Martha Gellhorn,“The Face of War” an inspirational story for all of us!

More than a footnote

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
April 20, 2020

My buddy Gunny likes to try to top me on discovering things I did not know. Well, he succeeded this morning. He told me about Martha Gellhorn. Funny thing is, he stumbled on her looking for something else.

As I listened to him tell me a little bit about her, I thought it would be a very inspirational story to share, especially while most of the country is under shelter at home restrictions. We all need something to inspire us, and yes, that includes me too.

It is very hard to even attempt to find something inspirational to share, when you do not even want to get out of PJs. Lately either I have been on Facebook sharing videos on cats, dogs or other animals from my sweet friends...or really sick jokes I am usually embarrassed by how hard I am laughing.

Anyway, before I get too carried away with that, back to Martha. She was married to Ernest Hemingway. Noteworthy as it is, they met while she was a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War. She was on the beach on D-Day after being a stowaway and got her hands on a nurses uniform. The list of accomplishments in her life goes on and on, but the thing that got me was, for all she accomplished, she still felt like a footnote in Hemingway's life.

That is exactly how my buddy Gunny found her story...as a footnote.


Martha Gellhorn, Daring Writer, Dies at 89
Obituary
New York Times
By Rick Lyman
Feb. 17, 1998

Martha Ellis Gellhorn, who as one of the first female war correspondents covered a dozen major conflicts in a writing career spanning more than six decades, died on Sunday at her home in London. She was 89.

Ms. Gellhorn was a cocky, raspy-voiced maverick who saw herself as a champion of ordinary people trapped in conflicts created by the rich and powerful. That she was known to many largely because of her marriage to Ernest Hemingway, from 1940 to 1945, caused her unending irritation, especially when critics tried to find parallels between her lean writing style and that of her more celebrated husband.

''Why should I be a footnote to somebody else's life?'' she bitterly asked in an interview, pointing out that she had written two novels before meeting Hemingway and continued writing for almost a half-century after leaving him.

As a journalist, Ms. Gellhorn had no use for the notion of objectivity. The chief point of going to cover anything, she felt, was so you could tell what you saw, contradict the lies and let the bad guys have it.

"Nothing is better for self-esteem than survival."Martha Gellhorn

Right now, it is hard to get through all of this but that quote is something we should hang onto. "Nothing is better for self-esteem than survival." No matter how bad it is right now, when you think about all the things this woman went through, she survived all of it and lived to a good old age.

If it sucks for you right now...like it does for most of us, try to think back about other times when it sucked. When you didn't know how you would get passed it and then suddenly you did. We will get passed this too and there will be joy again. We will see our family and friends again. We'll be able to hug our kids and grandkids. We will get through this because right now there are angels moving all around us to make this world a better place in whatever way they can.

Enjoy the following about Martha and trust me, you jaw will go back into place when you are done with this.


A Memorial for the Remarkable Martha Gellhorn
The New Yorker
By Sam Knight
September 18, 2019

The writer Martha Gellhorn, who reported on the Spanish Civil War for The New Yorker, and from the beaches of D Day in a nurse’s uniform. Photograph from AP / Shutterstock

*******

Gellhorn was born in St. Louis, in 1908. She moved to Paris when she was twenty-one, to write novels, and found her journalist’s voice during the Depression, while reporting on the lives of textile workers for the Federal Emergency Relief Association. She became friends with Eleanor Roosevelt, who invited her to live at the White House for a while.

******* 

Her first war was the Spanish Civil War, which she went to cover in 1937. “I was always afraid,” she wrote, “that I would forget the exact sound, smell, words, gestures which were special to this moment and this place.” Gellhorn’s writing was percussive and intimate. She was an exceptional witness. In an early piece, for The New Yorker, a convoy of tanks in the dark outside Madrid looked “as if six boats, with only their harbor lights showing, were tied together, riding a gentle sea.” She married Ernest Hemingway, in 1940; they divorced five years later.

******* 

On D Day, Gellhorn stowed away on a hospital ship and reported from the beaches in a nurse’s uniform. Her stories of war were populated by anonymous stretcher bearers, exhausted truck drivers, German prisoners of war, Vietnamese mothers, female prisoners in El Salvador. “I always liked Tolstoi’s crusty remark that ‘governments are a collection of men who do violence to the rest of us,’ ” Gellhorn wrote in the 1986 introduction to “The Face of War,” a collection of her reporting. “But now I think the old Russian was a prophet.”

 ******* 

Twenty years after her death, Gellhorn’s young chaps remain protective of her achievements. Since 1999, the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism has been awarded for work that exposes what Gellhorn called “official drivel.”

No one knows where Margaret Corbin’s grave is?

The Missing Grave of Margaret Corbin, Revolutionary War Veteran

Atlas Obscura
BY SHANE CASHMAN
JANUARY 14, 2020

IN 2016, FIVE DAYS AFTER Thanksgiving, Margaret Corbin’s grave was dug up for the second time since her death in 1800. It began by accident. Contractors were working on a retaining wall near the West Point Cemetery, at the U.S. Military Academy, when a hydraulic excavator got too close and chewed through the grave.

As soon as they noticed bones spilling from the soil, they alerted the military police. The plot was quickly cordoned off, her monument was wrapped in tarp, and rumors started to spread about Corbin’s resting place—that is, if it even was her resting place. When forensic archaeologists arrived at the scene, they were perplexed: The bones seemed oddly large.

On the West Point monument, Corbin wears a long dress and a powder horn, and she operates a cannon while her long hair flies in the wind. SCIENCE HISTORY IMAGES / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

The monument to Margaret Corbin is West Point’s only monument to a woman veteran, and it greets visitors near the main gate, just feet from a neoclassical chapel. It faces Washington Road, where the Academy’s top brass live, and depicts Corbin in a long dress, operating a cannon as her long hair and cape fly in the wind. She wears a powder horn and holds a rammer to load cannonballs; the rest of the rather cramped cemetery sprawls out behind her. The monument portrays the moments before Corbin became a prisoner of war.

WHEN MARGARET CORBIN DIED IN 1800, she was buried in a pauper’s cemetery in Highland Falls, just three miles from West Point. But in 1926, the national society of women known as the Daughters of the American Revolution saw to it that Corbin would earn her vaunted cemetery plot. The society, which is made up of women who can trace their lineage to participants in the American Revolution, was celebrating the sesquicentennial of American independence, and saw Corbin as the consummate symbol of both their organization and the Revolution. A year-long effort convinced the U.S. Military Academy to help them exhume and transport the remains to the prestigious cemetery, to be reburied with a military funeral.

A horse-drawn hearse carried a flag-draped casket that was said to contain Corbin’s remains. DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

The remains in Corbin’s grave actually came from an adult male. DiGangi determined that it was a large man, who could’ve been anywhere from five-foot-seven to six and a half feet tall. The remains of Margaret Corbin were not in Margaret Corbin’s grave.

So where is Margaret Corbin? Since the attempted reburial of Corbin’s remains, in 1926, her original gravesite in Highland Falls has been lost to time. Sometime in the 1970s, the town dropped a sewage plant where many believe it was once located. Yet Minus remains optimistic that Corbin’s remains will one day be found. read it here

When "factors behind alarming suicide rate among women veterans" leaves out combat...that is part of the problem!

The factors behind alarming suicide rate among women veterans

KOAA News
By: Renae Skinner
Jan 15, 2020

Guthmiller talked about her struggles with PTSD after she got home from deployment. She says it's a very isolating feeling.
"I would feel alone, it's nerve racking, and little things would make me nervous," Guthmiller said. "It's a really hard thing to explain."

PUEBLO — When you think of the faces of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, usually our brave men in uniform come to mind. However, one group in the military we often forget is women.

The United States Department of Veterans Affairs says the suicide rate among women veterans is double that of women who don't serve.

A local veteran and professor spoke to News5 about what factors are contributing to this startling reality.

"Being in the military, we have to be strong because we are around men," Christine Guthmiller said. "We're trying to prove ourselves, and I think it's a stigma."

Guthmiller is a veteran and a financial coordinator at the Veterans Resource Center at Colorado State University-Pueblo.

According to the U.S. Office of Veterans Affairs, the suicide rate is higher among women who report military sexual assault, domestic violence, sexual discrimination and harassment-- all factors that can contribute to PTSD.
read it here

Why did they choose to overlook combat itself?

Women have served this country...including combat operations, since the Revolutionary War. They have been awarded every medal, including the Medal of Honor. They have served in every branch...even before there were branches.

So why do we still assume military women do not get hit by PTSD for all the reasons males do? Is it so hard to acknowledge their service in all respects to that service?


Army Rangers

Since the school was opened to females in 2015, 42 women have earned the coveted Ranger tab.

U.S. Army Sgt. Danielle Farber, Pennsylvania National Guard 166th Regional Training Institute Medical Battalion Training Site instructor, and U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Jessica Smiley, South Carolina National Guard military police non-commissioned officer currently serving with the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, graduate U.S. Army Ranger School at Fort Benning, Georgia, Dec. 13, 2019, as the first National Guard enlisted females to complete the leadership school. Smiley and Farber completed the mentally and physically challenging school, which focused on squad and platoon operations designed to prepare Soldiers to be better trained, more capable, and more resilient leaders. (Photo Credit: Sgt. Brian Calhoun) DECEMBER 17, 2019 SGT. BRIAN CALHOUN

Navy SEAL

Navy SEALs perform advanced cold weather training in Kodiak, Alaska.Eric S. Logsdon/U.S. Navy via Getty Images/File

For the first time ever, a woman has successfully completed the rigorous screening stage for the Navy SEAL officer training program, according to an independent publication Military.com.

Though she was not selected as a SEAL, the fact that she was able to make it past the screening stage is an accomplishment on its own.

Female candidates for these jobs are required to complete the same training as men. There are no special considerations based on an individual’s physical ability.

Marine Corps Recon

Marines with 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, 3rd Marine Division, conduct combat rubber raiding craft training on Camp Schwab, Okinawa, Japan, on July 16. (Cpl. Josue Marquez/Marine Corps)

The first female Marine has passed the Basic Reconnaissance Course and earned the 0321 reconnaissance Marine military occupational specialty, or MOS, the Marine Corps has confirmed.

Lance Cpl. Alexa Barth graduated from the grueling 12-week course Nov. 7, 1st Lt. Sam Stephenson, Marine Corps spokesman, confirmed to Marine Corps Times Thursday.

Barth still has a few more training schools to go through before joining her unit at 1st Recon Battalion at Camp Pendleton, California, said Maj. Kendra Motz, spokeswoman for 1st Marine Division. Barth is expected to arrive at her unit late spring 2020.

It is long past the time when it is OK to dismiss what has been happening to our female veterans, or pass it all off as if PTSD is all about what happened to them as the "weaker" sex. Sure, the list above are part of the reasons female veterans get hit by PTSD, but no one assumes when a male talks about PTSD it has anything other than combat attached to it.

It is time to get this right...if we are ever going to make it right! #BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife

Speak up when only the male receives a "thank you" for his service

Why do women wonder when their service will count?

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
December 22, 2019

We read about it all the time. A couple is sitting together, both wearing military hats, yet it is only the male who receives a "thank you" for his service.

Someone forgot to inform the "thanker" that women have served this country since before it was a country.

ServiceWomen.org

Military women serving in war zones are such a common sight in worldwide media these days that their presence is little remarked upon.

In both Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, military women from the U.S. and other countries have shown the mental and physical toughness needed to perform well under fire, to defend themselves and their comrades with courage, and to endure the conditions inherent to life in a combat zone.

Officially, women have been serving on active duty in the U. S. military since 1901. Unofficially, they have been serving since the American Revolution, during which time women like Deborah Sampson dressed as men to enter the Continental Army, while others, like Margaret Corbin, accompanied their husbands to camp and then onto the battlefield. It was during the Civil War that the U.S. government first recruited women to serve with the armed forces as nurses, albeit without military status. About 4,200 served with the Army of the North. During the Spanish-American War, the Army again recruited female nurses and again these women kept their civilian status. About 1,500 served. They were so successful that the War Department requested Congress to authorize establishment of an Army Nurse Corps. This was done as part of The Army Reorganization Act of 1901. The Navy Nurse Corps was established in 1908 by the FY 1909 Naval Appropriations Act (Public Law-115).

Today over 210,000 women serve on active duty in the military services of the Department of Defense (Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force), and another 5,955 serve in the Active Coast Guard—part of the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime.

The Reserve Components are federal forces. Guard components play dual state and federal roles. Like most of the active forces, the Reserve and Guard components have an increasing percentage of women in their ranks. As of February 2018, women constituted 158,090 or 19.8 percent—of all personnel serving in the six DoD Reserve and Guard forces. Women number 1,067—or 17.4 percent—of all personnel serving in the Coast Guard Reserve.

Women have been bestowed with every military medal for heroism, including the Medal of Honor. Dr. Walker not only served during the Civil War, she was a POW.

Released from government contract at the end of the war, Dr. Walker lobbied for a brevet promotion to major for her services. Secretary of War Stanton would not grant the request. President Andrew Johnson asked for another way to recognize her service. A Medal of Honor was presented to Dr. Walker in January 1866. She wore it every day for the rest of her life.

And here are some more women who went above and beyond what many think women do for the country.

As of August there are 613 female Marines and sailors serving in previously all-male units ― representing an increase of 60 percent since 2018, the Marine Corps said. The number comes from December’s quarterly briefing from the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, a group meant to provide the Defense Department recommendations on how to improve gender integration throughout the military. Marine Corps Times

The first female Marine has passed the Basic Reconnaissance Course and earned the 0321 reconnaissance Marine military occupational specialty, or MOS, the Marine Corps has confirmed. Lance Cpl. Alexa Barth graduated from the grueling 12-week course Nov. 7, 1st Lt. Sam Stephenson, Marine Corps spokesman, confirmed to Marine Corps Times Thursday. Marine Corps Times

Females in the Army have achieved much and you can find a lot of them here.

What was unlikely, when she joined, was that she - a woman - would rise to higher ranks than her father, a Brigadier General. But she did, and on November 14, 2008, Ann E. Dunwoody became the first woman in U.S. military history to achieve the rank of General, which came with three more stars. Connecting Vets

General Lori Robinson, the highest ranking woman in U.S. military history, discussed the challenges that come with leading two commands at an event Monday, emphasizing how she wants to be recognized for her abilities and position—not her gender. Robinson—who is commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM)—explained how she leads “two commands with a common purpose.” Although each command has different responsibilities, she noted that they share the same objective—protecting the homeland. Duke Chronicle

Laura Yeager originally joined the military to help pay for college. Her father, retired California National Guard Maj. Gen. Robert Brandt, was a helicopter pilot who served two tours in Vietnam, but, she said in 2017, “I think my father was more surprised than anyone that I joined.” It was the start of a history-making career that has spanned more than three decades. Yeager flew Black Hawk helicopters in Iraq and served as the first female commander of Joint Task Force North in Fort Bliss, Texas, and on June 29, she became the first woman to lead an Army infantry division when she took command of the 40th Infantry Division in the California National Guard. TIME

FORT BENNING, Ga. -- Two Soldiers from the South Carolina and Pennsylvania National Guard are the first enlisted National Guard females to graduate from U.S. Army Ranger School. U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Jessica Smiley, a South Carolina National Guard military police non-commissioned officer serving with the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, and U.S. Army Sgt. Danielle Farber, Pennsylvania National Guard 166th Regional Training Institute Medical Battalion Training Site instructor, completed the mentally and physically challenging school at Fort Benning Dec. 13. The school prepares Soldiers to be better trained, more capable and more resilient leaders. US Army

One of the Navy's smallest and most elite communities may soon have its first female members, Military.com has learned. Three enlisted women are now in the training pipeline to become special warfare combatant-craft crewmen, small-boat operators frequently teamed with Navy SEALs for infiltration and exfiltration missions. They also conduct reconnaissance and other missions in shallow-water regions. Military.com

None of these women were afraid to put their lives on the line when they enlisted. So why be afraid to to speak up and say that you served too?

PTSD Patrol Sunday Morning: Helicopter out of hell

When your ride is a helicopter
PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
August 19, 2018

LZ Landing Zone

In military terminology a landing zone (LZ) is an area where aircraft can land. In the United States military, a landing zone is the actual point where aircraft, especially helicopters, land (equivalent to the commonwealth landing point.) 

In commonwealth militaries, a landing zone is the cartographic (numeric) zone in which the landing is going to take place (e.g., a valley). The landing area is the area in which the landing is going to take place (e.g., the field where the aircraft are to land). The landing point is the point on which aircraft are going to land (e.g., a point of the field). Each aircraft has a different landing point.

Usually I know days ahead of doing these videos what the topic will be. This time, all I could think about is a Vietnam veteran named John Wolf and how his ride was a helicopter.

I posted the following on August 17, 2018 and could not get it out of my head.

When you discover the following, you'll have a better understanding why I have done this for over 36 years! 

It is because of veterans like John C. Wolf~

Wolfie the Grunt takes personal 8mm movies of a Combat Assault in Vietnam
John Wolf
Published on Nov 7, 2014

I bought a 8mm Yashica movie camera during a stand down from combat. Took movies during the stand down and then decided to hump the camera into the bush on our next mission. I took footage during our airmobile assault. After blocking out Vietnam for 36 years I decided to use my footage to pay tribute to those soldiers that were ambushed and killed on Easter Sunday 4-11-1971. I never expected that video to be seen 1.5 million times and the rest of my videos to be seen 1 million times for a total of 2.5+ million currently. In this version I decided to add personal narration.

Now that you have seen this, what comes next will help you to understand that this generation of veterans has waited far too long for their service to be really honored, beyond parties and parades. That this generation of veterans have been, and still are, the forgotten generation.

This is what Wolfie wrote about his life and what honor/vindication he still fights for.

‎John C Wolf‎ to Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Yesterday at 12:50 PM ·

I am still waiting for my Notice of Denial (NOD) to be review and given a decision. It was filed in 2016 and I was told it would take 277 days for a decision. Well needless to say that was a lie. 

For 8 years I have been treated by the VA Mental Health department here in Jacksonville and given 4 prescriptions to help with my nightmares, depression, suicidal thoughts and anxiety. I was combat Infantry Vietnam and awarded a Combat Infantry Badge (CIB), a Bronze Star and Air Medal as well as other honorable ribbons.

I experienced 3 major traumas, 
1. I had only been in country for about 3 weeks and my squad was out on a search and destroy mission and we were ambushed and two new buddies in front of me were killed, one died in my arms. 

2. I went over to another platoon to see some buddies and meet the new platoon leader, Lt. Hata. He was from a town near my home at the time in the Los Angeles area and talked for over an hour. I left to return to my platoon position, but turned around to wave goodbye. Lt Hata was waving at me and suddenly he was shot in the head and killed. I was devastated. 

3. On April 11, 1971 Easter Sunday, Chaplain Merle Brown came out and brought us hot food, gave us communion and then Easter Sunday Services. He ate lunch with us and I had the blessing of sitting right next to him and he became my new friend. His helicopter was later ambushed while leaving the ground, the explosions killed Chaplain Brown as well as 10 others. I watched as this happened, I was devastated and traumatized for his loss.

In the denial of my compensation request and in a statement to Congressman John Rutherford, the VA C and P said I never experienced trauma in combat. Duh?

I was interviewed 1 time by the blond lady in Gainesville. Many of you probably have experienced with I have: DENIAL. The VA recently sent me to have a private non-VA doctor do an interview of me for PTSD. I have recently learned the blond investigator that turned me down is under investigation by the VA because there have been so many complaints about her decisions.

For all those that are filing for compensation and have or will submit letters from family and Vets they served with, do not have them put any comment in their letters with what is considered a diagnosis, i.e. PTSD, Insomnia, etc. Gainesville will take those letter and throw them into the garbage as though they were never received therefore they say they have no evidence of your problems.

My case is unique, because as some know I bought a 8mm film movie camera and took it into the bush. 

I filmed our air mobile assault the day before Chaplain Brown was killed. Years ago I took the footage and made a tribute video for those killed on Easter Sunday and posted to YouTube. History Channel contacted me and asked if they could get my original 8mm film reels and use them in Vietnam in HD documentary. I did and they upgraded the footage to HD and sent the file to me. This footage has been used in 4 other documentaries and they have been viewed over 85 million times. 

I am on a mission to get this murderer lady in Gainesville fired and make the President and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to clean up C and P and get what Vets deserve. If you are having the same problems as I, please contact me in hopes my experiences can help you and others too.