Dedicated to the idea that Recovery is possible for Veterans and families when they decide that Coping is just not enough.

 

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On this side we want to put current, time sensitive content.

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Oh Holy $#!+

How to get Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in Eleven Seconds.

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For three years The Nation has been reporting on military doctors' fraudulent use of personality disorder to discharge wounded soldiers [see Kors, "How Specialist Town Lost His Benefits," April 9, 2007]. PD is a severe mental illness that emerges during childhood and is listed in military regulations as a pre-existing condition, not a result of combat. Thus those who are discharged with PD are denied a lifetime of disability benefits, which the military is required to provide to soldiers wounded during service. Soldiers discharged with PD are also denied long-term medical care. And they have to give back a slice of their re-enlistment bonus. That amount is often larger than the soldier's final paycheck. As a result, on the day of their discharge, many injured vets learn that they owe the Army several thousand dollars.

According to figures from the Pentagon and a Harvard University study, the military is saving billions by discharging soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan with personality disorder.

Read the rest of the story here:

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A letter from a Utah Soldier in Afghanistan

Our Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) are busy getting running water and electricity to people who live in remote villages ravaged by poverty and disease even though our teams are under constant fire and IED attacks during this process. It is very stressful. Tuberculosis, malaria, hepatitis and other diseases are rampant. The teams assist in bringing in vaccines and medical and dental care, as well as setting up locals with running water, generators, solar ovens and other technology to improve their standard of living. The average lifespan of the male is only 43 years old.

Terrorist organizations don't want us here; they want the people to remain under a strict, oppressive law. We build bridges and roads, they blow them up. We build and fund schools, they threaten and destroy them. The terror that is exacted by various groups such as the Taliban and Hiqqani network, among others, is devastating. They deliver documents called "night letters" to the villagers' doors, telling them that if they cooperate with coalition forces they will be killed and their houses burned. They kidnap people to ransom or rob them to pay for weapons brought across the border from Pakistan. They are steeped in the illegal drug trade of opium.

 

I feel like I've been dropped off in hell, but surprisingly morale is high and all of us are resolute in prosecuting the mission. I wish the American public could really see what is going on here. It angers those of us who live this every day to see what the public is being fed (by the media). They would be sobered by the quality of our youth and efforts to ultimately bring a higher quality of life to these people. Read the rest of the story here:

The Learning Side

On this side of the page we want to feature information that will help Veterans and their families to "Keep it Together". One notable example will be: Active Conditioning; the new guide to PTSD Recovery by W. Andrew Wilson

 

We also want to package all sorts of training materials from the National Alliance on Mental Illness and the VA. Like these:

Peer Support How to Manual writtten by Moe Armstrong:

Recovering from Trauma, A self help Guide from

A lawyers advice for protecting your identity

Veterans Courts: Often when a Veteran has PTSD, treatment is a better option than punishment.

 

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an email from our friend Kevin R in California

The K9 above is Brutus

Brutus a military K9 at McChord Airforce Base.
He's huge - part Boxer and part British Bull Mastiff and tops the scales at 200 lbs. His handler took the picture.

Brutus is running toward me because he knows I have some Milk Bone treats, so he's slobbering away! I had to duck around a tree just before he got to me in case he couldn't stop, but he did.

Brutus won the Congressional Medal of Honor last year from his tour in Iraq . His handler and four other soldiers were taken hostage by insurgents. Brutus and his handler communicate by sign language and he gave Brutus the signal that meant 'go away but come back and find me'. The Iraqis paid no attention to Brutus. He came back later and quietly tore the throat out of one guard at one door and another guard at another door. He then jumped against one of the doors repeatedly (the guys were being held in an old warehouse) until it opened. He went in and untied his handler and they all escaped. He's the first K9 to receive this honor.

If he knows you're ok, he's a big old lug and wants to sit in your lap. Enjoys the company of cats. He's just like other Vets. He needs to know your are okay.

Project Information

Our mission is to teach Mental Health Wellness Recovery skills to Veterans and their families.

VetXPRS is a Veteran to Veteran self help organization. We believe the most powerful action a Veteran can take to enhance their own recovery is to help someone else Recover Wellness.

We incorporate elements of 12 Step Programs such as "Recovery is predicated on a relationship with a higher power" and "Freedom allows us to choose our own way. We are not cursed or doomed by the past." We have wrapped Mental Health Wellness Recovery in non-threatening, non-denominational wrappings. No stigma. As Steven Covey teaches: "Truth is truth, but sometimes we can appreciate it anew by changing the context." And you don't need a Ph.D. to teach someone a different way to practice breathing.

The Need for VetXPRS

Multiple tours of Iraq and Afghanistan have impacted untold thousands of Veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury. The Veterans Administration, in spite of massive budget and staff increases is falling further behind with the demand for mental health resources. This situation is only going to get worse. Today, only one in five Veterans with PTSD or brain injury is seeking aid. One high ranking mental health professional at the SLCVA said that "If every Veteran who qualifies for mental health services were to apply; there would not be enough psychiatrists and psychologists in the entire country to fill the demand."

Meanwhile, our youngest Veterans are spiralling into Chaos. It seems that nearly everyone knows a Veteran "who is just not the same since the war." The Veteran might:

• Suddenly become angry or irritable
• Have a hard time sleeping
• Have trouble concentrating
• Fear for your safety and always feel on guard
• Be very startled when someone surprises them

• Have drinking or drug problems
• Have feelings of hopelessness, shame, or despair
• Employment problems leading to financial problems
• Relationships problems including divorce and violence
• Physical symptoms

These problems only get worse over time without intervention. VetXPRS can help Veterans and families catch these problems early before they turn into Suicide, Murder, Armed Assault, Domestic Violence, and worst; Broken Families.

The Chinese have a saying: "Man wait long time for roast duck to fly in mouth." Veterans who wait for the government, especially the VA, to solve their problems are condemned to frustration and chaos.

The Solution Is a Community Based Vet to Vet Organization that Teaches Veterans to Teach Veterans How to Recover.

For 40 years Veterans have been told that PTSD is a permanent injury and that the best we could hope for was to learn "Coping Skills." Todays' Veterans are learning that the VA has evidence that the best treatment for PTSD is Cognitive Behavior Therapy. (Read about the National Center for PTSD and CBT here:)

The Point is that there is Evidence that Cognitive Behavior Therapy actually works and that Recovery from PTSD is possible.

Unfortunately many Veterans find the Veterans Administration's policies and procedures to be stressful beyond bearing. They avoid any connection with the bureaucracy* with every fiber. These are the Veterans we are reaching with VetXPRS.

* Bureaucracy: a method for transforming energy into solid waste.

VetXPRS offers a treasure of Recovery alternatives for Veterans experiencing readjustment difficulties who wish to remain as far removed from the VA as possible. An example is a form of Prayer or Meditation called Mindfulness Breathing:

1. We breathe in Peace

1. We breath out Stress; making extra effort to exhale the stale air that gets caught in the bottom of our lungs

As we exhale we teach our bodies to 3. Relax.

As we relax, the shutter in our mind's eye opens for an instant and we can 4. Visualize what it is we desire at the time. In that moment of imagining what we want, we can create new filaments of neural pathways... actual nerve fibers grow and connect. Thousands of repetitons of the mindful breathing can create new neural pathways that are so powerful that our brains forget to think in the old, habitual ways... even if that old habitual way is a survival strategy that kept us and our buddies alive in combat

Company Description & Background:

Vet Express is being spearheaded by W. Andrew Wilson, 63, a Vietnam combat veteran who is Recovering from PTSD. He has been involved in PTSD Recovery efforts since 1980 when PTSD was first included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. He has been trained in Prolonged Exposure Therapy, and Mindfulness Breathing at the Sheridan VA InPatient PTSD Program (2010) as well as training at the National Center for PTSD in Menlo Park, CA. (2007) He has been considered 100 percent disabled with PTSD by the VA since July, 2010

VetXPRS.org has grown out of UtVet.com, which grew out of the Utah County Veterans Council, which grew out of the Provo Veterans Council in 2003. Wilson was President of the Provo Veterans Council at that time and became the first President of the new County Veterans Council. The Veterans Council was comprised of the leadership of most of Utah County's Veterans Service Organization such a the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars. UtVet.com was originally the newsletter for the County Veterans Council. We began with 30 subscribers in 2003. Now we have about 150,000 per month. They read a digest of content of interest to Veterans, gleaned from everywhere. Over the last two years more and more of the content has focused on Recovery and the barriers to recovery that Veterans and families often experience.

 

Project Description:

We are building a national organization of Veteran volunteers who want to serve other Veterans with good council, transportation, and friendship. The heart of the organization will be a scalable website: VetXPRS that can deliver online education, a video library, and other training and networking resources that will enhance individual Veteran's opportunities to Recover, learn skills, and gain insight about Mental Health Wellness. We do not have to invent these Recovery techniques and learning tools. By working closely with the National Alliance of Mental Illness and the VA we can adapt their content, and deliver that content to Veterans and their families. Moreover, we can deliver content while we insulate the Veteran from the stigma of bearing a formal diagnosis of PTSD or other mental illness. (Which can prevent them from buying Life Insurance, and make other insurance more expensive.) Ironically, Recovery is good but a Mental Illness diagnosis is bad.

We assert that the Family is the fundamental pillar of a Veteran's recovery. There is nothing more central to a Veteran's recovery than living principles that preserve and enhance their families. We teach the correct principles. For example: Gravity always works. We don't have to like it. Lying never works. We don't have to like it.

Another role of the website is to facilitate relationships veteran to veteran, and family to family. We are helping organize training sessions where Veterans can teach each other how to create change within relationships that bolster and enhance mental health wellness recovery. A key element is that one of the best ways to assure Recovery is to get involved in teaching Recovery.

We want to raise money for spreading the work with e commerce. We want to sell books, DVDs, T-shirts, Decals, etcetera. We want to organize seminars and rallies to generate the excitement that Recovery is Actually Possible! Of course, donations to help accelerate the work are welcome.

 

Key Project Deliverables:

VetXPRS has an emerging web based Recovery training program that incorporates the best of the VA outpatient therapy and National Alliance of Mental Illness training programs. There is no stigma and no time limit and practically no expense. We have the content. We need the site.

The site should provide info, an enrollment form that allows Veterans to volunteer, or to accept help, an RSS feed signup, Podcasts, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media. Our target audience is younger veterans, because their need is most pressing. Suicide is at tragic proportions among these heroes. We want to accomodate their preferences while respecting the technological limitations of The Vietnam generation that thinks eMail is the pinnacle of communication technology.

There is nothing more central to a Veteran's recovery than living principles that preserve and enhance their families. We can create a web site where we teach the correct principles. VetXPRS Recovery program works to stem a rising tide of young Veterans' incarceration, mental health hospital-izations, and suicide. We expect full cooperation with the VA, NAMI, and many others such as Intermountain Health Care; who will provide VetXPRS with some of the finest web based diabetes recovery info that exists. With a powerful, beautiful website we will create a network of hundreds and thousands of Veterans all dedicated to the idea that Recovery is not only desirable but also Achievable for themselves and their families. Change can take place where Acceptance, Awareness, and Hope intersect. VetXPRS is that intersection.

 

Financial Considerations

We can hire a top BYU MBA student to manage a team of BYU student interns for only $1,000. We want the MBA Mentor because our cause is important to our community and because we want the strongest possible team, to obtain the best possible result. We believe the BYU team can help us promote a site that is far superior to anything we could afford to buy on the open market. That team will position us to obtain the necessary funding from sponsors that will allow us to quickly reach a national audience. We also are looking to civic organizations such as Rotary, the Exchange Club, the Chamber of Commerce, and Home Builders Associations to fund costs of travelling, web hosting, web development, printing, telephone, etcetera. More importantly, people in those organizations all know Veterans who "are just not the same since the war." The members of these organizations are like capilaries that reach into the community and feed Veterans into the Recovery movement; specifically into VetXPRS.