Jan
11
ANOTHER HAZARD OF WAR
Filed Under Agent Orange, Tears of a Warrior, War | Comments Off
by Tony & Janet Seahorn
There are many Vietnam veterans who have and are continuing to suffer from exposure to AGENT ORANGE. For many, getting adequate information has been a challenge. Because of that challenge, we decided to put the following information on Agent Orange in this blog. We hope it will be of some help.
Presumption of Exposure – A veteran who, during active military, naval, or air service, served in the Republic of Vietnam during the period beginning on January 9, 1962 and ending on May 7, 1975, will be presumed to have been exposed to an herbicide agent during such service, unless there is affirmative evidence that establishes that the veteran was not exposed to any such herbicide agent.
Length of Exposure – There is no regulatory requirement as to how long the veteran was in Vietnam; even a few hours of service in country is sufficient to establish the presumption of exposure. The last date on which a veteran will be presumed to have been exposed to an herbicide agent will be the last date on which he or she served in the Republic of Vietnam during the period beginning on January 9, 1962 and ending on May 7, 1975.
Presumptive Service Connection (herbicide-related diseases)
If a veteran has one of the diseases listed in 38 C.F.R. § 3.309(e) (see Appendix A) and his/her exposure to an herbicide is either presumed, based on service in Vietnam, or otherwise proven by the evidence, the disease is presumed to be related to the in-service exposure.
The all inclusive list, according to the VA site now reads:
- Acute and Subacute Peripheral Neuropathy
A nervous system condition that causes numbness, tingling, and motor weakness. Under VA’s rating regulations, it must be at least 10% disabling within 1 year of exposure to Agent Orange and resolve within 2 years after the date it began. - AL Amyloidosis
A rare disease caused when an abnormal protein, amyloid, enters tissues or organs. - B Cell Leukemias
Cancers which affect B cells, such as hairy cell leukemia. - Chloracne (or Similar Acneform Disease)
A skin condition that occurs soon after dioxin exposure and looks like common forms of acne seen in teenagers. Under VA’s rating regulations, chloracne (or other acneform disease similar to chloracne) must be at least 10% disabling within 1 year of exposure to Agent Orange. - Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia
A disease that progresses slowly with increasing production of excessive numbers of white blood cells. - Diabetes Mellitus (Type 2)
A disease characterized by high blood sugar levels resulting from the body’s inability to respond properly to the hormone insulin. - Hodgkin’s Disease
A malignant lymphoma (cancer) characterized by progressive enlargement of the lymph nodes, liver, and spleen, and by progressive anemia. - Ischemic Heart Disease
A disease characterized by a reduced supply of blood to the heart. - Multiple Myeloma
A cancer of specific bone marrow cells that is characterized by bone marrow tumors in various bones of the body. - Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma
A group of cancers that affect the lymph glands and other lymphatic tissue. - Parkinson’s Disease
A motor system condition with symptoms that include trembling of the limbs and face and impaired balance. - Porphyria Cutanea Tarda
A disorder characterized by liver dysfunction and by thinning and blistering of the skin in sun-exposed areas. Under VA’s rating regulations, it must be at least 10% disabling within 1 year of exposure to Agent Orange. - Prostate Cancer
Cancer of the prostate; one of the most common cancers among men. - Respiratory Cancers
Cancers of the lung, larynx, trachea, and bronchus. - Soft Tissue Sarcoma (other than Osteosarcoma, Chondrosarcoma, Kaposi’s sarcoma, or Mesothelioma)
A group of different types of cancers in body tissues such as muscle, fat, blood and lymph vessels, and connective tissues.
Here is the link, as well:
http://www.publiche alth.va.gov/ exposures/ agentorange/ diseases. asp#veterans
Jul
12
TEARS OF A MOTHER
Filed Under American Patriotism, Combat PTSD, Family, Tears of a Warrior | Comments Off
by Janet J. Seahorn
It came in the mail, a letter from a mother of a young vet who has already served a year of duty in Afghanistan. Even though we receive numerous letters from mothers, wives, vets, and even their children, this one kept coming back to my mind. Her words echoed the immense sacrifice families contribute when their loved one(s) serve in the military.
Given the current state of the economy, many military personnel cannot find employment once they are out of the armed forces. Some are left with few viable options to support themselves and/or their families except to re-enlist. This is the situation her son finds himself in now. Having to think about him returning to Afghanistan where every day becomes a bit grimmer is an alarming prospect.
What made her letter resonate familiar memories in me was going back to a time when I, as a young girl, watched and listened to the emotional rollercoaster my Mom (and Dad) went through while my brother was in Vietnam. Some nights when Dad was working late and she thought I was already asleep, I could hear her muffled crying. I am sure she was sobbing into her pillow to reduce the noise of her tears. It broke my heart because I knew there was little I could do to comfort her worries.
Later, after my brother returned home carrying the burdens of war, my mother faced another challenge – how to soothe, support, and deal with a young man who was very different from the happy-go-lucky son she once knew.
The tears continued as did the worries, for she understood that this new battle waging inside of my brother was just as formidable as those he faced in combat. And she understood, once again, there was little she could do to alter my brother’s new journey. She could be present to offer love and the stability of home, but he must be the one to do the work of emotional healing.
Combat’s wounds continue to take an enormous toil on the entire family, not just the vet. Such grief still continues to be done in silence, for vets and their families have long intuitively understood that few people who have not been in their position have a clue about what is occurring, every part of every day. Even if someone was willing to listen, how could one put into words the many hidden demons that returned as part of the baggage of war?
So many tears, so many wounds, and so much healing work still to be done. As long as war is part of our world, there will always be the sacred “Tears of a Mother”.
We need to remember to keep these gentle souls in our own hearts and prayers, and, perhaps somewhere in the distant future, there will no longer be a need for tears to be shed because of war, greed, or some leaders’ insatiable need for power.
When and if such a state of affairs ever happens, tears might be replaced with joyfulness and peace. We can only hope.
Mar
24
by Janet J. Seahorn
This weekend I heard an experienced angler talk about the joys of being in a stream or lake fishing for Snotty Fish. Snotty Fish, he thoughtfully explained, were those fish that were not easy to catch. They were fish that could not be tricked by some ordinary fly or enticing lure. More than likely, such fish had, in some earlier time, been caught before and managed to escape through sheer luck, tenacity, or down right determination. After going through such a traumatic encounter, they were more cautious than most of their finned friends. They understood the consequences of impulsively taking the enticing lure. Therefore, the fisherman who caught (and released) such a Snotty Fish had to be incredibly patient, knowledgeable, and persistent. This particular angler made it clear that catching Snotty Fish was the best and most rewarding way to angle.
Listening to this person talk, I began to comparing how similar Snotty Fish were to veterans who are living with Post-Traumatic Stress. Many of our troops have experienced the traumas of combat. Men and women who have seen and participated in some of humanities worst deeds; deeds that stay etched on the mind and heart. Vets, who when they return to the mainstreams of society, may be unable to trust others, their governments, and even themselves. Yep, Snotty Vets!
Snotty Vets, like Snotty Fish, are often hard to play out. They have experienced lessons in life that few of their fellow countrymen have ever imagined. Such knowledge often makes them wary of their surroundings, including trusting in their own abilities and worthiness. For family and friends, this knowledge can make these Snotty Vets difficult to live with and understand.
Yet, here is the beauty of being in streams with Snotty Vets—they are worth the time and effort to catch and reel back to wellbeing. Health care professionals recognize this fact. Families, friends and communities who walk the path through appropriate support, timely information and love come to empathize with the journey and value the internal strength, courage, and effort that each of them must live out in order to heal.
So you see, Snotty Vets like Snotty Fish are well worth such effort. Simply swimming in their waters help us have greater gratitude for their sacrifice.
Here’s a toast to all of you Snotty Vets, and to all the spouses, children, and siblings of Snotty Vets: “May your new streams be filled with an abundance of peace, joy, and good vigor. May your days bring you fulfillment, and your nights quiet rest. And may you continue to embrace your Snotty strength and leave behind the sorrows of the battlefield. For you are our precious Snotty Vets. We love you. We honor you. And, most of all, we need you to become whole again.”
Feb
11
by Janet J. Seahorn
This week is the week of the Heart. Yep, lots of hearts in the multiple shapes and shades of Valentine cards. This is the week — some focus only on one day — to call forth the power of Love. Sounds, corny, but it is true. Love heals.
One only needs to watch a small child with a skinned knee crying for comfort. Mom enfolds the tiny tot in her arms, puts a band aid on the boo boo, kisses it gently, and soothingly says to her child, “See all better”. And the child believes. Wow! If the emotional counselors are correct, what we focus on we get. Perhaps we should try to focus on Love, even for a day. Test the statement, “Love Heals”.
Love Heals acts of war…
Guns, bombs, and torture certainly don’t.
Love Heals violent acts of countless forms.
I may never forget a terrible act, but maybe I can get to a bit of forgiveness.
Love Heals our physical and emotional pain.
Ask a pet owner of the power of his precious companion.
Love heals our fears.
“Worry is simply the habit of focusing on what we don’t want.” (January 22, 2010, Daily Word)
Through the strength of the Heart, Love Heals. And like that small child, I choose to believe.
Jan
3
A Perspective on War
Filed Under American Patriotism, PTSD, Today's War, War | Comments Off
I seem to spend a lot of time thinking about war, even when I don’t want to. The reality of war. The horror of war. What does winning a war really look like? Are war and terrorism even related or is one a symptom of the other?
Following is an article in today’s Denver Post which provides a perspective…
-Tony Seahorn
Fool’s game: A soldier’s lament
By Megan Nix
Posted: 01/03/2010
My friend from Denver, a thirtysomething with a full red beard, a plaid shirt, and a loud, choppy laugh, looks like any guy you might have a drink with to talk about girls or music or the work week.
The last time I hung out with him, we shared a beer stein on Larimer Street during Oktoberfest and talked about Halloween costumes. During a more recent happy hour, we talked about the summons he received to deploy to Afghanistan.
Because of the Army’s Uniform Code, I can’t name him. Suffice it to say he’s the one person in the 30,000 who got that call to whom I can give a voice.
It was Nov. 11, 2009, Veterans Day, when my friend was called back to war. His friends had taken him out to shoot clay pigeons in honor of his being a veteran in Iraq, and when he went to his parents’ house for Sunday dinner, a big envelope was waiting for him. He went down into the basement where his father, a potter, was shaping clay. “I just walked up to him and gave him a hug,” he says, smiling from above the amber glow of his draft beer. Hugs are not something he regularly does. “Then I stepped back, and I said, ‘Dad, I’m going to Afghanistan.’ ”
Like most soldiers, he’s dealing with some of the same symptoms as one of his heroes, Audie Murphy, a World War II vet who publicized the unseen wounds of war. Fear, insomnia, depression, a loss of faith in our country’s leaders, and a nightmarish reluctance to re-enter the world “outside the wire.” Like any young man who’s already been to war once, my friend is doing everything he can in order to not be deployed twice.
When he served in Baghdad, there were four to five American deaths a day, the city was a “cesspool,” and “generals were being moved around like playing cards. People don’t realize how much worse it is than what you see on TV. In a city that goes to war, services stop – sewage, water – there’s very limited law and order. You can’t even imagine how awful the world is when a war is happening there.”
Despite his hearty laugh and recurring shrugs, he exudes disillusionment. We’re nestled in a leather booth, and at the bar, two toothless men start to shove each other against the stools and shout obscenities.
“I bet you,” my war-bound buddy says, “at least one of them is a vet.” It doesn’t matter if they’re vets or not, at least one person here is, and those unseen wounds of war? I can see them in this bar.
“My job in Iraq as a public affairs specialist was to prove, ‘What’s the good here? What’s the silver lining? How can I slant this to look good?’” my friend explains. “If you’re very honest,” he says, with signature honesty and one hack of a laugh, “you could never do it.”
One of the reasons he has agreed to talk to me is so that he can be honest, albeit anonymously. The namelessness seems to fit: Both Iraq and Afghanistan are wars largely stocked with low- to mid-level soldiers on repeated deployment. Soldiers from Nowhereville, U.S.A., young men and women who will die largely unrecognized for being, as my friend says, “some sort of hero.”
He’s not in the business of sugar-coating. Bombs are the best way to kill because no one has to be there, he tells me. He recounts how the fluids on the floor of a walk-in freezer stacked with car bomb victims flowed, tar-black, to a drain under his feet. “Beyond capacity,” is how he describes the scene of the nameless corpses. “Innocent victims of roadside bombs gone wrong. The unwanted. Victims that will never ever be identified.”
My friend’s insights increase with the drinks. He points out that while what we have is called a “volunteer army,” life circumstances are what dictate if enlisting is in a kid’s future. “See those guys?” he points to the two men who have stopped fighting and are staring blankly at their sentinel of empty shot glasses. “If they did serve, I can almost guarantee they came from little money. No Haliburton sons and daughters are dying in Iraq or going to Afghanistan,” he says, pushing his finger into the beer-stained table. “I can’t even tell you how many Army leaders I’ve seen without a combat patch (signaling they’ve been deployed) on their right arm. It just shows you how many people aren’t bearing the weight of this war.”
The weight of his story accumulates like a collection of heavy fragments.
A break for a granola bar on the back of Vehicle 2. A deafening explosion. A puff of smoke where Vehicle 4 had been.
Like many young men who enlist, my friend wanted to be independent of his parents and the military was the best possible solution, so he enlisted five years ago. “I thought if I don’t find anything I’m passionate about, I should go,” he says.
By now, he’s gathered plenty of things to be passionate about. One of them is not returning to Afghanistan. As a technically disabled vet who already did five years, was honorably discharged, and “did everything I was ever asked,” he received the news of his “involuntary mobilization” with reluctance and disbelief. He knew he was subject to recall until June 2012, but opening the envelope was one of those times when you say, “Seriously? I mean, seriously?”
Really, he did more than he was asked to do: He volunteered to fight at a time when he knew he’d likely be deployed. He was stationed in Iraq during one of its bloodiest summers. And, most importantly, he came back.
He also has simpler reasons for not wanting to return: He doesn’t know if he can pick up a 200-plus-pound person. He doesn’t want to carry a weapon. And he doesn’t want to be a pawn in a game of politics if part of the reason the withdrawal is scheduled for 2011 is because President Obama is up for re-election in 2012.
After opening his Afghanistan envelope, my friend immediately called his superior to appeal. “What’s the deal?” he asked. “I cannot do this again.” And the noncommissioned officer on the phone replied: “Look, we are scrounging the bottom of the barrel right now. The bottom of the barrel.”
One of the two men at the bar says he doesn’t have the money to pay for his drinks tonight, stands up from his tattered stool to leave, then sits back down. Someone puts a coin in the jukebox and I’m hoping the song will be happy, but it’s not. Bonnie Tyler’s voice starts in on “Nothing but a Heartache.”
“I only saw the effects of war, not the worst of it,” my quieted friend admits as the song reaches its refrain. “For every war story, there’s a better story not being told. Those go to the grave. Or they’re stories that the people holding them can never begin to relive.”
Tyler croons, “It’s a fool’s game,” while I work on my next beer.
I’m not sure what I should tell this young, smiling and wounded man in front of me. That he’ll be fine and somehow his appeal will be granted, and if not, he’ll come back and we’ll have beers and it will be over. We both know that soon he’ll probably be on a plane with his 60 pounds of gear, looking for silver-lined stories to send back to middle American about the benefits of being at war.
“It’s a heartache,” she sings: “Nothing but a heartache. Hits you when it’s too late. Hits you when you’re down.”
There are many things to thank my friend for, but the only thing I thank him for at the end of the night is his time, and at least that feels like a little bit of sincerity in the midst of everything we’ve both heard and read about our reasons for sending him to Afghanistan. “I’ll see you soon,” I tell him, and the last thing I say – my minuscule gift of acknowledgment – is his name.
The silver lining in this story? I’m still looking for it.
Jul
10
You Can’t Tell a Hog What to Do
Filed Under Civilian life | Comments Off
The women gathered to talk about living with husbands who had served their country years ago during the Vietnam War. They were from throughout the United States and worked in a variety of careers. They were mothers, teachers, business owners, and even farmers.
During the morning session, we discussed the challenges of being in a relationship with a spouse who had experienced the trauma of combat – the killing, the living and the dying. Several of the veterans had been “tunnel rats”, those individuals whose job was to slither down the narrow passageways in search of Viet Cong. The tunnels allowed the enemy to pop-up out of nowhere and ambush American troops. Many believed the job of the tunnel rat was one of the most dangerous and scary assignments in Vietnam.
Several participants told stories of how the war did not remain overseas, but seemed to follow the vet back home.
Orders were still shouted, commands were given at all times of the day and night, and immediate compliance was expected. The deep battle scars of many warriors still remained.
I mentioned this phenomenon in our book, Tears of a Warrior. How my sons and I never quite understood the condition. In fact, we never fully realized that we walked a fine line between soldiers in combat and family. Our perceptions of how to respond to Dad were not the same as his. As one might imagine, such a scenario did not always produce a tranquil home environment.
Toward the end of the discussion, one lady explained to the group how it wasn’t her husband who had the most difficulty adjusting to home life, it was her.
You see, she explained, she ran the farm while he was away. She had to take care of the crops, fix the barn when it leaked, repair any broken appliances, and feed the animals, especially the pigs.
When her husband returned after being gone over a year, he kept asking why she did certain tasks in a manner unfamiliar to him. Her dilemma was to become more flexible in allowing him to reintegrate into the farm tasks, and not expect him to do things “her” way. Most of the farm duties were just fine after awhile, except one. It seemed the hogs weren’t terribly fond of the “new” farm hand and much preferred the lady as their primary feeder.
For any of you who aren’t familiar with farming and hog behavior, the only piece of information you need to know is that you don’t mess with a hungry, snorting hog.