Memorial Day 2018

 

What toll extracted

When you have seen grief on mothers’ faces

Wearing buttons with sons’ pictures that look like you

Waves of death and rows of white head stones

Carried caskets varying in weight

Knowing that remaining portions of recovered bodies differ

Depending on how much is left after being blown apart by IEDs

Drilled into your head to have your buddy’s back at all times

But you don’t reenlist when your buddy does

To not be there when he is killed on a bridge in Afghanistan

While you are safe at home

Go to his funeral

Leave with these thoughts

And then your cork pops.

November 17, 2010

Six Degrees Of Separation - We Will Always Be Red Sox Fans

When Red Sox celebrate, so do I

There is much to the power of connections. Many have heard of the "six degrees of separation" theory -- the idea that everyone in the world is separated from everyone else by no more than six links. (1) Jan's friend's daughter is a consultant to the Boston Red Sox Foundation who helped set up the Home Base Program for Veterans with Massachusetts General Hospital. Through that connection, Jan's friend's daughter got us in touch with a social worker at Home Base who was able to connect us to a specialist in Portland, Oregon who could help our son outside of the Veterans Administration medical system. The BoSox were always a team of interest to me, especially when they made their recent runs and wins for the Baseball World Series (I have a friend from New England who just can't watch their games in the championship runs for fear of jinxing the outcome - I don't think he changes his underwear either). Our oldest son often wears a Boston ball cap, and has always has followed them, and when Jacoby Ellsbury from the Oregon State Beavers College World Series teams played with them, that made the team even more personal. But that Home Base folks were so helpful to us, we are established as a Red Sox family, forever.

Boston Globe Writer Kevin Cullen once featured Home Base in his Sunday column. He is the same writer who wrote about Adam Dickmyer's funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. Adam had been the squadron leader of the funeral detail for Senator Ted Kennedy, and Adam and Mike had served together at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier - more connections. Adam, Mike, Jan; Denise, Norma, Jan; Jan, Social Worker in Boston, someone in Oregon, Larry; Adam, the Senator's wife and doctor's nephew, Kevin; and me to these - less than six degrees of separation to all.
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Preparing Clinicians to Serve Veterans and Military Families (2)

As more Post 9/11 veterans choose to receive health care outside the VA, it is critical that community clinicians are prepared to understand military culture, and recognize and treat the “invisible wounds” of war. Thanks to new funding, Home Base is leading this effort in the New England area.

In addition to generous support from the Welcome Back Veterans Initiative of Major League Baseball and the McCormick Foundation, Home Base has received funding new from the Bob Woodruff Foundation and the MA Attorney General’s Office to significantly enhance our clinical education efforts through The Training Institute at Home Base: a Welcome Back Veterans education initiative to heal the invisible wounds of war. With funding from the Woodruff Foundation, Home Base will conduct a comprehensive needs assessment of non-VA clinicians throughout New England in order to document their willingness to treat Post 9/11 veterans and military families in their practices. The web-based survey will assess community clinicians’ experience in providing evidence-based mental health treatment, and their interest in receiving additional training in evidence-based therapy. In addition, the grant will allow Home Base to map and document the location and accessibility of evidence-based clinical treatment for the invisible wounds of war in New England.

“This year, it’s estimated that 40% of returning veterans will be cared for in non-VA, community health care settings. We know from our work in educating communities about the needs of returning veterans and their families that clinicians want to learn how to help fill gaps in care. For the first time, this generous grant from the Woodruff Foundation will enable us to fully document clinical training needs and optimally target our efforts to ensure that veterans and their families have access to evidence-based treatment that is sensitive to the needs of our Post 9/11 veterans and military families impacted by the invisible wounds such as PTSD and traumatic brain injury,” said Naomi Simon, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Home Base.

In May, Home Base was among the organizations to receive funding from the MA Office of the Attorney General to help reduce the stigma associated with seeking help for mental illness and substance abuse. Attorney General Martha Coakley awarded nearly $8 million to a total of 22 organizations across the Commonwealth in order to increase access to behavioral health services. The grant will enable Home Base to provide training to First Responders, patient care and Rehabilitation Professionals to recognize and respond to the mental health needs of Post 9/11 veterans and military families.

“Police, Fire and Emergency First Responders as well as patient care and rehabilitation health professionals are critical partners in identifying and responding to the ‘invisible wounds’ of war among our returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their families. Home Base is eager to provide education and training to this community, and extremely grateful to the Office of the Attorney General for this extraordinary commitment to improving the health of Post 9/11 veterans and their families who have served and sacrificed for our nation,” said Brigadier General (ret) Jack Hammond, Executive Director of Home Base.

The Training Institute at Home Base is funded by a two year, national grant from the Robert R. McCormick Foundation and Major League Baseball. It will offer free on-line and in-person training for clinicians throughout New England through the War Zone to the Home Front series presented in collaboration with the VA’s National Center for PTSD; provide in-depth, multi-week courses on-line; and offer targeted consultation training and clinical supervision, considered the “gold standard” in clinical training.
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(1) From ABC News, Six Degrees of Separation: Fact or Fiction? (here)
(2) From the Home Base Program, Summer 2014 Newsletter

Memorial Day 2014 - Who Would Have Known

Who would have known. We thought our Army son being posted in a safe place for the four years of his active service would spare us from the significant stress that families experience who have their sons or daughters deployed to war zones. We had not expected that 42 months after his discharge, we would come to realize the strains of war are not only experienced by deployed military personnel, but can be for any involved in the making of war - we also learned about the frailties of an overloaded Veterans Administration health care system strained beyond its capacity to meet the needs of Veterans due to the cumulative effects of aged populations of Vietnam Veterans, Baby Boomer Generation Veterans, and Veterans from more than ten years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the midst of recent revelations about problems with the VA health care system and Congressional inquiries and 42 months after the reality of our son's condition surfaced, a fourth review panel has acknowledged the long string of diagnoses by his care givers since December 2010 - validation and relief, regardless of the reason for approval now.

We determined that the following condition 

Was related to your military service, 

So service connection has been granted:

Other specified trauma and stressor related disorder,

Adjustment-like disorder,

Dysthymia (claimed as posttraumatic stress disorder),

Depression,

Anxiety,

Insomnia

We denied entitlement to the 100% rate 

Because it wasn't shown

That you are unable to work

As a result of your service connected disabilities.

We determined that the following condition

Was not related to your military service,

So service connection remains denied:

Posttraumatic stress disorder.

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I came across a series of insightful postings for Time Magazine by a retired Army psychiatrist named Elspeth Cameron Ritchie under the discontinued banner Battleland - Military Intelligence for the Rest of Us . Her postings regarding Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) discuss the complexities of military-related service and the diagnoses of PTSD and other mental health issue for military personnel - it is not just about PTSD. Another article that points out additional complexities of health and military service is found here. The broad awareness of PTSD is important, but as Ritchie points out, a focus on PTSD alone is not helpful.

Veterans Day - 2013 - A Poem Remembering

Adam - Meal after Mike's Last Walk

Adam Dickmyer was killed three years ago - the first casualty of the wars who we knew - the first military funeral we have attended - experienced the sad expression on a widow's face. Times to remember. We have been a military family for ten years: one son an Army Veteran, a second a deployed Navy pilot. I assume there are ways parents are affected by their Veteran children's responses to the conflicts caused by our broken world. Adam's death sent our family into a journey we hadn't expected - our Veteran son was safe his time in the Army - so we thought. A year ago was a period with months added to months of times before, and times of months since, that have consumed our thoughts - the consequences of military conflicts that may not be seen, may not be so obvious as the final losses of ultimate sacrifices.

Veterans Day 2013 – A Poem Remembering

The evening paper in its plastic sleeve rests on the driveway concrete,

Touching the grass lawn skirt at the edge.

It’s 2:00 AM, February 1.

I had just driven home from the airport –

A short, two-night business trip to cold St. Paul,

And now home – the house is empty.

The paper lying there was a novelty –

Knowing she wouldn’t be home for a while –

My wife put on a delivery hold starting December 10.

With all that was planned in the upcoming weeks,

And the unknowns:

Navy Winging Ceremony in Corpus Christi,

A granddaughter’s birthday,
And a month later a grandson’s, too,
Christmas in Oregon,

All my comings and goings for work travel,

Uncertainties, our Army Veteran son

Set up with a new psychiatrist –

Our frail hopes already worn thin the past two years,

His frail hopes worn far worse than ours’– close to being gone;

At that time, the beginning of February

Seemed far enough out to resume delivery.

She comes home tomorrow night.

It’s been a long time since we sat together in our house,

Reading the paper.

February 3, 2012 
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April 21, 2015. It was not acknowledged by The Veterans Administration that our son was suffering from a service-related condition until the end of May 2014.