Battling post-traumatic stress: ‘I’m willing to learn anything’
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From right: U.S. veteran Robert Berry and his wife Sandy of Truth or Consequences, and veteran Stephen Sirois and his wife Christine Farrar of Montana are briefed on the schedule of events during the first day of the National Veterans Wellness and Healing Center’s only therapeutic retreat scheduled for 2012. |
Veterans face emotional wounds of war
By Jesse Chaney
Managing editor
“(The soldiers) were in a place the enemy was all around them, and they had to lay down and be perfectly still or they would have been killed,” said Robert’s wife, Sandy. “There were ants, and they were running all over him.”
http://www.sangrechronicle.com/articles/2012/12/04/angel_fire//doc50a3d59a7c266062377928.txt
From friend Richard Fluke… “Presently the only retreat for veterans and spouses in the country, but the ball is rolling to establish other retreats based on the National Veterans Wellness Retreat model. Future retreats will also include children, what a beautiful movement.”
http://www.veteranswellnessandhealing.org/
The National Wellness and Healing Center relies heavily on Native American methods during its retreats.
“If you go back in time and you look at some of the warriors from 2,000 years ago, they knew what PTSD was. They talked to their military before they left, and they had ceremonies when they came back,” the organization’s board of directors President Chuck Howe, a Vietnam War veteran, told the participating couples Friday. “The same thing’s true of our Native Americans here in this country.”
OUR MISSION
The following is from my blog posting dated October 8, 2012…http://livingwithptsd-sparkles.blogspot.com/2012/10/veterans-wellness-and-healing-center.html
My blog has often included information and references on “mind and body” alternative treatments to help combat veterans and other trauma victims heal from moral injury and PTSD. I met with Richard Fluke today in Albuquerque, NMex, who is actively involved in the National Veterans Wellness and Healing Center (NVWHC). Richard is a Native American and Viet Nam veteran who has been challenged in his life, not only from early childhood as an American Indian, but also from serving in the US Navy on the USS Oklahoma Cityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Oklahoma_City_(CL-91) in the Gulf of Tonkin during the Viet Nam War.
Steve Sparks
Author
Reconciliation: A Son’s Story