With treatments for PTSD ranging from equine therapy and scuba diving to a nudist lifestyle, it’s clear that what works to ease one veteran’s PTSD symptoms might not work for another. Regardless of method, anything that relaxes someone suffering is beneficial.
Veteran David Jurado couldn’t shake the troubled thoughts that serving in Iraq left him with. About his time serving overseas, he tells the Greenville Online, “We definitely saw our fair share of battle. I lost really good friends through IED (improvised explosive device) explosions.”
A few years after Jurado returned home from Iraq to Greenville, S.C., he began to seek help for his PTSD. Companions for Heroes helped him train a service dog from the Greenville Humane Society. “With the resources that Companions for Heroes had to offer, I was able to able to raise my own service dog in about a year’s time,” Jurado says. “The service dog really broke my anti-social shell. I was ready to take on whatever the world had to throw at me.”
While the dog helped, Jurado kept seeking other activities to ease his PTSD — including cross stitching, a craft that his mom taught him when he was eight-years-old. “My wife gave me a pattern, and I jumped right back into it for a reason. It’s something that keeps my mind from wandering into places I don’t want to go or remember,” he says. “Life is pretty simple when all you’ve got to worry about is needle and thread.”
Jurado transitioned from his former career as a police officer to working for Companions for Heroes. He has been so successful with figuring out what techniques help him to manage his PTSD symptoms that the Wounded Warrior Project selected to become a peer mentor for other vets with similar issues.
Now Jurado is always ready to help two other veterans in the Greenville area. “Helping other people with their challenges helps me better handle mine,” he says.
MORE: This 85-Year-Old Knitter Churns Out Hats to Help Homeless Vets
Tag: Wounded Warriors
To Raise Money for His Fellow Comrades, This Septuagenarian is Running Across the Country
When most of us are 70 years old, we’ll be lucky if we can still touch our toes. But Jim Shiew of Buena Vista, Colo., could serve as inspiration to us all: the Korean War veteran and West Point graduate is currently jogging across the country on a mission that he calls Run America for Vets, raising money for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.
Shiew has been running for 11 months now and has no plans to stop until he reaches his goal. “It’s very important that we take care of our vets, because they’re not being properly taken care of, and they need a lot of help,” he said.
He serves as his own support crew and travels with two cars — a van and a station wagon with hand-painted red, white and blue stripes, flags and info about his mission (so people know how to donate to his cause).
How does he run and drive two vehicles? He described his process to Stephanie Santostasi of WCYB: “Drive the van forward a couple miles, run back pick up the car, drive it to the van, then move the van forward again. I just kind of follow myself.”
As he inches his way across the country at about 12 miles a day, “I’ll be going east, but running west,” he told Maisie Ramsay of The Chaffee County Times before he embarked on his journey Nov. 1, 2013 in Colorado. He ran to California, waded in the Pacific, then doubled back, heading east all the way to Virginia Beach, which he plans to reach on Sept. 24.
“As far as I can tell, if I can do this, I’ll be the oldest one to run across America,” he told Ramsay.
According to Holly Kozelsky of the Martinsville Bulletin, each day Shiew phones his coordinator, Jim Blakeslee, to report on his progress. (He invites people to track his journey on his Facebook page, Jim For Vets.) Blakeslee arranges accommodations — often at veterans’ organizations or camping facilities — for Shiew.
As for how Shiew feels about America after seeing it one step at a time? He told Kozelsky, that he’s had “wonderful weather, and met some great people. It gives me faith that this is a great country. I just haven’t met anybody who has treated me any way but nice.”
MORE: How Does Running Coast-To-Coast Help Veterans?
A Small Island That Makes a Big Difference for America’s Veterans
Having just returned from leave, Luis Puertas was in the lead of a four-vehicle patrol unit in Iraq on Sept. 20, 2006, when an IED, hidden at the base of a street lamp, suddenly exploded. As a result of the blast, Puertas lost both of his legs and several members of the 4th Infantry Division were injured. Dozens of surgeries and years of rehabilitation put Puertas’ life on hold, and relaxation was the farthest thing from his mind.
But this summer, Puertas received a much-deserved vacation, thanks to Holidays for Heroes.
Founded in 2013 by summer resident Tom McCann, Holidays for Heroes brings Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their families to Nantucket, Mass., for all-inclusive retreats. Banners at the nonprofit’s events say “Honoring Their Sacrifice,” which is exactly what the group does. With two to three retreats, dubbed “holidays,” per summer, they organize everything from beach barbecues and dinners to outings and entertainment for wounded warriors. Often, it is just unstructured rest and relaxation, though, which the veterans want most — so the organization’s primary task is simply to enable that by hosting them at no cost on the island. During Fourth of July weekend, the nonprofit hosted two heroes — Puertas, who is from Tampa, Fla., and Joel Dulashanti of Portland, Ore.
Scores of volunteers work tirelessly to make the holiday a perfect experience for visiting veterans like Dulashanti and Puertas. As year-round Nantucketer Donna Hamel says, “It might be a little overwhelming for some of the veterans, especially if they have disabilities.” And it can also be hard for the organizers — feeding, housing, entertaining and transporting the vets takes tremendous effort.
But that’s never been a problem.
“[Holidays for Heroes] gives people an opportunity to do something for a different cause than they might usually,” says Hamel. And it’s exactly that involvement that has driven a lot of the group’s success. As McCann says, “We’ve been very fortunate that every single club, organization, business and individual on this special island has gotten behind the Holidays for Heroes mission.” From clothing boutiques to inns to restaurants, support has poured in. For instance, the Independence Day Firecracker 5K has existed for years, but it adopted Holidays for Heroes as a benefitting charity.
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Even with such great community support, however, the veterans’ holidays would not be possible without McCann and the Holidays for Heroes leadership. For both McCann and the organization’s executive director, Magdalena Padzik, helping our servicemen and women is more than just a way to give back, it’s personal — their individual experiences have informed a deeper love for and commitment to our veterans.
On Memorial Day 2011, McCann was on Nantucket with his family. They fished, went to the beach and rounded out the day with a barbecue. That evening, while watching the celebrations from Washington, D.C., on television with his wife, Mary-Jo, McCann saw Joe Mantegna and Gary Sinise perform a veterans’ tribute. It was at that moment McCann realized that the great day and the beautiful place — Nantucket — that he was blessed to experience should be shared with those who sacrificed for America.
Drawn by the idea of helping our veterans, McCann knew that doing so would require starting a nonprofit. To help him get Holidays for Heroes off the ground, he enlisted the help of his longtime friend Cheryl Bartlett, a fellow islander. Currently serving as the commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Bartlett leads a life of service. When McCann pitched the idea to Bartlett, she loved it, and has been his co-chair ever since.
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Padzik, another key leader, joined the group after meeting McCann at Holiday for Heroes’ first event. She and her family lived in Soviet-era Poland, and her father was part of the Solidarity Movement, a non-communist trade union that the U.S.S.R. tried to destroy through martial law. In order to stay safe, the Padziks moved to America when Magdalena was 4 years old. For more than a decade, she’s lived on Nantucket.
“Freedom is not something we had [growing up], which is really why this is so important to me,” says Padzik, whose appreciation for those who defend her liberty runs deep.
While Padzik’s days are already full — she’s a mother and works as the manager of a local bank — she, like McCann, can’t ignore the plight of veterans.
McCann says that “once you walk into Walter Reed [Medical Center],” where Holidays for Heroes finds most of its veterans (including Jason Redman, an Iraq vet and founder of the nonprofit Wounded Wear) to invite for a weekend on Nantucket, “and meet all these amazing young men and women… it just opens your eyes forever. The cause is big and the need is huge.”
Especially in light of the recent Veterans Affairs hospital scandal, the void in assistance for America’s armed forces is something that is not lost on Holidays for Heroes. While the centerpiece of the organization’s work is its world-class Nantucket getaways, it’s also beginning to reach out to veterans across the country to help them start businesses and fund their children’s education.
While similar programs do exist (such as Landing Zone Grace Veterans Retreat), Holidays for Heroes is unique because of the people of Nantucket that embrace both the organization and the veterans that it hosts. On the island with his fiancé, Amber, and daughter, Emilia, Puertas explains that the weekend arranged for him by the organization was “a lot more than just a vacation…it [was] much deeper than that.”
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That kind of experience, though, is sadly not the norm for America’s veterans. But whether it’s the countless hours put in by McCann, Bartlett, Padzik and other volunteers, or simply someone on vacation running with and cheering on heroes and civilians alike in the 5K, Holidays for Heroes and the whole island community shows everyone a unique model of service for those who’ve served.
As Puertas says of McCann, “There’s a lot of things in life we want but can’t have, but he takes that pressure away and treats you like you’re part of his family… we could hang out together and not feel so alone.”
Hero You Need to Know: Kyle Carpenter Receives Medal of Honor
Medal of Honor recipients have a way of winning our hearts with their extraordinary bravery and heroism.
And while Marine Corporal Kyle Carpenter has that in spades (he’s being honored for actions such as throwing himself in front of a grenade to protect a fellow Marine in Afghanistan; both men survived), he’s got other qualities that may make him one of our most memorable heroes yet: Humor. Wit. And a powerful resilience that’s likely to inspire everyone he meets.
Carpenter, who’ll be given the Medal of Honor from President Barack Obamais only the second living Marine to receive the award for actions in Iraq or Afghanistan. Now 24, he’s endured challenges that would make the average person ready for retirement. At 21, his body was destroyed by the grenade attack, which caused doctors to label him a PEA (patient expired on arrival) when he got to Camp Bastion, in Afghanistan. He flatlined at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
But Carpenter endured, recovering to accomplish more remarkable achievements, like finishing a marathon and attending the University of South Carolina on the G.I. Bill. And he’s doing it all with a sense of humor (jokes about helping his Mom with Twitter, where Carpenter’s handle is @chiksdigscars) and optimism that’s led the veteran-focused website Task and Purpose to deem him “an unapologetic badass.”
And as the young hero tells it, “I won’t ever quit. I am just getting started.”
Watch Carpenter tell his full story below:
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MORE: 6 Facts About Medal of Honor Recipient Kyle J. White
6 Things You Need to Know About This Year’s Medal of Honor Recipient
This afternoon, President Barack Obama presented the 2014 Medal of Honor to former Army Sergeant Kyle J. White, 27, for his courageous actions while serving in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. Here are six other facts about the military hero that are sure to inspire you:
1. White received the highest military honor for his heroism while serving as a Platoon Radio Telephone Operator assigned to C Company, 2nd Battalion (Airborne), 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, during combat operations against an armed enemy in Nuristan Province, Afghanistan on November 9, 2007. The Sergeant and his team of 14 were ambushed when trying to meet with village elders. Though White was knocked unconscious during the fire fight, he eventually awoke and ran through gunfire to protect his fellow soldiers, and saved a fellow unit member’s life. According to Army reports, White would only allow himself to be evacuated after fellow wounded soldiers were helped first.
2. He’s the 7th living recipient of the honor for combat actions in Afghanistan or Iraq. More than 3,400 Medals of Honor have been given to service members since it was first authorized in 1861.
3. His military career began in Georgia, where he went through basic and advanced individual training, and U.S. Army Airborne School consecutively, at Fort Benning, Ga. White was then assigned to the 2-503rd, at Camp Ederle, Italy, from 2006 to 2008 and deployed to Aranas, Afghanistan in spring 2007. He was assigned to the 4th Ranger Training Battalion, at Fort Benning, from 2008 to 2010, before departing active-duty Army in May 2011.
4. White is a Seattle native who now lives in Charlotte, where he received a B.S. in business administration from the the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He currently works for the Royal Bank of Canada as an investment analyst.
5. White was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder following that fatal incident in Afghanistan. He received professional help and has become a vocal advocate of receiving mental health assistance to fellow warriors.
6. He’s a big believer in education, especially for returning servicemembers. “I really want to…help educate servicemembers that are thinking about leaving the service and going back into the civilian world…about the post-9/11 G.I. Bill and the importance of an education and really, you know, how necessary it is for certain jobs out there,” White told Stars and Stripes.
MORE: When Vets Come Home: 5 Things You Should Say and 5 You Shouldn’t
How Does Running Coast-to-Coast Help Veterans?
If you think your feet are tired at the end of the day, talk to Anna Judd.
Last month, the Orange County, California resident set out on an epic run to help veterans. Her plan? To run 3,200 miles from Venice, California to New York City’s Washington Square Park in an effort to raise money for the Wounded Warrior Project and Team Red, White & Blue. Judd runs 40 miles a day, six days a week, charting her grueling adventure on her website and Facebook page. Along the way, veterans and other supporters run alongside her.
According to Lori Corbin of KABC, Judd raises funds through the Charity Miles app. Corporate sponsors have committed to donating $1 million to the startup, which allows anyone to fundraise for 26 different charities just by signing up and being active. Biking a mile earns 10 cents, while running or walking a mile earns 25 cents. Anyone who exercises can participate in Judd’s fundraising effort by downloading the app and entering in #runamerica to join her running team. You can also use the app to find a map of where Judd is currently running.
Under the direction of her trainer Navy veteran Sean Litzenberger, Judd hopes to finish the run in a hundred days. As she jogs, Judd (who has completed 30 marathons) is constantly refueling with water, chia seed packs, super food shakes, liquid supplements, and coffee with butter. She lives out of an RV and takes breaks when needed. She started out the run barefoot, but was wearing shoes by the time she arrived in cactus-filled Arizona. Still, nobody can accuse this remarkable runner — set to travel on foot through 17 states — of not being tough.
MORE: This Amazing Non-Profit Helps Wounded Vets Rebuild Their Lives