Source: Click here by Jason Nark Army veteran Steve Clendenning takes an early morning walk through the New Ringgold Boy Scout Camp during the River House gathering for veterans on Sunday October 8, 2017. On a Saturday in April 1948, a loner poet from Pennsylvania shouldered a rucksack and a weight no scale could measure and embarked on a journey no man had taken before. Earl Shaffer, 29, walked down a Georgia mountain and kept going, alone with the sound of his breath and th

Source: Click here A group of therapy dogs are being flown to Las Vegas to comfort survivors from Sunday's mass shooting in Las Vegas. The LCC K-9 Comfort Dogs, affiliated with Lutheran Church Charities, are helping survivors, families of victims, first responders and others after a suspected shooter Stephen Paddock opened fire during the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival, killing 58 people and injuring nearly 500. "The key is for people to cry and for people to start talking a

Source: Click here Three years ago, Justin Miller had a six-hour phone call he says saved his life. Miller is a medically retired military veteran, previously serving two deployments in Iraq. The trauma of combat led him to develop severe post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury. The nightmares didn't let him sleep, and he was scared things would never get better. “I called the VA after having a particularly bad nightmare and told them I needed to see someo

Source: Click here Joseph Cress - The Sentinel Trauma is like taking a walk after stepping on broken glass. The shard digs in deeper with every footfall, making it harder to heal. “To get it out is going to be pretty uncomfortable,” Carlisle therapist Lori Moskel said. “People don’t want to go through that uncomfortable process.” She was using the metaphor to describe the avoidance behavior prevalent among many sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder. The behavior is a co

We have been asked to share information regarding a very important upcoming event held in Manheim that is FREE to veterans: From the event page: "A Free Veteran Event that will focus on a successful method that has helped Veterans across the world who struggle with PTSD, Insomnia, Nightmares, Anxiety, Depression and many other struggles caused by Trauma experienced in the Military. This experience will be led by former Vietnam Veteran, world renowned trauma expert Dr. David B

Source: Click here He doesn’t often remember the nightmares themselves, but can recall the feeling of them with absolute clarity. Mike Petz, 37, of Wauseon hated waking up in the middle of the night in a panic, a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder. Sometimes, it was as if he couldn’t breathe. “I wake up gasping for air like I’ve been holding my breath in my sleep,” he said. The former Marine sergeant isn’t sure what memories haunt his sleep. His wife, April, told him h

Source: click here How papier-mâché masks are helping Iraq and Afghanistan veterans heal. Service members suffering from PTSD often feel like they’re wearing a mask. Melissa Walker asks them to make one. Walker, an art therapist and healing arts coordinator with the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE) at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center runs an art therapy program in which service members returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD or a traumatic

Click here for link to article "If you’ve experienced a traumatic, life-altering event, you might be surprised to learn that one treatment for such trauma — exposure therapy — involves repeatedly reliving the terrible event. Sounds more harmful than helpful, right? But people who experience their fears over and over again — with the help of a therapist in exposure therapy — can actually learn to control those fears.The technique is used to treat a growing list of health condi

Source: Click here On September 20, 2004, 35 days after landing in the Sunni Triangle, Jake Schick had a bad feeling as his Marine Corps unit went out on their 29th mission. As they drove out, they ran over a mine, and Schick was severely wounded and lost his right leg. When he returned to the United States, Schick was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), becoming dependent on pain medications and contemplating suicide. Two

Source: Huffington Post - click here I grew up thinking an "illness" was either fever or croup. Illness was a stuffy nose -- a sick-day, an excuse to miss a day of school. At 18 years old, "illness" took on an entirely different meaning. Illness meant waking up from a coma, learning that my stomach exploded, I had no digestive system and I was to be stabilized with IV nutrition until surgeons could figure out how to put me back together again. Illness meant a life forever out