As someone who deals with non-combat related PTSD, I can tell you the word heal means something very different to anyone who confronts the challenges of PTSD. It means ongoing, it means confrontation, it means courage, it means always trying to stay one step ahead. And it means doing, actively doing those things that heal not only you but others who suffer.
I cannot count the times I have thought about the high number of people in Iraq, especially children, who have PTSD without access to treatment. And then there are those with PTSD who have made the brutal choice to leave, who now live away from their family and their home, which causes a whole different kind of survivor’s guilt and anxiety.
It must feel as though it never lets up.
This is a problem that is not getting enough attention in the United States.
From Refugees International
Uprooted and Unstable: Meeting Urgent Humanitarian Needs in Iraq
Uprooted and Unstable: Meeting Urgent Humanitarian Needs in Iraq describes a vacuum of humanitarian assistance created by the failure of the Iraqi government and the international community to administer aid to civilians. During a mission inside Iraq, researchers for Refugees International found that Iraqi militias are creating a Hezbollah-like dynamic by becoming major humanitarian providers of food, clothing, oil and other basic resources. As a result, militias are recruiting civilians, including displaced Iraqis, at a rapid pace.
Refugees International cautions that failure to address this problem will have dire consequences for the humanitarian and security situation in Iraq. The report recommends that aid organizations, including the UN, navigate the complex landscape by partnering with local groups inside Iraq, and discourages refugee returns until more effective aid channels are established.
Recently, I ran across a newly formed group called the Iraq Veterans Refugee Aid Association or IVRAA. This group is co-founded by two veterans of the Iraq war, former Marine Capt. Tyler Boudreau and former Army Capt. Luis Carlos Montalván.
This, this is how we heal.
This is how we support our troops.
Please give.
From their website
IVRAA will launch its first humanitarian mission in August, when Boudreau and Montalván will travel to Jordan to gauge, from a point of view untainted by politics or muffled by censorship, the plight of nearly one million Iraqis who have sought refuge from the devastation in their homeland.
Boudreau and Montalván, who between them completed three tours of duty in Iraq and have 29 years' experience in the US military, will use information gathered during the mission to educate the public as to the urgency of the humanitarian crisis facing Iraqi refugees, and to determine how best to help them.
They will author articles and hold media briefings during the trip and afterwards, aimed at boosting awareness of a side of the Iraq war that has long been overlooked, if not ignored: the mass displacement of the Iraqi people which has resulted in their loss of humanity and dignity.
Using their credentials as former officers with first-hand experience of the war, and accompanied by journalists from the international media, Boudreau and Montalván expect to reach a broad audience with their message, which will be one of humanism, not politics.
Time permitting, workshops for Iraqis seeking asylum in the United States will be set up, to give the refugees hope and take a first step towards preparing them for their new lives.
The driving forces behind IVRAA are the desire to repay a debt to the Iraqi people and to give US veterans another means to repair and heal the wounds left by the Iraq war.
The mission to Jordan is believed to be the first by Iraq veterans seeking to help the very people US soldiers were sent to liberate but whom they instead left shackled to misery and displacement.
The visit is in keeping with the tradition of Veterans of Vietnam and World War II returning to the theaters of the wars they fought in to repay a debt to the peoples who were once their foes.
Your tax-deductible donation will help IVRAA launch this first humanitarian mission, during which Boudreau and Montalván will:
• Assess the situation faced by Iraqi refugees;
• Educate the public as to the urgency of the humanitarian crisis;
• Establish workshops for Iraqis seeking asylum in the United States;
• Render assistance to Ali, an Iraqi refugee who has languished in Jordan for two years after aiding the US military as an interpreter;
• Report the findings of the mission to heighten awareness to develop new relief strategies.
Unlike missions by veterans of wars past, the IVRAA visit will take place as the Iraq war continues.
Please help us in our effort to contribute to our nation's moral responsibility to render aid to Iraqi refugees, who need and deserve our support, and to alleviate their plight.
Best regards and peace,
Tyler Boudreau and Luis Carlos Montalván
email: ivraa2008@gmail.com
p.s. - If you would like to make an offiline donation to IVRAA and its mission, please mail your check to:
Physicians for Social Responsibility
c/o Dr. Ira Helfand
Box 324
Leeds, MA 01053
Please help spread the word through through your friends, networks, and the media.
The two founders of IVRAA recently co-authored an opinion article published in International Herald Tribune
Help those who helped us
By Luis Carlos Montalván and Tyler Boudreau
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
As combat officers in Iraq, we witnessed the suffering and forced migration of millions of Iraqi civilians. These same people are now struggling to survive as refugees in neighboring countries while millions more have been displaced within Iraq, enduring unimaginable hardship and danger.
They have lost their possessions and their livelihoods; they have lost their homes; they have lost their loved ones. The tragedies are indeed countless and they are in no small part a result of the war we started. As American officers we feel it is our nation's moral obligation to address this crisis.
According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, in 2007 Iraqis represented the highest percentage of people seeking asylum worldwide with a 98 percent increase in applications. From 2004 to 2007, Iraqis seeking asylum moved from the 9th largest population to the 1st.
In comparison to other industrialized countries, the United States has performed poorly in granting Iraqis asylum. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development statistics show that Sweden has taken the most sympathetic approach to Iraqis, with 90 percent of those claiming refugee status allowed to stay. Greece and Turkey are among other countries that have granted asylum to a great number of Iraqis.
The United States must begin to take this refugee crisis seriously and succor the people whose homeland we have disrupted - the very homeland we set out to liberate. Perhaps our proudest legacy from Vietnam was welcoming of over a million Vietnamese who had aided U.S. forces during that conflict.
America's best and possibly last chance to extract a positive legacy from Iraq may depend on our giving humanitarian assistance to those Iraqis who have become imperiled by their association with the U.S.-led intervention in their country.
Currently, the United States has two refugee coordinators working for the Assistant Secretary of State for population, refugees, and migration. However, the office of the UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs has no presence in Jordan, where 750,000 Iraqi refugees are suffering.
Many of these refugees have provided U.S. forces with invaluable services. One such individual, whose case we have been trying to press with immigration authorities, is a translator named Ali, who helped the U.S. military in 2003 and 2004.
At a time when we had no translators assigned to us, Ali stepped forward and helped us communicate our intentions to the local people in the Al Anbar Province. Ali's courage was responsible for saving many lives, including those of American service members.
Sadly, Ali has remained trapped in Jordan for two years enduring what he describes modestly as "harsh circumstances." He tells us that food and housing is scarce, health care is inaccessible, schooling for children is largely unavailable, and that only people who have residences are eligible for jobs.
But only "businessmen" are afforded residence. Visas in Jordan are generally granted for only three months, which puts most Iraqi refugees, including Ali, into illegal status, which makes them highly exploitable. The circumstances for refugees are not just "harsh" - they are dire.
When the United States desperately needed Ali's help in Iraq they got it. But when Ali had to flee because of threats to his life, when he came in to his own time of need, the U.S. failed to reciprocate.
We and other soldiers who once worked with Ali are trying arduously to facilitate his request for asylum under the provisions of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program and via applications for asylum through the United Nations.
The actual and virtual absence of the UN's Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs in complex humanitarian emergencies often encumbers the Department of State with the role of coordinating international relief. But the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has consistently struggled with this task because of its routinely unilateral approach to problems within a multilateral system. One former senior State Department official told us that this "USAID gap" was one of the major hurdles he had to contend with in his position.
Any meaningful assistance for Iraqi refugees must include a realistic risk assessment by the Department of Homeland Security and a substantial increase to admissions into the United States, particularly for Iraqis who have assisted U.S. forces.
It will also require a great deal more cooperation between the State Department and the Agency for International Development to improve financial burden-sharing from donor states and operational productivity from all the agencies assisting Iraqi refugees and internally displaced persons.
Finally it will require strong pressure on the Iraqi government to provide its own share of support. If the credibility of the Iraqi government lies in its humanitarian commitment to Iraqi people, then perhaps the credibility of our own government lies in the same.
Luis Carlos Montalván served as a U.S. Army captain in Iraq from 2003 to 2006 and is currently recovering from combat wounds. Tyler Boudreau served as a U.S. Marine Corps captain in Iraq in 2004 and is the author of the forthcoming "Packing Inferno: The Unmaking of a Marine."