focus back on the soldiers.
  • Ilona Meagher on 23 Mar 09
     
    In 2004, the Seattle Times published the first photograph of the coffins of soldiers killed in Iraq being shipped back to the United States. Tami Silicio, the woman who took that photograph, was a military contractor working at the airport in Kuwait where the coffins were loaded onto planes to be flown back to the U.S. Ms. Silicio had taken the photograph with no thought of publishing it, even though she later said she was unaware that there was any ban on taking photographs of the coffins.
Ilona Meagher

Endless Knot | "Let soldiers blog, post to YouTube" - 0 views

endlessknots.typepad.com/...let-soldiers-bl.html

c_references milblog military

shared by Ilona Meagher on 13 Jan 10 - Cached
  • Ilona Meagher on 13 Jan 10
     
    "In Changing the Organizational Culture, his article in Small Wars Journal, Caldwell writes that it's time for the Army to rethink its approach to the new media. Caldwell has some experience here: he was the person you saw in the Baghdad press conferences last year, speaking for the Multi-National Force [MNF, as he refers to it below]. Wherever you stand (or stood) on the war, what he's saying here bears reading, as he's proposing a new approach: Recent experiences in Iraq illustrate how important it is to address cultural change and also how very difficult it is to change culture: After MNF-I broke through the bureaucratic red-tape and was able to start posting on YouTube, MNF-I videos from Iraq were among the top ten videos viewed on YouTube for weeks after their posting. These videos included gun tape videos showing the awesome power the US military can bring to bear. Using YouTube - part of the new media - proved to be an extremely effective tool in countering an adaptive enemy."
Ilona Meagher

Change.org | Women 14% of US Armed Forces and 5% of Homeless Vet Population - 0 views

war.change.org/...d_5_of_homeless_vet_population

veterans mentions

shared by Ilona Meagher on 28 Dec 09 - Cached
  • Ilona Meagher on 28 Dec 09
     
    "If you haven't seen Ilona Meagher's website focused on combat-related post-traumatic stress among US soldiers and veterans, go here. Meagher wrote a book called, Moving a Nation to Care: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and America's Returning Troops. And this week, she's gathered a very useful collection of statistics on the military services with some of the following highlights. Better not to quote me directly here; go to Ilona's site and see the sources she cites for the study parameters and context:"
Ilona Meagher

New Scientist | How brain chemicals help soldiers keep their heads - 0 views

www.newscientist.com/...soldiers-keep-their-heads.html

veterans blog neuroscience

shared by Ilona Meagher on 09 May 09 - Cached
  • Ilona Meagher on 09 May 09
     
    Researchers are now starting to understand the physiological origins of this cognitive "fog of war", finding that the severity of soldiers' symptoms correlates with the levels of various hormones and neurotransmitters. This work has revealed why some soldiers manage to keep their head amid the chaos while others are clouded in confusion, and it has even suggested drugs and supplements which could one day help all troops to think more clearly under fire. Such intervention might also reduce the number of lives - like Wells's - that have been shattered by post-traumatic stress disorder, since it seems soldiers who experience the greatest cognitive disturbance during combat are most likely to suffer subsequently from PTSD. Although war leaves its mark on almost every combatant (see "Battle lines drawn in the brain"), drugs that clear the mental fog during battle might significantly reduce the severity of the symptoms that linger long after the soldiers have returned home. "If we understand the physiology, that gives us clues as to where and how we might intervene," suggests Charles "Andy" Morgan, a psychiatrist at Yale University and the US Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for PTSD in West Haven, Connecticut.
Ilona Meagher

Jacksonville Daily News | Wounded Warriors break ground on new barracks - 0 views

www.jdnews.com/...d-64086-barracks-warriors.html

blog wounded veterans stateside health

shared by Ilona Meagher on 09 May 09 - Cached
  • Ilona Meagher on 09 May 09
     
    Marines and sailors broke ground Friday on a place where wounded warriors will be able to heal, mentally and physically. The new Wounded Warriors barracks, which is scheduled to take about 18 months to build, will include 100 two-man rooms, living area and kitchenette, fitness, physical therapy and counseling space. The rooms are designed to accommodate two wheelchair-bound Marines without collisions, said Lt. Col. Thomas Siebenthal, commander of Wounded Warriors Battalion-East. Camp Lejeune's wounded warriors are currently housed in a 1940s-era building across base from the Naval Hospital. The new facility is just steps away from the hospital.
Ilona Meagher

USA Today | Stressed troops take cues from ancient plays - 0 views

www.usatoday.com/...2009-05-05-fortdrum_N.htm

tl_add incidents history facebook blog

shared by Ilona Meagher on 09 May 09 - No Cached
  • Ilona Meagher on 09 May 09
     
    Christopher Tramontana
Ilona Meagher

Seattle Times | Veterans hope to rebuild their lives through Conservation Corps - 0 views

seattletimes.nwsource.com/...2009106547_greenvets23m.html

jobs veterans local green facebook blog

shared by Ilona Meagher on 09 May 09 - Cached
  • Ilona Meagher on 09 May 09
     
    On this day, they are laboring at one of many small wetlands created by developers to compensate for marshland filled in for housing. Most of these spots are overgrown with blackberries and other invasive species, and the restoration work is tough labor that often leaves scratched-up arms. "It's been like a breath of fresh air," said Jeremy Grisham, the leader of the crew. "When I first got back, I couldn't find work and gained so much weight. When I started getting outside, it was the first time I felt good about things." Grisham was a Navy medic who took part in the initial U.S. invasion of Iraq. One of his most harrowing tasks was helping civilians suffering from burns and wounds. As Grisham was medically retired in 2005, he was diagnosed with a disabling case of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Grisham is now in his second year in the conservation corps, taking classes and field work at Green River Community College, which offers a two-year degree in natural-resources management. He is one of about 70 Washington veterans who have been able to attend Green River and four other community colleges around the state with the help of the conservation corps, which pays $1,000 per month in living expenses.
Ilona Meagher

Dayton Daily News | Army, Air Force confront suicide problem - 0 views

www.daytondailynews.com/...nt-suicide-problem-108222.html

airmen suicidal stats blog facebook

shared by Ilona Meagher on 07 May 09 - Cached
  • Ilona Meagher on 07 May 09
     
    The Air Force reported 13 suicides through April 24 this year, compared with 39 in 2008 and a recent peak of 49 in 2004. That compared with 17 Air Force combat deaths within the past two years, including three in the past six months. The American Psychiatric Association is working with the armed services to help provide counseling to combat veterans and spouses, said Dr. Carolyn Robinowitz, the organization's immediate past president. "The military is trying to address this. But it's kind of a conflict," Robinowitz said. "The culture is one of not admitting weakness."
Ilona Meagher

Amherst Bulletin | Editorial: War and memory - 0 views

www.amherstbulletin.com/...141753

blog facebook veterans community art iraq stats

shared by Ilona Meagher on 07 May 09 - No Cached
  • Ilona Meagher on 07 May 09
     
    Amherst artist Matt Mitchell is closing in on the halfway point of his project to paint portraits of 100 U.S. citizens affected by war. Mitchell has more than 50 portraits to create - and years of work ahead of him to document the ways wars change everyone. Also here in our midst, the nonprofit Veterans Education Project continues its efforts, in schools and the wider community, to get people to see through war's myths. Their work helps us avoid being lulled into the belief a changing war no longer needs our attention, our compassion and our political voices.
Ilona Meagher

Acupuncture Today | Weighing the Costs - 0 views

www.acupuncturetoday.com/...article.php

stress blog ptsd therapy treatment cam army military facebook

shared by Ilona Meagher on 03 Apr 09 - No Cached
  • Ilona Meagher on 03 Apr 09
     
    Advocates for the integrated approach in the treatment of PTSD at both Ft. Hood (El Paso, Texas) and Ft. Bliss (Killeen, Texas) were convinced that the traditional methods of treating PTSD weren't long enough in duration, intense enough or comprehensive enough. A program was created that would address all aspects of PTSD and treat the whole soldier. This integrative approach treats many of the symptoms of PTSD that are not addressed through the standard mental health protocols, including cognitive-behavioral therapy and pharmacotherapy. The concept eventually led to the implementation of the Ft. Bliss Restoration & Resilience Center and the Warrior Combat Stress Reset Program at Ft. Hood that incorporated medical massage, meditation, yoga, acupuncture, marital/family therapy and reiki with the standard treatment protocols of cognitive-behavioral and cathartic psychotherapies and pharmacotherapy.
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