Healing Combat Trauma

Sometimes a Photo Just Says It All...

In Honor of Veterans Day: Community Acupuncture Clinics for Veterans

In honor of Veterans Day, Acupuncture without Borders is holding community acupuncture clinics for veterans in the following cities:

Newark, CA;

West Los Angeles, CA;

Stamford, CT;

Ft. Lauderdale, FL;

St. Augustine, FL;

St. Petersburg, FL;

Tamarac, FL;

Boston, MA;

Cambridge, MA;

Albuquerque, NM;

Santa Fe, NM;

Carson City, NV;

New York, NY;

Glenside, PA;

McLean, VA;

Longview, WA;

Seattle, WA; and

Racine, WI.

For more information on these clinics, click here.  NOTE: Do not assume that they are each being held on Veterans Day itself.  Most are held on a day either before or after, so check the schedule first several days in advance by clicking the aforementioned link.

Editor's note: For more on why acupuncture might be a suitable or interesting treatment modality for combat trauma and/or PTSD, click here.

Acupuncture Without Borders: Treating Veterans, Addressing Trauma

An organization called "Acupuncturists without Borders," (after the organization of doctors called Medicins Sans Frontiers) has been treating veterans and their particular concerns regarding combat trauma and PTSD.  Says one veteran:

“I served two tours of combat in Vietnam. I’m 100% disabled because of PTSD. When I first started coming to the AWB clinic in Albuquerque, I had spent years suffering from high anxiety. I believe that because of the acupuncture I have become calmer and my anxiety has drastically come down. I don’t want the new vets to suffer for years like I did. Acupuncture is helping me get my life back.” -- Raul Rojas

Richard H. Thompson, a four star general (retired), adds, "I have participated and believe it can help. I fully support the efforts of this organization."

According to Acupuncture without Borders, veterans acupuncture clinics are currently open in the following cities: Fort Myers, Florida; Warm Mineral Springs, Florida; Chicago, Illinois; Portland, Maine; Framingham, Massachusetts; Grants Pass, Oregon; Portland, Oregon; Madison, Wisconsin; Portland, Maine; Portland, Oregon; Rochester, New York; Rockland, Maine; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Pojoaque (Santa Fe area), New Mexico; Times Square, New York City, New York; and Stevens Point, Wisconsin; with future acupuncture clinics for veterans pending in Arlington, Massachusetts; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Ithaca, New York; New York City, New York; Charlotte, North Carolina; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and others.

For a list of the currently operating veterans acupuncture clinics, click here.

If you're an acupuncturist who wants to become involved, there are future trainings scheduled in Albuquerque, Los Angeles and Orlando, Florida, in the coming months.  Click here for a list of the trainings.

For a link to the organization itself, click here.

Libraries Across America Offer Veterans Information Next Week for Veterans' Day

The American Library Association (ALA) is spearheading a series of activities during the week of Veteran's Day, November 11, 2008 at libraries across the country to make information available to help veterans and their families better understand the education benefits available under the new Post 9/11 GI Bill.

ALA's Office of Government Relations (OGR) is working with a group of four national organizations in this effort, including the American Legion National Headquarters, the American Council on Education, the National Association of Federally Impacted Schools, and the National Military Family Association.

(Realistically, knowledgeable reference librarians are always happy to help veterans and their families with information at their disposal; next week, however, appears to be a special push to get this information into the hands of veterans and their families, in honor of Veterans Day.)

For more about the services available, click this very Wikipedia-looking link, provided by the American Library Association.

Projects Target PTSD-Related Relationship Aggression

"Living with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can strain any relationship—sometimes to the point of violence against a loved one. University of Arkansas psychologist Matthew T. Feldner, Ph.D., is part of two national research projects aimed at preventing relationship aggression in couples coping with PTSD and treating this type of aggression when it has already developed.

“The main aims of these projects are to reduce the number of new cases of interpersonal violence and reduce the number of cases already existing,” Feldner says. “We teach couples skills for better relationship behaviors, such as how to communicate better and how to manage anger.”

All people receiving these interventions will be closely monitored and referred for more intensive individual therapy should the need arise. Rather than going back to focus on the roots of the PTSD, Feldner says the couples in these interventions “will focus on the here and now of how the PTSD is affecting their relationship.” While teaching couples about the features of PTSD and improving their relationships, the group treatment can also serve as a gateway to further treatment for PTSD and other services.

If these interventions succeed in preventing or treating relationship aggression, Feldner says that these would be groundbreaking, landmark projects. “Ultimately, we are hoping we can conduct these interventions in such a way that they could be useful for the VA and could be extended to community populations as well, for situations that are not specifically military,” Feldner says."

— Source: University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

Go to War, Do Art - Afghanistan and Iraq Combat Art Show Opens in DC

You are invited to visit the new show opening on "Afghanistan and Iraq: Combat Art," from the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps Combat Art Programs.  

Pictured here is USMC Warrant Officer and Combat Artist Michael Fay, with his unfinished canvas for "Between Sunset and Moonrise, Wazir Pass, Afghanistan" (oil paint on gessoed watercolor paper). 

Fay is one of the combat artists featured in the exhibit, and we've written about his powerful work before on this blog: here,  here, and here, among others.  Marine Sgt. Kristopher Battles is another U.S. Marine Combat Artist whose work will be featured in the exhibit.  Both come from a long tradition of those told to "Go to War, Make Art" -- both in the Marine Corps and in the other branches of the military.

See the superb PBS series, "They Drew Fire," for more on combat artists.  Abbott Laboratories has its own magnificent collection of war art.  For more on the Marine Corps combat art program, and its permanent inclusion in the new Marine Corps Museum, click here.  For a look at Mike Fay's personal blog, Fire and Ice, click here.

We're going to assume that the combat art show is going to be in the same place the opening for it is: in other words, the (irony) Cold War Gallery, Building 70, at the Navy Museum, in the Washington Navy Yard.  My guess is it's moving later to the permanent digs at the new Marine Corps Museum. If this information later on turns out to be different, I'll update it when I know for sure.  In the meantime, here's a link to the Cold War Gallery: there does not seem to be a page up yet for the show itself (bummer).

In the meantime, at right is a look at Fay's finished work for "Between Sunset and Moonrise, Wazir Pass, Afghanistan."  His artwork, which the BBC and the Wall Street Journal have both profiled, contains any number of extremely moving images, particularly his sketchwork, and recently his bronzes.  Amazing stuff.  If you're in the DC area, do yourself the favor of catching this show, and acquainting yourself with the rich tradition of combatants who clarify through art what it's really like to be a veteran of war: the bad, the good and the ugly.

And while you're at it, be sure to check out our extensive collection here of links to art and war, and also art therapy -- a modality that doesn't work for everyone, but for those whom it helps, including combat veterans, a true blessing as a way to process the images lodged in the subconscious through a means that releases them therapeutically (i.e., catharsis).

The Vietnam Veteran as Exile: Missing in America, But Hidden in Plain Sight

My friend the veteran artist John Paul Hornbeck made this flag -- I just love it.  It carries forward the whole issue of POW/MIA into the present day, by asking in effect why the veteran is "still" Missing in America (that's the "MIA" part these days.)  He mocked up this flag, using the old and familiar symbol, to highlight the cause of homeless veterans in America -- a cause worth addressing.

I'm broadening the point, though, to something else:

Why ARE Vietnam veterans, in particular, still exiles in their own land?

And what should we, as a country, be doing about that?

Because failing to address that, failing to welcome back these warriors into their own land, perpetuating their exile both from what they've seen/done/experienced and how they were received when they returned -- has left a gigantic, gaping gash in the "fabric" of the American psyche; and decades worth of not addressing it has not resulted in any pain being healed.  Sure there are sporadic attempts made here and there, but they're relatively weak, lackluster, or involve too few people to really make a difference.

If you read Pat's "Welcome Home" story, or Claude Anshin Thomas', just to use the names of two representative Vietnam vets among thousands -- you find out that they are STRIKINGLY similar, almost verbatim copies of each other (and the rest who haven't written them, I suppose).  The hopes, the dreams, the flat-out fantasies (under the circumstances) of how they were to be received -- combined with the completely dashed, rejected and really shattered realities of how they were -- aie, the mind boggles.  It's surprising the whole generation of warriors didn't go postal, not just a few.  It also explains why so many of them are still living in pain to this day.  Turned into exiles by what they lived, that they had no possible means of integrating -- and shunned by the country they fought for.  If that woudn't give you issues, I'm not sure what would.

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So let's think outside the box on this, FAR outside the box.  (If the box is the status quo, that is, because that's not particularly impressive.)  What prevents us from giving veterans, in every city across America, down EVERY Main Street -- a true, genuine, and long-overdue "WELCOME HOME"?!

Couldn't we use that psychic energy we'd gain back as a nation -- from repairing the rent in our actual psyche -- to surge forward, and embrace our combat veterans from here on out, with all the services and the help they so desperately need?  We've seen the problem: it's been well-documented.  But even to go forward successfully, in this case, I think we also need to go backwards -- make use of the "invisible bridge" -- and welcome the group of veterans who are STILL waiting, 40 years out, for America to acknowledge their return.

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I learned a long time ago, that even in personal relationships, there's a big difference between the crappy/weak/self-serving apology -- "sorry IF I hurt your feelings" -- and an actual, gut-level, authentic and genuine apology, that takes responsibility, asks for forgiveness from the injured party, waits for the answer, or renegotiates the situation -- and then moves on, healed.  In the Bible, that's even called the difference between "worldly sorrow" (sorry I got caught) and "godly sorrow" (sorry that I did it, because I know it was wrong).  Without making a point about religion here, I'm merely trying to show that many traditions understand there's a difference between a heartfelt apology, a lame one, and none at all.  It's like the Oliver Wendell Holmes line from a few blog posts back, that "even a dog knows the difference between being kicked, and being tripped over."

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Let's harness or leverage the momentum from the current groundswell of public "enthusiasm" for veterans' rights, exemplified by support for passage of the new GI bill, and the continuing emphasis on not settling for less in healthcare, particularly PTSD and TBI.  Let's expand that, though, to other issues of concern to veterans, before the "mood" passes -- as it surely will -- to be eclipsed by other different, pressing concerns.  Let's settle our largely unspoken national shame with how we treated Vietnam veterans, while a few of them are still alive to appreciate that our apology is genuine, and acceptance would heal us all to be able to move forward.  What we don't want to do is to create two different classes of veterans: the ones we care about, who get the right treatments for the right reasons; and the ones we don't, because we frankly made such a mess of it it's just easier to overlook it than apologize and move on.  It's time to make things right for ALL veterans.  Let's have those Welcome Home parades NOW...

Editor's note: John Paul Hornbeck is the artist (and veteran) who made "Shattered Soldier," the lifesize scultpture of a veteran with PTSD, that we blogged about earlier, here.  He is the child of an American Vietnam war veteran Army father, and a Vietnamese mother.

Lisa Chedekel, Veteran Reporter on Veterans Issues, Allegedly to Take Courant Buyout

In the "Another One Bites the Dust " Dept., it's discouraging to learn that Lisa Chedekel, one of only a handful of truly great reporters on veterans issues – and by handful I really do mean, five or fewer -- is apparently taking a buyout offer from The Hartford Courant, the newspaper where she has reported for years, at least according on media-watcher blog, linked here.  (Sorry, Lisa, about the dismal, DMV-ish photo -- it's all I could find to identify you with to readers. )

 

This is particularly sad news for veterans, their families, and anyone else who wants to learn about the perils of their frequently inadequate mental health and treatments, because Chedekel, who specializes in what she calls "in-depth, old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting," has provided wonderful coverage of these topics over the years.  It’s disappointing to learn that Chedekel will be leaving the Courant, because it means one fewer voice covering this subject well; and perhaps no one to replace her who can do it nearly so well.

 

(There are others, of course, who do a great job covering veterans and mental health issues, but they are few and far between: The Washington Post's reporting duo of Anne Priest and Dana Hull, who did the seminal Walter Reed series; independent journalist Aaron Glantz, who's a new Rosalynn Carter fellow in mental health reporting this year; Mark Benjamin, who wrote about this topic in Salon and elsewhere well before it was popular on any level to do so; and Kathy Dobie, who seems to have a trauma survivor's insider's take on why this topic is so important.)

 

A 1982 grad of Wesleyan University, Chedekel's work has frequently been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.  Her fantastic investigative piece, Mentally Unfit, Forced to Fight, is fortunately still available on the Web, as is her recent article, "Mental Health Providers Too Few for Troops," linked here, and another titled, "Army Sees Record Number of Suicides in Iraq," linked here. 

 

Mentally Unfit, Forced to Fight, is one of the best articles to date that covers the murky ground where mental illness and military readiness co-exist, and specifically covered the U.S. military's cavernous gaps in mental health care for its soldiers.  Calling Chedekel's "Mentally Unfit, Forced to Fight," an "impressive investigation," a reporter at the renowned British paper, The Guardian, summarized its impact when he wrote:

 

The Hartford Courant found that, despite an order by Congress that the US military should assess the mental health of all deploying troops, fewer than one in 300 US personnel saw a mental health professional before deployment.

 

The paper says there is evidence of the US military "recycling" troops with mental health problems, redeploying them even if they develop PTSD. It also notes that the number of troop suicides in Iraq reached a high of 22 last year. The Courant says at least 11 of the soldiers who killed themselves were kept on duty "despite showing signs of significant psychological distress".

 

(This was news at the time, and we owe Chedekel’s reporting, and the  Hartford Courant’s resources, for contributing to growing public awareness of the problem. In the mostly misplaced anger that particularly military bloggers direct at the alleged "main stream media" -- sorry, that's two words, not three -- reporters come in for a lot of flak, as though inferior coverage starts and ends with them, as opposed to also the commercial concerns of running a newspaper, often one allied with business interests.  Since many of these disgruntled types seem reasonably unaware of the part that good journalism can play in helping move society forward -- by spotlighting a problem that needs to be solved, and writing persuasively about it so that people start to care -- I sometimes feel the urge to spell that out.  That's what Chedekel's work did for veterans, and we're thankful that at least some important changes came about, because of it.  Here's what that effort took.)