UA to Study Veterans Reintegration, Obama Aims to Nationalize Montana National Guard PTSD Screening Program, Vets and Intimacy

• As the new GI Bill rolls out, the University of Arizona (with ~400 veterans already on its campus) is gearing up to welcome even more onto its rolls. Their Teaching Center is "developing a transition curriculum for veterans and is training faculty on how to teach them ... [and] has begun to offer veterans classes on resilience and stress management...designed to improve memory, strengthen problem-solving skills and build a social support network." Vets attending the University of Arizona will also be able to take part in their Disability Resource Center's federal Participatory Action Research Project , which will "study veterans reintegration and transition from the military into college." UA is hosting a celebration for veterans and their sponsors on Thursday, Oct. 9, from 4-6 p.m. in the Student Union Memorial Center.
  
  
• This past Wednesday, presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama met with Matt Kuntz, the stepbrother of Montana National Guard and Iraq vet Chris Dana. Dana "took his life in March 2007, less than two years after returning from a tour in Iraq. His family believes he was a victim of post traumatic stress disorder, brought on by his combat experience." Since then, his stepbrother has been among those pushing Montana to implement "more than a dozen changes in its policies in an effort to address PTSD and traumatic brain injuries in returning soldiers. A key initiative in the new plan is to screen all returning soldiers every six months for two years after their tour of duty." Obama has promised that he would "expand Montana's pilot program to assess the mental health of combat vets nationwide."
  
  
• Last week, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune's Gail Rosenblum delivered an important piece on "the private scars of war," intimately introducing us to one family dealing with the most personal after-effects of war. With ~56 percent of today's troops being married, "the U.S. Defense and Veteran's Affairs departments are acknowledging that the physical and emotional scars that troops carry home present a sensitive challenge: sexual intimacy and body-image issues that most couples' therapists are ill-prepared to treat. ...The number of people returning with disabilities, is an 'enormous problem ... an astonishing problem.' ...Combined with the fact that returning vets are usually older and partnered, this is having a devastating effect on relationships."

Wednesday: 'In Their Boots' Webcast Series Airs Story on Veteran Limb Loss, PTSD

Beginning last month, in the days immediately before Independence Day, a riveting series called "In Their Boots" laced up and hit the Internet for the first time. It offers the nation's 99.5% of non-serving civilians an intimate portrait into the struggles and successes of our military families today.

Ever since its first webcast, host Jan Bender (an Iraq vet and Marine himself) and the Brave New Foundation team have been broadcasting a new live and interactive episode every Wednesday night at 4pm Pacific/7pm Eastern. Each week, viewers are invited to listen to the stories of Iraq and Afghanistan service and family members, learn about the groups and organizations that are helping them, and then called to help in some way as well.

This week's episode ("War Scar"), airing on August 27, 2008, introduces us to Jerry Cortinas, "a Green Beret in the U.S. Army Special Forces from 1997 to 2004. The focused and challenging work of a Green Beret was what he knew and what he loved. While operating a rocket propelled grenade in Afghanistan in December 2002, the device malfunctioned and exploded, taking his left forearm and hand. Jerry could no longer do his job. He felt like an outsider in his own hometown."

Jerry's wife, Celina, paints a portrait of a strong (yet still made of flesh and blood and feelings and prides and hurts like the rest of us) Army wife, now faced with "the challenge of helping her husband adapt to civilian life and supporting him as he returned to his role as husband and father" to their two kids.

Sept. 16-18: VA OIF/OEF Veterans and Families Advisory Committee Set to Meet in Palo Alto, CA

Please pass this on, especially to those in the area who may wish to add their voices, experiences. Those who wish to have five minutes to speak to the committee must pre-register by September 10. Details in extended below:

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) gives notice under Public Law 92–463 (Federal Advisory Committee Act) that the Advisory Committee on OIF/OEF Veterans and Families will conduct a meeting and a site visit in the Palo Alto, California area on September 16–18, 2008. Committee activities will include tours and briefings at various VA facilities.

The purpose of the Committee is to advise the Secretary of Veterans Affairs on the full spectrum of health care, benefits delivery and related family support issues that confront service members during their transition from active duty to veteran status and during their post-service years.

The Committee will focus on the concerns of all men and women with active military service in Operation Iraqi Freedom and/or Operation Enduring Freedom, but will pay particular attention to severely disabled veterans and their families.

The agenda for the September 16–18 meeting will include briefings on recent site visits, discussions on proposed recommendations to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and tours of the VA Medical Center. The Committee will discuss its findings and observations based on previous Committee meetings, site visits, written reports, and personal experiences.

New York Times Reports on the Unique Characteristics of Combat TBI

Lizette Alvarez of the New York Times writes of the special blast category that is combat-related traumatic brain injury (TBI). The entire piece is well worth a read, but I'd like to share a few of the more statistics-heavy grafs:

As many as 300,000, or 20 percent, of combat veterans who regularly worked outside the wire, away from bases, have suffered at least one concussion, according to the latest Pentagon estimates. About half the soldiers get better within hours, days or several months and require little if any medical assistance. But tens of thousands of others have longer-term problems that can include, to varying degrees, persistent memory loss, headaches, mood swings, dizziness, hearing problems and light sensitivity. ...

Little is known medically by doctors or scientists about what happens to a brain as a result of a powerful bomb blast, as opposed to car crashes on a highway, blows to the head on a football field or a bullet wound. These are the first wars in which soldiers, protected by strong armor and rapid medical care, routinely survive explosions at close range and then return to combat.

The bomb blasts, which throw off energy waves — atmospheric overpressures and underpressures — that are absorbed by the body, add a little-studied dimension to the trauma. Scientists are only now beginning to study the extent of the damage.