KPBS: "How Does Stress Of War Affect Military Families?"

September 23, 2009

MAUREEN CAVANAUGH (Host): I'm Maureen Cavanaugh, and you're listening to These Days on KPBS. When the tour of duty is over, some veterans find the battle to regain their normal lives has just begun. This morning, the KPBS series “War Comes Home,” focuses on the challenges that face veterans and their families as these former warriors transition into civilian life. Some vets are dealing with invisible wounds. Traumatic brain injury has been called the signature combat injury of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And, post traumatic stress disorder, if not treated, can last for years and tear relationships apart. The good news is there is a lot of help available for returning veterans and their families. And, we're about to speak to several guests who know both the challenges and the support that exists for military families. I’d like to welcome my guests. Benjamin Karney is associate professor of psychology at UCLA, and an adjunct behavioral scientist at the Rand Corporation. Ben, welcome to These Days....>>>>rest of Audio Transcript found here of show in player below, also can be heard at site.

War Comes Home: San Diego Military Families

September 25, 2009, Above: KPBS Reporter Alison St John, who produced the series "War Comes Home", talks about special challenges faced by military families in San Diego. Transcript for Video.

Washington's Battle against America's Veterans

"The War Comes Home: Washington's Battle against America's Veterans"

Veterans for Common Sense highly recommends this well-written documentary about how poorly our Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans are being treated. As the Houston Chronicle editorial board wrote on December 14, 2008, "Since the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and all of the resulting harms to soldiers, civilians, economies and constitutional principles, no segment of society has been more abused and neglected than returning U.S. military veterans."

Description

The War Comes Home is the first book to systematically document the U.S. government's neglect of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Aaron Glantz, who reported extensively from Iraq during the first three years of this war and has been reporting on the plight of veterans ever since, levels a devastating indictment against the Bush administration for its bald neglect of soldiers and its disingenuous reneging on their benefits. Glantz interviewed more than one hundred recent war veterans, and here he intersperses their haunting first-person accounts with investigations into specific concerns, such as the scandal at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. This timely book does more than provide us with a personal connection to those whose service has cost them so dearly. It compels us to confront how America treats its veterans and to consider what kind of nation deifies its soldiers and then casts them off as damaged goods.

Reviews of "The War Comes Home" --

"A breathtaking rebuke to government hypocrisy and an overdue contribution to gaining critical public awareness of this official neglect."—Publishers Weekly

"Aaron Glantz is one of the truly outstanding young journalists of our times." —Bob McChesney, author of Rich Media, Poor Democracy, and founder of Free Press

"One of the many scandals of the war in Iraq is how the administration has betrayed our returning servicemen. I'm grateful that the facts surrounding these tragedies are finally being exposed."—Paul Haggis, Academy-Award-winning director of Crash and In the Valley of Elah, screenwriter of Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima

"A must-read for those who claim to support our troops."—Robert G. Gard, Lt. General, U.S. Army (ret.)

"The treatment by the Bush Administration of America's returning veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is one of the saddest chapters in American history. This story is painfully documented by Aaron Glantz. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to make the phrase, 'Support the Troops,' more than a slogan."—Former US Senator Max Cleland

"A fitting tribute to what these men and women fought and risked their lives and well-being for."—Gerald Nicosia, author of Home to War

"This superbly documented and eloquent book is a clarion call for honesty, compassion, outrage, and an end to the lies that cause so much suffering in far-off countries and in our own nation."—Norman Solomon, author of War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death

"Aaron Glantz draws on his eyewitness experiences of reporting in Iraq to bring the courage and the suffering of our troops into vivid relief. The War Comes Home exposes how physical and mental injuries plague our returning servicemen and what we can do about it."—Linda Bilmes, coauthor of The Three Trillion Dollar War

"Weep, America, cringe, America. We talk a good game about honoring all those who go into harm's way for our sake and caring for those who get physically and psychologically broken, but do we go beyond fine words and a few gold-plated flagship medical facilities? Are we walking the walk? Are we getting it right? Aaron Glantz is in our face on the military treatment facilities, the VA, and civilian society at large."—Jonathan Shay, MD, PhD, author of Achilles in Vietnam and Odysseus in America. MacArthur Fellow

"Aaron Glantz reports on the human cost of war, what it does physically and emotionally to those young men and women who carry out industrial slaughter. He rips apart the myths we tell ourselves about war and illustrates, in painful detail, the dark psychological holes that those who have been through war's trauma endure and will always endure. He reminds us that the essence of war is not glory, heroism, and honor but death."—Chris Hedges, former New York Times foreign correspondent, author of War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning

"We should all be reading people like Greg Palast and Aaron Glantz."—Al Kennedy, The Guardian (UK)

The War Comes Home: Washington's Battle against America's Veterans

Body Of War

Last night, 3-21-08, on the PBS Bill Moyers Journal, Bill talked
with Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro on the true cost of war and their documentary, BODY OF WAR

The filmmakers talk about Iraq war veteran Tomas Young who was shot and paralyzed less than a week into his tour of duty. Three years in the making, BODY OF WAR tells the poignant tale of the young man’s journey from joining the service after 9/11 to fight in Afghanistan, to living with devastating wounds after being deployed to Iraq instead.

BODY OF WAR
The official site for the documentary includes behind-the-scenes photos, video and a listing of showings in the U.S.

In case you didn't know about this weeks show, or missed it or part of it, you can view part one here followed by part two here

You can also find a link to the transcript and much more.

Especially this:

Tomas Young worked with musician Eddie Vedder on an album to accompany BODY OF WAR.

Visit the Web site for the album and then head over to the blog to tell us about your favorite protest songs.

When you enter the Album Website you will listen to the Documentary Track Theme Song No More by Eddie Vedder and Ben Harper

After viewing the Journals show, and the Documentary site as well as the Album site, a Re-Visit, or first visit, to War Comes Home - Winter Soldiers - Iraq and Afganistan would be in order! As well as a Visit to The Real News Network Iraq Page to view a number of the Testimonies from 'Winter Soldier 2008' as well as newly added video's about Iraq.

4,000

GI death toll in Iraq nears 4,000
Three U.S. soldiers die in Iraq, toll nears 4,000

The three deaths, which brought the number of U.S. soldiers killed since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 to 3,996, came just days after U.S. President George W. Bush said the United States was on track to victory in Iraq.

A psychic Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski


Thomas - Three Questions for Pres. Candidates

'Shoutout', 'Action', 'Winter Soldier', 'Congressional Hearings'

On this day, 3-19-08, the 5th anniversary of the Occupation of Iraq, some may attend the thousands of candlelight vigils around the country.

Some may have other vigils of remembrance planned.

Some may write of their feelings.

Some may have other ways to observe and remember the Fallen and Maimed of our Military and the Tens of Thousands of the Innocent Killed and Maimed and Millions thrust into refugee status due to our countries Failed Policies.

Some may do nothing.

U.S. Deaths Confirmed By The DoD: 3988

Reported U.S. Deaths Pending DoD Confirmation: 2

Total 3990

DoD Confirmation List

I have a request that I would ask any and all reading this to please do.

This past weekend an Important Historical Event took place, War Comes Home - Winter Soldier II

Listen to a A Montage That Cuts to the Heart of the War and Winter Soldier {mp3}

You can listen to the testimonies Here with photo's and much more. You can view a number of Video's, of the testimonies, at The Real News Network along with other outstanding News updates from Iraq. You can also find the testimony Video's at the site of the Iraq/Afgan Veterans who organized the Truth of Occupation -IVAW as well as much more, along with the ability To Support and Help As They Grow

They have given their Testimonies, those Testimonies, though not carried nor reported as they should have been by the mainstream media, are now in the record as Audio, Video, and Transcripts.

All that is needed now is to get them into the Congressional Record as were the Winter Soldier Investigations of 1971

Immediately following the WSI, Senator George McGovern and Representative John Conyers announced that they were calling for congressional investigations based on the testimony. This announcement was received with skepticism by the veterans, but VVAW representatives agreed to meet with McGovern and Conyers.

The Iraq/Afgan Soldiers who testified requested that a Congressional Investigation be held, most, if not all, who testified this past weekend, also the 40th Anniversary of the My Lai Massacre, which in part sparked the first 'Winter Soldier Investigations', are more than willing to bring their testimonies in front of The Peoples Congress to be Sworn in, Under Oath, as the first 'Winter Soldier' to bring better understanding to those who don't serve, have never served, nor lived in theaters of conflict occupations, the Realities of War, Especially Wars of Choice, Not Need!

These testimonies, like the first 'Winter Soldier', cover a wide veriaty of issues as to the military, spoken or understood policies of a combat theater of operation, treatment of returning veterans, treatment of female veterans, hazing within the ranks, treatment of civilian populations, possible atrocities, possible war crimes, what War Is!

Many of us have written our congressional representatives requesting a Congeressional Investigation and Hearing on the testimonies given and any more that will come forward from these failed foreign policies of civilian and military leadership.

I ask that those reading take a few minutes and Also Write, or Call your own Congressional Representatives and request same, to get the sworn testimonies into the public record, The Congressional Record of Fact!

I'm not quite done yet, with my request to you, though:

Once again small groups have come forth, even before the testimonies started, they were calling these Brave Soldiers, of whom these groups say they 'Support', Fakes and Liers, Verbally Spitting on the troops, as happened after Vietnam! Two of these groups, a tiny contingement, 30 to 40 people, of 'eagles up', i.e. 'gathering of eagles', or whatever next weeks name might be, and 'move america forward' were there, outside of DC this past weekend, speaking the same talking points to the few who would listen, there's a few interview video's at The Real News Network that will give you the inside to their ideology.

Most of those that start these groups have been doing so for alot of years, mostly since 'Nam, they claim proof of their rethoric yet when confronted for some reason that 'proof' can't be produced, words of anger and hate are the only thing used.

I would further my request, as many of us all ready have done, that you include these groups, any others you might know of, and those using todays technology passing the same rethoric of false claims and slander to be included in the Congressional Investigation and Hearings!

If they have any first hand proof, of their slanderous charges, than it should be Finally Placed into the Public Record for All To See, to vent, and to dispel!

Let us close the door on this form of Verbal Spitting, especially on the Military Troops they claim to Support, as these troop return home, repeating what was done to us 'Nam Vets, speaking and living the experiances of War that these groups haven't.

Have them testify along side those who have served and are more than willing to archive their testimonies into the public record!

Please contact your representatives today, and over the next couple of days, and request that congress open investigations and hearings ASAP!!

Peace and
Thank You!!

If You Visit

'The Real News Network' link, above, at the top of their list, just before the video's about 'Winter Soldier' you will find two New Reports: Baghdad: City of Walls!

Watch them, to better understand our Occupation Control over an Innocent Country and it's People!

Would You Want To Live This Way??