Dixon Elks Lodge Veteran's Dinner: Pictures and Remarks

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Wednesday November 14, 2007 · 6:54 PM PST

2007/11/14 · 18:54

This is such a local diary, I almost wasn't going to cross-post it.

But, I wanted to send out a special thank you to llbear (aka Dick Pierce; that's us beaming below, top left) for arranging for me to speak at the Dixon [IL] Elks Lodge Veteran's Dinner last night.

It was an incredible evening.

Please see more pics, my thanks to llbear and the leaders of Dixon Elks Lodge #779, along with transcript of my remarks. I wanted to stay away from the PTSD stuff for one evening, and talk about how I feel about America, about being an American, and how I feel about our country's veterans.

More below the fold...

ilona

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Sunday November 11, 2007 · 11:46 PM PST

2007/11/11 · 23:46

[Ammo Hauler touched upon this in a somewhat neglected diary earlier today, but I'd like to add my personal impressions to this important Veterans Day story in the LA Times.]

At the end of April 2006, I returned home from a few days of down time with my husband to a surprising email from a small New York publishing firm. Ig Publishing said that they were interested in putting out a book on combat PTSD. Would I write it?

The following month I set about fashioning a proposal for what would eventually become Moving a Nation to Care and began reaching out to possible interview subjects for the project.

It didn't take me long to know without any hesitation whose story I needed to open the book with: James Blake Miller, aka the Marlboro Marine.

ilona

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Sunday October 14, 2007 · 9:37 PM PDT

2007/10/14 · 21:37

The latest from PTSD Combat:

Blackwater Employee PTSD Care Questioned
Action Item: Tell Congress to Approve Veterans' Budget Now
Combat PTSD Stigma Fades Somewhat, Funding Fight and Political Disillusionment Come Into Focus
Veterans Disability Benefits Commission Releases Report, Recommends Sweeping System Overhaul
First 'Veterans Village' Set to Open in California in November
Studies, Reports, Promises and Reality: Another Deplorable Case of Veteran Neglect
College Students: Mental Health Care Field Needs You
South Dakota VA Hosts Retreat for Female Veterans and Military Family Members
Are PTSD Veterans Slated to Lose Their Right to Possess Firearms?
A Look at the Unease of Transitioning to Homefront Living Following Combat
Real Time Interview with Ken Burns

ilona

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Wednesday September 26, 2007 · 1:54 PM PDT

2007/09/26 · 13:54

Psssst. What are you doing tomorrow night at 9pm EST?

If you're online, please join me as a new season of Second Life interviews (Howard Dean is slated, too, I hear) kicks into gear. From my sexy avatar to the left, the tagline for my upcoming interview on the "Virtually Speaking with Jimbo Hoyer" show should be: "If I looked this good in the real world, I wouldn't have any problem 'moving a nation (of men) to care'!"

That in mind, I'd really like to thank Jane at InWorld Studios for creating this, uh, realistic avatar of me for tomorrow night's interview (my official Second Life name is IlonaMeagher Underwood) , and I'd also like to thank Jay and all the rest of the gang for inviting me on. Looking forward to it!

Details below the fold...

ilona

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Friday August 31, 2007 · 2:26 PM PDT

2007/08/31 · 14:26

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

My greatly-anticipated Atlanta Journal Constitution Decatur Book Festival stint is this weekend. Yeah!

Tomorrow (Sept 1), at 3pm in Fellowship Hall at Decatur Presbyterian I have a signing. Sunday (Sept 2), I give a brief Moving a Nation to Care presentation and signing at 12pm on the City Hall Stage.

If you're in the Atlanta area, please come out if you can. [Directions/parking]

And without further delay, this month's PTSD Combat News Roundup:

ilona

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Wednesday August 29, 2007 · 3:30 PM PDT

2007/08/29 · 15:30

"The kind of great movie that rivets you as entertainment at the same time it carefully sets about saying something deeper about the present time...a brave risk." -- Gregory Kirschling, EW.com

Defying intense thunderstorms, micro bursts and even an area tornado or two, Chicagoans trekked out to AMC River East last Thursday night to catch a special screening of the new Paul Haggis ("Crash") film starring Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron.

As hinted at in the quote above, 'In the Valley of Elah' drills down to how our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq affect the warriors who deploy, the families who hold down the fort while they're away, and the society undoubtedly intertwined -- no matter how little they may know it or own up to it -- in it all.

ilona

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Saturday August 11, 2007 · 8:13 PM PDT

2007/08/11 · 20:13

Unlike better online writers, I'm not an on-the-fly type who churns things out easily while on the road. From Chicago to Washington, D.C., I've been busy absorbing a lot of information and talking with a lot of people these past 10 days. From last week's seat on a YearlyKos Convention panel with none other than General Wesley Clark to this week's Journalism That Matters Conference and visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, it's been a busy August.

(Click on links above for more pics...)

A few notes on my comings and goings, disappearances and sightings before getting back to the more important work of covering issues that concern the state of post-combat reintegration in our returning troops.

ilona

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Wednesday August 01, 2007 · 12:38 AM PDT

2007/08/01 · 00:38

There we were in Las Vegas last year.

Me and my new friend at the top of the Stratosphere. (And they say Chicago is the 'windy city'!)

Actually, I hadn't seen this incredible photo of me and sidepocket's better half (waving hi guys!!!) on top of the world until a couple of days ago when they arrived in my inbox.

A little blurry was the explanation for its delay.

Hey, you can see our smiles, can't you? That's all that matters, then!

It's quickly become my favorite of all the pics in my collection from last year. A collection I wanted to share once more with everyone as we embark upon another stratospheric gathering of hearts and minds. As I wrote last year in my post-convention photo essay, We Were ALL at YK2006.

And we're ALL going to be there together, again, this year...

ilona

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Saturday July 28, 2007 · 11:12 PM PDT

2007/07/28 · 23:12

Last week, 2,600 of Minnesota's National Guard members returned from overseas duty. Following a 4-month extension, their brigade's 22-month deployment achieved something no other Guard unit has to date: the longest such continuous call-up of National Guard forces in our nation's history.*

When looking at the data on the strain of extended deployments and the special stresses of 'weekend warriors' vs. that of the active forces, it's obvious the state's leaders felt the need to be proactive in ensuring their citizen soldiers' reintegration goes as smoothly as possible.

But proactive homecoming measures aren't always enough to counterbalance months on end away from family and sanity and moments of relaxation.

ilona

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Thursday July 26, 2007 · 12:57 AM PDT

2007/07/26 · 00:57

An upcoming film that I shared news of last week offers today's NYT a chance to explore the more personal aspects of war. Such films allow us to reflect on their effect on society and warrior, as well as how the families that wait for their return home are coping.

On Sept. 14, Warner Independent Pictures expects to release "In the Valley of Elah," a drama inspired by the [recently-returned Iraq vet Richard R.] Davis murder, written and directed by Paul Haggis, whose "Crash" won the Academy Award for best picture in 2006. The film stars Tommy Lee Jones as a retired veteran who defies Army bureaucrats and local officials in a search for his son’s killers. In one of the movie’s defining images, the American flag is flown upside down in the heartland, the signal of extreme distress.

ilona

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Wednesday July 25, 2007 · 7:00 AM PDT

2007/07/25 · 07:00

Today:

10 am EST - House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing "PTSD and Personality Disorders: Challenges for the VA" [audio stream]

11:15am EST - Dole-Shalala Presidential Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors final meeting [C-Span may have it]

1-1:30pm EST - Melissa Kasnitz, of Disability Rights Advocates, on MSNBC (DRA filed Monday's class action lawsuit vs. the VA)

2-3pm EST - Melissa Kasnitz appears at ePluribus Media

8 pm EST - CNN's Paula Zahn recaps today's events

Details...

ilona

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Monday July 23, 2007 · 12:01 PM PDT

2007/07/23 · 12:01

From AP:

Frustrated by delays in health care, a coalition of injured Iraq war veterans is accusing VA Secretary Jim Nicholson of breaking the law by denying them disability pay and mental health treatment. ... The class-action lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, filed Monday in federal court in San Francisco, seeks broad change in the agency as it struggles to meet growing demands from veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Suing on behalf of hundreds of thousands of veterans, it charges that the VA has failed warriors on several fronts -- from providing prompt disability benefits, to adding staff to reduce wait times for medical care to boosting services for post-traumatic stress disorder.

The lawsuit also accuses the VA of deliberately cheating some veterans by allegedly working with the Pentagon to misclassify PTSD claims as pre-existing personality disorders to avoid paying out benefits. The VA and Pentagon have generally denied such charges.

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