To me when I first learned of Andrew Pogany I saw a NCO that was being royally screwed by the Army he had served proudly for years, and due to a few misguided Officers and NCOs who out ranked him, they set him on a course that would have him charged with cowardice, potentionally court martialed and thrown out of the Army after more than a decade of service.
Thanks to a Navy doctor at Balboa Navy Medical Center, San Diego who ran some tests, cat scans and MRIs they found where he had problems with white matter in his brain, some of the medicines the military had given him attacked his brain and destroyed part of it. He should be getting a medical discharge and not court matialed. Eventually the Army prosecutors came to the same conclusions and Staff Sergeant Pogany would be given a Chapter 61, medical retirement, with full benefits, and the coward label would be a mistake, that would be stricken from his military records, but many in the Fort Carson community would never forget the charges and accusations. He was branded. He turned his anger into being an advocate for soldiers with PTSD and would help them stop administrative discharges and get them into the Warrior Transition Units where they would get mental health help, and medical discharges due to their medical issues.
The WAPO has this article: Once branded a coward, he fights for PTSD victims
Nov. 6, 2003. Pogany sat in his old house in Colorado Springs, watching CNN. Suddenly his own face appeared on the screen alongside that of Jessica Lynch, as Paula Zahn asked the country a question:
"So what makes a hero a hero, and a coward a coward?"
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He deployed to Iraq in September 2003, a 32-year-old staff sergeant trained in intelligence and interrogation. Based at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, he volunteered to go to war with a team of Green Berets when another soldier couldn't.
Then, only a few days in-country, Pogany saw the shredded body of a gunned-down Iraqi. He had what he thought was a panic attack - vomiting, hallucinations. A psychologist concluded he'd had a normal combat stress reaction and recommended rest, then back to duty.
Instead, Pogany's commanders shipped him back to Fort Carson, and he was charged with "cowardly conduct as a result of fear," a crime punishable by death under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The last such conviction in the Army occurred during the Vietnam War.
Pogany wasn't convicted. He and his attorney produced findings that showed the breakdown was likely a reaction to the anti-malaria drug Lariam, which has side effects that may include paranoia and hallucinations. The Army eventually dropped all charges, finding Pogany had "a medical problem that requires care and treatment."
In April 2005, Pogany was medically retired from the Army, with full benefits.
Andrew has spent the past 6 years advocating for other veterans, especially PTSD veterans, although he helps all veterans who ask him for help, he has worked for numerous veterans groups, mostly in the Colorado Springs area and the Fort Carson community.
The man still works to help soldiers, he is a leader and he is NOT a coward, a coward would not spend his days taking on the system which attempted to destroy him, he would have just taken the medical retirement and VA benefits and walked away as many have before him. Yet, he stays and continues to help, that makes him a hero in my book.
PTSD is a life changing mental health condition and war is not theonly place that creates it, although for most military members their PTSD is caused by a tragic event they witnessed or took part in while in the service of this nation. There are many "stressors" can cause PTSD auto accidents, rapes, plane or car accidents, train derailments, tornados and hurricanes, and yes even things like 9-11.
The difference between military PTSD and civilian PTSD is that the military has a "PROMISE" that if you are hurt or killed by your military service then the nation will provide medical treatment and or compensation if it is warranted. Even the civilians have Social Security Disability if the PTSD is totally disabling, and yes there are civilians getting SSD checks for PTSD. So this is not just a "scam" that military members are abusing as some people would have people believe.
PTSD is a devastating mental health condition that can completely overwhelm the veterans ability to cope with every day life situtations, they can not maintain normal relationships that they had before service, they are not able to work with other people, the divorce rate is astronomical for PTSD veterans, many lose their lives as they knew them before service. They end up homeless, without jobs, many lose their vehicles since they can no longer pay for them, many of them will avoid the Veterans Medical Centers as they no longer trust the government. This has been going on for decades if not longer, the Civil War veterans had to fight to get their benefits, even many of the Revolutionary War veterans were deprived of the benfits they had been promised of land grants and if wounded, monthly compensation amounts.
There there was the Bonus March on Washington DC by veterans of WW1 who during the Depression The Bonus March
On Memorial Day the first group arrived in Washington. The superintendent of police, Pelham D. Glassford, was sympathetic to the cause, and helped tremendously. Glassford supplied food and shelter for the men.
The congressmen were alarmed at the numbers of the veterans pouring in. They felt the pressure immediately and worried about how the city was to feed the 25,000 men that were expected. Commander Waters and the original group from Portland (that now numbered one thousand men) soon made it to Washington. Waters predicted even larger numbers. He went on to say that the Bonus Army was not leaving until the bonus was paid, even if it took until 1945.
On June 17, 1932, approximately ten thousand veterans crowded the Capitol grounds while the Bonus bill was being considered. Another ten thousand waited across the Anacostia River. When the bill failed to pass, about one thousand men left the city, but more kept pouring in.
Finally, Washington had enough. On July 28 four troops of cavalry marched into the streets. The infantrymen marched with their sabers drawn, armed with tear gas bombs, machine guns, and six tanks. They drove out the veterans, their wives, and their children by setting fires to the shacks and using tear gas. Others were allowed to gather their things and were then politely escorted out of town.
Those men and their families had served their country well. In return, their "bonus" was to be driven out of Washington. Although the action took place in Washington, D.C., the stage was set by the events that took place in East St. Louis. Illinois Senator J. Hamilton Lewis spoke to Congress strongly against the bonus demonstration. The Bonus March is one of the largest protests to occur and one of the most dramatic episodes in American history.?[From Dictionary of American Biography; Olin Dee Morrison, Illinois; American Heritage (June 1963); Robert N. Webb, The Bonus March on Washington, D.C.]
After Vietnam it was not until 1980 that the medical community accepted the diagnosis of PTSD as a "real mental health issue" it would still be more years before they admitted the medical problems related to Agent Orange, and just this year Sec of the VA General Shinseki granted the presumptive to exposure to Agent Orange for three major medical problems caused by AO, Ischemic Heart Disease, Hairy Cell Luekemia and ALS. The Ischemica Heart Disease is going to cost the VA or the ferderal government billions in compensation as the Vietnam veterans file claims for cardiac conditions related to this ruling CAD, bypass surgeries, etc, the widows of the veterans who have died from cardiac conditions will now also be eligible for veterans benefits as widows of deceased war veterans whose cardiac deaths can be linked to AO exposure, that will entitle them to a grand payment of approx 1200 a month in DIC payments on a monthly basis. Why did it take 40 years for the nation to accept that AO was linked to these medical problems? General Shinseki approved this with his signature, why hasn't anyone else in the previous 40 years since the end of the Vietnam War ended done this? The veterans who cheer on the Republicans party candidates like the American Legion and the Veteran of Foreign Wars are they now cheering President Obama and the Sec of the VA that he appointed? I doubt it and they should be, the service organizations are supposed to be apolitical and they are not, obviously the new groups like Votevets and IAVA have been supportive of democratic candidates and the older groups except the Vietnam Veterans of America (which appears to be the only non political group in existence) seem to be Republican.
I am sorry but as a disabled veteran I am one of the people that feel politics should be kept out of "veterans issues" when we serve in the military we serve the nation, all of them, many of us served Republican Presidents and Democratic Presidents, we could not pick and choose which orders we would obey, we obeyed them all. I served from Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan and then as a member of the Georgia Army National Guard I served President George H.W. Bush and President William J. Clinton.
We have the right as retired or as veterans to support candidates, but not to use our organizations as campaign platforms, or our national magazines to show our preference for one part or another both parties are necessary for support of veterans issues, benefits for our widows and our children. This should be be a hard concept to understand, you don't bite the hand that you may have to ask to feed you.
As military members we understood that we gave up certain rights while we were in uniform, as a military member can NOT campaign in a military uniform on behalf of any candidate for office we could not ask people in our units to donate to a candidate for office, politics were not spoken in Army offices or barracks.
Tea Party Movement Spreads To Military to me this is illegal and the military members joining it should be aware of this, they are subjecting themselves to actions under the UCMJ. This goes beyond acceptable activity and should be stopped immediately. Active duty due NOT have the right to declare the current administration as "tyrannical"
This isn't the first time that anti-Obama sentiment has surfaced within the military. Several active duty service members have challenged their orders to deploy overseas, on the grounds that President Obama was not born in the U.S. and his orders are therefore illegitimate.
Military members are not supposed to be openly hostile to their own government, Shame on Sergeant Stein and his followers.
Back to PTSD this article Costs soar for compensating veterans with mental disorders
"When you look at the epidemic of PTSD, you see the future," said Harvard University's Linda Bilmes, co-author of the 2008 book "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict."
The Tribune's analysis of claim records from the Department of Veterans Affairs found that vets' psychological wounds are by far the most expensive type of disability. Compensating wartime veterans since Vietnam for PTSD and other mental conditions is four to five times costlier than the average for all disability categories, the Tribune found. Victims of PTSD also are more likely to suffer other serious and costly health problems than other disabled veterans. In short, they are sicker.
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Emmer waited 20 years to get an overseas combat assignment. Within a couple months of arriving in Afghanistan, her career as a skilled Army medic began to unravel. Emmer reported being raped by a coalition officer in the spring of 2003. In a separate incident, she injured her head falling off a military vehicle.
Today, the combination of PTSD and traumatic brain injury has enveloped Emmer in a light fog marked by physical imbalance, disorientation, anxiety and a round-the-clock headache.
Emmer is determined to regain much of her old self. She finds support in other veterans "on the roller coaster" who are working toward the same goal. "They want the old normal back," she said.
It has been my experience with PTSD that there is NO getting your old life back, the sleepless nights, the nightmares, the stress, the forgetfulness, paranoia, hate and distrust are your life now, there is no going back to the way you were before the war.
This is the now PTSD is the now and the future, how we each learn to live and cope with it is up to us, some of us help other veterans, some withdraw from life, others choose to have a life filled with drama caused by self medicating from booze and drugs which then usually involves the police and the courts and usually jail if not prison.
The road is there we each have to choose which fork we take.......