Updated information on Veteran Benefits, featured Military Bloggers, the You Served Podcast and various other news and information relevant to Veterans.
You have until March 22 to nominate your favorite military mom — so get busy!
The information below is taken (obviously) from Operation Gratitude.
While service members can earn a variety of awards and recognition, their family members rarely step into the spotlight for public thanks. That’s why Operation Homefront and Lockheed Martin offer the Military Motherhood Award. We’re recognizing the sacrifices and strength of the moms who always manage to put their families first through all the challenges of a military lifestyle.
Winners are chosen based on their contributions to their communities, the challenges they overcome and the quality of the nominations. The winner receives $5,000 and is flown to Washington, D.C., to be honored in a special ceremony on May 6, 2010. Nominations are open now through March 22, 2010. You may nominate a deserving mother by going to:
The folks at Care Meridian contacted me to let me know about Brain Injury Awareness Month and to offer some information. I am talking with them now to see if they have someone who can come on the Spouse and Family edition of You Served Radio and talk about brain injuries and what family members can do to recognize the symptoms and support their soldier while he is receiving treatment.
I have a few friends who are living with the consequences of TBI. They find very creative ways to deal with the problems that arise in their families — issues such as trying to get their soldier to work each day now that he can’t drive, dealing with medication issues that are coupled with memory issues, how to love and support without mothering/smothering in a marriage… and the list goes on.
The following information is from CareMeridian. I will write more and do at least one show on this topic for the Month of March.
Traumatic Brain Injuries in the Military
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is becoming a common wound of modern warfare. It has even been coined the “signature wound” of the War on Terror. While TBI is becoming more prevalent in wartime activity, many service men and women continue to go undiagnosed. Institutions, like the US Department of Veterans Affairs, are working to make quick and accurate diagnoses in order to prescribe appropriate and effective treatment.
TBI is caused by forced trauma to the head, either by being shaken or hit. The severity of a TBI varies from case to case, but symptoms range from mild concussions to a debilitating state. The majority of TBI’s acquired by military personnel are classified as mild traumatic brain injuries (MTBI). Initial symptoms of MTBI consist of loss of consciousness, disorientation, loss of memory, headache, and temporary loss of hearing and vision. They are often partnered with anxiety, irritability, difficulties processing information, limited concentration amongst other problems experienced down the road. While MTBI is most common amongst the men and women of the armed forces, more severe cases of TBI are happening much more frequently and often require the victim to attended specialty rehabilitative nursing centers, like CareMeridian.
The most common cause of a TBI in the military is due to blasts. There are three degrees of blast injuries where a TBI is common; Primary (due to blast itself), Secondary (due to objects being propelled by a blast) and Tertiary (due to a collision with a third party object). According to the Veterans Health Initiative, active male members of the military from the ages 18-24 are hospitalized with a TBI at a rate of 231 per 100,000 and females 150 per 100,000. Based on military force projections this would mean that 4,141 military personnel are hospitalized on average each year with a TBI, and these numbers often rise during wartimes.
The best prevention for veterans to avert the long-term effects of a brain injury is to recognize the symptoms of a TBI. Once the symptoms are identified an individual should take basic precautionary measures in order to begin the healing and recovery process until a more specific diagnosis can be made.
Service men and women give so much to protect this country and they deserve to come home to a happy and healthy life. Creating awareness about TBI will help ensure their long term health. By helping our veterans, their friends and their families recognize the early warning signs of a TBI, treatment can be sought as early as possible.
There was a story in this last week’s Army Times about “Basic Training getting softer”. However that headline was just to grab attention, because if you read the actual story they talk about changing some tasks in Basic Training, part of it building on the technical knowledge that today’s soldiers come in with. Part of the changes are also in recognition that the men and women joining the Army today are not in as good of physical conditioning as in the past so they can’t push them too hard and injure the potential soldiers.
LTG Hiertling who is the Deputy Commander for Initial Military Training was at the TRADOC Conference last week, but accept for small talk at the bar or at breakfast, I never really had a chance to talk with him. However I heard he was not happy about the article, and I can understand why. It wasn’t so much about the article as it was the headline that Army Times used to grab attention.
Once a person reads the story, you can see that they are cutting some of the crew-served weapons training, but they are dedicating more time to individual weapons training, which is the weapon that soldiers are going to spend more time with than anything else. In fact they are even going to dedicate more time to Drill and Ceremony (which I think should not have been cut back when it was a few years ago). Are they taking the physical training at a more controlled rate? Yes they are, but if young recruits are not in as good of shape as normal, pushing them too hard, too fast will just cause them to be injured or even a wash-out.
Its just sad that the Army Times has to resort to spin in order to try and sell a few more papers.
This video is from a private session that a few media reps had with TRADOC Commander, GEN Dempsey. This one focuses on a question to the General about risk and how it is accepted, mitigated and dealt with.
In the last post, I talked about the initial part of the Rodeo. I had a GREAT time and the troops and their families loved it too!
While at the Rodeo, all the troops were treated to a free BBQ dinner. They set up a huge tent that held about 500 troops at a time. Dozens of volunteers served the troops with smiles and words of thanks and appreciation. All the troops there were simply glowing at the attention they received and respect being shown to them. Along with the free food was some of the best Apple Pie I’ve had in a LONG time and all the soda we could drink. Naturally, we were also the ONLY service that was forbidden from drinking alcohol on the trip.
(Click on the photos for better view)
After eating, Soldiers were permitted to pretty much do whatever they wanted in the park. But, at 1700, they had to be back at the food tent for movement to a stage near Reliant Stadium for a special presentation. We all massed – all 1500 of us – and moved as a group to the stage (see photo above). The Mayor of Houston read a proclamation that the day, 10 March, be designated military appreciation day and then introduced three Medal of Honor recipients in attendance. I didn’t get video of this, but did take video later at the rodeo of who these heroes were.
The Houston Rodeo recently honored our troops during the Salute to the Troops day on 10 Mar. As part of the ceremonies, three Medal of Honor recipients were treated like royalty and introduced to a packed Reliant Stadium.
After the MOH recipients were introduced, a special group of individuals was marched to the stage. They were young boys and girls, about 30 of them, and obviously didn’t know their left from their right yet as evidenced by the “left, face” order and half went the wrong way. But, these young men and women were there to be sworn in by Major General William Grimsley, acting commanding general of Fort Hood.
After the swearing in, I took the time to shake as many hands as I could and welcome them into the Army. I also thanked them for their service, sacrifice, and courage.
Once the ceremony was over, most of the Soldiers moved into Reliant Stadium for the start of the rodeo and Rascal Flatts concert. Others went into the Livestock show where numerous vendors were set up selling everything from boots to Gator 4-wheelers. There was also a hot tub vendor who was shocked that I began taking off my uniform for a nice dip. My embarrassed aunt and cousins quickly pulled me away. Before the official start of the event, the announcer introduced the Medal of Honor recipients – the video above – and the the colors were unveiled!
One thing I noticed last week while attending the TRADOC Sr. Leader Conference last week was that TRADOC is working hard to embrace the higher level of technical knowledge that today’s young soldiers bring to the table. Back when I came in and for several years after I came in, the soldiers that came into the Army knew a lot about cars, BMXing, sports, etc. Today soldiers know about setting up wireless networks, Bluetooth technology and first person shooter tactics. The leaders of the Training and Doctrine Command recognize this and realize they need to build upon this higher level of technical knowledge.
Guys like GEN Dempsey, LTG Valcourt and many of the other leaders of TRADOC are old dogs, but they are coming up with new tricks. One of those tricks is looking at creating a private “app store” that would be hosted within the AKO (Army Knowledge Online) portal. Even though they are borrowing the name from the iPhone App Store, they are not looking at just creating apps for iPhones. They are looking at Google-based devices, and other web-based PDA/Phones that are popular on the market today.
TRADOC is also not only evaluating the possibility of opening this up to 3rd party companies or even private individuals to make apps for the Army, but also using soldiers with the skills to build applications for mobile devices. This is where TRADOC recognizes they have a new base of soldiers that bring skills and talents with them when they walk into basic training or officer training. Their talk was not of making soldiers build apps, but motivating them to do so. Creating competitions, even paying some private people and soldiers to build apps.
This is why this posting is called “Old Dogs, New Tricks” because the old dogs get it. They are adapting to today’s time and they know they need to embrace the talents that the young 18-something soldier bring to the table. Personally that speaks volumes as many older soldiers just look at younger soldiers and think the younger soldier hasn’t really earned their way or have had it easy.
Like any major change in the Army, it doesn’t come fast or perfect the first time, but it gets there. There are many attitudes that need to be changes and some culture changes too, but I would guess that before this year is over we will see an “App Store” on AKO or Army Command websites for soldiers to download apps from.
This video is from a private session that a few media reps had with TRADOC Commander, GEN Dempsey. This one focuses on a question from Troy at YouServed.com to the General about the recently announced change to Warrior Task Training.
This video is an interview with the G1/G4 of TRADOC, Ms. Ellen Helmerson. In this interview, Ellen sits down with Troy from You Served Blog and Radio to talk about what BRAC means to TRADOC and the issues they are dealing with as the BRAC transition happens.
On Wednesday, March 10, Reliant Park in Houston, TX, hosted a “Salute to the Troops” day. Over 1,500 troops from Fort Hood were invited guests to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. I was lucky enough to be among them. I took many videos and photos of the day’s events, which began at 0730 at Hood Stadium on main Fort Hood. Responsible for over 100 Soldiers from my unit, we formed up and took accountability before joining the rest of the units and loading up into 28 tour buses destined for Houston. We had the best driver – NOT! He only got lost three times before we even made it out of Belton!
We got to the rodeo about 30 minutes late. The 1st Cavalry Division’s ceremonial horse detachment was supposed to open the day’s activities at 1500, but since we were late, they delayed the start to allow us time to watch the show. They did an awesome job, as you can see in this video.
After the show, all the troops were treated to a free lunch (or dinner as we call it in Texas) of delicious BBQ. We got to mingle with troops from other services and it was at this point I became acutely embarrassed for the Army.
The uniform for the event was the Army Combat Uniform – basically our camouflage uniform. Meanwhile, the Marines were in their B and C uniforms, looking spiffy. The Navy, likewise, was wearing their Navy Service Uniform and Air Force was wearing their blue uniforms as well. The Army was the only service sporting camouflage and that just doesn’t sit right with me. The city of Houston wanted to honor our troops and show off how proud they are of us. And yet, none of them knew our accomplishments because we were wearing a utility uniform. The Marines looked spiffy with all their ribbons and I observed on more than one occasion where someone would walk right past a bunch of Soldiers to have their picture taken with someone from another service because they had on a nice uniform.
I’ll have more about the rodeo, as well as some more video, up later.
About the video: This video is from a private session that a few media reps had with TRADOC Commander, GEN Dempsey. This one focuses on a question to the General about a white paper that is being drafted on future Army Force Design.
You Served's Claire talks about the life of a military spouse - the hardships, the joys, and everything in between. Join the discussion in our new Spouse and Family section!
