Raising awareness is the wrong lane to be in

Stay out of the wrong lane

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
January 20, 2019

This morning I was thinking about how people in the wrong lane of traffic can mess up everyones ride.

I go into work at 5 am, which is great most mornings. With only a few cars on the road, it is really a nice commute. That is, until I get behind someone without a clue where they are going, and blocking the passing lane.

That happened Friday. The driver in the right lane was obeying the speed limit. The driver traveling in the passing lane was doing a little under the speed limit. There was no safe way to pass either of them.

Soon there was a group of us trapped behind them.

That is the way it is in life too. You are having a nice trip until someone gets in your way and blocks the road ahead of you, making it take longer to get to where you need to go.

If you are hearing about how many veterans someone thinks committed suicide today, you need to wonder what their point is. Who does it help when they just guess? How serious is the subject them when they cannot answer any questions? 

The most obvious question they should have been finding the answer to, is, "What will change the outcome?"

They did not even bother to find out first. So they get into the lane of people trying to changed the outcome and lead the way into healing. People like me end up being trapped behind them with no safe way to pass them.

They need to stop blocking the road until they actually deserve to be there. Avoid them like any other road hazard.

It is time to take another road! The one that will take you to a happier life!

PTSD Patrol: Melting Black Ice

The biggest danger on your road trip

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
January 13, 2019

Right now a lot of people are dealing with dangerous driving conditions. When it snows, you can see it. You know it is there. You know what you may not be seeing...ice under the snow. You tend to drive with more caution than you normally would have. 

But what about seeing something an assuming it is harmless? You may see something in the road and think that it is just a puddle. Unless you have been paying attention to the reports about temperature changes, you would not think that puddle can harm you.

Black ice: How to spot this winter driving danger

AccuWeather

Among the many threats facing drivers during winter is the most dangerous of them all: Slippery, hard-to-spot and potentially deadly black ice."The biggest danger [with black ice] is that you are at the mercy of your vehicle and the ice until your car passes over it," said Julie Lee, vice president and national director of AARP Driver Safety.Black ice forms most often when it's raining and air is at or below 32 degrees Fahrenheit at the surface, according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Andrew Mussoline.The low ground temperature causes the precipitation to freeze upon impact, thus creating ice.

In your own life there is black ice right in front of you but you have no idea what you are seeing. Thinking something is true, is far from what it actually is.

Too many are settling for PTSD being attached to a stigma. They have a huge problem with the term itself, instead of actually being aware of what it means.

Post means after.
Trauma that is Greek for wound.
Stress is what happens to you after you survived it.
Disorder comes when you go from being a victim of it, into surviving it.

Just because something gets into disorder, that does not mean you cannot put things into order again.

Last week, I posted Making A You Turn and showed my office as a total disaster. Things were piled up everywhere. Stacks of books and research papers. Nothing made sense! In the video, it shows how things were just a mess.

It took a lot of work, but yesterday, I put the last of the books into order. 

So, watch the video and then ask yourself if you think it is time to get the black ice to melt and make your road trip a lot less hazardous.

If you think you are stuck as you are right now, you're fooling yourself!


Fooling Yourself 
STYX
You see the world through your cynical eyes
You're a troubled young man I can tell
You've got it all in the palm of your hand
But your hand's wet with sweat and your head needs a rest

And you're fooling yourself if you don't believe it
You're kidding yourself if you don't believe it
Why must you be such an angry young man
When your future looks quite bright to me
How can there be such a sinister plan
That could hide such a lamb, such a caring young man

You're fooling yourself if you don't believe it
You're kidding yourself if you don't believe it
Get up, get back on your feet
You're the one they can't beat and you know it
Come on, let's see what you've got
Just take your best shot and don't blow it

You're fooling yourself if you don't believe it
You're killing yourself if you don't believe it
Get up, get back on your feet
You're the one they can't beat and you know it
Come on, let's see what you've got
Just take your best shot and don't blow it

Songwriters: Tommy Shaw Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man) lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

PTSD Patrol: Making A YouTurn

Making A YouTurn

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
January 6, 2019

If you risked your life protecting and saving others, and you give up on yourself, what kind of message does that deliver to us?

Over 7 million Americans have PTSD because we survived something that could have killed us. It didn't because someone like you put your lives on the line to make sure that did not happen.

So now, when the life you need to save is your own, it is time to make a YouTurn and ask for help because if you don't, then we'll wonder how much we are supposed to feel ashamed you got PTSD because of us!

This is a video with a message from a Marine veteran delivered for New Year's Eve a few years ago.

PTSD Patrol: When your ride is a pink scooter

Pink scooter fueled by love

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
December 30, 2018

Every once in a while, I am inspired beyond what words I can add to a topic. In one of those moods, where words just did not come, I searched some of my older videos. It came on a pink scooter. 

I was thinking about a lot of miracles that still happen and remembered the story of a homeless veteran. It is one of those stories that you think cannot be true. But it is. I know because I was at his funeral.

Thursday, March 25, 2010


Vietnam Vet Andrew Elmer Wright found a home as a homeless vet
A simple casket with an American flag for Vietnam Veteran Andrew Elmer Wright.

A simple bouquet of flowers was placed with a simple photo a church member snapped.

By all accounts, Andrew was a simple man with simple needs but what was evident today is that Andrew was anything but a "simple" man.

A few days ago I received an email from Chaplain Lyle Schmeiser, DAV Chapter 16, asking for people to attend a funeral for a homeless Vietnam veteran. After posting about funerals for the forgotten for many years across the country, I felt compelled to attend.

As I drove to the Carey Hand Colonial Funeral Home, I imagined an empty room knowing how few people would show up for a funeral like this. All the other homeless veteran stories flooded my thoughts and this, I thought, would be just one more of them.

When I arrived, I discovered the funeral home was paying for the funeral. Pastor Joel Reif, of First United Church of Christ asked them if they could help out to bury this veteran and they did. They put together a beautiful service with Honor Guard and a 21 gun salute by the VFW post.

I asked a man there what he knew about Andrew and his eyes filled. He smiled and then told me how Andrew wouldn't drink the water from the tap. He'd send this man for bottled water, always insisting on paying for it. When the water was on sale, he'd buy Andrew an extra case of water but Andrew was upset because the man didn't use the extra money for gas.

Then Pastor Joel filled in more of Andrew's life. Andrew got back from Vietnam, got married and had children. His wife passed away and Andrew remarried. For some reason the marriage didn't work out. Soon the state came to take his children away. Andrew did all he could to get his children back, but after years of trying, he gave up and lost hope.

A few years ago, after going to the church for help from the food pantry, for himself and his cats, Andrew lost what little he had left. The tent he was living in was bulldozed down in an attempt to clear out homeless people from Orlando. Nothing was left and he couldn't find his cats.

Andrew ended up talking to Pastor Joel after his bike was stolen again, he'd been beaten up and ended up sleeping on church grounds in the doorway. Pastor Joel offered him the shed in the back of the church to sleep in so that he wouldn't have to face more attacks.

The shed had electricity and they put in a TV set, a frying pan and a coffee maker. They wanted to give Andrew more but he said they had already given him enough.

Pastor Joel told of how Andrew gave him a Christmas card with some money in it one year. Pastor Joel didn't want to take money from someone with so little, but Andrew begged him to take it saying "Please, don't take this away from me" because it was all he had to give and it meant a lot to give it to the Pastor. Much like the widow with two cents gave all she had in the Bible, Andrew was truly grateful for what little he had been given from the church.

What was soon made clear is that Pastor Joel gave him even more than he imagined. Andrew took it on himself to be the church watchman. While services were going on after Andrew greeted the parishioners, he would travel around the parking lot to make sure the cars were safe. At night he made sure any guests of the church were equally watched over. Pastor Joel not only gave him a roof over his head and food, he gave him something to make him feel needed.

More and more people came to the service and there was a lot of weeping as Pastor Joel spoke. What was very clear this day is that Andrew was called a homeless veteran but he was not homeless. He found one at the church. He lost his family and his children, but he found a family at the church.

From what was said about Andrew, he was a Vietnam veteran with PTSD and he wanted no help from the VA. Too many of them feel the same way and they live on the streets, depending on the kindness of strangers to help them out.

Andrew wasn't one of the panhandlers we see in Orlando. He refused to beg for money and he wanted to work for whatever he was given. His health got worse but he still did what he could. Right up until March 16, 2010 when Andrew passed away, no matter what happened to him during his life, Andrew proved that this veteran was not hopeless, not helpless because he found the fulfillment of hope in the arms of strangers who took him in and he found help as he asked as well as gave.

The legacy of this homeless veteran is that he touched the lives of so many hearts and will never be forgotten.

Behind this church, in a tiny shed, Andew spent his last hours on this earth. Born in Riverside Park NJ on November 5, 1938 he returned to God on March 16, 2010.

John 14:2-3
In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

Matthew 25

35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,

36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

This video tells the rest of the story. If you want to believe again people can make a huge difference in the lives of others, watch it. If you want to believe that God is still interested in all of us, watch the video. 

Rev. Joel and this church touched me so much I had to do the post on what they did for Andrew. 

Because God tugged at them to help and tugged at me to get the story out, a Dad's love for his children was finally known.

First United Church of Christ proved that miracles can still happen. They took in a homeless Vietnam Veteran, gave him love and gave a family closure. His son was serving in the Marines when he found out what happened to his Dad. A simple casket with an American flag for Vietnam Veteran Andrew Elmer Wright.

So there you have it. How many lives were changed? Because a homeless veteran found a place where he could call home, and where he was loved. Children discovered why they were put up for adoption and that their Dad did not give up on finding them. All because people put #LoveInAction and created the miracle that grew.

The Christmas Delivery

Christmas Delivery

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
December 22, 2018

This time of year it seems as if everyone is either doing the holiday or the Holy Day. Big difference when you think about it. The holiday is tied to buying stuff, eating stuff and having fun. The Holy Day is remembering why the day came to be in the first place.

The Christmas Delivery did not come on Christmas day but it is the day we celebrate the delivery arriving into the world.

The Christmas Delivery did not come on a jet, or in a grand way at all. This Delivery came on the back of a donkey, with Mary and Joseph. Oh, sure you know the rest of the story and the gifts that the Wisemen brought. But did you ever think of the rest of the story?

The birth of Jesus was not meant to be anything other than what it was. He came into this world to deliver a message, and then, deliver His life as payment for what sins He never committed, because we managed to do all of them.

There are so many other things to be said about what Jesus was, including, a homeless person depending on the kindness of strangers. But what He inspired, was clear even in war.

Radio-telephone operator Stephen Lovejoy was wounded in the open. Chaplain Capodanno ran through the withering fire, grabbed Lovejoy by the strap of his radio and dragged him to a hastily established perimeter near the top of the hill.

The chaplain immediately began attending to the dead and the dying, administering the Last Rites. Harton felt someone touch him. Father Capodanno spoke to him in a soft voice: “Stay calm, Marine, someone will be here to help. God is with us all this day.”

These Medal of Honor recipients were men of God

Vietnam Magazine
By: Ray Pezzoli Jr.
December 21, 2018

Vincent Capodanno leads field prayer services, Sept. 11, 1966 , during "Operation Fresno, for A Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines (Reinforced), in Quang Ngai Province. (Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections)

Chaplains don’t usually come to mind when the words “combat soldier” are mentioned.

Yet 16 American chaplains lost their lives in the line of duty during the Vietnam War. Two of them, both Catholic priests, Navy Lt. Vincent Robert Capodanno and Army Maj. Charles Joseph Watters, posthumously received the Medal of Honor for their heroism and valor on the battlefield.

Father Capodanno, a man many Marines have called a saint, is now in fact a candidate for canonization. Capodanno was known to the troops as the “Grunt Padre.”

Marine veteran Ray Harton remembers meeting him in a base mess tent: “He was just like one of the Marines… . His voice was what set him off from the rest, soft-spoken yet gruff enough to get your attention. He prayed with us and let us know he was there.”

Retired Marine Col. Gerald H. Turley described Capodanno as “a humble person, obviously at peace with himself in a place where war was going on.”

read more here

For Christmas my wish for you is to discover the miracle that is inside of you, because while everyone else can be hit by PTSD from just one event, so could you as a human, but unlike the rest of us, you made it your mission in your life to do whatever it took to try to save others.

Your life is a gift that you were willing to sacrifice and it is time for you to see that gift is still there, under the pain you are carrying because of what you were willing to do for the sake of everyone else.