Today is Thanksgiving Day and much of our country is in a state of distress. So perhaps we should all take a moment to remember that we still have much for which to be thankful, and people who are working for us in many places and professions who won't have a typical Thanksgiving Day.

There are the issues we see in the news, and there are many other matters being attended to that we rarely if ever hear about.So please take a moment to thank all those who can't spend the day with their loved ones, enjoying the many benefits of living in America.

Thank you to all members of the military who are on duty today, in the states, in foreign countries, and in war zones around the world. Thank you to the police, firefighters, EMTs, ambulance drivers, Life Flight pilots and crews, doctors, nurses, aides and attendants, anyone and everyone who is spending part of their day looking out for the rest of us.

And thank you to their families and friends who won't breathe easy until those special people make it back home safely.














 Happy Thanksgiving.

Hardly a day goes by without news of returning veterans encountering readjustment difficulties after a tour - or several - in a war zone. We hear of veteran suicides, or those who commit crimes, but we do not get much information on how to help our veterans understand their battlefield experiences.

It seems there is no end of commercials from various charities featuring victims of post traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury or loss of limbs from bullets, mines, rockets, grenades or Improvised Explosive Devices. The impact on family members as well as the veterans is prominently displayed, usually along with a plea for money to help the charities help the veterans.

While there is no question that the terrorism is having a savage impact on the wounded, their families and society in general, requiring extensive research into brain injuries, amputations and prostheses, there also is much that can be done to help those who bear the unseen scars of war.

The emotional impacts of battle are documented well into ancient history, and for millennia the non-warrior societies that welcome the warriors home from the fight have been hard pressed to understand and relate to the changes that fighting brings to their loved ones. A recent historical documentary noted that the Israelites required their fighters to spend a week after returning from battle encamped separately from the rest of the population, presumably to decompress from the savagery.

Jay Standish photo

I appeared on the cable show Full Bloom recently with host Zita Christian, discussing the issue of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and she noted that some native American tribes had similar practices, requiring their warriors to spend time with their tribe's grandmothers before returning to the mainstream. See the show here. I opined that there probably is no less threatening a sub-demographic in any social grouping than a gathering of grandmothers.

But for all the advances in medicine and technology, we haven't done much to advance the cause of returning vets who may need nothing more than time to get an overview of what they have just been through, and what they accomplished. The fact is, they can't plan on getting information and real assistance from the media, which only covers wars closely when it suits their political agendas, nor from family members or society in general who get most of their info from the media.

But when I was talking with Zita on Full Bloom I offered a suggestion that I have made in the past - that since we take a minimum of three months to change civilians into warriors, why not take the same amount of time to let our returning warriors decompress after battle, a form of "reverse boot camp?"

I learned well after I returned from Vietnam that first I needed sleep, lots of sleep where my subconscious could relearn the patterns of a low-threat environment. I needed time to talk with my friends who had shared the battlefield.

Most of us who returned from Vietnam got neither. And it doesn't seem that today's returning warriors get much help in that endeavor either.

So what is wrong with taking some of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on defense annually,  to develop an interim stop on the way home from the war? What is wrong with reversing the boot camp experience by giving the warriors  time to decompress in a safe and monitored environment?

There are myriad ways a program of this nature could be implemented and it could be tailored to individual needs, depending on where the warriors were stationed, what they did while there, how much combat they encountered and their reaction to it. They could readjust to an environment where loud sounds don't necessarily mean explosions, where there is no enemy to rocket or mortar them in the middle of the night, where there is regular food and water, and especially where no one is trying to kill them.

The length of their stay in this boot camp would be dependent on the individual, and for those who need more time it would be fairly simple to arrange family visitation and similar amenities. There would be no stigma attached since everyone who goes to war would be required to go through this decompression process on the way home.

This is but the germ of an idea and it needs more discussion. But think about the billions of dollars that are spent now on care for veterans who never got the treatment they needed when they needed it most. And think of the loss of productivity and other costs to society that would be significantly reduced - reversed even - if we spent some of our defense budget a bit more wisely and appropriately.

The way I see it, anything would have to be a lot better than what we have now.

My Memorial Day weekends typically have involved marching in the annual parade in my community, giving a speech on the necessity of remembering those who fell protecting our freedoms, writing speeches for other speakers, or heading up the Buddy Poppy sales for my local veterans organizations.

We usually have a cookout at the Winter household, because we also acknowledge that it is the informal beginning of the summer season and we love to indulge in our hard won freedoms by doing what we like to do. And I always, ALWAYS, remember my brother Marines, those I served with in Medium Helicopter Squadron 161 – HMM-161 – who died in Vietnam, or afterward.

This year there will be no speeches or parades for me. I can't march after being injured in an auto collision three years ago, suffering debilitating back injuries as a result. I won't be doing speeches, partly because of the same reason, but also because I am up to my eye teeth in getting ready for a reunion of the remaining members of my helicopter squadron. These are the people I served with in New River, North Carolina in '66 and '67, and who took part in our historic flight from North Carolina to California in April 1968, and on from there to Quang Tri, Vietnam.

And herein for me is the true meaning of Memorial Day this year. One of my reunion planning jobs has been contacting people who served with us so long ago, informing them of the coming reunion and getting information out to them. There were approximately 200 Marines in our squadron when we landed in Vietnam, and in past reunions roughly half of them have attended.

During our tour we lost 20 Marines out of the 200 in combat, dozens more were wounded, and over the years our numbers have been whittled down due to the deaths of many of our leaders, most of whom had also served in WWII and Korea. In those cases, I have accepted that time marches on and we are not immortal. There also are many who simply dropped out of sight in the years after the war and extraordinary efforts to locate them have been fruitless.

But this year I have found time and time again that an old friend and brother-in-arms has died, or is unable to attend due to injuries and sicknesses that have come far too early in their lives, often as a result of combat or exposure to toxins in the war zone. The impact of these sudden revelations, that we will no longer see a person who was such an integral part of our lives, has not been gentle; in fact it has been brutal.

But to a great degree that has been offset by the knowledge that we who have survived will be enjoying each others company for a long weekend, and will be providing the venue for the family of at least one of our fallen Marines to attain some aspect of closure.

It has been very difficult for the families of those we lost in combat to come to grips with the deaths of men who in many cases were barely out of their teens, and in many other cases were only at the doorstep of adulthood. To send a young man off to war and to receive only a metal coffin and flag in return does little to nothing to resolve the issues that the families have endured.

But this year we also will be joined by the sister of one of our fallen Marines and her family. And this year she finally will meet many of the people who were close to her brother and were there when he died.

She will meet people who knew an entirely different side of the young man she grew up with and I am certain that she will be pleased to discover that we also saw him as intelligent, warm and humorous, in addition to respecting him immensely as a Marine helicopter crewman.

There is little to nothing I can do this year to offset the ravages of time or reverse what has happened to so many of my brother Marines. Yet, helping one family put to rest some of the questions that have lingered since Vietnam will be a worthwhile endeavor.

And before our gathering in June, I will take some time this Memorial Day to maintain my long-standing tradition of saluting an honor roll of the deceased - an honor roll that continues to grow longer with each passing year. Semper Fidelis.

Specialist Ivan Lopez who committed suicide on April 2 after killing three people and wounding 16 others at Ft. Hood, Texas was an Army truck driver who had been diagnosed with emotional issues and prescribed Ambien, a sedative-hypnotic.[1]
 
Nonetheless, Lopez was still on duty even though one side effect of Ambien is "sleep driving."[2] But far worse, Ambien in combination with other anti-depressants – or even alcohol – also can cause "decreased inhibition (e.g., aggressiveness and extroversion that seemed out of character), bizarre behavior, agitation and depersonalization."[3]

Why are US military doctors prescribing mind-altering drugs to service members who have been diagnosed with mental health issues, at times in combinations that are known to cause serious reactions? And why are the people who are being prescribed these potentially dangerous combinations still in the military? 

No civilian truck driver could legally drive in Lopez' condition, which media reports referred to as under the influence of a "cocktail" of mind-altering pharmaceuticals. If any service member in the Vietnam era had been found in the possession of, or using, drugs of the types that are now prescribed, they would have been dishonorably discharged.

There are plenty of victims in this tragedy and I truly sympathize with the families of those who were murdered or wounded.

But I also sympathize with Lopez' father, who issued a statement to the media saying "I ask for prayers for the affected families. My son could not have been in sound mind."

To ensure that similar tragedies will not erupt on our military bases in the future we must acknowledge that the military is in the business of securing our country, not providing social services. The military needs people at the peak of physical and mental preparedness, nothing less.

The mission of the military is to protect us: to close with and destroy our enemies, and maintain a status of readiness that makes any potential enemy think twice before launching an attack. How can the military be expected to complete these missions when it is suddenly tasked with providing long-term psychiatric care to potentially thousands of troops?

If a person is physically debilitated in the armed forces he or she may be medically retired, becoming eligible for disability compensation and lifetime medical care. Why not the same treatment for a person emotionally or mentally wounded while serving?

This is not a slam at those who are disabled fighting for our country, either physically or mentally, it merely acknowledges the reality of military service. Rather than debating whether we need more or better armed military police, we should first remove the trigger to these types of incidents.

Any service member diagnosed with emotional or mental issues serious enough to warrant prescription drugs such as Ambien should receive medical retirement and be moved to the care and supervision of the Veterans Administration. Rather than cutting benefits for retired and disabled veterans, as has been championed by Rep. Paul Ryan[4] and others, the VA budget should be adjusted upward accordingly.

If the United States is going to send people off to wars for decades on end, it is obligated to not only provide the best training and equipment for the fighters, but the best care for wounded veterans. We should never forget the credo of the true warrior: leave no one behind on the battlefield.

And we also should remember that two members of the Obama Administration, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Secretary of State John Kerry, built their public personas around their combat service in Vietnam.

Perhaps they should reflect on how they would respond during a firefight if they knew their comrades had cocktails of mind-altering drugs running through their veins rather than adrenalin. They should think about their own reactions if they knew they could not count on their fellow soldiers to apply clear minds and solid training to the most dangerous of situations.

Then they should ask for an Oval Office meeting and share what they know with their Commander-in-Chief.

---

[1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/02/fort-hood-shooter-had-mental-health-problems/7237489/

[2] http://www.drugs.com/sfx/ambien-side-effects.html

[3] http://www.rxlist.com/ambien-drug/warnings-precautions.htm

[4] http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/12/20/Veterans-Conservatives-Destroy-Paul-Ryan-on-Social-Media-Over-Pension-Cuts