J PATRICK LAMOUREUX

2011-11-11T16:46:00.001-08:00

Today is November 11, 2011. Remember our Veterans. all Veterans, and never forget Pat Lamoureux.

How September 11, 2001 changed my life

2011-09-09T17:19:00.000-07:00

As we approach the 10^th anniversary of September11, 2001, I hope everyone will stop and consider how far reaching the effectsof “9/11” have been on our country. Consider not only what happened that day, but what has happened to many other families since that day.

2,977 people died as a result of the terrorist attacks thatmorning. 2,606 at the World TradeCenter location; 125 at the Pentagon; 87 on American Flight #11; 60 on United Flight #175; 59 on American Flight 77; and 40 on United Flight #93. Morethan 70 countries lost citizens that day.^{(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11,_2001_attacks)}

The numbers of families impacted that day: 1609 people losta spouse/partner, and at least 3,051 children lost a parent. ^{http://nymag.com/news/articles/wtc/1year/numbers.htm}

The effects of that day continue to impact our country. As the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq rage on,on September 5, 2011, the U.S. Central Command confirmed 6,200 casualties from the wars.^9/5/11^{http://militarytimes.com/valor/}

On September 1, 2011, the Associated Press reported thatAugust 2011 marked the first month since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, that nocasualties were reported in Iraq. The AP reported that 4,474 deaths hadoccurred in Iraq alone since 2003.

If there had never been a 9/11, families would not have lost their loved ones in these wars on foreign soil. They would not have had to meet that flag-draped casket at the airport returning from a long journey across the sea.

If there had never been a 9/11, we would not have familieswhose loved ones came home missing limbs, badly burned, and debilitated fromtheir service to our country – not only physically wounded, but also PSYCHOLOGICALLYwounded.

On September 5, 2011, Veterans for Common Sense reportedthat every day, 18 veterans complete suicide. For the past two years, more veterans have died as a result of suicidethan were killed by the enemy.

“In war, there are no unwounded soldiers” (J. Narosky); thewounds of war are not always visible, but the psychological wounds of war arejust as real as the physical wounds.

Prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Veterans Administration had communicatedto the White House that the “estimated” cases of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD) resulting from the war in Iraq would be 8,000. That is not a typographical error; in 2003 theVA estimated 8,000 cases of combat related PTSD.

In September 2009, Stanford University released informationfrom a study which indicated that we can expect an astounding 700,000 soldiers to be impacted byPTSD. That number is far more realistic thanthe 2003 estimate.

Pat Lamoureux 2002/2003

Everyone should remember that those 700,000 soldiers havefamilies, and PTSD also impacts the members of that soldier’s family.

I believe that on September 19, 2008 my life was directlyimpacted as a result of 9/11. OnSeptember 19, 2008, my wonderful, kind, caring, loving husband snapped.

If he had not been in the Army Reserve, hewould not have been activated and sent to Iraq with the invasion forces in 2003. He would not have come home only toreceive inadequate and inappropriate care from the VA. He would not have spent 2-1/2years confined in a county jail without a trial, and he would not have beensitting in prison for the past 6 months.

Pat Lamoureux 9/5/2011

Southern Desert Correctional Center

If we are lucky, he will be able to come home in 3 years. We will have lost 6 years of our lives. This happenedbecause my husband was sent to Iraq following the events of the morning ofSeptember 11, 2001. He was proud to serve our country - and he deserves better treatment than he has received.

None of us will never forget 9/11 – but as Americans we must alsoremember the great sacrifices our military forces have made as a result of thatill-fated day.

When you see a soldier in uniform, thank them for theirservice. They serve to protect ourcountry in hopes that we will never suffer another attack on our country as we did on 9/11/01.

God bless everyone whose life was changed because of thatill-fated day in 2001. ~ Sue Lamoureux

The broken "JUSTICE" System in America - Casey Anthony/Pat Lamoureux

2011-07-10T12:38:00.000-07:00

Today, many people in America are outraged over the verdict reached this week by a jury in Florida.

This week, a young mother, Casey Anthony, was found not guilty in a court of law in Florida. She was charged with the death of her beautiful daughter, Caylee.

I have followed this case since it first broke three years ago. The resemblance of Caylee and my daughter, Heather, at the same age was striking. I did not miss a minute of the televised court case, and how this jury came back with 3 not guilty verdicts on the most serious charges, is completely beyond me.

This case and Pat's case, in my opinion, clearly prove that the "Justice" system in America is broken. Casey Anthony should be serving time in prison for the apparent (deadly) neglect of her daughter; but she will be free.

On Sunday, July 17, 2011, Casey Anthony will walk out a free woman. She got away with murder, or at the very least, she had a hand in what happened to Caylee. Caylee did not put three pieces of duct tape over her own mouth, grab some trash bags, a laundry bag, walk down the street, crawl in the bags and lay down in a swamp to die and decompose.

My husband served this country proudly. He came home from combat a changed man. The Public Defender who represented him, sat and did nothing, while the District Attorney performed meticulous character assassination for 5 hours in a "sentencing hearing" - which the DA turned into a 'min-trial'.

Pat sits in prison, struggling to receive proper medical care and the proper medications. Many ignorant people said "oh, he can get the help he needs in prison." Well, he is not getting proper medical care, and he certainly is not getting any kind of psychological care.

After sitting in the county jail for 2-1/2 years, the proper sentencing would have been to court order in-patient treatment, and a period of probation. Prison was not the right answer.

Since he was sent to prison in February 2011, I can see my husband's mental status beginning to deteriorate. There is nothing - absolutely nothing, that I can do.

The war did not take my husband while he was away in combat, but it did take him once he came home. Now the "Justice System" is picking away at destroying an outstanding man - he is crumbling, and we have at least over three years to go.

This is a complete miscarriage of 'justice'. He should be getting proper psychological treatment, and not being treated like some "career criminal".

I am disgusted by the fact that what we call the "Justice System" fails to deliver true justice. It is hard to comprehend that men and women who serve our country in combat get treated like dirt - and that this woman, Casey Anthony, will walk the streets a free person.

THE FORGOTTEN WOMEN IN SOCIETY

2011-03-19T15:22:00.000-07:00

The "Prison Wife" is the forgotten one, as she waits at home for her husband. Our society takes care of the sick, the dying, the homeless, but the prisoner's wife is alone and forgotten.

When everything first "happens" after the court sentencing - the phone buzzes constantly, and there are e-mails and text messages - and then, everyone goes on with their lives - and the wife of an inmate finds silence on a daily basis.   It was the same way after the incident of September 2008 - so this time after the hearing on February 15, 2011, I knew it was coming again - that silence.

A "prison wife" is faced with insurmountable problems; financial, emotional, psychological, social, stigmatization, health problems to face alone. She keeps the household "together" until her husband comes home. She pays the bills, pays the rent, the car payments, insurance and hopes there is enough left for other things.

She has to ask others for help around the house, and just about everything else under the sun. There are things the landlord is not responsible for. Finances are tight, so she has to ask friends/family to come and help.   It's not "just around the corner" when I need someone to help me. It's an hour drive out and back, plus the time someone must take out of their day to help me.

A "prison wife" even has to tie up the loose ends with the court system, that paper that says he's convicted is important. She also has to claim her husband's personal items from the jail. Then the devastating day comes when she has to go to the Sheriff's Office to claim the "evidence" that was seized that night.   It brings the event straight back almost as if it was being lived again.

When they pulled that laptop out of the evidence bag, I thought I would throw up or faint. Item by item, Pat's watch, his eyeglasses, a coin that he carried that my ex-husband gave him, the underwear and summer shorts he was wearing that they cut off of him.   Of course all of this stuff was in evidence bags that also contained shell casings and bullet fragments which spilled out on the floor.

And as holidays and birthdays come and go, the "prison wife" is alone and lonely, most often faced with depression.  Certainly family say "come and be with us" - but it is hard to celebrate anything or be around anyone on those days which used to be such special family times - because there is someone missing.

Sometimes it is difficult to even face another day. The "prison wife" lives in hiding because she is afraid of what people will think, and she doesn't want the neighbors to find out or know who she is.

When her husband goes to prison, the wife goes through a period of "grieving." She goes through the same "grieving process" that a widow goes through. The only difference is that the widow can eventually move on, while the prison wife cannot.   She waits..............

The Prison Wife is a "wife," without a husband.

It is difficult to make new friends. It is hard to go out and socialize. People ask questions when they see your wedding rings; what does your husband do; where is your husband.  It is not easy to explain that your husband is in prison.   It is even more difficult to try to explain how he got to prison - because the American public hold law enforcement above even our combat Veterans.   If you "shoot a cop" - you're going to prison, they don't care what the details are.

Then if you do attempt to go out, there is the fear people might view you as being "unfaithful".  On an internet 'comment' section on one of the articles about Pat's case someone posted that the source of this problem was an unfaithful wife. I can only assume that someone recognized me and saw me with one of two of Pat's friends (male) that had come out to see him. After we visited him, we went out to a public place before the friend left town. Or perhaps they may have seen me with my ex-husband who is one of Pat's very good friends. Many of you know they have known each other longer than I have known Pat.

It hurts to think people would believe I would be unfaithful to Pat.

After a certain amount of time (months or even years), it is acceptable in our society for a widow to step out, and start dating and even re-marry. The Prison Wife who is faithful and dedicated to her husband does not have this option....some women wait years for their man to return...10, even 20 or more years.

Two years ago in June 2009, approximately 2,297,400 were incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails............ that makes me wonder just how many wives and loved ones are left behind and forgotten. We think about the prisoner, but never, ever, think about those left behind.....the wives, the children, the mothers, the fathers, to name a few.

Those loved ones, did not commit a crime, except the crime of loving a "criminal." They did not commit a crime, and yet they are punished.

Of course I have been declared "guilty" and have been blamed by many as being responsible for what happened on September 19, 2008. It is extremely sad when there are people in the family that are the ones BLAMING ME.

When husbands go to prison, wives don't get notified by the prison system where their husband is. I researched and found out on the internet where Pat was. Nobody in the "system" told me I could do that - I had to figure it out on my own. I believe there should be some family notification system in this country. Usually the wife must sit and wait until her husband is able to place a call to her. Those days of silence were agonizing.

As I sit and think of Pat, I get this picture of him sitting in a cell, in a facility with razor wire fences surrounding the facility and I know he is being treated like a "criminal". I know my husband is not a criminal. The "justice" system failed him. He should be in treatment somewhere now after sitting in a county jail for 2-1/2 years - he shouldn't be sitting in prison. We should be putting our lives back together.

But I am a "prison wife" - and so I sit and wait.

Detective files $3 million dollar civil lawsuit

2011-03-19T13:04:00.000-07:00

People who watched the video clip from Pat's sentencing hearing will remember this guy. (If you didn't see the video clip, click on this link http://www.lvrj.com/multimedia/Lamoureux-Sentenced-for-2008-Pahrump-Shooting-Spree-116286904.html

And click the link below for an interesting story from the Pahrump Valley Times, March 18, 2011
http://pvtimes.com/news/developing-sheriffs-detective-files-3-million-civil-rights-lawsuit/

VA Medical Malpractice and PTSD

2011-03-04T11:27:00.000-08:00

VA Medical Malpractice and PTSD

When John, a Gulf War veteran, came home from Iraq, he was suffering from panic attacks and wound up in the psychiatric ward of a Veteran's Administration hospital. But he still has "massive" panic attacks because he didn't get any help from the VA. "Sometimes it takes the slightest trigger and PTSD is hard to keep under control if you aren't given the tools," Jason says. "I keep going to meetings at the VA to learn how to deal with it and recognize the signs, but they don't know how to treat veterans' PTSD." John is more than frustrated with his treatment and VA medical malpractice.

(Click below for complete article)
http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/articles/veteran_medical_malpractice/interview-va-hospital-malpractice-veterans-medical-16147.html

Lt. Gen. John Kelly, who lost son to war, says U.S. largely unaware of sacrifice

2011-03-02T15:56:00.000-08:00

"Less than 1 percent of the population serves in uniform at a time when the country is engaged in one of the longest periods of sustained combat in its history."

By Greg Jaffe
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 2, 2011; 12:00 AM

"Their struggle is your struggle," he told the ballroom crowd of former Marines and local business people. "If anyone thinks you can somehow thank them for their service, and not support the cause for which they fight - our country - these people are lying to themselves. . . . More important, they are slighting our warriors and mocking their commitment to this nation."
(Click below for entire article)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/01/AR2011030106355.html

Prosecutor says gunman's sentence reflects real world

2011-02-20T09:14:00.000-08:00

By Keith Rogers

LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Posted: Feb. 17, 2011
2:08 a.m.

When Fifth District Judge Robert Lane announced the maximum sentence Tuesday of nearly 10 years for troubled Iraq War veteran Joseph Patrick Lamoureux, he was implying that in the real world of today's overcrowded prisons, minimum sentences turn out to be the maximums that many felons serve.

That's according to Nye County Chief Prosecutor Kirk Vitto who sought and was granted consecutive maximum terms for Lamoureux who agreed to plea guilty to two felonies -- battery and assault with a deadly weapon -- and a gross misdemeanor of discharging a weapon during a Sept. 19, 2008, shooting spree at Terrible's Lakeside RV Park in Pahrump that wounded sheriff's Deputy Eric Murphy.

"The judge was explaining that even if given the maximum of 22 years, he would probably serve substantially less based upon the information he has received from NDOC (Nevada Department of Corrections)," Vitto wrote in an e-mail Wednesday.

(click below for entire article)
http://www.lvrj.com/news/prosecutor-says-gunman-s-10-years-in-prison-reflects-real-world-116387879.html"

IRAQ WAR VETERAN SENTENCED TO PRISON IN DEPUTY'S SHOOTING

2011-02-16T13:31:00.000-08:00

By Keith Rogers
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Posted: Feb. 15, 2011
4:20 p.m.
Updated: Feb. 16, 2011
7:36 a.m.

PAHRUMP -- Iraq war veteran Joseph Patrick "Pat" Lamoureux was sentenced Tuesday to up to 10 years in prison for a shooting spree that left him and a Nye County sheriff's deputy wounded.

District Judge Robert Lane said the claim by public defender Tom Gibson that the Sept. 19, 2008, spree by Lamoureux was sparked by a bout of post-traumatic stress disorder "lacks credibility." Gibson said the disorder was related to Lamoureux's war experience with a Las Vegas-based Army Reserve unit in 2003. Witnesses were divided on the issue.

In a plea bargain in December, Lamoureux, 48, pleaded guilty to two felonies -- battery and assault with a deadly weapon -- and a gross misdemeanor of discharging a weapon.
(click below for complete article and video)
http://www.lvrj.com/news/pahrump-iraq-veteran-sentenced-in-shooting-of-deputy-116275094.html

The Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Celexa, Effexor, Valium, Klonopin, Ativan, Restoril, Xanax, Adderall, Ritalin, Haldol, Risperdal, Seroquel, Ambien, Lunesta, Elavil, Trazodone War

2011-02-08T09:35:00.000-08:00

The Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Celexa, Effexor, Valium, Klonopin, Ativan, Restoril, Xanax, Adderall, Ritalin, Haldol, Risperdal, Seroquel, Ambien, Lunesta, Elavil, Trazodone War

As it approaches its tenth year, our nation’s longest war is showing signs of waning. Meanwhile, our soldiers are falling apart.

New York Magazaine
By Jennifer Senior Published Feb 6, 2011

The first time I meet David Booth, a 39-year-old former medic and surgeon’s assistant who retired this past spring after nineteen years in the active Army Reserve, I make the awkward mistake of proposing we go out to lunch. It seems a natural suggestion. The weather is still warm, and he has told me to meet him in the lobby of his office downtown, so I assume he wants to go out, not back to his desk, when I show up around noon. But it turns out that in the six months he has been at his job, Booth has never left his office in the middle of the day, except to run across the street, and he is simply too polite to say so. From the moment we step outside, it’s clear how unusual this excursion is for him. As we walk, he hews close to the buildings on his right (“If a building’s to my right, no one is going to walk by me on my right”), and when we arrive at the restaurant, he quietly takes a seat at the table closest to the door, his back against the wall. His large brown eyes immediately start darting around.

How’s your sleep?” I ask him.

“I don’t,” he answers.

Depending on the war, post-traumatic stress can have many expressions, but this war, because of its omnipresent suicide bombers and roadside explosives, seems to have disproportionately rendered its soldiers afraid of two things: driving and crowds. Movie theaters, subway cars, densely packed spaces—all can pose problems for soldiers, because marketplaces are frequent targets for explosions; so can any vehicle, because IEDs are this war’s lethal booby trap of choice. Booth manages his driving anxieties by leaving his Long Island home every morning at 4:30 a.m., when there’s no risk of traffic (especially under bridges, which militants in Iraq are always blowing up), and avoiding the right lane (in Afghanistan and Iraq, one generally drives in the middle of the road to avoid setting off IEDs). Once he gets to the city, Booth parks around the corner from his office and has managed to arrange his life so that he never encounters more than a handful of people. The only real logistical challenge is lunchtime, which he handles by ordering in, picking up from a grill across the street, or skipping entirely. I ask if he goes to restaurants in the off-hours. “Not very much,” he answers, pointing to two sets of scars, one near his jugular and the other stretching down his spinal column. “I reach for a glass, and I can’t feel pressure, so I’ll knock the glass over. It’s hard not to feel self-conscious.”

Click below for complete article
http://nymag.com/news/features/71277/

The Relationship of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder to Law Enforcement: The Importance of Education

2011-01-16T00:38:00.000-08:00

The American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress
Gary G. Felt, M.A., M.H.C.

In just over the past decade it has become common knowledge that law enforcement personnel, along with other emergency services workers, are a population highly prone to suffering with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

As a direct result of their work, there is regular involvement with traumatic events over the course of their entire careers. This is especially true for those of us working in the field of critical incident stress management. For those individuals in law enforcement, however, who generally entered into their careers as physically and mentally "strong," highly idealistic, and caring people, PTSD is often quite baffling. Moreover, it is a concept that is hard to accept by those who are following the mantra "to protect and serve."

Understanding the needs of this unique population, highly prone to PTSD, is imperative for mental health professionals attempting to assist survivors with healing and moving beyond this disorder.

Beyond the obvious, such as a shooting, what events are "generally outside the range of usual human experience" that might contribute to the potential development of PTSD? Among many, consider continually being called upon to make split-second, sometimes "life or death" decisions that, in many cases, have no favorable resolution. Consider facing a weapon in the hands of a criminal who would kill you if given a chance. Moreover, consider involvement with fights, foot chases, vehicle pursuits, physical injuries and/or death of a fellow officer. Imagine having to deal with hostage situations, undercover work, dangerous drug busts or other raids or handling injury or fatal accidents. How about having to manage in-progress crime calls, shift-work, disasters (especially those man-made), the never-ending procession of people being injured, mutilated or killed and having to become "accustomed" to seeing, smelling, feeling and hearing the blood, gore, pain and suffering associated with crime scenes and victims including battered and abused children. Finally, think about what it would be like to have made an error on the job and be criticized or worse, face investigation, disciplinary action or criminal prosecution.

(Click here for complete article: http://www.aaets.org/article92.htm)

PTSD awareness training for local law enforcement

2011-01-10T17:04:00.000-08:00

VA Gulf Coast provides PTSD awareness training to local law enforcement

September 10, 2010
Jerron Barnett
GI RIGHTS NEWS

Count the VA Gulf Coast in if a training initiative can save veterans' lives and protect law enforcement officers.

Dozens of Northwest Florida law enforcement officials attended voluntary Post Traumatic Stress Disorder training sessions conducted by the VA Gulf Coast Veterans Health Care System in the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office administration building recently.

The main objectives of the sessions were to educate officers about the signs and symptoms of PTSD in veterans, and inform them of ways to diffuse a situation to keep it from escalating.

Part of the driving force behind this arrangement was recent incidents involving veterans and law enforcement in the northwest Florida area.

Dr. Angela Ross, VA staff psychologist, gave four, 90-minute PTSD
briefings to officials from the Florida Highway Patrol, Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office and the Fort Walton Beach Police Department, to name a few. Ross recounted several scenarios and situations where veterans perceived a potential threat and acted as if they were still on the battlefield.

"Hyper vigilance, anxiety attacks, perceived threats all these known symptoms of PTSD could lead to a situation that could be dangerous to all involved, even in a routine traffic stop," Ross told the participants. "If time is on your hands, you should do everything possible to diffuse the situation and come across as helpful to the veteran."

Ross advised officers not to point at, grab or approach a veteran from behind who exhibits signs of PTSD. She also dispelled the notions that all veterans suffering from PTSD are violent or erratic.

While some veterans carry weapons on their person or stash weapons throughout their homes, Ross explained they are creating or have created a safe zone for themselves.

"To them, it's all about being safe or feeling safe, but there are many veterans who suffer from PTSD who are able to function normally," she said. "The key is getting them in and through treatment."

Ross also touched on the fact that even officers in the audience may be suffering from a mild case of PTSD, suggesting that PTSD is not only found in combat veterans or people who have served in the military.

"We've all encountered a situation that reminded us of a tragedy we may have experienced in our lives," Ross said, "and we all deal with those situations in our own unique ways."

All told, the training and information Ross gave was appreciated.

"I definitely learned some things today," Tammy Tindle-Husar, Florida
Highway Patrol trooper, said. "This information will certainly help me in the field."

Tentatively, the OCSO is planning to incorporate VAGCVHCS participation in its Crisis Intervention Techniques training seminars in early 2011. Mental health awareness already makes up a large part of their CIT agenda.

Crisis Intervention Training of Police to ease confrontations with Veterans

2011-01-10T16:55:00.000-08:00

To ease potential confrontations between police and veterans, HPD started offering intensified PTSD awareness training this year.
By Lindsay Wise
The Houston Chronicle
(reposted by Michael Leon
Veteran's Today
December 14, 2010)

A veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder runs a stop sign because he feels he’s being followed. A police officer pulls him over, and their interaction escalates into an argument. The veteran ends up in jail.

This scenario, recounted by Stacey Lanier, a staff psychologist at Houston’s Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, is a real-life example of misunderstandings between law enforcement officers and veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with amped-up anxiety, anger and post-traumatic stress.

Houston Police Department statistics show the number of veterans taken to the VA medical center for mental health treatment following calls for service has jumped from just four in 2007 to 64 in 2009.

The veteran who ran the stop sign was having a paranoid reaction, Lanier said.

“He was agitated, and he was trying to explain what was happening from his perspective, and the officer just thought he was trying to make excuses,” she said. “And that was a case where there was no need for that.”

To ease potential confrontations between police and veterans, HPD started offering intensified PTSD awareness training this year.

“I absolutely think that there’s a need for it because people tend to pathologize people with PTSD rather than seeing that they’re regular people who are hypersensitive to danger,” Lanier said.

Crisis training

About 40 percent of HPD’s patrol officers have received crisis intervention training, which became mandatory for all cadets in 2007, said Frank Webb, a senior officer with HPD’s Mental Health Unit.

The training previously included a segment on PTSD, but this year, the department supplemented the training with longer and more comprehensive classes. The sessions feature veterans diagnosed with PTSD, VA psychologists, and officials from the city of Houston’s Office of Veterans Affairs.

“Most of what we do is very physical, authoritative, commanding,” Webb said. Such tactics can backfire when confronting someone who has PTSD, he said, so crisis intervention training teaches officers to use de-escalation techniques instead. “It’s the step back, it’s the patience, it’s allowing people to ventilate,” he said. “It’s almost the opposite, but it works much better.”

Veterans don’t get a free pass, Webb said, but police officers should treat them with respect, thank them for their service, “and most importantly, if the officer has any experience as a veteran, try to use that experience to connect with the veteran.”

Interpreting behavior

Harris County is home to nearly 200,000 veterans, including about 18,000 who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. As many as one in five Iraq and Afghanistan veterans struggle with PTSD, according to VA’s National Center for PTSD.

In classes with HPD cadets, Lanier explains the symptoms and causes of PTSD and gives examples of ways that veteran behavior has been misinterpreted by officers.

A veteran might suddenly swerve over three lanes to avoid a large piece of trash on the highway because his battle-honed instincts tell him the debris could be hiding a roadside bomb, she said. However, a police officer could interpret the veteran’s erratic behavior as drunken driving or just driving with no regard for the law.

Lanier advises police not to take an aggressive stance with veterans or to touch them, if avoidable.

“For combat veterans, somebody getting into their physical space is a threat and they’re going to become more agitated,” she said. “It might be better to just talk to them and give them their space.”

Haunted by deaths

During a recent training session at the police academy, a rapt audience of officers listened to decorated Iraq war veteran Marty Gonzalez describe life with PTSD, and his own run-in with the law.

“I wasn’t sleeping right, I wasn’t eating right, I wasn’t doing anything right,” said the 30-year-old retired Marine sergeant from The Woodlands, who earned two Bronze Stars for valor and three Purple Hearts in Iraq. “Asking for help wasn’t really an option. I just sucked it up.”

Gonzalez was haunted by the deaths of 18 men in his battalion, including four from his platoon. He pushed away his family and eventually separated from his wife.

"Arguing all the time, drinking all the time,” he recalled. “I was on all kinds of different medicines. Seventeen different pills through VA.”

2008 auto wreck

Gonzalez’s wake-up call came in 2008 when he got behind the wheel after taking too many prescription pain killers. He crashed his car into the living room of his house. No one was hurt, but Gonzalez knew the outcome could’ve been much worse. His 2-year-old son had been in the backseat.

He’s since completed two years of probation and court-ordered treatment for felony charges of driving while intoxicated.

“You lose your way,” Gonzalez told the class of veteran officers at the academy this week. “I had to really start getting God in my life and letting Him take over: ‘It’s OK you lost your men. They don’t want to trade places with you. You’re here for a purpose.’ And apparently part of my purpose is trying to help you guys understand veterans better.”

‘It’s a good outlet’

Gonzalez seemed embarrassed by the loud applause at the end of his talk. As the officers filed from the classroom, many stopped to shake his hand and thank him for his service. About a third were veterans themselves, and identified personally with his story.

“We’ve had officers in this class who just come out and say, ‘Hey, I’ve got PTSD,’ ” Webb said. “It’s like their opportunity to vent and talk about it. I think it’s a good outlet for them.”

Moving Towards Resolution

2010-12-22T12:35:00.000-08:00

After 27 months in the Nye County Detention Center, on Tuesday, December 21, 2010 a plea agreement was entered into District Court records for Pat Lamoureux.

Sentencing will be on February 8, 2011, almost two and one half years following the Sept. 19, 2008 incident.

As you will recall, Pat had been facing 15 felony charges, including 4 charges of attempted murder naming 4 police officers. Finally, a little bit of justice entered the picture, and after plea negotiations during the past couple of weeks, the District Attorney's office accepted a deal entered by Pat's attorney, reducing the charges to 1 count of Battery, 1 count of Assault and a gross misdemeanor for discharging a firearm in public. The Battery charge carries a sentence of 2-15, Assault 1-6 and the gross misdemeanor 1 year in the county jail. The Judge stated that the charges are eligible for probation at sentencing.

The case will now go to a pre-sentencing board for review and recommendation, and then on February 8th, we will find out what those recommendations will be. I pray that since Pat had never been in trouble before, that he will get a suspended sentence and probation. There would be no justice in further incarceration. My goal now is to get him into a treatment program for PTSD, perhaps at the National Center for PTSD in California.

Pat is an amazing man who has shown such great strength and courage, even during the time he was suffering with that retained bullet in his leg. He had quietly reconciled himself to the fact that he was going to lose his leg, thank God that did not happen. Yes, he is a phenomenal man, and I am very proud
that he is my husband.

As this journey is not over yet, I will ask that everyone keep their positive thoughts going as well as prayers. I am extremely hopeful that Pat will not be sent to prison and that we will be able to pick up the pieces of our lives and move forward.

I hope that as time goes forward that our Nation becomes better prepared to handle the difficulties of the brave men and women who go to war. What Pat and I, as well as the rest of our family, have been through should never happen to a Veteran and their family. The American people must become better educated and aware of the power PTSD has to destroy not only the Veteran, but their family. Please know that I will continue to fight to make a difference in the lives of our Veterans.

I can never find a way to thank everyone for their concern and support through this horrible ordeal. You have shown me comfort in my deepest, darkest days, and given me the strength and courage to keep fighting to save Pat's life. Let's continue with hope and prayers for the best outcome when we go to court on February 8, 2011.

I wish everyone the very best this Christmas, and I pray that next year Pat and I will be together for Christmas.

With my deepest gratitude,
Sue Lamoureux

Memory erasing drugs now in earliest stages

2010-11-26T14:59:00.000-08:00

TG Daily
David Gomez
Tue 23rd Nov 2010, 07:27 pm

People who are haunted by visions of war and scenes of violence sometimes wish they could remove the bad memories from their minds. Medical researchers at Johns Hopkins University think that it may be possible someday.

A memory erasing drug is still a long way away. Its use would surely create many ethical problems. But according to a story in The Baltimore Sun, scientists feel they have a basis for it because of their discovery that proteins can be removed from the brain’s fear center to eliminate bad memories forever.

"When a traumatic event occurs, it creates a fearful memory that can last a lifetime and have a debilitating effect on a person's life," said Richard L. Huganir, professor and chair of neuroscience in the Hopkins School of Medicine to The Baltimore Sun. He thinks that his finding on the molecular process "raises the possibility of manipulating those mechanisms with drugs to enhance behavioral therapy for such conditions as post-traumatic stress disorder."

His research has gained interest from people involved in the mental health care industry. It also concerns some people.
(click below for complete article)
http://www.tgdaily.com/general-science-brief/52681-memory-erasing-drugs-now-in-earliest-stages

New Mexico Offers Help To Veterans With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

2010-11-21T21:38:00.000-08:00

SO why is it that Nye County Nevada and the Nye County District Attorney's Office as well as the State of Nevada cannot do more to help in this horrible tragic nightmare that has been allowed to carry on for over two years? Seems there are better answers around the country with treatments and interventions that do not involve jail or prison. Nevada is out of touch.....

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has announced the award of a contract to conduct innovative retreats for treating veterans diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Source: Governor of New Mexico
Posted on: 15th November 2010

“Our veterans deserve our full support for serving and protecting our country,” Governor Richardson said. “This innovative program will offer a new approach for treating veterans who are battling post-combat issues as they try to transition to civilian life after their military service.”

The treatment program will use an integrative approach, combining existing clinical treatments with non-clinical alternative methods.

The program is funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Governor Richardson announced a $350,000 allocation from discretionary funds to the Department of Veterans Services earlier this year.

The department has contracted with the National Veterans’ Wellness & Healing Center in Angel Fire through a competitive process.

The retreats will concentrate on combining existing cognitive processing and prolonged exposure therapies with non-traditional treatments such as yoga, acupuncture, and nature-based therapies.

Veterans who are diagnosed with PTSD by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs would be eligible to participate.

“There is a tremendous amount of interest nationwide in using an integrative approach for treating PTSD,” said New Mexico Department of Veterans’ Services Cabinet Secretary John M. Garcia. “I applaud the Governor for taking this step and opening the door for the state to become recognized as the leader in offering the latest available treatment for affected veterans and their families.”

The Department of Veterans’ Services will oversee the integrative Wellness Treatment program.
http://www.thegovmonitor.com/world_news/united_states/new-mexico-offers-help-to-veterans-with-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-42663.html

GENERAL SPEAKS OUT ABOUT HIS PTSD

2010-11-15T19:52:00.000-08:00

(I think what is interesting about this article is that the mentally wounded soldier was a General. He got help from a psychiatrist and a psychologist - while Pat was assigned to a Nurse Practitioner and a Social Worker. Perhaps if Pat had been a ranking officer instead of a Staff Sergeant - he would have received better care.

I do appreciate the General speaking about PTSD and hope that it brings greater awareness to the plight our Veterans and their families are facing.)

From Military.com
November 15, 2010
Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer

While everyone else danced at a New Year's celebration to start 2008, Maj. Gen. David Blackledge couldn't stop picturing a suicide bomber blowing up the ballroom.

After nearly losing his life twice during consecutive deployments, Blackledge rarely felt safe.

He couldn't shake the nightmares. He couldn't control his temper. He couldn't focus.

"I started to think, well, this is just the way it's going to be," Blackledge said.

But later that year, after his routine physical, he described his symptoms to a doctor.

Classic post-traumatic stress disorder, the doctor said. He sent Blackledge to behavioral health, where he saw a psychiatrist and a psychologist.

They confirmed the diagnosis and told the general they could help.
(click below for the complete article)http://www.military.com/news/article/general-speaks-out-about-his-ptsd-battle.html?ESRC=eb.nl

While facing DUI, Beckett ordered tougher policy

2010-11-10T12:35:00.000-08:00

(A memo from former DA Bob Beckett has surfaced.....this is a very interesting article!)

"The memo raises a number of questions and concerns about what prompted it, how it was enforced and what possible negative effects it had on the dispensation of justice in Nye County."

By MATT WARD
PVT
10 November 2010

Nye County’s judicial system is the “laughing stock of the known universe.”

That’s what Pahrump criminal defense attorney Harry Kuehn says.

The 30-year veteran lawyer, with stints at seven district attorneys’ offices in Nevada to his credit, is saying that a lot lately.

He and fellow public defenders at local law firm Gibson and Kuehn are looking forward to Brian Kunzi taking over the Nye County District Attorney’s Office. They say the D.A.-elect has his work cut out for him.

Kunzi says he’s a bit nervous about what he’ll find when he takes office.

One artifact he is sure to uncover very quickly — he already knows about it — is an internal policy written in October 2009 by disgraced former D.A. Bob Beckett. The memo spells out a policy that forces deputy prosecutors to alert him or his chief deputy district attorney in charge of criminal cases, Kirk Vitto, before they negotiate even the most mundane plea bargains.

The Pahrump Valley Times was handed the internal memo by a confidential courthouse source. It details what Nye County prosecutors should do in cases of DUIs, domestic batteries, drug cases, property crimes, crimes against the person, sex offenses, cases involving habitual offenders and “negotiations of criminal offenses generally.” The policy memorandum is both broad — it deals with felonies and gross misdemeanors — and specific to the point of threatening.

“Any exception from this policy is to be rare and only with specific authorization from Kirk or myself. Any deviation without authorization will result in the (plea) agreement being returned from the District Court level. You will also set yourself up for disciplinary measures that include suspension and termination,” the document states.

Asked to explain how the policy originated, Vitto declined to comment.

“I don’t comment. I’m not going to comment, especially in light of the new administration,” he said.

The memo raises a number of questions and concerns about what prompted it, how it was enforced and what possible negative effects it had on the dispensation of justice in Nye County.

According to the memo, the only acceptable course of action at prosecutors’ disposal to deal with the broad array of criminal charges outlined is to get suspects to “plead straight up” or get defendants to accept the minimum sentences recommended by law. Any other plea deal would require authorization — ostensibly from a district attorney who was already facing his own legal troubles due to a bizarre DUI arrest in California. Doubly ironic, Beckett would face far more lenient terms when his own criminal case involving obstruction of a public official went before a judge several weeks ago.

Kuehn and other defense attorneys say the memo is unprecedented.
(click below for the rest of this VERY interesting article:)
http://pvtimes.com/news/while-facing-dui-beckett-ordered-tougher-policy/comment-page-1/#comment-7357

VITTO WILL SERVE AS DA UNTIL KUNZI TAKES OVER NOV. 22

2010-11-10T12:01:00.000-08:00

Commissioner Eastley said her observation has been the district attorney’s office has been in a state of chaos for more than a year.

"This is a very vital concern to the office in being able to get in here early. There has been a lot of chaos in the office as commissioner Eastley stated. This helps in the transition and making some of the changes I want to do,” Kunzi said.

By MARK WAITE
PVT
10 November 2010

TONOPAH — Nye County Chief Prosecutor Kirk Vitto, a 20-year county employee, was appointed interim district attorney Tuesday by county commissioners until Nov. 22, when Brian Kunzi will take the post.

Former Nye County District Attorney Bob Beckett resigned his post effective Nov. 1, in a plea bargain to a charge of obstruction of a public officer, in connection with the administration of the bad check program.

Commissioner Joni Eastley made the motion. Fellow commissioner Lorinda Wichman wondered if the D.A.’s office could get by until January without a district attorney when Kunzi’s regular term begins.

Eastley said the county never filled former chief civil deputy district attorney Ron Kent’s position, after he was terminated by Beckett last February. But assistant county manager Pam Webster said the county didn’t include Kent’s position in the current fiscal year budget.

Eastley was correct when she said Nye County will save money not having to pay Kunzi the longevity pay Beckett enjoyed. Webster said that will save the county $16,000 for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends June 30. Another $10,000 savings will be realized from having Vitto in that position for half of November, she said.

Eastley said her observation has been the district attorney’s office has been in a state of chaos for more than a year. Two other D.A.’s office employees have had to pick up Kent’s workload, she said, referring to Marla Zlotek, the newly-appointed chief civil deputy district attorney, and Michelle Jones, a deputy district attorney.

Eastley disagreed with Wichman’s suggestion to keep Vitto as interim D.A. until January.

“We would be asking him to assume the responsibilities of providing direction to that department in addition to having a huge caseload in the criminal department,” Eastley said. She added, “This department is in strong need of permanent direction.”

Kunzi, who made the trip to Tonopah, said he already worked out his early resignation from the state attorney general’s office.

“This is a very vital concern to the office in being able to get in here early. There has been a lot of chaos in the office as commissioner Eastley stated. This helps in the transition and making some of the changes I want to do,” Kunzi said.

(The post above is the complete article from the Pahrump Valley Times)

http://pvtimes.com/news/vitto-will-serve-as-da-until-kunzi-takes-over-nov-22/

CHEST: Apnea Elevated in Vets With PTSD

2010-11-06T00:08:00.000-07:00

By Crystal Phend, Senior Staff Writer,
MedPage Today
Published: October 31, 2010

Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco and

Dorothy Caputo, MA, RN, BC-ADM, CDE, Nurse Planner Earn CME/CE

■Note that this study was published as an abstract and presented at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

■Explain to interested patients that almost all combat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (98%) have a sleep disorder -- with more cases of sleep apnea than might otherwise be expected.

■Note that just more than half (54%) of these military PTSD patients were diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea.

VANCOUVER -- Combat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) almost universally suffer sleep problems -- with more cases of sleep apnea than might otherwise be expected -- U.S. Army researchers found.

In a group of 135 young, otherwise healthy combat veterans with PTSD, 98.5% reported sleep complaints, Nick Orr, MD, and colleagues at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., reported here at the annual international scientific meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST).

Despite their relatively young age (around 35) and slightly overweight physique, 54% of the PTSD patients who underwent polysomnography at Walter Reed were diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) -- whereas, in the general population, the rate of OSA is only 20%.

It can be all too easy to dismiss daytime sleepiness and other symptoms as part of depression and PTSD, Orr explained. But these results argue for screening all military PTSD patients for sleep apnea, Orr said in an interview.

"You'll be darned if you just keep treating it with medications, cognitive behavioral therapy, and all the other modalities you use for PTSD, when you haven't addressed possible sleep apnea, which could get restorative sleep and kind of break the cycle for the PTSD symptoms," he told MedPage Today.

(click below for complete article)
http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/CHEST/23074.

WE THE PEOPLE

2010-11-02T11:40:00.000-07:00

This land does not belong to Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. It belongs to WE THE PEOPLE, and We the People plan to reclaim our land and our freedom STARTING TODAY, November 2, 2010!

They like to refer to some of us as senior citizens, old fogies, geezers, and in some cases dinosaurs. Some of us have been retired for some time.

We walk a little slower these days and our eyes and hearing are not what they once were. We have worked hard, raised our children, worshiped our God and grown old together.

Yes, we are the ones some refer to as being over the hill and that is probably true.

But before writing us off completely, there are a few things that need to be taken into consideration.

In school we studied English, history, math, and science which enabled us to lead America into the technological age.

Many of us remember what outhouses were, some with firsthand experience. We remember the days of telephone party-lines, ten cent gasoline, and milk and ice being delivered to our homes.

For those of you who don't know what an icebox is, today they are electric and referred to as refrigerators.

A few even remember when cars were started with a crank. Yes, we lived those days.

We are probably considered old fashioned and out-dated by many. But there are a few things you need to remember before completely writing us off.

Our fathers won World War II and we fought in Korea and Vietnam. We can quote The Pledge of Allegiance, and know where to place our hand while doing so. We wore the uniform of our country with pride and lost many friends on the battlefield.

We didn't fight for the Socialist States of America, we fought for the "land of the free and home of the brave." We wore different uniforms but carried the same flag.

We know the words to the Star Spangled Banner, America, and America the Beautiful by heart, and you may even see some tears running down our cheeks as we sing.

We have lived what many of you have only read about in history books and we feel no obligation to apologize to anyone for America.

Yes, we are old and slow these days but rest assured, we have at least one good fight left in us.

We have loved this country, fought for it, and some of our friends died for it, and now we are going to save it.

It is our country and nobody is going to take it away from us.

We took oaths to defend America against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and that is an oath we plan to keep.

There are those who want to destroy this land we love but, like our founders, there is no way we are going to remain silent.

It was primarily the young people of this nation who elected Obama and the Democratic congress. You fell for the "Hope and change" idea which in reality was nothing but "Hype and lies."

You have tasted socialism and seen evil face to face, and have found you don't like it after all.

You are the ones unemployed now, not us.

You make a lot of noise but most are all too interested in their careers and "Climbing the social ladder" to be involved in such mundane things as patriotism and voting.

It appears that we care more about our grandchildren than some care about their own children.

Many of those who fell for the "great lie" in 2008 are now having buyer's remorse. With all the education we gave you, you didn't have sense enough to see through the lies and instead drank the kool-aid.

Now you're paying the price and complaining about it. No jobs, lost mortgages, higher taxes, and less freedom.

This is what you voted for and this is what you got. We entrusted you with the Torch of Liberty and you traded it for a paycheck, a fancy house and some pie-in-the-sky.

Well, don't worry youngsters, we are going to take back our nation. We may drive a little slower than you would like but we get where we're going, this November we're going to the polls by the millions.

This land does not belong to Obama or to Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid. It belongs to We the People, and We the People plan to reclaim our land and our freedom.

We hope this time you will do a better job of preserving it and passing it along to our grandchildren.

So the next time you have the chance to say the Pledge of Allegiance, stand up, put your hand over your heart, honor our country, and thank God for the senior citizens, old fogies, geezers, and in some cases, those of us considered dinosaurs.

(Unknown author)

Asking for renewed concern and support for Pat - please, remember where he is....

2010-10-27T01:50:00.000-07:00

In life, our losses and disappointments are real; they bring grief and sadness that are real. If one can’t acknowledge and feel the grief and sadness, it will never get out of the way.

I believe that how we handle our losses really defines who we are. I believe that I have fought like a warrior for the past two years. I will continue to fight………..

I can only hope and pray the decisions I have made in the past two years are right; that I have known what to do and what not to do. The decisions that I have made have all been with the one goal of saving Pat’s life.

There are times that I am afraid I will never be able to get out of this fog I am living in. Then, I think of Pat – what a horrible existence he has had for the past two years.

I know I am grieving, not only for the husband that has been taken from me, and knowing the pain and suffering he has had to endure – but that grief is also for the loss of the lives we had envisioned; grieving for our future and all the plans and dreams we had – and now that’s all gone.

However, it’s been said you have to give up the life you planned to find the life that’s waiting for you. I suppose we have to also be able to ‘hear’ what is next in our lives and what paths we may want or need to travel down.

I know I have to be able to see what is right there – right there in front of my own eyes.

All I can envision in front of me is – Pat’s freedom, and the opportunity for us to pick up the pieces and travel down that new life path together.

But – it seems that Nye County Nevada intends to prosecute this case to the fullest extent of the law.

It seems Nye County Chief Deputy District Attorney, Kirk Vitto, has lost sight of his role as a prosecutor; this means he has forgotten that his job is to seek JUSTICE and not to always get a conviction.

With that being stated, I have to inform everyone that the odds are very strong that Pat’s trial will be moved again, perhaps as far out as April of 2011.

Nye County Chief Deputy District Attorney, Kirk Vitto, filed a motion on Friday, October 22, 2010 essentially ‘questioning’ the validity of the current trial date set to begin January 27, 2011. He gave several “reasons” questioning whether the trial should go forward as currently scheduled, and asked the court to determine if this date was a viable date for the trial to go forward.

Let us all hope and pray the judge views this motion as balderdash –

I want everyone to know – I am tired......the stress is seriously getting to me. This does not mean I’m walking away, I would never do that. It just means I’m tired, it has been a very long two plus years stuck in a quagmire of injustice….a virtual sinkhole located in Pahrump, Nye County, Nevada.

Please – let me know that you are still reading and listening and understanding the complexity of this situation.

Please, let me know that you have not lost sight that a really great man could spend the rest of his life in PRISON.

Please, let me know that each and every single one of you still support Pat.

Pat needs you – I need you. 

Inmate hears demons, breaks out of jail cell

2010-10-22T15:34:00.000-07:00

Sgt. Terry Rising explains how
a detainee broke out of his cell
by breaking the glass and
crawling through.
HORACE LANGFORD JR. / PVT -
(reproduced under the Fair Use Act)

"Also, starting in 2008, the American Civil Liberties Union began scrutinizing operations at the jail. In a March 2009 letter to county commissioners, ACLU lawyers said that a number of constitutional concerns were raised by a visit to the jail."

Posted on 22 October 2010.
By MATT WARD
PVT

A 31-year-old inmate at the Pahrump Jail broke through a safety glass window in his cell in an attempt to flee Tuesday night.

Deuel Brock III used his feet and left shoulder to ram the glass window on his jail cell door until it finally shattered at about 8 p.m.

Brock was in jail on charges of child endangerment, possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia and a traffic warrant. He was arrested on Oct. 15.

Rick Marshall, assistant sheriff and head of the Nye County Sheriff’s Administrative Services Bureau, said Brock complained of hearing demons in his head that told him to break out of his cell.

“The good thing is no one got hurt,” Marshall said.

Greg Arms, a sheriff’s deputy and field training officer, was the only jailer on duty when the incident took place. A technician was also there. In a video of the melee shown to the Pahrump Valley Times, Brock is seen pacing back and forth in his cell, scratching and rubbing his head and intermittently running from one end of the cell to the other, kicking and shoving at the cell’s door. In between frustrated attempts to break the door down, Brock checked the door knob a few times. After a half-dozen attempts or so, the thick glass on the cell door shatters and Brock spills head first into the hallway, the video shows. He lands not far from the control center, where technicians use multiple cameras to monitor inmates.
(click below for entire story)
http://pvtimes.com/news/inmate-hears-demons-breaks-out-of-jail-cell/

DA'S DEAL PROMPTS OUTRAGE

2010-10-20T21:40:00.000-07:00

The majority of commenters on the PVT website expressed anger at the local justice system, including one common refrain that Pahrump is being made “the laughing stock of the known universe.”

Posted 20 October 2010.
By GINA B. GOOD
PVT
Although District Attorney Bob Beckett is leaving his office in 10 days, residents of Pahrump are outraged at what one PVT reader claims “is a catastrophic miscarriage of justice” at the outcome of Beckett’s hearing last Friday at the Pahrump Justice Court.

There are many similar comments posted on this newspaper’s website.

Beckett, who has been Nye County’s district attorney for 16 years, pleaded “no contest” to one misdemeanor count of obstructing a public officer in the case brought against him for mishandling funds collected by the Bad Check Program he founded 13 years ago.

As part of an agreement struck between his attorney Thomas Pitaro and Special Prosecutor Peter S. Christiansen, Beckett will resign at the end of this month rather than leave when his term ends at the end of December.

Beckett must also undergo alcohol counseling. When he complies with those two stipulations, the charges against him will be dismissed and he will have a clean record.

Christiansen said the $20,000 “recouped by the county” by not paying the DA’s salary and benefits for the final two months of his term, will be used in lieu of any other monies that Beckett might have paid back in restitution for mishandling Bad Check program funds.

(Click below for entire article - and comments)
http://pvtimes.com/news/das-deal-prompts-outrage/

VETERANS FOR COMMON SENSE

2010-10-20T02:48:00.000-07:00

VCS in New York Times Again Raising Concerns About Sharp Rise in Post-Deployment Deaths Among Our Veterans

VCS Advocacy in Action -

This week, VCS is in the news again fighting for our service members, veterans, and families. News articles include another major New York Times investigation, an article by Columbia University, a mention by Democracy Now, and the use of our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) research by CBS News in a segment for "60 Minutes."

On Sunday, VCS discussed the rising number of veteran post-war deaths with Aaron Glantz in an article published in the New York Times. VA and DoD are failing to track these deaths, even though reporters can track the data a the local level. VCS urges VA and DoD to do a better job collecting and monitoring this information. We don't want another repeat of how badly our government handled atomic veterans, agent orange, and Gulf War illness.

With the continued number of Gulf War Syndrome cases, VCS urges VA to increase funding for Gulf War Illness Research in an article published by Columbia University. VCS will be presenting our advocacy agenda at Boston University on Friday, October 29.

In a radio interview with Democracy Now this week, author Aaron Glantz quotes our VCS refrain, "don't look, don't find," describing VA's attitude towards tracking the number of veteran suicides and post-war deaths.

Unfortunately, due to the shortage of doctors, our troops suffering from mental health issues on the battlefield are being sent to chaplains instead of mental health professionals. Our VCS letter to the Pentagon addressing this problem is quoted in an article written by Kelley B. Vlahos. VCS works with the Military Religious Freedom Foundation to promote religious liberty within our military.

VCS provided 60 minutes with the statistics used in their outstanding segment about our homeless veterans. Our VCS Freedom of Information Act Researcher, Kristina Brown, obtained this information under the FOIA. These stories take on national significance because VCS has the facts showing that homelessness isn't a local problem, it is a humanitarian crisis our entire nation must address:

- More than two million Americans deployed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

- Of those deployed since 9/11, 867,000 deployed twice or more.

- More than 277,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have been treated by VA for mental health conditions.

- VA told CBS that 9,000 Iraq and Afghanistan vets are already homeless.

Other Important News -

The Army reports a new blood test can detect and diagnose Traumatic Brain Injury that has traditionally been missed in imaging scans and symptomatic prognoses. This is good news.

Congratulations to VA for a superb, poignant, and inspirational video encouraging more medical professionals to work at VA. This is exactly what VA should be doing so our veterans get fast care without waiting. Thank you goes to VA Secretary Shinseki for his leadership to make this happen. We hope more medical professionals will consider working at VA because of this recruiting.

VCS Thanks you for Your Support

(Veterans for Common Sense )

Former Nye sheriff’s candidate sues over March arrest

2010-10-18T16:36:00.000-07:00

(What is also interesting in this story is the officer mentioned in this article as having approached Holmes is identified as an out of state officer, named Joshua Schiller. Why that is interesting is that Joshua Schiller is listed as an employee of the Nye County Sheriff's Department, and is also listed in the witnesses to be called by the Nye County District Attorney's Office in Pat's case. Additionally, in the yearly newspaper posting of the salaries of Nye County Employees - Joshua Schiller's name is listed there.)

Las Vegas Sun
By Steve Green (contact)

Monday, Oct. 18, 2010
11:51 a.m.

There's more drama in Nye County politics, law enforcement and government, with former sheriff's candidate Ted Holmes now suing the county and four officials over his March arrest.

An attorney for Holmes, whose full name is Robert Ted Holmes, filed the civil rights complaint Friday in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas.

The suit alleges Holmes' arrest March 12 on charges of impersonating an officer and resisting arrest caused him to lose in the June primary election and violated his civil rights.

A Nye County Sheriff's Office press release on the arrest said an out-of-state law enforcement officer who was in Pahrump on official business was approached by Holmes at the Pahrump Nugget casino.

(Click below for complete story)
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/oct/18/former-nye-sheriffs-candidate-sues-over-march-arre/

The INJUSTICE Continues in Pahrump, Nevada

2010-10-16T20:54:00.000-07:00

"BECKETT RESIGNS as part of plea deal"

(and my thoughts: Nye County persists in making a mockery of the justice system.)

And what a 'sweet deal' it appears Mr. Beckett got. It just seems to further exemplify the corruption that runs in Nye County and particularly in Pahrump.

There is NO JUSTICE for those that deserve it - only the corrupt elected officials.

Amazing - most other citizens in this country, regardless of the jurisdiction they live in, would have received prison time after multiple DUI arrests, instead of having them 'negotiated' down to something much less. And for over 40 other charges to be negotiated down to "nothing" - inexcusable.

As I said - Nye County persists in making a mockery of the justice system.

Below is the link to the story - you make your own assessment of this "plea deal". And while you read and evaluate this story - remember,

Pat Lamoureux, a man who honorably served this country has been in the confines of the Nye County Detention Center for over two years without a trial!

Pat Lamoureux, a man who had never been in trouble cannot get such a sweet "PLEA DEAL".

AND - there is a strong chance - that Pat's trial will NOT happen in January, that it will be moved further out AGAIN.

(link to the story - click below)

http://pvtimes.com/news/beckett-resigns-as-part-of-plea-deal/

Are you aware that America has now been at war for nearly a decade?

2010-10-14T02:15:00.000-07:00

"Bleeding in Afghanistan"
Wednesday 13 October 2010
by: Jim Hightower, t r u t h o u t Op-Ed
Reproduced under the Fair Use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use

Are you aware that America has now been at war for nearly a decade? We've been fighting, bleeding and dying in two hellacious, multitrillion-dollar conflagrations since 2001 -- and our blood continues to flow, with no end in sight.

Well, not our blood. Not yours and mine. We continue to go about our daily routines -- go to work, go to the mall, go out to eat, go golfing, go to church, go on vacation, go dancing and drinking. War? Americans will pay far more attention to the World Series than they will to the ongoing carnage in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In a little-noticed speech, Pentagon chief Robert Gates recently pointed out, "For most Americans, the wars remain an abstraction -- a distant and unpleasant series of news items that do not affect them personally."

"Service in the military," he bluntly said, "has become something for other people to do."

He's right. You see, "we" are not at war. We handed off that awful duty a decade ago to the 2.4 million active and reserve soldiers in the armed services, less than 1 percent of our nation's people. They and their families are the ones "at war," cycled and recycled into debilitating and deadly deployments.

"We the People" are not even making the minimal sacrifice of paying for the burden we've so carelessly stacked on their shoulders. Both the Bush regime and the Obamacans, fully backed by both Republican and Democratic Congresses of the past decade, cravenly put Afghanistan and Iraq on the national credit card, piling up trillions of dollars in debt for future generations to cover.

The widening disconnect between Americans and America's wars is not only dangerous for our democracy, but it's immoral, allowing politicians and corporate profiteers to sink our national soul in the diabolical depths of perpetual war.

Speaking of perpetual war, what the hell are we doing in Afghanistan, anyway? Ten years at war there, and what progress have we made?

According to Washington's war hawks, we're there to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. Key to this strategy, we're told, is to establish the legitimacy of the central government, led by the famously incompetent, vain, arrogant, aloof and corrupt President Hamid Karzai. And how's that going?

Well, at least they pulled off a national parliamentary election on Sept. 18. It was meant to show democratic progress, thus bolstering the stability and credibility of the government. Unfortunately, there were some unpleasant incidents during the balloting. Beaucoup unpleasantness. More than 4,000 cases of electioneering fraud have poured into the Election Complaints Commission -- with nearly 60 percent of them considered gross enough to have affected the outcome.

"How gross?" you ask? In Kandahar Province, where the president's brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, rules as an autocratic strongman, some 50 parliamentary seats were being contested. Amazingly, the list of winners were all from the Karzai political faction, and -- get this -- Ahmed Wali had the list of winners in his hands before the election!

In a third of the provinces, the fraud was blatant and widespread. A cell phone video, for example, caught officials in one district polling place haggling with a candidate over the price of buying votes. In another district, local police handcuffed and removed three groups of election workers from their polling places, then presented the "results" for them to sign at the end of the day. In a northern province, gunmen slapped, dragged and otherwise coerced people to go to polling places and vote for the gunmen's candidate.

This so-called election shows that there's nothing legitimate about Karzai's government -- and nothing legitimate about America's involvement in Afghanistan. It's time to get out of there!

Veterans Court: Restorative Rather Than Punitive Justice

2010-10-11T15:22:00.000-07:00

(Forward by Dr. Charles E. Corry)
The following article describes a functional veterans court established from the bottom up by a local judge and community groups in Spokane, Washington. Following the article is a review of why many veteran courts are dysfunctional using the Spokane article as an example of what works and Colorado Springs to illustrate what doesn¹t.

Functional veteran courts practicing restorative justice hold the promise of reducing veteran recidivism by at least half and initial experience supports that promise. That reduction will more than compensate for any additional special court costs. Treatment costs are almost entirely covered by existing Veteran Administration or military programs and it is certain that many veterans can be returned to productive lives as good citizens by timely and appropriate care.

In Colorado Springs 250 to 270 veterans a month are presently arrested, of which 75-85 are on active duty. Under present catch, convict, and release policies some 70-80% of these veterans will reoffend, often progressing to more violent crimes as documented in the Rolling Stone article on The Fort Carson Murder Spree. Unfortunately, the veteran court pilot program established here currently presumes a veteran is guilty, demands a plea of guilty and sentencing before treatment is begun, in the main the court accepts only non-violent criminal felony cases, and operates from the top down. That has grave consequences for the 75-85 active-duty military personnel arrested each month as they are then usually chaptered out of the military following their conviction. A safe assumption, based on a decade of experience with local courts, is that more than half of the arrested veterans would be acquitted in a jury trial. However, many troops will plead guilty and accept a plea bargain without being aware of the consequences or whether they are, in fact, guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

On that basis, preliminary data suggest the five military bases surrounding Colorado Springs are losing half of those arrested, or ~40 active-duty personnel a month, primarily due to dysfunctional courts. The primary age range of 23 to 35 in the arrest records suggests these people are mainly sergeants through master sergeants, although we have also encountered a number of officers from O-1 (2nd lieutenant) to O-6 (colonel or Navy captain), as well as a few warrant officers. A functional veteran court might reasonably be expected to provide needed treatment and return half of these troopers (~20/month) to active duty without a career-destroying conviction.

"Veterans Court weighs stress of war service"
Innovation, second in state, pursues treatment options for criminal behavior

Kevin Graman
The Spokesman-Review

September 19, 2010 -
Updated: September 20, 6:51 a.m.

After surviving 15 months in one of the most dangerous places on Earth, Iraq war veteran Carl Jacobson thought he could cope with just about anything civilian life had to throw at him.

Jacobson realized he was wrong the day he learned that his beloved former platoon leader had been gravely wounded by an enemy sniper.

“It broke me down,” Jacobson said. “No matter what comes your way, it’s crucial to any soldier to avoid losing control. You can’t lash out.”

Jacobson was arrested in July on a domestic violence charge after breaking the door of the north Spokane apartment he shares with his girlfriend and her two young children.

The former Army sergeant could have been convicted of third-degree malicious mischief last week, but instead he received a “stipulated order of continuance” from Spokane County District Judge Vance Peterson on the first day of Veterans Court.

If Jacobson completes a two-year counseling program under the terms of his continuance, the charge will be dismissed.

He was one of 13 veterans and active-duty soldiers answering misdemeanor or gross misdemeanor charges in Peterson’s courtroom on Thursday.

Four received stipulated orders of continuance, including one National Guard soldier whose felony charge was reduced to a misdemeanor. Eight had their cases delayed. One, who was in violation of the terms of probation, had his probation reinstated.
(click here for complete story:
http://m.spokesman.com/stories/2010/sep/19/veterans-court-weighs-stress-of-war-service/ )

Veteran court comparisons
(Dr. Charles E. Corry continues)

As described in the article above the veterans court in Spokane, Washington, provides restorative justice for veterans whenever possible. To work effectively a veterans court must employ certain characteristic methodology. To illustrate these methods a comparison is made between a functional, e.g., Spokane, Washington, and a dysfunctional veterans court, e.g., the pilot program in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Management

Functional: Works from the bottom up by including local citizens, groups, public officials, Veterans Administration, military bases, criminal defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges with military backgrounds who volunteer.

Regular public meetings of all interested parties are held to discuss openly and honestly what is working and not working. Feedback and suggestions are encouraged.

Dysfunctional: Uses top-down dictates to local citizens, groups, and defense attorneys. Ignores local criticism or suggestions. Responds to criticism with ad hominem attacks and bitter complaints and is unresponsive to local issues and problems.

Meetings are few and far apart, and generally not publicly announced. Agenda is limited to what program managers want to discuss. Feedback is limited and discouraged. Those who disagree are retaliated against or terminated.

Funding

Functional: Uses available local resources and realizes cost savings from reduced recidivism to justify establishment and maintenance of veterans court.

Costs for treatment are largely borne by the Veterans Administration or military bases for active-duty troops under existing programs. Thus, local jurisdictions are not burdened by those expenses.

Veteran needs for food, housing, clothing, employment, family problems, etc., are met by participating local charities and existing government agencies, e.g., employment offices.

Dysfunctional: Requires large federal grants to get started and continue operations. Spends a get deal of effort seeking additional funding to maintain large bureaucratic overhead.

For example, the Colorado Dept. of Human Services has had a $2 million grant since October 2008 from the federal Dept. of Health and Human Services SAMSHA program to establish veteran courts. As of October 2010 only one pilot program is in pilot stage for a veteran court in one county. That is apparently true in the other 11 states where SAMSHA has pilot programs as well.

Top-down management tends to prevent or inhibit cooperation with local charities and other government agencies. So veteran¹s needs for food, housing, clothing, jobs, etc., generally go unmet.

Personnel and facilities

Functional: The justice system is obligated to resolve the issues associated with veterans who are arrested regardless. Thus, no new facilities or personnel are required. Treatment is provided by the Veterans Administration or local military bases under existing programs in any case and only informal coordination is required between the various groups.

In order to get the new court up and running involved personnel in the justice system, concerned citizens, local charities, local government agencies, and veterans volunteer their time and energy to plan and implement the program.

Once up and operating the veteran court reduces recidivism so that the justice system has fewer veterans and personnel have more time to deal with them on a personal basis. That further reduces both recidivism and costs to the justice system.

Dysfunctional: Requires hiring people to do the coordination, manage the program, recruit and train the veteran volunteers, develop training programs, schedule events, develop agendas, and promote the program in order to obtain additional funding.

The increase in bureaucracy and top-down management tends to alienate citizen groups and local charities who cooperate and innovate less. That results in requirements for more bureaucrats to do the jobs citizens and charities should be doing. And the growing bureaucracy requires expanded, expensive facilities as well as additional funding.

An inflexible bureaucracy leaves little time to deal with disabled veterans in court and few even bother with the veteran court. Recidivism remains unchanged or, possibly, increases.

Types of crime dealt with in veteran court

Functional: Has no limit on types of crimes considered for first offenders and many repeat offenders where addiction or combat wounds are a factor in the veteran¹s offenses.

Whenever possible veterans are intercepted during their first brush with the criminal justice system and evaluated and treated as rapidly as possible after their arrest.

Dysfunctional: Only admits veterans accused of non-violent crimes, misdemeanors or felonies, who are first offenders.

Requires veterans to accept a plea agreement (plead guilty) to the accusations before being admitted to the veteran court. Postpones treatment until after the plea agreement and sentencing, months or more than a year after they are arrested.

Treatment versus punishment

Functional: Presumes innocence! Veterans who enter the justice system are quickly and publicly evaluated and entered into treatment while prosecution is deferred as appropriate.

Veteran court wields both a carrot by deferring prosecution while the veteran is treated and dismissing charges if successful, and a stick by going through with criminal prosecution if veteran fails or is unsuccessful in treatment. Thus, veteran has considerable incentive to complete required treatment and participate in the veteran court program.

The veteran¹s record doesn¹t show a conviction if they cooperate and successfully complete treatment. Their lives and careers are left intact and they have a very good chance of going on to lead productive, crime-free lives, thereby reducing recidivism and costs for the justice system.

Dysfunctional: Presumes guilt! Veterans are leisurely evaluated by a secret cabal and forced to plead guilty to a heinous crime they may or may not have committed before being accepted into the veteran court.

The court holds little power over the veteran after the guilty plea except to put them in prison. The veteran has little incentive to complete treatment.

Veteran¹s record shows they have pled guilty and been convicted of a heinous crime. Their lives and careers are destroyed and it is very likely they will go on to commit more crimes, often more violent ones.

Veterans helping veterans

Functional: Uses time-honored military method of ³buddy system² to link up volunteer veterans with disabled veterans in the court. Informal process of ³makee-learnee² used to find out what works best overall and in individual cases.

Emphasis is on getting veterans helping veterans without undue and burdensome bureaucracy. Process is rapidly implemented and mistakes or problems are quickly corrected.

Dysfunctional: Requires long debates on what to name the program, extensive training and background checks of volunteer veterans before they can be linked up with a disabled veteran, and training of volunteers cannot begin until training program is developed and approved by bureaucracy.

Multi-year delays in implementation result and no mechanisms for correcting mistakes or bad practices are built in. In fact, criticism is retaliated against.

Restorative justice works better

There can be little doubt that functional veteran courts work to help veterans with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injuries (TBI), crippling wounds and disabilities, substance abuse, and other issues related to their military service when they enter a civilian justice system. For example, virtually any manifestation of PTSD looks like domestic violence (DV) in the civilian world and is likely to result in an arrest. But, in essence, a DV conviction leaves a trooper a dead man walking. Thus, the deferred prosecution and treatment inherent in a functional veteran court can save the veteran, his family, marriage, and career in many cases where their PTSD and other impairments can be recognized and successfully treated. Society benefits both by reducing costs for courts and incarceration, and returning veterans to productive lives.

Conversely, dysfunctional civilian courts, or veteran courts that operate on a drug-court model that requires a guilty plea and only accepts non-violent first offenders doesn¹t begin to address the problems that typically lead veterans into trouble with the civilian justice system. Current catch, convict, and release practices often leave a veteran homeless and commonly result in their committing even more crimes, or suicide. Hardly the outcome society desires for men and women who have given so much for their country!

Costs of dysfunctional courts

As noted in the forward, the five bases surrounding Colorado Springs are losing ~40 active-duty military a month largely due to dysfunctional civilian courts. If just half of those troops could be returned to duty by a functional veteran court, savings in training and associated costs, assuming such costs average $5 million for each trooper (combat veteran noncoms are not cheap or easy to replace), would be $100 million per month to the military budget.

That is for only one functional veteran court!

Colorado Springs almost certainly has one of the highest arrest rates of active-duty military in the nation. But a number of other jurisdictions must be losing at least 10 troopers a month to dysfunctional civilian courts who might be suitable for return to duty with a functional veteran court. Assume two Marine Corps bases and five other Army bases are losing 10 Marines or troopers a month that could be helped by a functional veteran court. That suggests at least 90 military personnel a month, or a thousand troops a year might be retained on active duty by functional veteran courts. The potential savings are a billion dollars in the defense budget.

El Paso County (Colorado Springs), and other local jurisdictions, also stand to save a considerable amount by instituting a functional veteran court. Dividing total yearly costs by the number of arrests and bookings into the El Paso County (Colorado Springs) jail suggests each booking costs the county at least $130. Preliminary data show there are between 3,000 and 3,200 veterans a year booked into the El Paso County jail. With current practices at least one-third of these veterans will be rearrested within a year, or at least 1,000. If a functional veteran court cuts recidivism in half then only about 500 veterans would be rearrested, saving the county at least $65,000 in jail costs alone. Cost reductions for police and courts are probably of the same magnitude suggesting the county should save upwards of $200,000 per year with a functional veteran court. And I suspect these estimated cost savings are low because I¹ve omitted many factors, e.g., lost time at work, lost jobs, etc.
- by Dr. Charles E. Corry

Court agrees to treatment for Iraq war veteran Brock Savelkoul before legal proceedings

2010-10-08T12:37:00.000-07:00

By LAUREN DONOVAN Bismarck Tribune

Posted: Thursday, October 7, 2010 2:10 am

WATFORD CITY — Brock Savelkoul didn’t look like a free man when he got into the pickup with his sister out in the McKenzie County jail parking lot Wednesday afternoon. This was no rejoicing “yeehaw!” moment.

He looked like a man leaving with the most serious orders he’d ever been given: to save a life.

His own.

Seventeen days ago, he faced deadly force in a two-hour standoff between a raving, suicidal Iraq war veteran and police trying to stop the craziness.

On Wednesday, the law put its long arm firmly around his shoulder and sent him from the McKenzie County jail directly to a Veterans Administration treatment center in Fargo.

This is no get-out-of-jail-free card.

If he leaves treatment, he returns to jail.

Savelkoul, 28, will be back in court in December to face felony and misdemeanor charges for his alcohol-fueled rampage through the county Sept. 21. He doesn’t remember writing a suicide note for his family in Minot that day, his wild sunset ride into Watford City, or taking two guns into a convenience store and pointing them at clerks and customers. He doesn’t remember speeding away from town with police in pursuit and the long, cold standoff on a dark stretch of U.S. Highway 85 when he fired his guns twice and begged cops to kill him.

http://www.bismarcktribune.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/article_f79b84c2-d1c7-11df-9d12-001cc4c03286.html?mode=story

'THE COUNTRY HE FOUGHT FOR HAS FAILED HIM'

2010-10-04T03:38:00.000-07:00

Iraq war veteran in jail two years after Pahrump shootout

WIFE WAITS FOR ANSWERS

My husband, who is a VETERAN, and proudly served this country - has been in the Nye County Detention Center for TWO YEARS without a trial - and the Sheriff of Nye County had this comment to the Las Vegas Review Journal:

“I’m sure the deputies involved can’t wait to get this behind them,” DeMeo said.

To anyone living in Nye County, remember DeMeo is running for re-election.

Kirk Vitto, Bob Beckett and Tony DeMeo could have made a difference in my husband's life. They made the decision not to do so.

There are better answers for our Veterans than incarceration.

I hope that everyone that has followed this story gets really upset - all 17,840 of you that have touched this blog, making you a part of my husband's life.

Here is the latest story from the Las Vegas Review Journal.
(click below for complete story)
http://www.lvrj.com/news/iraq-war-veteran-in-jail-two-years-after-pahrump-shootout-104261574.html

Iraqi vet asks for treatment, not jail after armed standoff

2010-10-03T14:54:00.000-07:00

September 29, 2010
By LAUREN DONOVAN
Bismarck Tribune

Brock Savelkoul in a family photo with
his sister, Angie Savelkoul Heinze.

WATFORD CITY — A nightmare video of bombs, dead bodies and screams in blinding sunlight won’t stop playing in Brock Savelkoul’s mind.

He takes his guns and his Purple Heart and drives down North Dakota highways like a crazy man — at that moment he is a crazy man — until he runs out of gas hundreds of miles away. Police cars surround him.

He grabs his gun and yells into the strobe of flashing lights and the dusky light at the end of day, “Kill me! I want to go out in a blaze of glory!”

He fires, once into the ground, once into his pickup. “I want to die!” he screams.

He has never been so lost. Or so far from home.

He’s a hero, a decorated U.S. Army Field Artillery Infantryman with three tours of duty in Iraq, only 28 years old, never in serious trouble his whole life.

(click below for complete story)
http://www.bismarcktribune.com/news/local/article_8425df6c-cc48-11df-be46-001cc4c03286.html

TWO YEARS

2010-09-19T01:00:00.000-07:00

It is 1:00 a.m. - September 19, 2010

At this time two years ago lives had begun to spin out of control, and lives were on the verge of complete destruction.

How sad that I couldn't have had a clue what was going to happen in an hour and a half. I can think of so many things that I could have done differently if I had only known that hell was about to erupt and destroy the lives of Pat and Sue Lamoureux...............

But it's history now, and I can't change it. But I pray every day and every night for a new beginning and that justice will prevail and Pat Lamoureux will get his freedom. I pray we will soon be able to pick up the pieces and begin to put our new lives together. That is what has to happen. Pat has been punished, he deserves to have the chance to rebuild his life.

Thank you everyone for your support in the past, and please continue to stand by and support Pat Lamoureux. I will never give up fighting with every ounce of my life to save his life.

2010-09-08T22:17:00.000-07:00

9/7/2010 Nye County District Attorney Bob Beckett arrested again

Former Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss Played Role In DA's Arrest

Beckett Arrested For Second Time Since May

By HENRY BREAN and MIKE BLASKY
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

Nye County District Attorney Bob Beckett was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving Tuesday night. The Nye County sheriff's office confirmed the arrest, which happened about 9 p.m. after Beckett was found sleeping in the driver's seat of a car parked on a Pahrump roadway.

Beckett, 51, failed a field sobriety test and a preliminary breath test, according to the sheriff's department. He was issued a citation and booked for driving under the influence.

This was not Beckett's first arrest for drunken driving.

In 2008, Beckett was charged with drunken driving in California after crashing two vehicles on the same desert highway six hours apart.

(CLICK BELOW FOR MORE)
http://www.lvrj.com/news/nye-county-district-attorney-bob-beckett-arrested-again-102447789.html

OPERATION NEW DAWN IRAQ

2010-09-01T13:49:00.000-07:00

September 1, 2010

Last night I did something I have not done previously; I listened to Mr. Obama give a speech on the ABC Nightly News.

Some 50,000 troops remain in Iraq, as Mr. Obama announced the “end of the war in Iraq”. Then, afterwards I listened to the commentary by Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopolous.

There were several things that struck me about this news broadcast last evening. Some of the remaining troops were interviewed by a news correspondent. The reporter asked if they felt the war was over. One soldier responded, the others looking uneasy to respond to such a direct question. The soldier responded with:

“We are combat troops; we are still here and we still have a job to do. The name’s changed, but the mission is pretty much the same.” The reporter pressed the soldier further, “So, you don’t feel like combat is done?” to which the soldier replied “Not at all sir.”

Since March 19, 2003 4,427 Americans ages 18-60 have been killed in Iraq. In the month of August alone, as the war was winding down, there were 560 IED explosions in Iraq. The last American died in Iraq 10 days ago. Not one state of the United States of America has been spared loss of life since the beginning of the war.

I think the one statistic that was ‘quoted’ last evening that upset me the most was this one: 34,268 troops have been ‘wounded’ as of August 31, 2010.

COME ON AMERICA – wake up, educate yourselves, get informed, understand what is going on – whatever label you want to put on “get a reality check”.

Once again the media sanitizes war and tells the American people what the government wants the American people to hear. ANYONE who believes that only 34,000+ troops have been “wounded” is ignorant to the plight of our Veterans returning with PTSD and TBI. The media once again fails our Veterans and I wonder if anyone but me caught that "wounded” statistic.

As long as the media does not broadcast the fact that PTSD and TBI are WOUNDS OF WAR the American people will NEVER get it.

I am so aggravated…………

Dad: GI shot dead seemed happy, Army failed him

2010-08-29T14:55:00.001-07:00

"Sue Lamoureux believes that a lack of appropriate and accessible mental health treatment for military members and veterans is contributing to the number of soldier-on-police incidents across the country."

By Matthew D. LaPlante

The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated Aug 28, 2010 11:12PM

There was something different about Brandon Barrett when he came home from Army basic training in early 2007.

Bill Barrett had always been proud of his son. But now, the Marine Corps veteran noticed, “Brandon held himself higher. Joining the Army was a life-changing experience for him. It was a good change.”

But Bill Barrett now fears that his son’s experiences at war brought on another change — something deeper, something darker.

Something deadly.

The younger Barrett, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, was wearing full battle gear and carrying a loaded rifle when a police officer confronted him in downtown Salt Lake City on Friday afternoon. A police spokeswoman said Barrett opened fire, striking the officer in the leg. The officer returned fire, killing the 28-year-old soldier, whose bloodied body fell in a patch of grass behind the Grand America Hotel, near one of the city’s busiest intersections.
(click below for entire story)
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50182386-76/barrett-police-health-army.html.csp?page=1

Army vet killed, officer wounded in SLC shootout

2010-08-29T14:55:00.000-07:00

By Matthew D. LaPlante, Sheena McFarland and Lindsay Whitehurst
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated Aug 28, 2010 07:11PM

He was dressed for war. And he died in a hail of gunfire. But the battlefield upon which Brandon S. Barrett waged his final fight was not in a distant, dangerous place, but rather, it would appear, in his own mind.

In a situation that has become disturbingly frequent across the United States, an armed soldier squared off against a police officer in downtown Salt Lake City on Friday afternoon. Barrett, a 28-year-old U.S. Army veteran recently home from Afghanistan, was in full battle dress, armed with an assault rifle and dozens of rounds of ammunition. It took four minutes from the moment that a frightened witness called 911 to the time that Barrett’s bloodied body lay on a small patch of grass behind the opulent Grand America Hotel. The soldier was dead. A police officer wounded.

And the fog of war was thick.

“It’s heartbreaking,” said Terry Schow, director of the state Department of Veterans Affairs, who has tirelessly fought for greater mental health services for those returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “This is so troubling, on so many levels, I cannot even begin to say.”And yet, Schow said, the officer may have had little choice in his response. “We understand that officer, and public safety is so very important,” he said.
(click below for complete story)
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50179511-76/officer-police-lake-salt.html.csp

Over-medication contributes to military suicides, advocates say

2010-08-13T16:45:00.000-07:00

The Charleston Gazette
August 12, 2010

By Veronica Nett

CHARLESTON, W.Va - The suicide rate among military veterans has ballooned in recent years, in part because of overmedication of service members and a lack of support for veterans, advocates for treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder said Thursday.

Psychiatrists sometimes prescribe drugs as a cure without an actual understanding of what the drugs do, said Dr. Peter R. Breggin, a psychiatrist and author from Ithaca, N.Y.

In 2008, the Army's suicide rate -- 20.2 per 100,000 -- exceeded the civilian suicide rate for the first time. The civilian suicide rate has held steady for years at about 18 per 100,000, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.

Breggin and seven panelists addressed a crowd of about 50 therapists, social workers, members of the state Veterans Affairs department, in addition to service members and their families at the 2010 PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury Education and Awareness Conference.

Care-Net, a branch of the state Council of Churches, sponsored the conference at the Blessed John XXIII Pastoral Center in Charleston.

PTSD is the brain's natural reaction to extreme stress and traumatizing experiences, said Breggin, the conference's keynote speaker. Tramuatic brain injury looks just like PTSD, he said.

"There is no drug that improves the function of the brain," said Breggin, who said he will not prescribe psychiatric drugs as treatment for any disorder.

Psychiatric drugs, such as antidepressants and anxiety medication, alter the chemical balance in the brain, disrupt the release of serotonin and, in many cases, have the same effect as street drugs, Breggin said.

Patients using psychiatric drugs have experienced psychotic and violent behavior, attempted suicide and are unable to think clearly, Breggin said.

Mary Lahas talked about her son, Michael, who she said stuck IV needles into his arms in a suicide attempt.

Her son, an Army infantry member, survived roadside bomb explosions, and witnessed the shooting death of civilians in Iraq, Lahas said Thursday.

He returned from his first deployment in 2008 with PTSD and TBI and suffered from headaches, anxiety, guilt, tinnitus and memory problems, Lahas said. He refused to seek help, she said, because he saw other soldiers ridiculed who did.

When he finally did seek help, he was given a "cocktail of death," that included antidepressants, anxiety medications and sleep aids, Lahas said.

"He was so over-medicated he could not care for himself -- eat, sleep or brush his teeth," she said.

The drugs and stress led him to try to take his own life, and while standing in his bathroom bleeding, he drew a smiley face on the wall in his own blood, she said.

Her son's wife found him and called for help. He was sent to a civilian clinic where he was diagnosed with PTSD. The military never diagnosed him with PTSD, just said that he had similar symptoms, she said.

"We gave them a normal teenager and they gave back a broken soldier that looked like a concentration camp survivor," Lahas said.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has estimated that more than 6,000 veterans from past and ongoing conflicts will commit suicide this year.

Update on corruption in Pahrump

2010-07-17T09:24:00.000-07:00

COURTS HEAR REQUESTS TO DISQUALIFY BECKETT

Pahrump Valley Times
Mark Waite
July 16, 2010

Dozens of requests to disqualify the Nye County district attorney’s office and recuse judges from hearing cases in which Sheriff’s Dep. David Boruchowitz is involved have begun to hit the courts.

The requests, by public defenders working for the Gibson and Kuehn law firm, claim the DA’s office should have provided them with evidence under the rules of discovery to back up claims by DA Bob Beckett that Boruchowitz is a liar and perjurer.

Beckett and Boruchowitz became involved in a highly-publicized spat after Boruchowitz arrested Beckett May 5 for misusing funds in the Bad Check Program, after which Attorney Conrad Claus, a prosecutor appointed by Beckett, filed 25 counts against Boruchowitz on May 20 for a variety of charges including false arrest and oppression under color of office.

The first case in which the motion to disqualify the DA’s office was heard involved murder suspect Timothy Liapes, accused in the March 2009 death of Robert Humphrey. Attorney Harry Kuehn referred to Beckett’s published statement that “we have affidavits of perjury against Boruchowitz.”

Beckett went on to say in a Pahrump Valley Times interview that he had no faith in any criminal case in which Boruchowitz was involved, Kuehn’s motion said.

In response, Nye County Sheriff Tony DeMeo referred to the order issued by visiting Judge Robert Estes, in which Estes said documents he reviewed weren’t affidavits of perjury and were not relevant to the Liapes case.

Mere allegations of the untruthfulness of a police officer is not exculpatory evidence — evidence to clear Boruchowitz from fault, Estes noted.

Kuehn’s motion said Liapes couldn’t be prosecuted by a suspected liar. Liapes is scheduled for a status hearing July 26.

While both 5th District Judges Robert Lane and John Davis declined to grant the motion to withdraw the DA’s office from cases and didn’t recuse themselves, attorneys for Gibson and Kuehn note Joseph Patrick Lamoureux’s case has been continued until a calendar call Jan. 11, or after Beckett leaves office.

(click below for complete story:)
http://pvtimes.com/news/courts-hear-requests-to-disqualify-beckett/.

Army reports record number of suicides for June 2010

2010-07-16T23:44:00.000-07:00

USA TODAY
By Gregg Zoroya

Soldiers killed themselves at the rate of one per day in June making
it the worst month on record for Army suicides, the service said Thursday.

There were 32 confirmed or suspected suicides among soldiers in June, including 21 among active-duty troops and 11 among National Guard or Reserve forces, according to Army statistics.

Seven soldiers killed themselves while in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan in June, according to the statistics. Of the total suicides, 22 soldiers had been in combat, including 10 who had deployed two to four times.

"The hypothesis is the same that many have heard me say before: continued stress on the force, said Army Col. Christopher Philbrick, director of the Army Suicide Prevention Task Force. He pointed out that the Army has been fighting for nine years in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Last year was the Army's worst for suicides with 244 confirmed or suspected cases.

The increase was a setback for the service, which has been pushing troops to seek counseling. Through May of this year, the Army had seen a decline in suicides among active-duty soldiers this year compared with the same period in 2009.

Philbrick expressed frustration over the June deaths. "Because we believe that the programs, policies, procedures ... are having a positive impact across the entire force. The help is there."

A leading military suicide researcher says changing a culture that views psychological illness as a weakness takes time.

"I would expect it to be years," said David Rudd, dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Science at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

The mounting stress on an Army facing renewed deployments and combat in Afghanistan is also a factor, Rudd said. "That's not a challenge they (Army leaders) control. It's a challenge that the president and Congress controls," he said.

The Army also unveiled on Thursday a training video designed to combat suicides. It contains testimonials by soldiers who struggled with self-destructive impulses before seeking help. It is titled Shoulder to Shoulder: I Will Never Quit on Life.

Philbrick said this was an improved video that he hoped would reach troubled soldiers. The previous video did not resonate with average soldiers, he said. During a showing in Baghdad, soldiers laughed at it, Philbrick said. "In grunt language, it sucked," he said.

The Army's current suicide rate is about 22 deaths per 100,000, which is above a civilian rate that has been adjusted to match the demographics of the Army. That rate is 18-per-100,000. Only the Marine Corps has a higher suicide rate, at 24-per-100,000. Although Marine Corps suicides had been tracking similarly to last year's record pace, the service reported only one suicide in June.

Just among Guard and Reserve soldiers, suicides have occurred at a higher rate this year than last year, according to Army figures. There have been 65 confirmed or suspected cases this year, compared with 42 for the same period last year.

.

2010-07-14T04:25:00.000-07:00

A NOTE TO: MR. KIRK VITTO, PAHRUMP, NYE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE -
PTSD is REAL MR. VITTO. This is not my assessment, Mr. Vitto - this is from the government.)

VA Simplifies Access to Health Care and Benefits for Veterans with PTSD

July 12, 2010

WASHINGTON – Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki announced a critical step forward in providing an easier process for Veterans seeking health care and disability compensation for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), with the publication of a final regulation in the Federal Register.

“This nation has a solemn obligation to the men and women who have honorably served this country and suffer from the often devastating emotional wounds of war,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki. “This final regulation goes a long way to ensure that Veterans receive the benefits and services they need.”

By publishing a final regulation in the Federal Register to simplify the process for a Veteran to claim service connection for PTSD, VA reduces the evidence needed if the trauma claimed by a Veteran is related to fear of hostile military or terrorist activity and is consistent with the places, types, and circumstances of the Veteran’s service.

This science-based regulation relies on evidence that concluded that a Veteran’s deployment to a war zone is linked to an increased risk of PTSD.

Under the new rule, VA would not require corroboration of a stressor related to fear of hostile military or terrorist activity if a VA doctor confirms that the stressful experience recalled by a Veteran adequately supports a diagnosis of PTSD and the Veteran's symptoms are related to the claimed stressor.

Previously, claims adjudicators were required to corroborate that a non-combat Veteran actually experienced a stressor related to hostile military activity. This final rule simplifies the development that is required for these cases.

VA expects this rulemaking to decrease the time it takes VA to decide access to care and claims falling under the revised criteria. More than 400,000 Veterans currently receiving compensation benefits are service connected for PTSD. Combined with VA’s shorter claims form, VA’s new streamlined, science-based regulation allows for faster and more accurate decisions that also expedite access to medical care and other benefits for Veterans.

PTSD is a medically recognized anxiety disorder that can develop from seeing or experiencing an event that involves actual or threatened death or serious injury to which a person responds with intense fear, helplessness or horror, and is not uncommon among war Veterans.

High Noon in Pahrump, Nev.: Sheriff Arrests the District Attorney

2010-07-08T11:54:00.000-07:00

Wall Street Journal
July 6, 2010
By ALEXANDRA BERZON

PAHRUMP, Nev.—Like a scene from a Western movie, the two top lawmen here are settling their scores in public.

In May, a Nye County sheriff's deputy arrested the district attorney. The sheriff, Tony De Meo, alleges that the D.A., Robert Beckett, was misusing public funds.

According to Mr. De Meo, public money had gone to supporting the local cheerleading squad, led by the D.A.'s wife, and to make a family friend's car payments. No charges have been filed, in part because Mr. Beckett, the D.A., refuses to charge himself.

Meanwhile, Mr. Beckett appointed a special prosecutor to investigate possible abuses of power by the sheriff's office and other public officials. Mr. Beckett claims that arresting him was part of an effort to sabotage his re-election. Mr. Beckett ended up running last among five candidates in the Republican primary.

The special prosecutor filed felony charges against the sheriff's deputy, David Boruchowitz, who had arrested the D.A.

Mr. Boruchowitz was also the sheriff's informal press liaison. And after he was summoned to lock himself in the corrugated metal county jail, he sent out a press release with his own mug shot announcing he had been arrested. A judge later rejected the charges, contending Mr. Beckett didn't have the power to appoint a special prosecutor. So Mr. Beckett refiled the charges himself.

(click link below for entire article)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704103904575336661401293070.html

SUMMER IN IRAQ

2010-06-30T17:41:00.000-07:00

(excerpt)
from t r u t h o u t,
by William River Pitts, Op-Ed
Wednesday 30 June 2010
..........all eyes were focused on the war in Iraq. The script has been flipped, Afghanistan gets the headlines now, and the ongoing war in Iraq has been relegated to the back pages, if it makes the papers at all.

It would be a hell of a thing if this country, its people and its "mainstream" media could focus on more than one thing at a time, wouldn't it? Because we are still at war in Iraq, too. Soldiers are still dying there - 38 this year, seven this month - along with dozens of Iraqi service members and policemen. Hundreds of Iraqi civilians are killed and wounded every month, just like in Afghanistan, but we have somehow allowed ourselves to accept the farcical notion that things are settled enough over there that we can ignore what's going on.

Think again, folks, because it's high summer in Iraq, and tempers are getting very short. According to a recent article in the Washington Post, the ugly effect of this ongoing conflict continues to grind the people into the ground:

At least three times a week, Maher Abbas brings one of his two young children or his elderly mother to the hospital to be treated for dehydration, stomach bugs or heat exhaustion. Lack of water and electricity are killing his family and his business, he said. Abbas's comments reflect a wave of fury that has erupted across this country of 30 million as Iraq's sweltering summer begins. Most people are having to deal with electricity shortages that leave them with no respite from the heat and no water when their household electric pumps shut off.

Seven years after the U.S.-led invasion, Iraqis are taking to the streets to demand basic services they have not received, despite many promises and the expenditure of billions of dollars by the U.S. and Iraqi governments. Their anger has forced the hand of Electricity Minister Karim Wahid, who resigned Monday. In a news conference the same day, Wahid said the ministry could not keep up with demand and did not have enough money, adding that the situation was out of its control.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki defended his government and Wahid. He blamed Iraqis for consuming too much electricity, squatters for tapping into and overwhelming the electrical grid, and the previous parliament for not approving billions of dollars for infrastructure projects to be undertaken with several foreign firms, forcing the government to take out about $2.1 billion in bonds this year. He also warned that Iraqis should expect power cuts for two more years.

Two years. Think about that. Americans will be voting in another presidential election before the Iraqi people can even begin to hope for more than a few hours of reliable electricity a day, and they've been dealing with this situation for a very long time already. Under the best of circumstances, a lack of basic electricity and water service for seven years would be an unbelievable burden on the people, but these are not the best of circumstances by any stretch of the imagination, because it's summer over there. Iraq in summertime is one of the hotter places on the planet; the average daily temperature during this season is 104 degrees, and on many days tops out at nearly 120 degrees.

The heat and lack of services has already led to an outpouring of violence in that already-violent nation. Earlier this month, a protest at the provincial government building in Basra over the lack of electrical service turned unruly; Iraqi police officers wound up firing into the angry, frustrated crowd after bricks and bottles were thrown, killing one protester and wounding three.

According to another Washington Post report, "Iraqis typically pay about $200 a month for generator power that can run one or two appliances in their homes when the electricity is out. Iraqis have taken to unconventional means to beat the heat. Some sit in their cars with the air conditioning on or drench themselves in water before sleeping on cool tile floors."

Of course, the heat is not the only thing causing violence in Iraq. In the last week, car bombs and shootings killed several Iraqi police officers, soldiers and civilians all over the country. But the heat is adding another dimension to an already-unstable and deadly situation. For the seventh time since we invaded, it is going to be another long, hot, murderous summer over there.

We might want to pay attention.

"As many as 100 pending criminal cases could be affected by Beckett’s comments about one of the sheriff’s most active detectives. Unless a case doesn’t have Boruchowitz involved, everything is going to get stalled.” Harry Kuehn

2010-06-27T16:10:00.000-07:00

Special prosecutor, not Beckett, will handle case against Nye County detective

By HENRY BREAN
June 21, 2010

LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL PAHRUMP — Noting what he called a “clear-cut conflict of interest,” a judge on Monday disqualified Nye County District Attorney Bob Beckett from pursuing criminal charges against the sheriff’s detective who arrested him last month.

Senior Judge Robert Estes said he would appoint an outside prosecutor to handle the charges against Detective David Boruchowitz, whom Beckett has accused of abusing his authority and targeting political candidates for harassment.

The same special prosecutor also will decide whether to formally charge Beckett with embezzlement and the other crimes for which he was booked on May 5, the judge said.

“This is so clear-cut it’s not really necessary to dwell on it much,” said Estes, who was called in to settle the matter after Nye County’s two district judges recused themselves because of potential conflicts of interest.

The ruling came at the end of a 90-minute hearing that saw Beckett take the witness stand and his attorney, Leslie Stovall, lodge objection after objection.

Afterward, Beckett said the judge’s decision came as no surprise. “I think he did the fair thing.”

Dogged by negative publicity, the longtime district attorney lost his bid for a fifth four-year term during the June 8 primary, when he finished last out of five Republican candidates.

Beckett said he was “disappointed” by the election results, “but that’s politics.”

He believes the widening legal mess surrounding him probably played “a huge role” in his defeat, but said he is “not angry at anybody” about that.

“I’ve enjoyed my time in Nye County,” said Beckett, who will leave office in early January. “The voters did what they thought was right.”

Beckett’s arrest and the charges he quickly brought against Boruchowitz touched off a nasty public fight between the county’s top prosecutor and its chief law enforcement officer, Sheriff Tony DeMeo.

Now their squabble is threatening to stall or derail dozens of criminal cases in the rural county west of Las Vegas.

Citing public statements Beckett has made accusing Boruchowitz of perjury, attorney Harry Kuehn and his fellow public defenders have filed eight challenges so far in pending cases the detective helped investigate.

Estes granted a delay in one of those cases on Monday, after Kuehn argued that his client, on trial for murder, “cannot possibly be fairly prosecuted by parties including a (possibly) proven liar, a suspected liar and two accused felons.”

The attorney said his case might need an outside prosecutor, too.

“If any place should have extra scrutiny, it’s Nye County,” Kuehn told the judge. “As I’ve said to the press, we’re the laughingstock of the known universe.”

Estes stopped short of approving a second special prosecutor, but he echoed some of Kuehn’s criticism of the county.

“From what I’ve seen,” he said, “everyone down here talks to the newspapers more than they ought to instead of doing what they should.”

The judge went on to note the complex and apparently unique nature of the situation, which Nevada legal scholars and historians have called the first arrest of a sitting district attorney in state history.

“This has been kind of a strange day,” Estes said. “There have been issues today I’ve never even read about.”

After the hearing, Kuehn estimated that as many as 100 pending criminal cases could be affected by Beckett’s comments about one of the sheriff’s most active detectives.

“Unless a case doesn’t have Boruchowitz involved, everything is going to get stalled,” he said.

Beckett has denied the accusations against him, which involve a bank account his office set up more than a decade ago for restitution payments from people convicted for writing bad checks.

Boruchowitz, likewise, has denied any wrongdoing and remains on active duty. He sat in the audience during Monday’s hearings, often with a small smile on his face.

Estes did not say when he would name the special prosecutor, but an announcement could come in a matter of days.

The judge said the prosecutor will have the authority to hire his own investigators and clerical staff.

“It’s a pity in these times, but Nye County is going to have to foot the bill for this,” Estes said.

A SYNOPSIS: Nye County’s Criminal Justice System is a Real Mess

2010-06-16T14:53:00.000-07:00

(This is posted to bring everyone up to speed on what has transpired here in Nye County, where Pat's trial will be held. Please read all the way down to get a "clear" (ha ha) understanding of the magnitude of this mess. Please note, the detective in question is deeply involved in Pat's case.)

by: Featheriver (this is a summary of the events in Pahrump from another citizen's perspective)

The state of the criminal justice system in Nye County has so many twists and turns it makes your head hurt to try and keep it all straight. Never seen or heard anything like it. It is challenging to try to keep up with it all and describe it in an understandable way. It is all entangled in Nye County politics.

The beginning of it all, at least in public view, started with the arrest of Ted Holmes, a former retired police officer, questioning an out of state police officer about displaying his police badge in Nevada. Holmes is a candidate seeking to unseat the Sheriff of Nye County, Tony DeMeo. That led to the Sheriff’s Office obtaining a search warrant for Holmes’ police badge and a confrontation at an airport hangar and the arrest of Mr. Holmes. Holmes appeared in court later but was given a “certificate of dismissal.” So far as I can determine it no formal charges were filed against Mr. Holmes…at least yet. Holmes has maintained he committed no crime and that his arrest was motivated because he is running for the Sheriff’s job.

Along about this same period of time the District Attorney, Bob Beckett, fired Chief Civil Deputy Ron Kent. No reason for the firing was given except that it was over a complaint by a former DA Office employee. Kent alleges his firing was politically motivated. Beckett is running for re-election; Kent filed seeking his election to Beckett’s seat.

Then came the arrest of Beckett by the Sheriff’s Office on allegations Beckett embezzled money from the Nye County Bad Check Program. Beckett claims the Check Program was under the supervision of Kent and that his arrest was politically motivated. Beckett promptly “appointed” attorney Leslie Stovall as a “special prosecutor” to investigate political corruption in Nye County.

The Sheriff’s Office, complained Stovall was inappropriately appointed by Beckett without the Nye County Commissioners’ approval. Judge Tina Brisebill issued an order which “effectively barred” Stovall from representing defendants in a court of law, according to the Mirror. It is also reported that Brian Kunzi, an employee of the Nevada Attorney General’s Office, also a candidate running for Beckett’s seat eliminates the Attorney General from prosecuting the case(s).

All that may have made your eyes glaze over—but wait there’s more as they say in the commercials.

It was quiet about a week then on May 20 it was reported that Conrad Claus, a Clark County former prosecutor was filing a criminal complaint containing 25 counts against Nye County Sheriff’s Detective David Boruchowitz accusing him of “burglary and assault in an effort to harass candidates seeking public office” naming Scott Cobel, also running for Sheriff against DeMeo and Holmes as “victims.” The news report stated that Conrad was a “special prosecutor” named by Beckett.

In a news conference Claus claims Boruchowitz had “kicked in a door at a home where teenagers were gathered on April 17” and subjecting the teenagers” to search and a breathalyzer tests, all without a warrant. Further Boruchowitz is accused of making “untrue statements” about Holmes in the application for the search warrant leading to the arrest of Holmes.

That is essentially a summary of the state of affairs in the Nye County Criminal Justice System as it appears to me at the moment.

Goodness knows what the final cost of all this will be in the end. It is going to cost the taxpayers in lots of legal costs. Whatever the cost the money that will be spent might have been better used to saving the Mt. Charleston School.

Nonetheless, the whole thing stinks to high heaven.
(READ ON - THE STORY ISN'T OVER!)
[Sources: Las Vegas Review-Journal; Las Vegas Sun; Pahrump Valley Times; Pahrump Mirror]
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
AND THE STORY CONTINUES BELOW!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
JUNE 11, 2010 (Las Vegas Review Journal)

Nye County prosecutor hearing set
Court to consider an outside lawyer for criminal case against Beckett

His re-election bid is over, but Nye County District Attorney Bob Beckett's legal fight has only just begun.

Beckett is slated to appear June 21 in a Pahrump District Court for a hearing on whether an outside prosecutor should be appointed to pursue criminal charges against him.

The hearing was originally set for today (June 11) in Tonopah, but it was delayed so a new judge could be assigned.

The matter now will be heard by Senior Judge Robert Estes, who was called in after Nye County's two district judges excused themselves because of potential conflicts of interest.

Estes will consider a request from the Nye County Commission for a court-appointed special prosecutor to review the criminal investigation of Beckett by the Nye County sheriff's office.

Beckett was arrested May 5 in Pahrump and booked on embezzlement and other charges in connection with a bank account his office managed for more than a decade.

He has yet to be formally charged, in large part because no impartial prosecutor has been identified to review the case and determine whether to proceed.

Voters didn't wait to punish Beckett. The longtime district attorney lost his bid for a fifth term Tuesday, finishing last out of five candidates in the Republican primary. His term ends when his replacement is sworn in early next year.

Estes is the second judge from outside Nye County to be assigned to the widening legal mess.

Senior Judge Joseph Bonaventure Sr. was tapped late last month to hear the criminal case Beckett brought against a sheriff's detective involved in his arrest.

Detective David Boruchowitz faces 27 charges, many of them felonies, in connection with what Beckett and his representatives describe as a campaign of politically motivated harassment and intimidation against the county's top prosecutor and two candidates running against Sheriff Tony DeMeo.

The detective has denied any wrongdoing and remains on the job. He had been scheduled for arraignment on June 18, but Bonaventure put the case on hold pending the outcome of the June 21 hearing.

Meanwhile, the County Commission's request for a special prosecutor in the Beckett case has been called into question because it was filed with the court before commissioners voted on it, a possible violation of Nevada's open meeting law.

Commissioners sought to correct their mistake during a special meeting Wednesday when they voted to retroactively approve the request and hire the attorney who wrote it for them.

Beckett's defense attorney, Leslie Stovall, probably will challenge the legality of that move.

He already has lodged an open meeting law complaint with the state over the way the commission's initial request was filed.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
SO - this is the "justice system" which Pat Lamoureux is entangled in. A brave soldier who served his country in combat, has sat in a county jail cell for 21 months waiting for a TRIAL.   When that trial rolls around, how "fair" do you think it will be?   How can there be fairness in a justice system which appears to be over run with corruption?

In view of the fact that Pat had no previous criminal history, if there was "fairness" here, the District Attorney's office would have done the right thing a long time ago. Instead, Kirk Vitto, the Chief Deputy District Attorney on this case, intends to prosecute Pat's case to the fullest extent of the law. Which means he intends to send Pat to prison for what will amount to being the REST OF PAT'S LIFE.

Time Running Out for PTSD Sufferers to Claim Benefits

2010-06-15T19:55:00.000-07:00

06/14/10 5:46 pm
posted by: Markham Evans

WASHINGTON - The U.S. military has agreed to pay millions of dollars to veterans who were discharged from the service for post-traumatic stress disorder with lower disability ratings than they are entitled to. But time is running out for those who are eligible.

The law says that veterans whose PTSD was serious enough to result in discharge from the military are entitled to 50-percent disability, which would give them and their families lifetime medical care, and, if the PTSD is combat-related, tax-free retirement payments, as well. But for some reason, Iraq war veteran Ryan Peck and more than 4,000 others did not receive the 50-percent rating.

"My goal was if I could retire at 37 years old and do something I love for 20 years, that'd be great," Peck said. "And i could figure out something else to do when I was 37."

Peck enlisted in the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. In March of 2003, he went into combat in Iraq with the 101st Airborne.

Peck liked the soldier's life so much that he re-upped for six more years. But in 2005, the Army told him it didn't want him any more.

"My hands would shake constantly, to the extent that I'd have to stop doing what I was doing because I couldn't focus," Peck confided.

Peck had PTSD.

"I was devastated," Peck said. "I mean, I contemplated harming myself more than once."

The army gave Ryan an honorable discharge, but not the 50-percent disability rating required by law.

Enter Lawyers Serving Warriors, volunteers like Morgan Lewis attorney James Kelley, who provide free legal assistance to people like Peck through the National Veterans Legal Services program.

"For a veteran like Ryan we have sued to get the benefits to which the law entitled him from the moment he was eliminated from the Army: namely a 50-percent disability rating," Kelley said.

The government has decided not to fight.

"The government approached us and said we want to work with you to rectify this problem," Kelley said.

But there's a catch: Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans like Peck have only until July 24 to apply for the 50-percent rating.

"There are benefits available to you at absolutely no cost to you -- legal fees are free, no litigation costs," Kelley said. "Just respond."

"I love the Army and if I knew before I signed up that I'd have problems I have now, I'd still have signed up," Peck said.

"This is justice delayed, but it's justice inevitable in any event," Kelley said.

If you think you're eligible, go to the national veterans legal services program website, http://nvlsp.org/ They're waiting to hear from you.

Returning Soldiers' Mental Health: A Serious Problem

2010-06-13T23:14:00.000-07:00

Reported June 14, 2010
(Ivanhoe Newswire)

Two new studies reveal just how common and serious mental health problems are in soldiers returning from war.

The first study, conducted by researchers from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Springs, Md., found up to 14 percent of soldiers returning from Iraq report serious mental health issues due to either posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or depression.

"Using the least stringent definition, we observed PTSD rates across Active Component and National Guard study groups, study time points ranging from 20.7 percent to 30.5 percent and depression rates ranging from 11.5 percent to 16 percent," the study authors write. "Using the strictest definitions with high symptom rates and serious functional impairment, PTSD prevalence ranged from 5.6 percent to 11.3 percent and depression prevalence from 5 percent to 8.5 percent."

The second study, conducted by researchers from the University of California, San Francisco and the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, revealed older veterans with PTSD are more likely to develop dementia over a seven-year period than those without PTSD.

At follow-up, 17.2 percent of the veterans studied developed dementia. Veterans with PTSD had a 10.6 percent risk of developing dementia. The risk among those without dementia was 6.6 percent.

Authors of the study speculate that PTSD may contribute to dementia because it causes chronic stress. That stress may damage the hippocampus, a brain area that is critical for memory and learning, or cause changes in neurotransmitter and hormone levels.

Ivanhoe Broadcast News, Inc. / Winter Park, Florida

With possibility of no funding, Defense still moves on PTSD online project

2010-06-13T06:34:00.000-07:00

By Bob Brewin
nextgov.com
06/10/2010

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency plans to hold a conference on Friday to inform industry about a project that would create virtual worlds, social media sites and telehealth services to help treat troops suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and brain injuries -- even though Congress killed funding for it earlier this year.

DARPA officials said it will develop its ambitious Healing Heroes project using guidance by a board of advisers drawn from the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments, particularly the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury.

In April, Army Brig. Gen. Loree Sutton, director of the center, described the project as a new way for troops suffering from PTSD and traumatic brain injuries, their families and communities to communicate and connect in a way that "transcends time and space." She briefly mentioned the project at a panel discussion on health IT presented by Government Executive.

DARPA said it wants to use virtual worlds with avatars and other advanced online applications to educate veterans and their families on how to manage PTSD, TBI, and related issues such as substance abuse, suicidal thoughts and readjustment to everyday life after serving in combat.

Healing Heroes also plans to create a social networking environment, including a website and applications, that will create instant support groups and online communities moderated by medical experts who will help patients care for themselves and improve their access to services, DARPA said.

The agency also wants to pioneer innovative approaches to telehealth using secure telecommunications such as secure text, voice, virtual reality and videoconferencing that would connect troops with medical experts and support groups in their community in real time.

In addition, the project will tap textual information processing and analysis tools that medical and mental health professionals could use to identify individual and group trends for PTSD and TBI. They then could alert clinicians about soldiers who might have emerging psychological health problems, DARPA said.

But the House and Senate said DARPA is unqualified to run the program, which will require the use of medical information covered by the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

"DARPA does not have adequate policy expertise to translate these [HIPPA] legal strictures into technical systems," according to the House Armed Services Committee report that accompanied the fiscal 2011 Defense authorization bill said.

"While the committee supports the goals of this program, it is not confident that DARPA should lead this type of activity, or that it should pursue technical solutions using real patient data without a well-defined memorandum of agreement with a partner that has deeper experience with HIPAA and Privacy Act information," the report noted.

In its fiscal Defense authorization bill report, the Senate Armed Services Committee said it believed the Healing Heroes project, "if truly deemed necessary, should be undertaken by either a service or an appropriate agency that has the necessary policy and legal expertise to ensure personal privacy and the confidentiality of health data on such a site."

Both the House and Senate committees zeroed out the $9 million budget request for the project.

Neither DARPA nor the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury answered a query on plans for the Healing Heroes project if the authorization bill passes and eliminates funding

It is time to make a difference

2010-06-02T17:16:00.000-07:00

It is well known that the Veterans Administration is failing our Veterans with extended wait periods for treatment. Combat related PTSD and the other traumas of war will have a major impact on this country in a short time. It is time to become better educated and more prepared in order to face this "pandemic" which will besiege the USA. We must support our Veterans, especially in their darkest hours.

PTSD brings with it devastating and life changing events. It will impact families, employers, and neighbors. At some point, combat PTSD will touch your life. If you are informed and educated about PTSD, you will be prepared. What do you really know about PTSD?

As a nation, we are a visual society. We recognize corporate logos, and ad campaigns on television, ‘jingles’ we hear in relation to certain products. They become universal symbols which are immediately recognized and linked to what is being promoted.

During the Viet Nam war there were Prisoner of War (P.O.W.) and Missing in Action (M.I.A.) bracelets bearing the name of a captured or lost soldier. Those of us who wore the bracelets did not know the person whose name was engraved on the bracelet. This was a way to keep that person in our hearts and minds; it was a reminder of the sacrifice made by those who served our country. Within a short time of these bracelets appearance, everyone during that time knew what they meant.

We can do this again in support and recognition of the difficulties our returning soldiers are facing. “Red, White and Blue – to Black and Blue – PTSD” is a clear statement; they fight for the red white and blue, and come home black and blue, mentally and psychologically bruised and broken.

As Americans we must begin to make a public awareness statement that we know they are home, we know they need help; we support them. We must establish a universal symbol for PTSD.

To begin this awareness campaign, take a moment and go to http://rwbbb-ptsd.blogspot.com Order a PTSD awareness bracelet; also order extras for your friends and family that you know support our Veterans impacted by PTSD. As these bracelets spread across this country awareness will be brought to PTSD.

The black and blue “swirled” color bracelets are $3.00. They are embossed with “Red, White and Blue to Black and Blue – PTSD”. Each bracelet ordered will be delivered with a black and blue satin lapel ribbon with a clutch back grip (not a safety pin.)

At the conclusion of all court proceedings in the trial of J. Patrick Lamoureux, proceeds from this awareness campaign will be donated to an entity that supports Veterans with PTSD and those severely injured by war. The organization selected is:

The Coalition to Salute America's Heroes (CSAH). This organization was created to provide a way for individuals, corporations and others to help our severely wounded and disabled Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans and their families rebuild their lives.

I had a specific reason in selecting this organization. As I sat at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, TX waiting for my husband who had been airlifted out of the war, I met a very young wife of an injured soldier who was there for her husband. His name was B.J. Jackson, his wife was Abby. B.J. had lost both of his legs and was severely burned when his HumVee hit a land mind and was also hit by a rocket propelled grenade (RPG). His chance for survival was guarded. B.J. is now the National Spokesman for The Coalition to Salute America's Heroes (CSAH).

There is power in numbers and with numbers comes voices that will be heard. We must join together to make a difference in the lives of those who bravely serve this country.
(SHOW YOUR SUPPORT, CLICK HERE: http://rwbbb-ptsd.blogspot.com/)

Driving Soldiers Crazy with Psychiatric Meds

2010-06-01T11:09:00.000-07:00

By: Dr. Peter Breggin
Posted: May 15, 2010 03:14 PM

The cost of psychiatric care in the military has escalated, including a skyrocketing number of psychiatric admissions, according to a recent USA Today front-page story. These statistics unfortunately reflect a great deal of human suffering on the part of our military.

Does this mean that life in the military has become tougher? Everyone seems to agree that it has with the increased frequency and length of deployments. But that's not the whole story. I recently testified before the Veterans Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives about the increased rates of suicide in the military and pointed out that it probably is caused in part by the increased rate of prescribing psychiatric drugs, especially antidepressants which are scientifically documented to increase suicidal behavior, especially in young men and women of military age. Can we attribute the increased rate of psychiatric hospitalization in part to the same cause--the increased prescription of psychiatric drugs, especially antidepressants?

In Medication Madness (2008) I tell more than 50 clinical stories about patients driven to suicide, violence and crime by psychiatric drugs. In Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry, Second Edition (2008) I examine numerous scientific reports documenting high rates of adverse drug effects. Studies have shown that manic episodes escalate in individuals who are treated with antidepressants, even in individuals with no prior tendency to become manic. Rates for developing manic symptoms fall in the range of 5%-17% of patients given antidepressants. That is a huge adverse reaction rate! If the patients have a previous history of manic-like symptoms, then up to one-quarter or one-third may be driven once again into a manic state shortly after starting antidepressants. One report found that more than 8% of psychiatric admissions could be attributed to antidepressant-induced mania. Suicidal behavior also rises in frequency after the prescription of antidepressants in all age groups. The energy and loss of self control induced by drug induced mania can easily fuel suicidal and violent behavior.

And this data is limited to antidepressants alone! Up to one-third or more of psychiatric hospital admissions are probably caused by adverse drug reactions to the whole range of psychiatric meds.

On Saturday May 1, 2010 I gave a two-hour presentation at the 18th Annual International Military & Civilian Stress Conference in Los Angeles directed by Bart Billings, Ph.D. My talk focused on the hazards of prescribing psychiatric drugs, especially antidepressants, to active duty military personnel. Many soldiers during and after their deployment suffer from symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It was gratifying to learn that many military healthcare providers realize that PTSD is actually the normal human reaction of soldiers who have been exposed to combat.

Many symptoms of PTSD involved a state of hyper-arousal with anxiety, insomnia, irritability, anger, and emotional instability. The antidepressant drugs frequently cause a very similar spectrum of adverse effects, compounding and worsening the soldiers' natural reactions to trauma. I urged the military to continue the development of more human service oriented approaches to soldiers in distress--a theme that was repeated by others throughout the conference.

I was enormously impressed with the humanity and skill of many military caregivers who often appreciate the dangers and limitations of medication, and the need for empathic, supportive help. These professionals included psychologists, social workers, nurses, chaplins and even one military psychiatrist who realized that psychosocial approaches are more effective than drugs. Several active duty and retired military officers declared their interest in attending and presenting at our Empathic Therapy Conference in Syracuse, New York, on April 8-9, 2011.

Military nurses described to me their dismay on finding that every soldier in their rehab groups who returned from deployment for psychiatric treatment was being treated with three or more psychiatric drugs at the same time. The nurses knew that this was doing more harm than good but they were hamstrung by the prescribing psychiatrists who think that more is always better when it comes to psychiatric drugs.

Biological psychiatry, unlike medicine in general, tends to make people worse. In my clinical practice, I often remove patients from psychiatric drugs. The process can be hazardous, especially if the individual has been exposed for many months or years, and should be done carefully under experienced clinical supervision. But despite the difficulty involved in withdrawing some patients, in my clinical experience almost everyone does better off psychiatric drugs than on them, especially when they are offered empathic therapy by a caring and experienced professional.

Peter R. Breggin, MD is a psychiatrist in private practice in Ithaca, New York. He is the author of Medication Madness: The Role of Psychiatric Drugs in Cases of Violence, Suicide and Crime (2008).

A Memorial Day Observance Speech

2010-05-27T11:00:00.000-07:00

The Oath of the Soldier

by Johnny Q. Gogue III

Memorial Day – For most it is a three-day weekend, filled with bar-b-que’s and picnics . . . A time to get away from the normal humdrum of the week. For other’s it’s the beginning of summer, a time to look towards the long lazy days and a time to plan your summer get-a-ways. Though for some, Memorial Day holds a special significance.

On May 5, 1868, an order issued by General John Logan established a day of remembrance for those soldiers who died during the Civil War. May 30, 1868, was the day designated for this observance and flowers were placed on the graves of the fallen soldiers of both the Union and Confederate Armies. New York was the first state to officially recognize this observance in 1873 and in 1971 with the passage of the National Holiday Act; Memorial Day was designated as the last Monday of May.

Now for many of us, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII, and the Korean War are ancient history. The Vietnam War a fading memory. But with the recent Operations Desert Storm, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom we, the American people have once again been thrust into a position of remembering those who are fighting and dying today.

I, like my grandfathers, father, uncles and aunt before me, am a veteran. I am and was proud of serving in the Armed Forces. I served in the Army from 1985 to 1994. I was in Operation Desert Storm/Shield. I know what Memorial Day is about.

I have two brothers who are currently serving. One brother is serving in the Navy in Italy. My youngest brother, who is currently serving in the Army, is right now in Iraq supporting and defending his fellow soldiers. I know what Memorial Day is about.

Memorial Day for all soldiers is embodied in the words of the oath that you first take when you enlist into the service of the country:

I DO SOLEMNLY SWEAR (OR AFFIRM) THAT I WILL SUPPORT AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES AGAINST ALL ENEMIES, FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC; THAT I WILL BEAR TRUE FAITH AND ALLEGIANCE TO THE SAME; AND THAT I WILL OBEY THE ORDERS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE ORDERS OF THE OFFICERS APPOINTED OVER ME, ACCORDING TO REGULATIONS AND THE UNIFORM CODE OF MILITARY JUSTICE. SO HELP ME GOD.

This oath taken by each and every soldier exemplifies the reason why soldiers do what they do each and every day. Soldiers are defenders of the same principles that made this country great. They stand as Patriots to defend and protect the ideals and sentiments espoused in the Constitution of the United States. Soldiers bear true faith and allegiance to that document and they work, and live, within the Codes of Military Justice. Soldiers also obey the orders of the President of the United States and the Officers appointed over them. These truths are self evident in the everyday lives of soldiers.

Now, as we see our fellow citizens arrive back from a foreign land, we should not forget those words that each and every soldier spoke upon enlistment. Because when we look upon a returning soldier from conflict, a disabled veteran, or a grave marker – those words should ring in your conscience.

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic . . . streaming from the eyes of the returning soldier. That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the Officers appointed over me . . . sounding from the stumbling gait of the disabled veteran. According to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God . . . blasting from the cold stone face of a grave marker.

Remember those that gave their lives, so that we may continue to live in freedom as spelled out in the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence . . . Lest we forget.

Toastmaster Speech by; Johnny Q. Gogue III 2005, Desert Storm/Shield veteran

PTSD, medications, tragedy and families.......

2010-05-17T20:56:00.000-07:00

For 55 years of my life, I have carefully chosen my friends, and those that I love. I have surrounded myself with people who were of good character and a strong moral upbringing. I have not associated with people who were of a corrupt or evil nature; I was raised to understand the difference between right and wrong, and have led my life in always trying to do the right thing.

My parents always told me, “Don’t ever do anything stupid enough to get yourself thrown in jail. If you do, you better be smart enough to figure out how to get yourself out – because we will not come and get you.” With that always in my mind, I have led a life respecting the law, and those who enforce it. I have chosen my friends and those that I love because they hold the same types of values that I do.

My life has been filled with men who have served our country. My father served in WWII, all three of my brothers served during Viet Nam, my ex-husband - a Marine, who served 2 tours in Viet Nam; my next to the oldest son served in Iraq, and my step-son is a Marine.

My surviving brother, my ex-husband, my son, and my step-son plan to be present in the courtroom when Pat’s trial starts; certainly, they will be there to support me during this stressful process, but they will also be there in support of their friend and their fellow soldier, Pat Lamoureux, a man they all love and respect.

The day I met Pat Lamoureux, he was wearing desert camouflage, having just finished his “weekend warrior” duty. He took my breath away. The confidence and pride in being a soldier exuded from him. All I could say as he walked passed me was “Hey camouflage man….” As we started to date, I came to know his strength, his compassion, his heart, his willingness to do for others first, his respect for other people – the list of outstanding qualities about this man, go on and on. There are not many men in this world like Pat Lamoureux, and I am proud to say that he is my husband.

On February 17, 2003, my birthday, Pat left to go to the war in Iraq; that day, my birthday, marks the day that our lives would be forever changed.

When he was air-lifted out of the war and arrived at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, I was there waiting for him. I have stood by his side every step since the day he returned from the war. There were days when it would have been easier to leave than to continue taking those steps, but I knew the man I loved was still inside there, and I could not and would not leave him.

Within the first year, it became apparent that he had issues and that the war had come home with him. When Pat started seeking mental health care at the VA, I prayed this would bring my husband back from the war, it had been almost a year, but I knew he was not really home.

Within a short period of time, a closet in the dressing room of our home resembled the shelves in a pharmacy. Every time he had an appointment at the VA, it seemed he was sent home with yet another prescription. A man that went to the war not taking any medications was taking more medications than someone with a terminal illness.

I trusted the VA providers; I trusted that they were trained professionals that knew what they were doing, but nonetheless, our lives became a roller coaster. Our social life became almost nonexistent because Pat was withdrawing into a cocoon. Life as we had known it before the war was gone, and I blamed it on PTSD. While PTSD was the root of the problem, I now know that it was the medication that was taking his life away. I had never analyzed what he was taking, or researched the side effects of taking a cocktail of medications; again, I trusted the VA.

Hind sight is always 20/20. Yes, hind sight is always better; when you think something is wrong don’t trust other people to act on a situation. Demand that something be done, trust your gut instinct.

I have mentally punished myself for not doing something different before the early morning hours of September 19, 2008. I cannot change history, and I know this. I can only go forward and be the demanding person that I can be. Those of you who know me, know what that means.

When Pat was evaluated for competency to stand trial, the civilian doctors made changes to his medication regimen beginning in January 2009. By the time he was transferred back to the detention center in May 2009, I could see the difference in him. For the past year I have seen that my husband is still there, and he is coming back stronger every day.

My goals: 1) To eventually free him of all the psychotropic drugs the VA has put him on, the list has already dwindled; 2) To get him to the VA affiliated National Center for PTSD in California. Therapy is a better answer, not drugs that affect the mind or mood or other mental processes.

(To anyone taking antidepressants, antipsychotic medication, or pain medication, I strongly suggest you read Dr. Peter Breggin’s book, “Medication Madness”.)

Today - Tuesday, May 18, 2010; we are 62 days away from a trial that should not happen; when it does start, Pat will have been incarcerated for 668 days.

I know that what happened on September 19, 2008, was a tragedy and not a crime. A crime is committed with intent; Pat Lamoureux would never intentionally set out to harm another person. I know that Pat’s actions that night caused the Nye County Sheriff’s Office to respond, but I also know Pat Lamoureux has been punished for long enough.

One episode in a person’s life, does not define the person, and if anybody deserves a second chance, it is a combat Veteran – particularly when that Veteran has no prior criminal record.

However, the Nye County District Attorney’s office has gone on record stating this case will be prosecuted “to the fullest extent of the law.” (Pahrump Valley Times, September 24, 2008). Quite an ironic quote from Nye County Chief District Attorney Robert Beckett; he was recently arrested for the second time in as many years.....

For the past 20 months, I have fought with every ounce of my life to try to save Pat Lamoureux’s life. He is a great man, who deserves much more than he has received since he returned from Iraq.

As the number of combat related PTSD cases spiral upwards, the American people should do everything they can to educate themselves about PTSD. To anyone who currently has a loved one serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, you must educate yourselves. Read, read, read. Particularly educate yourself about the arsenal of medications that are being handed out to our Veterans. Ultimately, they hurt more than they help.

Please watch the video 'PTSD and Over Medicating our Veterans' on the blog. There are some astounding numbers about medications and our military in the video.

As the war in Iraq winds down and the war in Afghanistan escalates up, I hope that the American people will soon realize that the price of war not only involves dollars. PTSD is destroying the core of our country; families.

PTSD is hard to live with, whether you are the Veteran, or the family member trying to cope with PTSD.

Support our Veterans, and support their families.

Feeling Warehoused in Army Trauma Care Units

2010-04-26T16:03:00.000-07:00

NY Times
By JAMES DAO and DAN FROSCH

Published: April 24, 2010

COLORADO SPRINGS — A year ago, Specialist Michael Crawford wanted nothing more than to get into Fort Carson’s Warrior Transition Battalion, a special unit created to provide closely managed care for soldiers with physical wounds and severe psychological trauma. A strapping Army sniper who once brimmed with confidence, he had returned emotionally broken from Iraq, where he suffered two concussions from roadside bombs and watched several platoon mates burn to death. The transition unit at Fort Carson, outside Colorado Springs, seemed the surest way to keep suicidal thoughts at bay, his mother thought.

It did not work. He was prescribed a laundry list of medications for anxiety, nightmares, depression and headaches that made him feel listless and disoriented. His once-a-week session with a nurse case manager seemed grossly inadequate to him. And noncommissioned officers — soldiers supervising the unit — harangued or disciplined him when he arrived late to formation or violated rules.

Last August, Specialist Crawford attempted suicide with a bottle of whiskey and an overdose of painkillers. By the end of last year, he was begging to get out of the unit.

“It is just a dark place,” said the soldier, who is waiting to be medically discharged from the Army. “Being in the W.T.U. is worse than being in Iraq.”

(Click here for complete article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/health/25warrior.html?emc=eta1 )

From combat to lockdown: Troubled veterans trading military uniforms for prison attire

2010-04-26T15:49:00.000-07:00

(Note from SUE: I am not condoning the actions of Veterans who are repeat offenders, do not interpret it that way.)

Prisons do not offer effective treatment for PTSD. Utah Department of Corrections therapist Ross Williams said, "The priority here is safety and security, not treatment,'' Williams said. "We do enough to keep people stable and healthy enough to do their time. We don't do enough to get people healed and well."

By Matthew D. LaPlante

The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 04/25/2010 10:15:18 AM MDT

John Pace stumbled to his car, slipped Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" into the compact disc player and turned the key.

From half a century away, one Air Force veteran crooned to another:

When I was just a baby, my mama told me, 'Son, Always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns.'

Five years as a military police officer, including a stint in South Korea, a tour of duty in Afghanistan and multiple deployments in Iraq, had all come to this: a drunken 23-year-old combat vet behind the wheel, determined to find another bottle to empty onto his pain.

Pace pulled into the dark parking lot of a TGI Friday's restaurant in Riverdale, broke a window and crawled inside. He took one bottle, then another. Then he decided to empty out the entire bar.

More than 2 million American military members have served in the nation's ongoing conflicts, and many are returning home deeply troubled by their experiences. About a third suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury, depression or other mental illness. At least a fifth struggle with drug or alcohol dependency.

Mental illness and substance abuse are the greatest predictive factors for incarceration in America. And that has put thousands of veterans on a collision course with the nation's criminal justice system.

But no one has a handle on the extent of the problem because most police agencies, prosecutors and prisons aren't tracking who, among the accused and the convicted, has served in the military.

That lack of information is hampering criminal justice officials and social workers who are making an initial push to help veterans in Utah get the support they need before they wind up behind bars - especially if, like Pace, they have not committed a violent crime. But most vets in trouble with the law today will complete their sentences before help arrives.

'I let it get to this point' » Pace, who grew up in Atlanta, yearns for home. But he blames himself for where he is instead: the Central Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison.

"I let it get to this point," he said. "I made the decisions that resulted in my being here."

Still, he adds, "I've got to give the military some credit, too. I can say with 100 percent certainty that I wouldn't be here if I hadn't gone to war."

Pace knew when he joined the Air Force, right after high school, that he was likely to be called into the fights in Afghanistan or Iraq. But his first tour of duty involved far less action. "In Korea, when we weren't working, we were drinking," he said. "That's just the way it is there."

Ultimately, Pace did deploy to Iraq -- where he manned combat checkpoints, stood watch on guard towers and ran convoys on bomb-laden roads, he said. Among his duty stations: Balad Air Base, not-so-fondly known as "Mortaritaville" for the frequency of mortar and rocket attacks, and Camp Bucca, where U.S. military police keep watch over thousands of Iraqi prisoners suspected of terrorist acts and other crimes.

He still has a hard time talking about his experiences, which left him troubled, confused and angry. "I started hitting the bottle as soon as I got out," Pace said.

Pace contends a desire to "feel a rush" -- like being at war -- drove his Oct. 3, 2008, restaurant break-in. He thinks medication for PTSD might have influenced his "stupid" decision. And alcohol did the rest.

For reasons he can't fully explain, most of the stolen bottles were at the bottom of a ravine near the Pineview Dam in Ogden Canyon within hours of the burglary.

"To see him like this is sad.' » It was Pace's first crime, and records show he cooperated with investigators who arrived on his doorstep the next morning. "I just wanted to avoid going to jail," he said.

"You've got to feel bad for the guy," said Riverdale Police Chief Dave Hansen. Pace had "a drinking problem -- and that certainly could be related to his time in the war," he said.

But charges were up to prosecutors, who filed two felonies against Pace in 2nd District Court. Five weeks later, Judge Ernie Jones - a retired lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves - sentenced Pace to 36 months of probation for the theft.

A month later, Pace was back before Jones for hitting a parked car while driving drunk. Jones sent him to jail for 90 days with the admonition to use the time to sober up.

A few months after he got out of jail, police were called to an altercation between Pace and a female roommate. Pace wasn't charged in the incident, but he admitted he had been drinking -- a violation of the terms of his probation. On Feb. 11, Jones ordered Pace to prison for up to five years.

(click here for complete article: http://www.sltrib.com/Utah/ci_14948127 )

VA Secretary Shinseki Visits, Praises New Veterans Court in Buffalo

2010-04-13T17:37:00.000-07:00

Judge Robert Russell, shown with VA Secretary (Ret) Gen. Eric Shinseki

From top level, praise for veterans court; VA chief sees firsthand why Buffalo's is national model

Written by Lou Michel

April 7, 2010, Buffalo, New York (Buffalo News) -

Sitting unobtrusively in Buffalo City Veterans Treatment Court on Tuesday afternoon, he could have been just another court observer. He was anything but.

This particular observer was U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki, a retired Army general and wounded veteran of the Vietnam War. He had come to observe firsthand why the first veterans court in the country is so successful.

"I'm looking for ways I might encourage more opportunities like this," Shinseki said later at a news conference. "Forty courts have started around the country based on this model."

For City Judge Robert T. Russell Jr., who launched the veterans court in January 2008, it was another busy day in a court where veterans are given a second chance to become productive members of society and avoid a criminal record.

"I'm blessed, your honor; it's been 17 months," one veteran said of staying out of trouble with the law. "I'm grateful. I really am."

At the news conference, Russell explained that the success stems from a different mind-set in working with defendants, many of whom have gone astray after returning home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because of post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injuries or drug and alcohol abuse.

"It's therapeutic problem-solving. There isn't the conflict as in other courts between the prosecutor and defendant," Russell said. "Everyone is on the same page."

With the VA secretary standing just a few feet away, Russell seized the opportunity to thank him and his department for its support.

"I am extremely grateful for the VA. Not only are they treating veterans, but they have a staff person in the court working on veterans' benefits issues that are not an entitlement, but what they have earned," Russell said.

That tone continued with Shinseki, who as a four-star general served as Army chief of staff from June 1999 to June 2003, a period encompassing 9/11 and the early months of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"When my friends ask me why I took this job, I tell them for three reasons — to give back to the kids I sent to war, give back to those who served in Vietnam and give back to the veterans of World War II and the Korean War — those giants," he said.

Shinseki also promised that under his watch, the VA would clear up long delays that veterans encounter in seeking various services.

"Our intent and commitment in 2010 is to break the back of the backlog ... and increase services," he said.

When it was pointed out by the media that this is not the first time a VA secretary has come to Buffalo and vowed to improve processing of veterans' claims, Shinseki said, "We're a large organization, and we're talking about cultural changes. We have begun pilot programs for clearing claims."

He didn't stop at that.

"The bottom line is, it's not working, ... and this year's efforts will change that," he said, promising that he would return to Buffalo and that the conversation on this subject would be different a year from now.

Erie County Director of Veterans Services Patrick W. Welch, who was also wounded in Vietnam, said it meant a great deal that a member of President Obama's Cabinet would take the time to travel here and view the veterans court.

What it shows, Welch said, is "a commitment by this secretary to make meaningful changes."

(extracted from the Veterans for Common Sense website)

Veterans Courts: A Reality, in some communities

2010-04-13T17:15:00.000-07:00

What other leaders are doing to make the Buffalo, NY Veterans Court a reality in:

Tulsa, Oklahoma: VETERANS FIGHT FOR AN ALTERNATIVE JUSTICE SYSTEM THAT TAKES THEIR TRAUMA INTO ACCOUNT
"I think that the least that we owe these veterans is to give them another chance," Bennett said. "They volunteered to do this. And we train them and train them to go do the things they did. Then they come back, and we don't really help them when they get back. When Bennett read about a judge in Buffalo, New York, creating a court docket for veterans who wound up in trouble after facing combat, he realized how he could take action. He got to work trying to get a similar court off the ground in Oklahoma..."
Rochester, NY: THE ROCHESTER VETERANS COURT OPENS FOR BUSINESS "The Rochester Veterans' Court held its first session this afternoon. It's an effort based on the successful Rochester Drug Court, and intended to help veterans who've had a brush with the law stay out of future trouble. McClune says veterans -- particularly those who have been in combat -- will sometimes self-medicate with alcohol or drugs to deal with their experiences. This can lead to job loss, family alienation and arrest for drug or related offenses..."
Las Vegas, Nevada: SPECIAL COURTS FOR VETERANS
"It has taken a long time, but fortunately special courts are now beginning to open around the country for military veterans whose troubles with the law are possibly linked to service-related drug, alcohol or mental health issues. McCloskey reported that Buffalo's model has since been adopted in Anchorage, Alaska; Orange County, Calif.; Rochester, N.Y., and Tulsa, Okla. She also reported that 20 other court systems around the country are considering the idea..."
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania: ALLEGHENY COUNTY PLANS COURT FOR VETERANS "... veterans' court would provide veterans charged with nonviolent crimes a chance to avoid jail time by entering treatment programs under strict supervision. So many returning servicemen and women face mental health and substance abuse problems that it makes sense to bring their cases to a place where their challenges are better understood, officials said. In Buffalo, Judge Robert Russell's Tuesday afternoon court started about a year ago and is set to "graduate" its first class of eight veterans this week, said program manager Hank Pirowsk. The defendants are matched up with volunteer veteran mentors, and there's a representative from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in the courtroom..."
Phoenix, Arizona: NEW COURT IS SOUGHT TO AID VETS CHARGED WITH CRIMES "Studies have shown that 30 to 40 percent of the 1.6 million troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan will "face serious mental-health injuries" such as PTSD or traumatic brain injury. A lot of what brings veterans into contact with the criminal-justice system is the result of injuries they received while they were serving; their behaviors are so tied to whatever that service-related injury could be," Curran said. "There's a stigma around seeking services, especially when you come from a culture where it's important to be strong. It's less likely for veterans to ask for help. In upstate New York, Erie County residents have come to expect low-level offenders to get diverted to one of Buffalo's specialty courts if the suspects qualify, said Judge Robert Russell, who presides over the veterans court..."
Madison, Wisconsin: NEW YORK JUDGE URGES SPECIAL COURTS FOR VETERANS "Buffalo's Veterans Treatment Court, the first of its kind in the nation, was formed because "something more needed to be done" to help former service members, the judge said. Russell said he conducts an open dialogue with veterans who appear before him, which is different than the adversarial setting in other criminal courtrooms..."
Mesa, Arizona: EFFORTS UNDER WAY TO CREATE VETERANS COURT IN THE VALLEY "Several groups are working to create a Veterans Court in Maricopa County. It would handle criminal cases involving all soldiers, but primarily it's designed to address the unique needs of combat veterans with post traumatic stress disorder and brain injuries suffered on the battlefield. These are people who were civilians, signed up to be part-time warriors, if you will, but now they're full-time warriors and part-time civilians... We're trying to get basically ahead of the curve, unlike we did for Vietnam, Korea, World War II..."

What Joe Dwyer's Death Can Teach Us about PTSD

2010-03-30T04:01:00.000-07:00

Battling the Inner Demons of War
03/25/2010
By Cordula Meyer

A photograph of PFC Joseph Dwyer in Iraq made him an American hero, but five years after returning home, mental combat wounds drove him to his death. He is not alone. In 2009, more than twice as many soldiers died by their own hands than were killed by the enemy in Iraq. But new types of therapy are giving others the chance for the peace he never had.

"In 2009, more than twice as many US servicemen and women committed suicide than were killed in combat in Iraq (334 and 149, respectively)."

On an afternoon in June 2008, police in Pinehurst, North Carolina, were dispatched to a white farmhouse. The town is set in an idyllic location, complete with woods, plantation houses and eight golf courses. Many of its inhabitants are retirees, so law enforcement officers generally don't have much to do. But, in the previous months, they had repeatedly been called to this particular address. Its owner, a 31-year-old man named Joe Dwyer, had been barricading himself in his house, where he kept several pistols and a semiautomatic rifle.

This time, the officers broke down the door. Once inside, they found Dwyer lying on the ground, covered in feces and urine, gasping for air. "Help me!" the young man begged the officers. "I can't breathe." Surrounding him were dozens of empty cans of Dust-Off, an aerosol spray meant to clean electronic equipment. But it can also be inhaled as a kind of sedative, which can cause heart and lung damage if repeated.

A taxi driver had alerted the police. She told them that, for months, she had been driving him to local shops every day to buy his cans of Dust-Off because he had wrecked his own car veering to avoid a roadside object he thought was an Iraqi bomb.

Joseph Dwyer was a giant of a man with reddish-brown hair. He died that same day while being rushed to the hospital. He was buried a few days later with military honors. While handing Dwyer's widow, Matina, the folded flag that had been draped over her husband's coffin as a mark of respect from the US Army, an officer fell to his knees in front of her.

Joe Dwyer, who had died so lonely and miserably, was an American hero. In March 2003, the front pages of newspapers across America featured a photo of Dwyer carrying a small Iraqi boy to safety shortly after a firefight. "It was the image of war that everyone wanted to see," says Warren Zinn, the photographer who took the picture. It was also the image that America wanted the rest of the world to see: a brave, compassionate US soldier doing something helpful and acting with the best of intentions in the Middle East. It just might be, however, that Joe Dwyer didn't outlive the war in Iraq precisely because he actually was the way America wanted to be seen.

The Soldiers' Epidemic

Matina Dwyer has short brown hair. A thin, silver cross hangs around her neck. "Joseph did not commit suicide," she says. "He died because of the combat wounds he sustained in his mind." Sitting in a restaurant in Pinehurst, Matina picks at her Caesar salad. It takes her a long time to finish each sentence. "I have peace knowing that he does not have to fight his horrible memories anymore, that he finally does not have to suffer so much," she says. "I can only bear that he is dead because this maybe was his way to help people."

Indeed, after meeting Joe Dwyer, a US Army psychiatrist began developing new methods for treating combat veterans who have been emotionally damaged by their combat experiences.

Joe Dwyer suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). More and more servicemen and women returning home to America -- but also to England and Germany -- are being diagnosed as suffering from PTSD. About one in every five US soldiers who returns home after a tour of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan later finds him- or herself battling traumatic neuroses. An estimated 300,000 US war veterans suffer from PTSD, though many don't seek medical help for fear that they will be classified as being mentally ill. According to the findings of a survey commissioned by the Rand Corporation, an American think tank, only half of those who can eventually overcome their reticence and seek medical help receive even the "barely adequate" treatment they require.

In 2009, more than twice as many US servicemen and women committed suicide than were killed in combat in Iraq (334 and 149, respectively). A year earlier, military doctors found that, each month, roughly 1,000 veterans were trying to take their own life. More than 100 veterans of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan have completely snapped after returning home and ended up killing others. A third of their victims were girlfriends, wives or other family members.

John Fortunato began seeing the first signs of this epidemic five years ago while working as a US Army psychiatrist at Fort Bliss, near El Paso, Texas. The young veterans returning from Iraq who came to see him spoke of being plagued day and night by feelings of guilt, panic and rage as well as dark thoughts.

Like any other Army psychiatrist, Fortunato prescribed medication to soldiers. If he had time, he would also speak with them. In most cases, though, Fortunato merely issued medical certificates that got his battle-scarred patients discharged from the army on the grounds that they had been deemed unfit for combat duty. In reality, though, by then, they were also unfit for life.

In 2006, when Fortunato found himself writing a certificate for a patient named Joe Dwyer, he starting wondering whether he was doing the right thing. "Dwyer was a great guy with a good sense of humor," Fortunato recalls. Dwyer's slow downward spiral prompted the psychiatrist to set up a center that aimed to turn emotionally wrecked combat veterans back into relatively normal human beings. The center's opening ceremony was held in 2007. Officers gave speeches, and a general cut the ceremonial ribbon.

(click here for complete article: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,685442,00.html )

2010-03-20T10:37:00.000-07:00

Pat left for the war on my birthday, February 17, 2003.

Today marks the 7th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Seven years later - and have we really "won" anything? Perhaps some people say we have "won" - I tend to disagree because something has been LOST......isn't it ironic? Operation Iraqi FREEDOM - ultimately cost my husband his FREEDOM.

The war in Iraq has forever changed our lives - and destroyed a phenomenal man. I ask that today each and everyone of you please pray with all your hearts and souls for Joseph Patrick Lamoureux.

Please pray for Pat and that this brave man who put his life on the line for Operation Iraqi FREEDOM will soon be FREE again.

Defendants Fresh From War Find Service Counts in Court

2010-03-16T10:10:00.001-07:00

"The Supreme Court, however, in a series of cases, has declared that the federal sentencing guidelines are advisory, not mandatory"

March 15, 2010

Defendants Fresh From War Find Service Counts in Court
By JOHN SCHWARTZ

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — When Judge Robert C. Chambers handed down Timothy Oldani’s federal sentence for selling stolen military equipment on eBay, he gave the former Marine a break.

In Iraq, Mr. Oldani had performed the jangling work of detonating improvised explosive devices and had seen six of his fellow Marines burned alive in an armored vehicle. He left the service with traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress syndrome that, the judge concluded, had clouded his judgment. Under federal sentencing guidelines, the prison term could have been nearly five years; Judge Chambers decided on just five months, with three years of supervised release and treatment.

Many veterans like Mr. Oldani have returned from Afghanistan and Iraq burdened by post-traumatic stress, drug dependency and other problems. As veterans find themselves skirmishing with the law, judges are increasingly finding ways to provide them with a measure of leniency.

“More and more courts are noticing and asserting, in a variety of ways, that there seems to be some relevance to military service, or history of wartime service, to our country,” said Douglas A. Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University and an expert on sentencing.

At the federal level, judges are bucking guidelines that focus more on the nature of the crime than on the qualities of the person who committed it. States, too, are forming special courts to ensure that veterans in court receive the treatment their service entitles them to.

While veterans are not considered to be more likely to be arrested than the rest of the population, estimates released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2008 found 229,000 veterans in local jails and state and federal prisons, with 400,000 on probation and 75,000 on parole.

There are about 1 million veterans of the two current wars in the Veterans Affairs system so far, said Jim McGuire, a health care administrator at the agency. He cited statistics suggesting that 27 percent of active-duty veterans returning to civilian life “were at risk for mental health problems” including post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Judges have recognized that many of those returning from war are carrying a heavy burden of damage that might not be physically visible. As one federal district judge in Denver, John L. Kane, wrote in an order giving a defendant probation instead of a prison sentence, the soldier “returned from the war, but never really came home.”

The judges’ decisions are part of a broader fight over sentencing, and over once-rigid federal guidelines that tend to punish the crime while giving little weight to the specific circumstances of the defendant. The guidelines explicitly state that “good works” like military service “are not ordinarily relevant” in determining whether to give sentences below the recommended range.

The Supreme Court, however, in a series of cases, has declared that the federal sentencing guidelines are advisory, not mandatory. The United States Sentencing Commission is considering proposals that would allow military service or other evidence of “prior good works” to be considered as mitigating factors in sentencing decisions.

(click here for complete article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/us/16soldiers.html )

U. S. House of Representatives, Veterans Affairs Committee, Hearings - February 24, 2010

2010-03-07T01:45:00.000-08:00

February 24, 2010

Peter Breggin, M. D. - Testimony before the U. S. House of Representatives, Veterans Affairs Committee, Hearings on “Exploring the Relationship Between Medication and Veteran Suicide”

(excerpts of the testimony only - There is a lot of reading contained in the link below this post; and as you read this information, remember our active duty military will become Veterans. Many of the medications being given to our military have been given to Pat by the VA. When these soldiers come home - do you think they are just going to stop taking these medications? No, because these medications are all highly addictive psychotropic drugs. WAKE UP AMERICA - PTSD is on YOUR doorstep)

Statement of Peter R. Breggin, M.D.
Ithaca, NY (Psychiatrist and Author)

I am Peter R. Breggin, MD, a psychiatrist in private practice in Washington, DC, for several decades and now in Ithaca, New York. In the early 1990s I became the first physician to speak and write extensively about the new antidepressants causing violence, suicide and other abnormal behavioral reactions. I became the scientific expert for more than one hundred combined cases against Eli Lilly concerning Prozac-induced violence and suicide, and wrote many related books and scientific articles. In 2004 the FDA finally upgraded the warnings for all antidepressant drugs. The FDA’s language was virtually borrowed from one of my scientific publications (Breggin, 2003), which the agency had provided to each member of its review committee.

My conclusions in this testimony are based on dozens of citations listed in the scientific paper I have written specifically for this hearing, “Antidepressant-Induced Suicide and Violence: Risks for Military Personnel.” My conclusions are further based on hundreds of scientific citations in my published papers and in chapters 6 and 7 of my 2008 medical book, Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry, Second Edition (New York: Springer Publishing Company.

My other recent book, Medication Madness (2008, New York: St. Martin’s Press) presents more than 50 cases in which I have personally evaluated the medical and police records, and interviewed perpetrators and survivors. Based on voluminous scientific data and clinical experience, individuals with no prior tendencies toward suicide, violence or mania can be driven into these states by antidepressants.

...................... (excerpts below)

Evidence pertaining to violence and suicide induced by the newer antidepressants has been growing for years.
.....................

This paper focuses on evidence that antidepressants frequently cause suicide, violence and manic-like symptoms of over-stimulation……
......................

The official American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (2000) is considered a consensus document drawing on current expertise in psychiatry. It is the most commonly used authority in the field and provides the official diagnostic system. In the section on mania and elsewhere, it makes clear that antidepressants can cause all the symptoms and behaviors associated with mania: “Symptoms like those seen in a Manic Episode may also be precipitated by antidepressant treatment such as medication...” (p. 361). Symptoms and behaviors associated with mania, including the medication-induced disorder, emphasize high-risk behaviors: “criminal” behavior, “antisocial” behavior, “irritability, particularly when the person’s wishes are thwarted,” “assaultive behavior,” “physically assaultive” behavior, “physically threatening” behavior, “suicidal” behavior, and shifts from anger to depression (pp. 359-261). By causing mild to severe degrees of manic behavior, antidepressants can cause suicide, violence and a wide variety of antisocial behaviors.

The official diagnostic manual also makes clear that SSRI antidepressants can cause akathisia, including suicide, aggression, and worsening of psychosis or behavioral dyscontrol (American Psychiatric Association, 2000, p. 801).
......................

A considerable body of research demonstrates that the newer antidepressants frequently cause mania.
......................

Studies of antidepressant-induced mania often cite cases of violence.
......................

The mixture of apathy and disinhibited aggressiveness reported by Healy and others is found in a portion of patients who act uncharacteristically violent as a result of taking SSRIs.

.....................

Antidepressant-induced apathy has become sufficiently common to be described in the American Psychiatric Press Textbook of Psychiatry (Marangell et al., 2003; also see Marangell et al., 1999). Patients who become apathetic lose their ability to care about others and may have an increased tendency toward both suicide and violence. (Breggin, 2008b).
......................

In my clinical and forensic practice I have evaluated more than fifty cases of violence, suicide, mania and crime induced by psychiatric medications, especially the newer antidepressants (Breggin, 2008a). In the cases that I reviewed, the suicidal, violent or criminal behaviors were unprecedented and seemed in retrospect to be very alien and inexplicable to the individuals. Recidivism was zero when the medications were stopped.
.....................

In many cases my expert reports lead to acquittal on the basis of involuntary intoxication, reduced charges, shortened sentences, or release from incarceration. Most of the cases were evaluated for legal purposes and some were clinical consultations or treatment cases.

......................

As the patterns emerged from re-examining these cases, I was struck by the fact that victims of drug-induced abnormal mental states and behavior almost never had an inkling that they were acting irrationally or that they were under the influence of their psychiatric drugs. This led me to formulate the concept of medication spellbinding (intoxication anosognosia)—the concept that psychoactive substances reduce the individual’s capacity to appreciate mental and behavioral adverse reactions (Breggin, 2006, 2008a&b).

......................

Familiarity with medication effects does not necessarily protect the individual from abnormal emotional and behavior reactions. In several of my cases (Breggin, 2008a), the victims of drug-induced abnormal behaviors were physicians.

......................

It is relatively easy to prove that antidepressants frequently cause serious and even life-threatening harm, while it remains difficult to prove that they are helpful.

......................

There is overwhelming evidence that the SSRIs and other stimulating antidepressants cause suicidality and aggression in children and adults of all ages.

.....................

….antidepressants frequently cause manic-like reactions, including loss of impulse control and violence….

.................

Little will be lost and much will be gained by stopping the prescription of antidepressants to military personnel. The military should rely upon the psychological and educational programs that are currently under development for preventing suicide and ameliorating other psychiatric disorders among service members. Antidepressants should be avoided in the treatment of military personnel.
......................
(link: http://veterans.house.gov/hearings/hearing.aspx?newsid=525 then look for "Witness Testimonies Panel I, Peter Breggin, MD, first item listed)

From the Petition website - WELL SAID!!!!! 7:20 pm PST, Feb 23, Joy S., Ohio

2010-02-23T21:59:00.000-08:00

JOY S. from Ohio signed the petition today and said:

Former NBA star Jayson Williams was sentenced to 5 yrs prison (on February 23, 2010) with a minimum term of 18 months in prison following the acceptance of his guilty plea in the 2002 shooting death of his limo driver, Costas Christofi.

Williams has been out of jail since the night of the shooting in 2002.

No time in jail.

He has a long history of violent crimes.

He kills a man and more than likely will only serve 18 months and be freed.

Pat has been in jail now since Sept 2008.

No trial.

No bail.

Pat killed no one.

Pat had no previous law violations.

But the charges against Pat could put him behind bars for life?

Pat has PTSD which caused his legal problems.

Williams has no such illness which led to his legal problems.

Pat fought for his country.

All Williams ever fought for (legally) was a rebound or loose ball.

The only justice that can be served is for Pat to be granted time served and mandated mental health care.

(I thank you for your comments and in-sight Joy! As a reminder, by the time Pat Lamoureux's trial starts, July 20th 2010, he will have been incarcerated for 22 months. - Sue Lamoureux)

(click here for link: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4938372 )

Nevada Soldier With PTSD Prescribed 14 Drugs Before Police Shootout

2010-02-21T01:24:00.000-08:00

Nevada Soldier With PTSD Prescribed 14 Drugs Before Police Shootout

Tim King Salem-News.com (LAS VEGAS, Nv.)

"Well Sue, for what it is worth, I greatly respect your courage through all of this. I don't know how much more of a challenge you could be faced with, but I do know that law enforcement in the backwaters of Nevada can be shabby." Tim King - Salem-News.com

Sue Lamoureux's dedication to her husband Pat, an Iraq combat veteran incarcerated for a shooting that happened Sept. 19, 2008, in Pahrump, Nevada, is more than steadfast. He has been locked down since that fateful night.

Pat survived really awful circumstances while serving in Iraq. He's haunted by the memory of a girl in her early teens who blew herself up near his heavy equipment transport truck. He said she, "came out of nowhere."

He talked about a firefight near the airport in Baghdad. Staff Sergeant Robert J. Brown, Lamoureux's convoy commander on the majority of his missions, talked about how the convoys were shot at "day and night." "If you stopped, you got shot. We were sitting ducks outside of that wall, wire, perimeter or sand berm."

Brown said, "When Pat says what happened at the airport, that happened." Any of us can only imagine. I don't know very much about Iraq, but I have been to that airport and it isn't in an extremely secure part of the city. I can only imagine how horrific the circumstances were that this Nevada soldier survived[1].

Pat also talked about an old man with a donkey, who would not stop when soldiers ordered him to and was shot. Sue told a reporter that, "To this day Pat believes the old man may have been deaf, and the image of him haunts Pat."

These stories leave behind many important, unanswered questions. These soldiers were put through things that no human being can easily withstand. Pat was eventually evacuated for a respiratory disorder. Just after that, one of his friends and fellow soldiers from Las Vegas was killed when his truck was struck, as he was changing a tire on his military vehicle in Kuwait.

Staff Sgt. Cameron Sarno was in the same Army Reserve group, the Las Vegas-based 257th "Rolling Thunder" Transportation Company.

Sue Lamoureux told the Las Vegas Review Journal, "That night before things spiraled out of control, Pat was screaming, 'Sarno' at me. I told him there wasn't anything about that situation that was his fault."

She added that he screamed again. "Sarno, you don't know.... I could have kept him from dying."

This is what he was talking about before things spun out of control that night at Terrible's Lakeside RV Park and Casino in Pahrump, Nevada.

click below for complete article
http://salem-news.com/articles/february112010/lamoureux_ptsd_tk.php?message=1#comments

A Separate Peace - Why Veterans Deserve Special Courts

2010-02-20T04:12:00.000-08:00

By Dahlia Lithwick

NEWSWEEK

Published Feb 11, 2010
From the magazine issue dated Feb 22, 2010

"Perhaps the inevitable conclusion here is the one nobody wants to say out loud: we have known for years that treatment works better than incarceration when it comes to criminal defendants with drug and mental-health problems."

The problem is hardly a new one, but we need only watch The Hurt Locker to refresh our collective memory: veterans return from war, having seen and survived unspeakable things, then try to adjust to civilian life with inadequate resources and support. Depending on the study you read, between 20 and 50 percent of veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars suffer from posttraumatic stress and other mental disorders—and half don't seek mental-health care. Those who do don't always receive the kind of care they need. The results of these systemic failures are increased instances of rape, assault, addiction, and other criminal acts that tangle up veterans in the criminal courts. The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that veterans account for 10 percent of the people with criminal records.

The first "veterans' court" was launched in Buffalo, N.Y., in January 2008 by Judge Robert Russell. His program was based on the various "problem solving" tribunals around the country, ranging from specialized drug courts to mental-health and domestic-violence courts. Drug courts, for instance, integrate treatment with justice-system case management, and closely supervise and monitor participants. Studies show they have decreased recidivism rates as well as the cost of incarceration. In recent testimony before the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, Russell said his program teams veterans guilty of nonviolent felony or misdemeanor offenses with volunteer veteran mentors, requiring them to adhere to a strict schedule of rehabilitation programs and court appearances. One hundred and twenty veterans are enrolled in the Buffalo program; 90 percent of participants have successfully completed the program, and the recidivism rate is zero.

Since the Buffalo experiment was launched, 22 other cities and counties have created their own veterans' courts. The Senate is looking at legislation introduced by John Kerry and Lisa Murkowski to fund more veterans' courts for nonviolent offenders. Whether these will serve violent offenders as well is already a difficult issue for legislators and judges. The Buffalo court handles chiefly nonviolent offenses. But that may not solve the problems in Colorado Springs, Colo., where there have been 15 former GIs arrested in connection with a dozen murders over the past five years. These are guys who have never been involved in the criminal-justice system in their lives. They come home from war profoundly different men.

That's why Robert Alvarez, a psychotherapist with the Wounded Warrior program at Fort Carson, recently told a Denver newspaper that it's a mistake to carve the most violent offenders out of the proposed veterans' court in Colorado: "The violent offenders need help more than anybody … the very skills these people are taught to follow in combat are the skills that are a risk at home." If you are going to create special judicial programs to help veterans, does it make sense to give special services only to those who need help the least?

The bigger issue with the veterans' courts has been raised by the American Civil Liberties Union, which objects to the creation of a unique legal class of criminals based on their status as veterans. Thus, Lee Rowland of the ACLU of Nevada opposes the proposed state veterans'-court bill because it provides "an automatic free pass based on military status to certain criminal-defense rights that others don't have." Mark Silverstein, legal director of the Colorado ACLU, explains that the legal category of "veteran" is both too broad and too narrow, sweeping in both Vietnam and World War II veterans who have very different experiences, but excluding nonveterans who also suffer from PTSD and aren't eligible for any special courts.

Perhaps the inevitable conclusion here is the one nobody wants to say out loud: we have known for years that treatment works better than incarceration when it comes to criminal defendants with drug and mental-health problems. We also know that close supervision and monitoring work better than casting our most vulnerable citizens adrift. Veterans deserve special treatment for their service, and the fact that veterans' courts seem to work as well as they do suggests that politicians needn't justify their existence beyond that fact. But whether we really want to create first- and -second-class criminal-justice services, and whether we can truly draw any principled line between nonviolent veterans and violent ones in the judicial treatment they receive, are not easy political questions, but thorny legal ones.

(article from http://www.newsweek.com/id/233415.)

THANK YOU - VA Southern Nevada Healthcare System

2010-02-18T04:32:00.000-08:00

Finally, after months of battling Nye County Nevada and being aware of the failure of Pahrump, Nye County, Nevada to treat Pat Lamoureux in an appropriate and timely manner - the VA of Southern Nevada stepped up to the plate, and removed the bullet from Pat's leg on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010.

That would be the same bullet that had been in his leg since September 19, 2008; the same bullet that had been causing the gunshot wound to ooze since August of 2009.

This was NOT the responsibility of the VA; Nye County should have made certain that appropriate and timely medical care was rendered to Pat, but that did not happen. It is my understanding that this is not the first time that Nye County (i.e., the Sheriff and certain employees) have failed with regards to responsibilites to act in an appropriate manner concerning the care and supervision of those pre-trial detainees at the Nye County Detention Center.

The VA has certainly stepped up to the plate in providing care for Pat again; for that I am extremely thankful.

I am hopeful that the next step of the VA will be to begin to provide psychological care for Pat - in an APPROPRIATE manner. He has been without any counseling for the duration of this horrific tragedy. I can only wonder what impact this will have on him. He has deserved SO much BETTER treatment than he has received.

I do not count on Nye County acting in any reasonable manner. At least the bullet has been removed from Pat's leg; Nye County did not "win" in what appeared to be the apparent "hope" that perhaps Pat would lose his leg - and even perhaps, his life.

Thank you VA for taking care of Pat Lamoureux - when Nye County Nevada failed to do so. Pat Lamoureux is an honorable man and a Veteran. He deserves better treatment than what he has had to endure.

Perhaps in June 2010, Nye County will take steps to find a Sheriff that can perform the duties of the position he was elected to, while ensuring that the employees under his direct supervision, do the same.

Home Fires: The Two Worlds of the Citizen-Soldier

2010-02-09T17:38:00.000-08:00

"OPINIONATOR-Exclusive on-line commentary from The Times"
February 6, 2010, 7:00 pm
By ERIK MALMSTROM

"In many ways, the culture shock of reintegrating into the civilian world was greater than that of joining the military. In a kind of reverse socialization, I had to make a concerted effort to modify my appearance, language and behavior."

Preparing for my part-time National Guard training, I am transported into a former life. Getting my old “number two on the sides and back, trim the top” haircut and putting on my digital camouflage uniform is like going through a time warp. Looking in the mirror, I feel as if I am staring at a person I used to be. Like a rusty foreign language speaker, I struggle to talk like a soldier. Once second nature, the clipped sentences and vocabulary of sirs, ma’ams, rogers, hoo-ahs, acronyms, four letter words and colorful expressions now take effort. I also return to a world where the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq are an impending reality, not a distant abstraction.

Over two years ago, I transitioned into the National Guard to complete my remaining service obligation. After four years of active duty, I made the difficult decision to get out of the military. While I loved the Army, professional and personal considerations prompted me to move on. I believed I could better affect the problems that I cared about by pursuing master’s degrees in public policy and business on the way to a civilian career. I also sought more balance, freedom and control in my life. The National Guard provided me flexibility to return to school while finishing my time in the military.

Previously, the active duty Army had dominated my life. It had been an all-consuming way of being and state of mind. I had lived in towns where people looked the same, talked the same and did the same things. The line between personal and professional had been blurred in the United States and nonexistent in Afghanistan. Work had become my life as I prepared and led my men overseas. I had prioritized it at the expense of everything else. It had also been segregated from my civilian life. My brief reprieves to visit family and friends had been like traveling to another universe.

(click below for complete article)
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/the-two-worlds-of-the-citizen-soldier/?emc=eta1.

Call to Arms - Statham mom fighting for vets

2010-02-08T04:45:00.000-08:00

By Carman Peterson
cpeterson@barrowcountynews.com
UPDATED Feb. 7, 2010 9:45 a.m.

Jamie Keyes was an Army mom.

Her son Nathan was in the military for eight years, serving two tours of duty in Iraq. He followed in the footsteps of his grandfather and uncle, both of whom served in the military.

But when Nathan returned home with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Keyes said she didn’t know what to do for him.

"These boys don’t come home with an instruction booklet – how to deal with them, how to respond to them, and I knew almost nothing about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder," Keyes said. "I knew nobody that had a son or daughter in the military, let alone one who came home with a disorder."

Nathan’s PTSD came to a head in August 2008, when he experienced a violent flashback in Florida. He is now in St. Augustine, serving a three-year prison sentence -- drastically shorter than the 20-year minimum he faced before Keyes began a letter-writing campaign educating people involved with the case about PTSD.

"That kind of got me going on personal advocacy," Keyes said. "Rather than crying over it, I decided to get out and make a difference."

Keyes believes her son never received the help he needed to readjust to civilian life. Now, the Statham grandmother has devoted herself to state- and nation-wide efforts to provide that readjustment for other soldiers returning home.

"Obviously they need a lot more support than they’re getting," Keyes said. "A lot of them are released from the military and having problems and not going to the VA, and a lot of them end up committing suicide or incarcerated... [We need to] do what we can to help them get their lives back instead of incarcerating them."

Among the projects Keyes is involved in is a jail diversion program being piloted in DeKalb County, where she volunteers on the advisory board. Georgia is one of 12 states implementing the diversion program, which directs veterans diagnosed with PTSD and charged with non-violent crimes into treatment and case management rather than incarceration.

She has issued a call for lawyers willing to donate their services to veterans with PTSD.

"If it hadn’t been for an attorney who was a vet, who heard about my son and offered to work for him pro bono, I don’t know what would have happened to my son," she said.

As National Guard soldiers headquartered in Barrow County approach their March homecoming, Keyes also hopes to start a local support group for families of military personnel and veterans.

"Many of these families are under a large amount of stress and are bearing up under it on their own," Keyes said.

Keyes has more work ahead of her: she’s awaiting the broadcast of a PBS episode of the documentary "In Their Boots" featuring Nathan’s story and speaking at a national convention in Orlando this spring.

"We’re all working together to find solutions, and that’s going to affect every vet in this state," Keyes said.

While Keyes spends her time working for our country’s fighting forces, she hopes her fellow Barrow County residents will help local veterans and their families adjust.

"There are many ways that the community can reach out and help them," she said. "It could come in the form of giving them jobs, affordable housing, childcare, household expenses, pro bono legal help, free services such as home repairs or modifications for vets who are disabled, donating to many of the veterans charities or free counseling... Something as simple as being a friend to a military spouse and letting them know that you are there for them when their loved one is deployed or at home after a deployment can make a huge difference."

I am fighting with everything I have - without your support

2010-02-06T00:09:00.000-08:00

I cannot save Pat Lamoureux's life.

If you don't sign petitions - if you do not donate any extra dollars that you can afford, I don't care if it is $5.00 - I cannot save Pat's life by myself. Pat needs your continued support - I NEED your continued support.

I have done everything I can to this point, the blog, the videos - but the bottom line is - this is about PAT LAMOUREUX's L I F E......

This is not about the traffic jam you dealt with on the way to work, this is not about the 'bad hair day' you may be having - this is not about the weather - this is about Pat's LIFE.

If I don't get your help, if I don't get your financial support, if I don't get you helping spread the word to save his life - his life will be LOST.

When you spend that $5.00 tomorrow at McDonalds, or Starbucks - I hope you think about PAT LAMOUREUX. Then, I hope the next day, you take a lunch, and make your own coffee - and send that $5.00 to Pat.

A disturbing conversation

2010-02-03T23:48:00.000-08:00

I have tried not to use the blog as a posting for a journal or a diary. However, I had a conversation with someone earlier that greatly disturbed me, and I think it deserves some discussion.

The person I had this conversation with is an Iraq Veteran.

This Veteran was quickly (almost instantly) infuriated by the thought of wearing an article of clothing that mentioned PTSD. This article of clothing does not state "HEY - guess what, I have PTSD" - it is aimed at bringing awareness to the American public about the plight of our Veterans who have PTSD in a subliminal way while being delivered in a eye opening manner.

Yet, here we have a Veteran - who refuses to publicly acknowledge that perhaps he has PTSD; he doesn't want anyone to know anything about him; he thinks "Support our troops" is better than trying to raise the awareness of the American people concerning PTSD.

What does that tell you all about PTSD? And I personally know this Veteran is rated 50% disabled with PTSD after serving in Iraq.

So - if our Veterans who have been diagnosed with PTSD are not even willing to help bring awareness to the American people about PTSD - how can we help these Veterans if they aren't willing to support a public acknowledgement there is a problem?

Apathy among Americans about PTSD, and fear among our Veterans with PTSD. Perhaps our Veteran's fear is rooted in the apathy and/or lack of knowledge of the American people about PTSD.

I am going to sleep tonight with very disturbed thoughts about the future of this country and the ability to help our Veterans with PTSD.

Wake up America - we are in trouble.

The best help comes in person

2010-01-31T04:31:00.000-08:00

(That is absolutely true- the best help does come in person. But the day I went to the VA mental health appointment with Pat just a few weeks before this horrific incident - his mental health provider slammed the door in my face in favor of having two students in the appointment. She did not take the time to talk to me, and then documented what the issues were as if they were nothing. I wonder what she thinks now?)

SPOUSE CALLS:
By Terri Barnes, Special to Stars and Stripes
Scene, Sunday, January 31, 2010

Sheryl is a career Army wife affected by post-traumatic stress disorder. Struggling to obtain counseling for herself and her children, Sheryl wrote: "My next goal and challenge is to speak out and make the military listen to me. I don’t want this to happen to another family, and I will … speak out loud and try and make it better for those who are behind me."

Soon after her comments appeared in a recent Spouse Calls column, I received an e-mail from Col. David Schall, Command Surgeon for U.S. European Command.

He didn’t take issue with Sheryl’s complaint or send me a list of Web sites to prove the military is doing something for families affected by PTSD.

He asked what he could do to connect Sheryl with the help she needed.

Knowing that many more "Sheryls" are out there, I asked Schall about resources for families affected by PTSD.

He and Lt. Col. Marianne Schlitt of EUCOM’s Quality of Life component provided their insights about connecting people with needed care.

It seems to me that information about combat stress is everywhere. AFN commercials tell us to call our chaplains. A mouse click yields plenty of PTSD Web sites. Tricare brochures list "Behavioral Health Services" for members and families, including psychotherapy, psychological testing, family therapy and more.

Why do some military families not find the help they need?

Schlitt said she believes people get overwhelmed by their problems, or are confused about where to begin. Their search for answers uncovers more questions.

"What’s the first port of entry?" spouses might wonder, she said.

(click below for complete story)
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=140&article=67645.

Shattered by war? There is hope, fellow vets

2010-01-28T01:37:00.000-08:00

"PTSD not only takes a significant toll on vets, it is also emotionally taxing on their family members. "

Date published: 1/28/2010
Ron Ball
Fredericksburg.com

As a Vietnam veteran, I thank you for the front-page article about vets and post-traumatic stress disorder ["After three tours in Iraq, vet fights a battle within," Jan. 24].

Too often, the sons, daughters, mothers, and fathers who go to war are not the same people who come home.

PTSD not only takes a significant toll on vets, it is also emotionally taxing on their family members.

Although prescription drugs and talk therapy can certainly be beneficial, I would encourage vets and their families to check out promising alternative therapies like TAT (Tapas Acupressure Techniques) and EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques).

A recent clinical trial of PTSD performed at Marshall University Medical School showed veterans recovering substantially over the course of six EFT sessions.

Measured on standardized psychological questionnaires, the PTSD levels of veterans in the study dropped by 50 percent. Their scores also dropped by 49 percent for depression and 46 percent for anxiety, indicating that other psychological problems that often accompany PTSD improved, too.

According to a study by the RAND Corp., about one in five war veterans (or 300,000 in total) report symptoms of PTSD or major depression. Of concern is that half of the vets experiencing PTSD have not sought treatment, primarily for fear it will harm their careers.

Also, according to the study, PTSD could cost America as much as $6.2 billion.

Investing in better treatment could save close to $2 billion. Alternative treatments like EFT and others could be lifesavers for returning veterans and their families.

Posted by: Ron Ball
Spotsylvania
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2010/012010/01282010/523464.

The Emerging PTSD Defense

2010-01-27T16:09:00.000-08:00

(Previously posted December 16, 2009)

Tuesday, December 15, 2009
By Michelle Williams
The National Journal - Insider Interviews
http://nationaljournal.com/
(article below copied in its entirety from va watchdog dot org)

Two months ago, in a case believed to be the first of its kind, Iraq War veteran Jessie Bratcher was found guilty of murder but legally insane because of combat post-traumatic stress disorder. About two weeks ago, the Supreme Court overturned the death sentence for a Korean War veteran convicted of murder, ruling that the jury should have taken George Porter's combat PTSD into consideration.

These rulings have left observers wondering how many more cases like these will occur and what their effect will be on veterans' rights in the courtroom.

NationalJournal.com spoke with Floyd Meshad, president and founder of the National Veterans Foundation, about PTSD and capital crimes. The former Army captain counseled U.S. soldiers in Vietnam; he has been working as a therapist for veterans for more than 30 years and is recognized as one of the first to study PTSD. Because of his expertise, he was consulted in the Bratcher case. Meshad is currently working on a book to educate defense attorneys on how to handle cases involving PTSD.

NJ: The Bratcher and Porter cases showed how PTSD from a veteran's war experience can be a mitigating factor in criminal cases. How do you think these rulings will affect future cases?

Meshad: Well, it's a step in the right direction.... It's another step that enables us to present the case as PTSD. It's an acknowledgment from the top, which always helps.

It doesn't mean that it's going to be any easier because, first of all, you have to sell the court on PTSD. I've been there so many times, and they say, "Well, of course, you're a PTSD expert, and you're biased, and so everybody has PTSD," which is not the case. But you know, when you go up against prosecutors or whatever, all they're concerned about is winning. They don't care about whether it's a veteran, or Mother Theresa, or you.... It's not a profound thing. It's an important step, but it's not like it's going to change our battles in court. And obviously prosecutors won't like it because you refer to the Supreme Court and they're acknowledging it. It's still one case at a time.... [In the Bratcher case] we got the ruling, and it did set a precedent. So it's going to make it a little easier to fight for these cases, but they have to be pretty clear-cut.

NJ: There are prosecutors who are concerned that the PTSD defense may be the "go-to" to explain criminal behavior. For example, Wade Sanders, a former Navy official, said earlier this year that his PTSD led to his compulsive behavior with child pornography.

Meshad: Yeah, you'll see cases that are far-reaching. If you know any prosecutors, you'll know they're strictly linebackers. I mean they want to knock you down. It's all about winning. They don't like anything that puts them at a disadvantage to argue against.... You know, some cases are weak, and if they're weak they're not going to hold up. Their fear is there are probably a lot more defenses where they're going to misinterpret PTSD and use it as if it's a typical stress day at the office.... They fight hard to dispel it, and we fight hard if we believe in the case.

NJ: So do you think there is room for abuse of the PTSD defense?

Meshad: In a big case, no, it's not going to help.... In all, there's definitely guidelines of what PTSD is. In our cases we go through their military training and history when we present it in courts and talk about certain dates of trauma that we believe instigated what we know as symptoms of PTSD or whatever.

NJ: There are some who feel that PTSD should not be a reason to offer leniency. What are your thoughts about that?

Meshad: I feel like if you're going to send men and women off to war to do the most unnatural thing -- man's inhumanity to man -- go and kill other humans regardless of culture or religion or whatever, then you have the responsibility to bring them back and deprogram them, and they don't. That's why these things happen. So there has to be some justice. To me, it's not like they were sent off to go be an engineer in some other country and make six figures. They're in there putting their lives on the line and they go through training to numb themselves and make them killing machines.... There's many of us that feel it's the responsibility of the government to treat this guy. He wasn't treated when he came back, so he acted out. His behavior was however extreme, anti-social, but what do you expect?

NJ: So who decides that someone has PTSD?

Meshad: People like me make an evaluation. It's like you go in for cancer screening. You have a PTSD expert that assesses it. You could go to three different doctors and one can say "well, that's not cancer," or "this is." But you try to get the best.... You still have to sell it to a jury or to a judge depending on what aspect of the trial you're in, or if it's just the penalty phase where you go in and argue treatment rather than jail time.... Unfortunately in mental health, which always has been the case, even before PTSD was in diagnosis, it's professional opinions. And then the lawyers go at it from there.

NJ: Another concern some have had with the verdicts of these PTSD cases is how the condition is linked to insanity. For instance, the jury found Bratcher guilty but insane. Is it fair to link the two terms?

Meshad: It's just terminology. Different states and courts. You can be ruled insane at the time and insanity could be caused by an acute attack of PTSD or whatever. We've had tragic incidences where the wife playfully jumps on the husband in bed, and he has his weapon under his pillow, and immediately -- within a split second -- he has the pistol and blows her away. I mean, bam. It's just a reaction. You know in combat you're always with your weapon. If anybody jumps you, it's that. These reactions occur. It's unfortunate. That looks insane. I mean, why would you shoot your wife in bed? But when you play out what happened, why was there such a dramatic reaction?

NJ: But the concern is how it might put a negative label on veterans with PTSD.

Meshad: Once again, it's terminology. We don't call people with PTSD insane, [or] psychotic. They're not psychotic. It's a disorder. So I understand that. The main thing is that we won the case for the individual.... It's not really insanity as we know it. But that's how the courts -- it comes under that category. Bratcher had PTSD. They awarded it. It was argued. It was won. So they sent him to the state for a 90-day evaluation, and under their laws, it's insanity.... I don't particularly like it. But once again, the main thing is the welfare of the individual and him getting justice in the sense of treatment rather than punishment for something that we believe occurred due to his serving his country and what it's done to him.

NJ: How do you think the administration has been doing in improving the mental health care of veterans? I know that VA Secretary Eric Shinseki said improving mental health care was a priority. The president's fiscal 2010 budget will also address the issue.

Meshad: They put a great officer, a great man, a great warrior on top of an antiquated system. It would be like me putting you in a Model T Ford and asking you to go race at the race track. It's brand new and got good gas in it, and I don't care how nice that Model T is -- our cheapest car is going to blow you away.... Do you have medical insurance? Are you able to call your doctor and get in if you feel something seriously wrong? What if they handed you paperwork and told you to come back in nine months? You got to walk a mile in these guys' and gals' shoes....

We got to stop sending people to war if we're not going to help take care of them when they come back. And I mean with a first-class system. And that's it. My 40 years in this business -- it's the same ol' same ol'. It just gets bigger, and now with these two wars and recycling the men and women, it's going to be the worst ever in our history.

Mesothelioma and asbestos exposure

2010-01-23T05:34:00.000-08:00

(The reason I am posting this item is I think it's interesting the concern from the VA concerning exposure to asbestos. Pat was exposed to asbestos after being air-lifted from the war and returning to Ft. Bliss, Tx. Instead of being hospitalized, he was ordered to perform a duty at a facility that was undergoing asbestos removal. The contractors performing the asbestos removal had protective gear; the soldiers working there did not.

Pat was air-lifted out of the war due to a severe respiratory condition, and he lost 1/3 of his pulmonary function. However, he was still ordered to perform a duty at this facility, that was contaminated with asbestos and actively undergoing removal of the asbestos.)

Mesothelioma navy cases continue to rise, VA addresses concerns about PTSD

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

There has been a rise in concern for adequate healthcare for those returning home from service time over seas. Veteran hospitals across the country are taking a second look at the programs they offer and seeing need for more support during a soldier’s transition into civilian life.

Recognizing this void, the Syracuse VA Medical center has adopted a program in reaction to the increasing numbers of veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. This illness in particular has inhibited many soldiers returning home from combat.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is triggered by exposure to horrifying events, which for veterans are experienced while in combat. Those with PTSD have reoccurring frightening thoughts and possible flashback memories during their time at war. This condition often effects daily functioning and makes their transition back to home-life extremely difficult.

Suffering from ailments that were caused during a soldier’s service is an unfortunate occurrence that has become more prevalent due to higher awareness. Physical harm has also been a burden that some veterans are forced to face whether it be immediately or later in life.

A form of cancer that has been widely common among veterans is mesothelioma. This aggressive disease is caused by the inhalation of asbestos fibers. Because of asbestos’ large presence in the military, every branch was affected with airborne particles of asbestos. Navy shipyards were especially prone to then inhalation of this foreign product, since it was widely used in engine rooms and overall construction. Sadly, navy mesothelioma cases are all too common.

The Syracuse VA Medical Center is reacting to the increase of PSTD by creating a new program that gives support to not only the veterans, but the family members and care givers that are constantly challenged by the condition. Coordinator Ann Canastra emphasizes how taking care of the family will in turn better the care of veterans. The 12-week course is free and will focus on teaching family members about PTSD and ways deal with the illness and take care of themselves along the way.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 11:24 am and is filed under New York, News. http://www.maacenter.org/news/mesothelioma-navy-cases-continue-to-rise-va-addresses-concerns-about-ptsd.html)

VA Defends Care After Vet's 'Suicide by Cop': Victim Had Been In PTSD Program

2010-01-17T22:43:00.000-08:00

[Albuquerque Journal, N.M.]

Jan. 15--Veterans Affairs officials defended their behavioral health services Thursday after an Iraq war veteran committed "suicide by cop."

Meghan Gerety, the New Mexico Veteran's Affairs Heath Care Services chief of staff, outlined during a news conference the behavioral and mental health programs available to veterans for suicide prevention, post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse.

"VA has the widest array of mental health services in the nation. And we're very fortunate, as an organization, to have a series of residential programs for veterans who are in need or in distress. We built that series of programs deliberately, to offer a continuum of care," Gerety said. "Somebody who's homeless can also potentially get treatment for substance abuse and get vocational and other educational counseling to be able to reintegrate into the community."

Gerety declined to discuss the case of Kenneth Ellis, who was shot by an Albuquerque Police Department detective Wednesday during a standoff at a Northeast Heights gas station. Ellis had been an infantryman with the U.S. Army, said his mother, Annelle Wharton.

He had been kicked out of an in-patient PTSD program at the Albuquerque VA Hospital for missing an appointment, she said. He tried to get back into the program, but was told his bed had been given to someone else, she said. (click below for complete article; and there is a related article below this link- read on......)
http://behavioralhealthcentral.com/index.php/20100115176688/Inside-Scoop/va-defends-care-after-vets-suicide-by-cop-victim-had-been-in-ptsd-program-albuquerque-journal-nm.html

Teague calls for PTSD help for vets
Updated: Friday, 15 Jan 2010, 5:43 PM MST
Published : Friday, 15 Jan 2010, 5:43 PM MST

Reporter: Kaitlin McCarthy
Web Producer: Devon Armijo

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - The horrors of war are following New Mexican military men and women home. Waves of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are coming home with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Rep. Harry Teague, D-N.M., is trying to figure out how the government can give them more help.

Teague met with the people who work directly with veterans at the New Mexico Veterans Hospital Friday to figure out how to do a better job of screening for PTSD.

New provisions to the National Defense Authorization Act were signed into law, requiring that all military men and women get a face-to-face PTSD screening before and after a deployment.

Teague said the issue needs the country’s attention.

“We wanted to go over some of the challenges we're going to have with implementing that, the personnel that we're going to need, the other assets we're going to need and how we're going to do that,” Teague said.

Kenneth Ellis III, 25, an Iraq war veteran, was shot and killed by Albuquerque police on Eubank and Constitution on Wednesday. (click here for complete article:

Investigators said Ellis was holding a gun to his head and refused to put it down, so an officer shot and killed him. (click here for complete article: http://www.krqe.com/dpp/military/teague-calls-for-ptsd-help-for-vets)

Benzodiazepines

2010-01-14T23:54:00.000-08:00

REPOST OF
Sunday, August 9, 2009

Medication Education - "It is more difficult to withdraw people from benzodiazepines than it is from heroin."

I have done extensive research on all of the medications that Patrick was prescribed by VA providers; and all of his medication has been prescribed by VA providers. In discussing my findings here, I hope that everyone may have a better understanding "how" this incident happened.

It was interesting that one medication was mentioned in the article about the soldier in Colorado, but there was no discussion about that medication.

Well - I am going to have a "discussion" about that particular medication - Ativan.

Ativan is in the drug class of benzodiazepines. Benzodiazepines are highly addictive. Ativan is the market name for lorazepam.

(1)(http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/concern/benzodiazepines.html)
(1) The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration indicates that benzodiazepines are classified as depressants. Repeated use of large doses or, in some cases, daily use of therapeutic doses of benzodiazepines is associated with:

amnesia,
hostility,
irritability, and vivid or disturbing dreams

(2) http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/concern/benzodiazepines.html )

(2) Benzodiazepines with a longer duration of action are utilized to treat insomnia in patients with daytime anxiety. These benzodiazepines include alprazolam (Xanax®), chlordiazepoxide (librium®), clorazepate (Tranxene®), diazepam (Valium®, halazepam (Paxipam®), lorazepam(Ativan®).

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

(This is a list of side effects that may result from the use of benzodiazepines)

(3) Professor C Heather Ashton DM, FRCP; School of Neurosciences Division of PsychiatryThe Royal Victoria Infirmary, Queen Victoria Road, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 4LP

(3) "Paradoxical" Effects

Such reactions include:

increased aggressiveness (in some individuals even violent behavior),
depression (with or without suicidal thoughts or intentions), and
sometimes personality changes.

In some instances, reactions such as:

hallucinations,
depersonalization,
dealization and
other psychotic symptoms occur.

Ativan (lorazepam) and Halcion (triazolam) in particular may produce dissociation and other psychiatric symptoms.

All the psychological changes mentioned above may occur as long-term side effects when the use (or abuse) has become chronic (i.e. has been going on for many months or even years.)

Over time, the above-mentioned long-term side effects may develop. The risk of this course of events is greater with compounds with short half-lives such as Ativan (lorazepam).

In addition to the symptomatology described under "Paradoxical Effects", phobias, OCD, and various neurological symptoms such as tinnitus may occur as long-term side effects.

Cognitive Side Effects:

Memory functioning is significantly impaired, especially the ability to store acquired knowledge into long-term memory.

The risk of acute amnesia is more pronounced with short-acting drugs Ativan (lorazepam), Halcion (triazolam), Xanax (alprazolam) and Rohypnol (flunitrazepam) are especially likely to induce such memory impairment.

"Paradoxical" side effects occur in all age groups. The risk of such reactions is generally greater with short-acting compounds, most popular of the shorter-acting anxiolytics is: lorazepam (Ativan), but may occur with all benzodiazepine drugs.

It is important to remember that the "paradoxical" reactions can also be encountered in short-term use and, in rare cases, even following the first ingestion of the drug.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration drug labeling currently discourages long-term use of benzodiazepines (efined as four months or more). (4) 2003 American Psychiatric Association.

Professor Ian Hindmarch, Head of Human Psychopharmacology Research Unit, University of Surrey, Milford Hospital, Godalming, Surrey states that although specific reference is made to flurazepam (Dalmane) all comments apply equally to benzodiazepines in general.

Professor Hindmarch emphasized that there are no lines of distinction between the action profile of one benzodiazepine compared to another, that by and large, the side effects of the individual drugs are so similar that it is possible to have a discussion of the effects of the benzodiazepines as a class.

This is significant because the most research data has come about because of studies involving diazepam, chlordiazepoxide, and lorazepam.

The professor states, “There are three sources of information regarding the effects of benzodiazepines which can be used to augment my own 30+ year research experience of the drugs. They are results from controlled clinical/scientific laboratory studies in both volunteers and patients; lists of effects provided by the manufacturers of the drugs for inclusion in their datasheet (package insert) and issued in accordance with the requirements of the medicine regulatory bodies; and findings from studies of patients under treatment with clinical dose regimens of benzodiazepines."

The professor also notes that in his over 30 years of research on benzodiazepines, that in controlled studies that benzodiazepines alter or impair aspects of human behavior, which is essential for the performance of the intellectual, skilled and emotional demands of everyday living.

The impact is significant for thinking, decision making, judgment, memory, alertness, basic skills (car driving etc.) eye/hand coordination, problem solving, reasoning, mental arithmetic, speed of reaction, capacity for processing information and vigilance.

If intellectual processes, memory and the ability to reason are directly changed by a benzodiazepine, then the patient will be confused, make mistakes and errors in judgement, forget to do things and in general be unable to function appropriately or correctly in his habitual daily environment. There would also be an increased risk of accident, should basic coordination and judgemental skills be impaired.

Professor Hindmarch states that his findings are consistent with other large research facilities, reproducing the results of others and concurring with the general findings that most benzodiazepines at clinical, and even sub-clinical, doses impair and compromise a wide range of basic skills which are absolutely necessary for coping with the intellectual and psychological demands of everyday living.

Benzodiazepines bring on a feeling of detachment from the real world, ataxia (loss of muscular coordination), lightheadedness, irritability, increased emotionality, visual disturbances, unsteadiness, nervousness, reduced alertness, dizziness, sleep disturbances, headache and abnormal or uncharacteristic psychological reactions.

Benzodiazepines have also been associated with aggressive outbursts, confusion, excitement, psychotic manifestations, depression and suicidal tendencies.

Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D. a staff psychiatrist at the Boston VA Outpatient Clinic, states, “One of the useful things I do for veterans I see is help them identify and get off of drugs that they use (whether prescribed by doctors of not) that are harming them.”

At the top of Dr. Shay’s list; Benzodiazepines.

Dr. Shay states that benzodiazepines cause disinhibition which will affect virtually anything that a person thinks about doing – but wouldn’t normally do, which would include such things as suicide and murder.

In the course of treating Veterans on benzodiazepines, Dr. Shay says one consistent finding is that benzos cause memory loss: “All of the benzos weaken the ability to remember what happened a short time ago, including things you yourself did or said.”

Dr. Shay concurs that while we all have memory lapses, and that no one is 100% on recall, that people on benzodiazepines are sometimes close to zero on recall. (Revised: September 23, 1999 (contact information August 23, 2003; award November 15, 2003; URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/tips/ptsd.html.In the public domain and may be duplicated and distributed freely)

Professor Malcolm H. Lader, OBE, DSc, PhD, MD, FRC Psych, FMedSci, Professor of Clinical Psychopharmacology, The Institute of Psychiatry, University of London, England. Professor Lader has trained in physiology with biochemistry, medicine, pharmacology and psychiatry and has formal qualifications in each of these disciplines. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and of the prestigious Academy of Medical Sciences.

He has published more than 100 papers on the subject of benzodiazepines, and has experienced over 500 medico-legal cases and has attended Court on numerous occasions to give expert evidence. He specializes in cases which involve the use of drugs and medicines in psychiatry and on the psychiatric effects of drugs and toxic substances. He is listed in the UK Register of Expert Witnesses.

He recommends short durations of usage and conservative dosage of benzodiazepines. He defines ‘short term’ as up to 4 weeks. Professor Malcolm H Lader. Limitations on the use of benzodiazepines in anxiety and insomnia: are they justified? Eur Neuropsychopharmacol 1999 Dec;9 Suppl 6:S399-405.

Dr. Lader warns of the ‘paradoxical effects’ of using benzodiazepines. The risk of such reactions may occur with all benzodiazepine drugs. (Eur Neuropsychopharmacol 1999 Dec;9 Suppl 6:S399-405.)

Dr. Lader concurs that such reactions include increased aggressiveness (in some individuals even violent behavior), depression (with or without suicidal thoughts or intentions), and sometimes personality changes. In some instances, reactions such as hallucinations, depersonalization, dissociation and other psychotic symptoms occur.

The FDA, on August 1, 2007, and renewed July 31, 2008, issued a warning that Benzodiazepines, including lorazepam, should only be prescribed for short periods (ie, 2 - 4 weeks).

The FDA states that patients may experience hypersensitivity to light, noise, and/or physical contact, and that perceptual changes were also reported, as well as involuntary movements, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, loss of appetite, hallucinations, delirium, convulsions/seizures, tremor, abdominal cramps, myalgias, agitation, palpitations, tachycardia, panic attacks, vertigo, hyperreflexia, short-term memory loss, and hyperthermia. Patients with existing seizure disorders and those taking other drugs that lower the convulsive threshold (eg, antidepressants) may be at increased risk for convulsions and/or seizures.

The FDA cautioned providers when treating patients with preexisting conditions that compromise respiratory function, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and sleep apnea syndrome who are also taking benzodiazepines.

Pat has sleep apnea as a result of his pulmonary condition, and he has to sleep with a C-Pap so he doesn’t stop breathing.

So, I have presented documented information from experts, the DEA, and the FDA about the use of benzodiazepines, however, this was the ‘drug of choice’ given to Patrick.

The recommendation for the duration for the use of this medication is actually 2-4 weeks, and no more than 4 months.

Patrick has been taking this medication since November 2, 2006.

In a Radio 4 Interview in 1999 Professor Lader said: "It is more difficult to withdraw people from benzodiazepines than it is from heroin. It just seems that the dependency is so ingrained and the withdrawal symptoms you get are so intolerable that people have a great deal of problem coming off. The other aspect is that with heroin, usually the withdrawal is over within a week or so. With benzodiazepines, a proportion of patients go on to long term withdrawal and they have very unpleasant symptoms for month after month, and I get letters from people saying you can go on for two years or more. Some of the tranquilliser groups can document people who still have symptoms ten years after stopping."

"We knew from the start that patients taking markedly increased doses could get dependent, but thought only addictive personalities could become dependent and that true addiction was unusual. We got that wrong. What we didn't know, but know now, is that even people taking therapeutic doses can become dependent."

And in closing, The National Center for Treatment of PSTD (this is a VA affiliated facility) will not allow patients on this medication to enroll in their program.

And this is only one of Patrick's medications.

What does this say about the way the VA is treating our Veterans?

Please support Patrick during this difficult time.

Morphine shows promise against post-traumatic stress disorder

2010-01-14T07:00:00.000-08:00

(PERSONALLY - I am SHOCKED and disgusted that it appears the next "solution" to PTSD is to dope our military up on MORPHINE)

"Studies find that troops who got the powerful painkiller when injured were about 50% less likely to develop PTSD than those who didn't. The findings offer hope for preventive treatment."

By Karen Kaplan
January 14, 2010

Early administration of morphine to military personnel wounded on the front lines during Operation Iraqi Freedom appears to have done more than relieve excruciating pain. Scientists believe it also prevented hundreds of cases of post-traumatic stress disorder, the debilitating condition that plagues 15% of those who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That conclusion is based on findings published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. They suggest that a simple treatment can stop a single horrifying event from escalating into a chronic, incapacitating illness.

Small clinical trials and observational studies have hinted that opiates and other medications could disrupt the way the brain encodes traumatic memories, thus preventing the incidents from being recorded with too much intensity. The new findings -- troops who received morphine within a few hours of their injuries were about 50% less likely to develop PTSD than those who didn't get the powerful painkiller -- are a strong endorsement of that theory.

(click below for the complete article)
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-sci-ptsd14-2010jan14,0,3435346.story.