Female Amputee Proved Doctors Wrong

A soldier's story of trauma, triumph and tomorrow
WCSH 6 NBC News
ELLE OUSFAR
December 23, 2016

Gardner has proven wrong every doctor who told her it couldn't be done. While in rehab Gardner started playing sled hockey and eventually made the USA women's Sled Hockey team.

LEWISTON, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- Army Sergeant Christy Gardner was injured in the line of duty while serving overseas as a military police officer. She suffered skull and facial fractures as well as a spinal cord injury that left her without the use of her legs.

Since then, Gardner, a native of Lewiston, Maine has been through 22 surgeries. Her doctors gave her a three-page list of things she would never do again. “They said I'd never live alone or be independent,” Gardner said. “They said I wouldn't walk or ride a bike or even be able to bathe alone.”

But Gardner was on a mission. Beneath the shock and anguish, she was determined to live her life to the fullest, no matter the challenge.

“I'm highly competitive and there was no way I was going to settle for my wheelchair and sitting on the couch."

After years of physical and speech therapy, Gardner’s medical team decided it would be in her best interest to have her legs amputated. She had the left removed in the summer of 2015, and her right leg the next year.
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Cross post from Combat PTSD Wounded Times

Find What is Strong Within You

If you think for a second that there is something wrong of inside of you, you need to start looking at others to see what is strong inside of you. Once you understand that PTSD hit you because of your ability to feel deeply, then you discover there is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of at all. Even above that, once you really understand it, it dawns on you that it meant you changed after trauma, but can also change again.

I'd love to wave a magic wand so you get that message quicker. I'd love to have Santa pack it up, and stick it under your tree or have an angel come to you and give you a hug, but I'm going to let some very blessed leaders share their message to you. All of the following hold rank, so if you had one of the leaders too judgmental to open their hearts, remember all of these and know, you are far from alone in any of this.

For the past six months, Lt. Col. Mount, 43, has commanded Wounded Warrior Battalion West’s glistening $75 million campus at Camp Pendleton, plus satellite detachments at the San Diego Naval Medical Center and the Marines’ air station at Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. In the dwindling days of December, as the barracks grow quieter with the sick and injured jetting home on holiday leave, Mount said Christmas can be a lonely season for those left behind. But he pointed to a pair of combat veterans — Master Sgt. Howard Tait and Staff Sgt. Danielle Pothoof — as Marines who help raise morale, in part because their suffering helped to make them compassionate servant leaders.

“You never think about yourself,” Tait said. “You put your life on hold to worry about your Marines.”

Diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, Tait said he has “leaned a lot on my faith to pull through this” initial phase of rehabilitation.
Drinking saved Robert ‘Rob’ Reed’s life. Reed, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army who served several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, was serious as he explained how his inebriation botched his suicide attempt. He was so drunk that fateful night in 2008, he didn’t realize he’d looped the rope with which he intended to hang himself around a rotten tree limb, he said. He jumped. The rope snapped. He was still alive, on the ground of his then-home in Virginia. Reed, 41, who lives in Frederick, had no qualms in a Tuesday interview talking about his attempted suicide, or the depression, anger and alcohol abuse that led him there.

General Carter Ham

PTSD:General's story highlights combat stress
Gen. Carter Ham, to call him a hero would be putting it mildly. He's a hero to the troops not just because he's a high ranking officer, but because he is willing to speak out on having PTSD. That is a kind of courage very few in his position are willing to do.When men like my husband came home from Vietnam, they knew something had changed inside of them but they didn't know what it was. They suffered in silence just as generations before them suffered. When PTSD was first used in 1976 with a study commissioned by the DAV, news was slowly reaching the veterans. While they fought to have it recognized as wound caused by their service, it was very difficult to talk about. The perception that there was something wrong with them kept too many from even seeking help to heal.

General's story puts focus on stress stemming from combatBy Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY
Gen. Carter Ham was among the best of the best, tough, smart and strong, an elite soldier in a battle-hardened Army. At the Pentagon, his star was rising.
In Iraq, he was in command in the north during the early part of the war, when the insurgency became more aggressive. Shortly before he was to return home, on Dec. 21, 2004, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a mess hall at a U.S. military base near Mosul and killed 22 people, including 14 U.S. troops. Ham arrived at the scene 20 minutes later to find the devastation.
When Ham returned from Mosul to Fort Lewis, Wash., in February 2005, something in the affable officer was missing. Loud noises startled him. Sleep didn't come easily.
"When he came back, all of him didn't come back. Pieces of him the way he used to be were perhaps left back there," says his wife, Christi. "I didn't get the whole guy I'd sent away."
Today, Ham, 56, is one of only 12 four-star generals in the Army. He commands all U.S. soldiers in Europe. The stress of his combat service could have derailed his career, but Ham says he realized that he needed help transitioning from life on the battlefields of Iraq to the halls of power at the Pentagon. So he sought screening for post-traumatic stress and got counseling from a chaplain. That helped him "get realigned," he says.
"You need somebody to assure you that it's not abnormal," Ham says. "It's not abnormal to have difficulty sleeping. It's not abnormal to be jumpy at loud sounds. It's not abnormal to find yourself with mood swings at seemingly trivial matters. More than anything else, just to be able to say that out loud."
The willingness of Ham, one of the military's top officers, to speak candidly with USA TODAY for the first time about post-traumatic stress represents a tectonic shift for a military system in which seeking such help has long been seen as a sign of weakness.

Maj. Gen. Tony Cucolo

PTSD News: Another Army General Fights Stigma by Announcing He Sought PTSD RecoveryPamela Walck
Savannah Morning News (Georgia)
Dec 21, 2008
December 21, 2008, Fort Stewart, Georgia - War changes a person. It's a truth Maj. Gen. Tony Cucolo knows all too well from his 29 years of service - and counting - in the U.S. Army.
And it's a truth he tries to share with each new man and woman arriving at Fort Stewart to serve in the 3rd Infantry Division he guides.
"Command Sgt. Maj. Jesse Andrews and I try to speak to each newcomers' group," said the commanding general of the 3rd ID. "We get all ranks - from private to colonel - and in part, we try to impress upon them ... it is a point of moral courage to step forward and say you need help."
Cucolo then points to a few examples of soldiers he knows who recognized the classic signs of combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury in their own behavior - then sought help for it.
"I applaud that behavior," Cucolo said Friday, moments after participating in a groundbreaking at Winn Army Hospital for a new PTSD and TBI clinic.
Cucolo said he then tells his soldiers they are looking at an officer who sought counseling and got help.
"A lot of people think it is a career-ender," Cucolo said in an exclusive interview.
But he's living proof to the contrary.
Cucolo took command of the 3rd ID in July, after serving a two-year tour at the Pentagon as the Army's chief of public affairs.
During a career that spans nearly three decades, he has served 16 of those years in infantry and armor divisions.
"Soldiers return (from war) a slightly different person," Cucolo said. "It's understood ... we all deal with it different."
The general contends that details over when, why or where he personally sought help are not important.
The fact that he sought help, however, is.
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Maj. Gen. David Blackledge

PTSD News: After Two Iraq War Deployments, Army Major General Steps Forward, Breaks Culture of Silence on Mental HealthPauline Jelinek
Associated Press
Nov 08, 2008
November 8, 2008, Washington, DC (AP) " It takes a brave soldier to do what Army Maj. Gen. David Blackledge did in Iraq."
It takes as much bravery to do what he did when he got home.
Blackledge got psychiatric counseling to deal with wartime trauma, and now he is defying the military's culture of silence on the subject of mental health problems and treatment.
"It's part of our profession ... nobody wants to admit that they've got a weakness in this area," Blackledge said of mental health problems among troops returning from America's two wars.
"I have dealt with it. I'm dealing with it now," said Blackledge, who came home with post-traumatic stress. "We need to be able to talk about it."
As the nation marks another Veterans Day, thousands of troops are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with anxiety, depression and other emotional problems.
Up to 20 percent of the more than 1.7 million who've served in the wars are estimated to have symptoms. In a sign of how tough it may be to change attitudes, roughly half of those who need help aren't seeking it, studies have found.
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  Brig. Gen. Donald C. Bolduc

 “The powerful thing is that I can use myself as an example. And thank goodness not everybody can do that. But I’m able to do it, so that has some sort of different type of credibility to it.”Brig. Gen. Donald C. BolducDespite all the signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, it took 12 years from his first battlefield trauma for him to seek care. After all, he thought, he was a Green Beret in the Army’s Special Forces. He needed to be tough.
General Bolduc learned that not only did he suffer from PTSD, but he also had a bullet-size spot on his brain, an injury probably dating to his helicopter crash in Afghanistan in 2005.Other high-ranking officers have come forward to talk about their struggles with post-combat stress and brain injuries. And in recent years, Special Operations commanders have become more open about urging their soldiers to get treatment.read more here

Adm. William McRaven 

The story was emotional, one told in order to drive home to his audience of medical professionals the power of compassion in medicine – even when it can’t save a patient’s life.
But in its telling, McRaven was forced to stop in his tracks and take a long pause before he could complete his story. For 10 seconds, the audience sat in silence as he struggled through his own emotions to find his voice. It drove home yet another lesson: No one – not the top warrior nor the highest star admiral - is immune to war’s toll. read more here 

You can find stories of Medal of Honor Heroes talking about their own struggles as well. 

Sgt. Kyle J. White,  Staff Sgt. Ty Carter and a lot more. The thing is, you can find what your looking for, but it always depends on what you think you'll find. Now you know you can find a lot more inspirational stories to help you, than you  send the jerks who hurt you some links so they can finally get educated instead of being too foolish to talk to.

History Proves Women in Military Matter

When I grew up, this was the image of female veterans I had in my mind. Women were nurses and they went to war to take care of the men doing all the fighting. Back then, I had two excuses. One, was being surrounded by male veterans, and the other, my simple youthful ignorance.

My Dad was a Korean War veteran and my Uncles were veterans of WWII. I didn't know any female veterans. We went to the VFW and DAV events where I saw women with caps and the word "Auxiliary" but I hardly ever saw any with the word "Veteran" on caps other than those on men.

It wasn't until the 90's, when I beg meeting female veterans that I understood there were many of them and not all of them were nurses. We have a true misunderstanding of female veterans today as well. 

When we discover a female veteran has PTSD, some automatically jump to the conclusion she must have been a victim of military sexual assault instead of remembering they have also been deployed into wars. As simple humans the exposures were the same for females as well as males, including sexual assaults. 

Experts: Males Also Are Victims of Sexual Assault
The number of males sexually assaulted in the military is sobering, the experts said.

“[About] 10,800 men are sexually assaulted every year in the military,” Strand said. “[Roughly] 8,000 women are assaulted.”

Few military males report being victims of sexual assault, he said. Only 1,134 men reported attacks -- roughly 13 percent of those attacked. With women, 39 percent reported attacks.

Yep, one more thing we don't think about. Male soldiers are sexually assaulted as well, and no, get the gay notion out of your head. Gay service members have been in the military all along.

With that out of the way, time to actually talk about some other overlooked facts. Military women have received every award including the Medal of Honor. Yes, that's right, the Medal of Honor was presented to Dr. Mary Edwards Walker for bravery during the Civil War.

The Department of Defense Women's History

Military Women Firsts:The First to Receive Pensions for Military Service

Contrary to slanted opinions about women there is a long historical precedent for women in some form of warfare - though not always in a uniform. For the early pioneer women "home defense" was as routine as drawing well water. And in the Revolutionary decade the first known woman to serve was awarded the first pension for her service.

Margaret Corbin fought with her husband at Fort Washington and in 1779 Congress voted her a disability pension of one half a soldiers pay and one suit of clothes or the equivalent in cash.

Years later, another Revolutionary heroine, Deborah Samson, was granted a pension by the Massachussettes legislature in 1804 and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania awarded Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley a pension in 1822 of forty dollars a year "for services rendered" during the war.

During the Mexican War, Elizabeth C. Newcume, in male attire, was mustered into military service at Fort Leavenworth in September 1847. She served ten months and spent time fighting indians at Dodge City until her sex was discovered and she was discharged. It took a private act of congress to pay Elizabeth Newcume who received a bounty land warrant for 160 acres and full payment for ten months service, plus three months extra pay, as provided in the 5th section of the act of 19 July 1848.

The First to Receive Medals
The first, and only, woman to receive The Medal of Honor was Dr. Mary E. Walker, a contract surgeon during the Civil War.

The first woman to receive The Purple Heart was Annie G. Fox while serving at Hickam Field during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec 7 1941.

The first woman to receive The Bronze Star was 1Lt Cordelia E. Cook, Army Nurse Corps, during WWII in Italy. Lt Cook was also awarded The Purple Heart, becoming the first woman to receive two awards.

Lt Edith Greenwood was awarded The Soldiers Medal in 1943 for heroism during a fire at a military hospital in Yuma Arizona - the first woman to receive this award.

The first woman to receive The Air Medal was Lt Elsie S. Ott awarded for her actions in 1943 as an air evac nurse.

Barbara Olive Barnwell was the first woman awarded the Navy-Marine Corps Medal for heroism in 1953. Barbara Barnwell , a SSGT from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and a member of the Marine Reserve, saved a soldier from drowning in 1952.

Colonel Oveta Culp Hobby, the first Director of the WAC, was the first woman to receive The U.S. Army Distinguished Service Medal in 1945.

For more on women who have received military medals see: Medals Awarded

The First to Enlist
Philadelphian Loretta Walsh enlisted in March of 1917 and became the first Yeoman (F) in the Navy.

Twin sisters Genevieve and Lucille Baker joined the Coast Guard.

In August of 1918 Opha M. Johnson enlisted as the first woman in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve.

The truth is, since the beginning of this nation, women have risked their lives to defend it. That is what makes them so amazing because after everything generations of military women have had to endure, above and beyond what males do, they still fight like hell to serve side by side with them.

They know what they will face when it comes to being deployed. They know what they will face when it comes to fighting the attitude they shouldn't be in the military, along with threat of sexual assaults, and they know they will have to leave their families but they want to do it anyway.

Today they are fighting almost every occupation the males do.

When you think about military women and female veterans, maybe you will see them through the eyes of knowledge and gratitude instead of ignorance and ambivalence.

Forgotten History of Veteran Suicides

History Professor Forgot Most Important Lesson of All
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
December 3, 2016


I was just reading an article on veteran suicides on The Blade, Veteran-suicide epidemic has many causes. This was at the bottom of the article.

The suicide rate in the United States, and particularly among veterans, must remain a national priority. Addressing it requires recognizing and capitalizing on the successes of an organization that is often only criticized. More than this, it requires that we all take a clear-eyed view of the challenges that exist throughout U.S. culture that have contributed to the problem. Recognizing these problems, and acting on them, will likely save more lives than a bunch of push-ups.
David Kieran is assistant professor of history at Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, Pa.

He is right on that, and other parts of the article, however, it is far more worse than this History professor has managed to research. 

For starters, veterans have been committing suicide all along, for generations, not just a decade or so. What we are seeing now has been allowed to happen so that the rest of us can delude ourselves into thinking we just did something to let veterans know we give a crap. Truth is, we made the problems they, along with families just like mine, fight on a daily basis worse. Easy stuff to do has made our lives end more tragically.

Here are some facts no one wants to face.

Start with these numbers from the VA on the numbers they came up with for veterans committing suicide going back to 1999.

Now add in two other numbers. In 1999 the US Census had the number of veterans as this, 

Census 2000 counted 208.1 million civilians 18 and older in the United States.1 Within this population, approximately 26.4 million or 12.7 percent were veterans.

For 2016, there were 21,369,602. Meaning there are 5 million less veterans, yet we are still at the same number of reported suicides as there was back in 1999. After all is said and done, we managed to make it worse.

The largest percentage of veterans, are in fact, over the age of 50. They also represent the highest percentage of veterans committing suicide in the nation. You may be ok with that, ok with them not even mattering enough to mention, but I'm not. I'm not ok with any of this bullshit going on all over the country. It is reprehensible.

Without talking about military suicides taking place at consistent levels of over one a day, at the same time the number of enlisted has dropped by the thousands, the new generation of veterans received the same training, yet their suicide numbers have also skyrocketed past the civilian peer rate. That is something else we have no excuse to ignore, but we do.

With all this in mind, consider the folks you know running around the country just slamming the VA, when every report has stated veterans are less likely to commit suicide while they are going to the VA for help. Instead of #fightingforveterans to have the VA working properly, the members of Congress have let it be destroyed from within and now they are talking about privatizing it. Why? Why should they be allowed to consistently fail our veterans? Why have we allowed this to go on without demanding they be held accountable for all the bills they write to get their names in the public spotlight while pretending they have actually done some basic research to know what they are doing? Any clue as to why we let it happen?

Ok, bad enough? Not even close. For the simple facts we have less veterans living yet the same number committing suicide, those numbers are only part of the truth. The plain, simple, ugly truth of what we allowed to happen. These are the number of veteran in crisis calling the suicide prevention hotline and the numbers that could have been added to what we got wrong.

Since its launch in 2007, the Veterans Crisis Line has answered more than 2.5 million calls and initiated the dispatch of emergency services to callers in crisis nearly 66,000 times. The Veterans Crisis Line anonymous online chat service, added in 2009, has engaged in nearly 308,000 chats. In November 2011, the Veterans Crisis Line introduced a text-messaging service to provide another way for Veterans to connect with confidential, round-the-clock support, and since then has responded to more than 60,000 texts.

So, are you angry enough to #fightforveterans yet or are you going to drop and do some push-ups so you can sleep at night thinking you just did something that will matter to anyone else but yourself?

cross posted on Combat PTSD Wounded Times