PTSD Patrol Empowerment Zone Out of Danger Zone

This is the Empowerment Message for today considering the news is urgent! We need to get them out of the Danger Zone!

No More Excuses!

Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
January 27, 2019

The number of service members committing suicide continues to rise. The number of veterans committing suicide continues to rise. The number of people actually in charge with a clue of what needs to be done, continues to be absent without leave!!!! Yes, they are AWOL!

How is it that there are people all over this country knowing exactly what works, what the troops need to hear, what veterans need to hear, YET WE ARE NEVER HEARD BY THOSE IN CHARGE? How is it that we have known what works for decades but the "experts" are clueless? 

They come up with slogans when we come up with results. They come up with excuses, when we come up with plans.

What makes all of this worse for us is, we know there is absolutely no need of all this suffering when they could be healing and still serving.

This is totally unacceptable because all of these suicides were preventable!

Suicide rate among active-duty Marines at a 10-year high

CNN
Barbara Starr
January 25, 2019

"While there is no dishonor in coming up short, or needing help, there is no honor in quitting. For those who are struggling ... our Marine Corps, our families, and our Nation need you; we can't afford to lose you." General Robert Neller

(CNN)The number of confirmed and suspected suicides in the active-duty Marine Corps reached a 10-year high in 2018 with 57 cases, according to new Marine Corps data obtained by CNN.

The United States Marine Corps emblem hanging on a wall at the Joint Detention Forces Headquarters at Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base, Cuba, April 09, 2014. AFP PHOTO/MLADEN ANTONOV

Another 18 Marines in the Reserve forces either are confirmed to have committed suicide or their deaths are being investigated as suspected suicides.

Marine Corps sources say the service is concerned that 2018 may have seen 75 suicides even with the extensive mental health programs available. Many of the cases are young Marines who have not deployed overseas and have not been in combat -- a situation that has been seen in other branches of the military as well.

"Don't make them just numbers," one Marine Corps official pleaded when making the data available to CNN.
read more here

Yet again, one more reminder that when the DOD bought all the FUBAR "resilience" BS, they failed to notice that if it did not work for those who did not deploy, THEN IT WOULD NOT WORK FOR THOSE WHO WERE DEPLOYED MULTIPLE TIMES!!!

Here are a couple of videos from a Marine veteran with PTSD. Listen to him and know that you can #TakeBackYourLife and live stronger!

Kathie Costos DiCesare
Published on Dec 31, 2016
This is Jonnie. He has survived three attempted suicides and spent time as a homeless veteran. A year ago, he never thought he would be where he is today. He is healing and he wants to make sure other veterans get the message of something worth living for instead of the message spread about suicides. Spend next year healing and let this New Year be the year you begin to change again, only this time, for the better!

Kathie Costos DiCesare
Published on Mar 11, 2018
Sunday morning empowerment zone features Marine veteran filmed yesterday at the Orlando Nam Knights bikeweek party. His simple message is empowerment! Take control of your life from this moment on. It's up to you where you go from here!

Kathie Costos DiCesare
Published on Apr 14, 2018
My buddy Jonnie has been fighting to take his life back from PTSD. He is doing everything possible to make his life better. Working on his mind, his spirit and his body! He is at the American Combat Club in Downtown Orlando.

Kathie Costos DiCesare
Published on Jul 22, 2018
PTSD Patrol Sunday Morning Empowerment Zone Jonnie shares his message of getting in control over the road you choose to be on. You can sit back and feel miserable as a victim or you can choose the road to heal as a survivor.

Cross posted on Combat PTSD Wounded Times

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.