Tag Archives: PTSD

Sea of Goodwill Series: Navigating the Sea of Goodwill

Posted on by Devin

This week’s guest blogger is Bill Salesky, a Senior Consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton and an enlisted member of the Air Force Reserve. In this blog, Bill shares his thoughts on the resources needed for the transition home.

Like many other Americans, I know those who have been deployed overseas – they are friends; they are classmates; they are colleagues.  One needs only turn on the television or read a newspaper to see the stories about service men and women on their second or third tour of duty.  Some are active duty, some are reservists like me, and some are National Guard.  What they all have in common is that they left their families and “normal lives” for months at a time to answer America’s call to duty.

Upon their return, veterans and their families have a variety of needs as they work to re-integrate into each local community.  The navigation of the 400,000 nationwide organizations supporting and providing resources to the veteran community is no simple task.  An example of how overwhelming it can be to find a specific resource across the extensive amount of resources can be illustrated through a veteran’s search of the phrase “post traumatic stress disorder.”  This disorder is one of the more common afflictions after military service abroad.  This key phrase yields over 5 million results and does not quickly get the veteran to the answers or resources he/she needs.

To better support our veterans and their families, it is imperative to have a platform dedicated to nothing more than navigating the vast array of resources and services available to their needs.  There needs to be one additional resource which is the connection and portal to link the other 400,000 resources while addressing the needs of the veteran community.

Bill Salesky

Sr. Airman, U.S. Air Force Reserve


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Veterans Program a Success with Colorado Springs Veterans

Posted on by Devin

Pikes Peak Behavioral Health Group’s Peer Navigator program is successfully helping veterans with making their way through the often confusing world of VA benefits and healthcare.   The group connects veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) experts in cutting through the red tape and getting the services these veterans need.  Kevin Porter, director of public affairs for the organization, says “A few hundred Colorado veterans have benefited from the program so far.”   The program provides a “friendly face” to guide former military personnel and their families through the transition back to the civilian world.

This program stands out from other programs because of its immediate response to the requests for help.  “Our peer navigator, if you’re at church if you’re at home or you’re at a bar, they’re dispatched to that location, just like an ambulance would be,” says Porter.  This program gives veterans hope for their futures as citizens in the country they defended.

For more on this recent success story view the full article.

Do you have experience with this or other VA programs for the Colorado Springs area?  Click here.

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May is Mental Health Month

Posted on by Chris

May is National Mental Health Month. This is a month for us to reflect on the impact and prevalence of mental health issues. It’s a month to speak openly and freely about issues which are common, but commonly stigmatized.

Which is why this month the Warrior Gateway will be posting a series of resources, stories, and other information related to mental health and the military community. Stay posted for more!

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Helping service members with the emotional cost of war

Posted on by Chris

M. David Rudd (dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Science and scientific director of the National Center for Veterans Studies at the University of Utah) has a good opinion piece in USA Today that discusses the tension between the ‘warrior identity’ built into our men and women in combat and the inevitable emotional baggage that comes along with killing and living in an atmosphere of frequent danger. As Rudd notes, there is a major perceived distinction between physical and mental injuries–while physical injuries are obvious and there is little stigma surrounding them, admitting to ‘mental wounds’ is often thought of as a sign of weakness–a weakness which conflicts with the ‘warrior identity.’

Rudd discusses the effect the stigma surrounding mental wounds on the recent increase in suicides among the military community, noting that the people often most in need are also those most reluctant to seek out help. Russ also suggests a number of possible solutions to the problem surrounding admitting and seeking help for their emotional baggage:

• Talk more frequently beforehand about optimal performance and resilience in combat, rather than post-trauma symptoms and mental illness afterward.

• Help soldiers construct a warrior identity that more clearly integrates the emotional consequences of killing.

• Encourage military leaders at the highest levels to talk openly about their own difficulty after combat experience, something that is already happening and is very effective at combating stigma.

Click here to read the full article.

Then and now: a reflection on returning OEF/OIF veterans

Posted on by Chris

Belleruth Naparstek has a good piece at the Huffington Post about the differing climate facing returning veterans from the Iraq/Afghan conflicts and the Vietnam War 40 years ago. She comments on medical advances in the understanding/diagnosis of PTSD, the cultural shift in valuing the sacrifices made by our service men and women, and a change in the DoD’s and VA’s attitude to treating  psychological wounds.

This new group of active military in Iraq and Afghanistan knows what’s happening to them, to a much greater extent. There’s been a push to educate our troops and the general public about posttraumatic stress as well as TBI’s (traumatic brain injury), thanks to a renewed commitment to the mental health of our troops, found in both the Department of Defense and the V.A. Secretaries Gates and Shinseki have been working hard at destigmatizing mental health problems, in ways never seen before. So that’s another lesson learned from Vietnam, and no small matter. Still, career soldiers still worry a lot about stigma.

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So now that we’re learning about the new barriers to receiving help — some quite positive, by the way (Indeed, what’s wrong with not wanting to be a career patient, anyway?), I expect the V.A. will get more flexible in how it offers services. And there will hopefully be much more widespread use of self-administered guided imagery downloads — shown at multiple research sites to reduce symptoms quickly and pretty dramatically while being a pleasant and self-reinforcing experience for the listener. Not to mention inexpensive and useable even in remote locations.

We are getting so much more interest and openness to guided imagery than even a year ago, from both the DoD and the VA. These are great trends, very hopeful. I do believe we’re gonna seriously help a lot of vets.

It’s a good read with some interesting discussion going on in the comments section; check out the full article here.