Health care OK makes history – David Couper

The Capital Times

David Couper | Posted: Wednesday, November 11, 2009 5:00 am

Dear Editor: It's great making history! This historic accomplishment occurred on Saturday, Nov. 7, when the House of Representatives passed H.R. 3962 — the Affordable Health Care for America Act. I think these efforts go back to when I was a lad in high school when Harry Truman was our president.

Our representatives who voted for this bill deserve our praise and thanks. I am sure the lobbyists for the insurance and pharmaceutical industries put on a full court press -- yet House members withstood it and took the right action because it was the right thing to do.

I now urge the Senate to continue the fight, which is to provide secure and stable coverage for all Americans with insurance, to expand coverage for those who do not have insurance, and to lower cost for families and businesses! Finally, we are on the right track.

David Couper, Blue Mounds

David is a member of the Clarence Kailin Chapter of Veterans for Peace.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Wisconsin Veterans: Information for Policy Makers on the Availability of Clinical, Social, Legal, and Preventative Services

What a title, only when you combine a legislative bureaucracy and an institutional bureaucracy.

Today I attended the Assembly Veterans and Military Affairs Committee on PTSD, I will be abbreviating as PTS since this is not a disorder and as mentioned by one of the speakers it is a normal result of the abnormality that the person deployed had been exposed to. The hearing was held due to the representatives valid concerns about 3200 members of the Wisconsin National Guard returning to the state around January. Although traditional veterans groups like the VFW and American Legion were personally invited I found out about the event from a fellow Veterans For Peace member who works in the media and was most likely alerted via press release. The stated purpose at the hearing was so that legislators had a firm understanding of the help available for PTS.

The first speaker was Dr. Dean Krahn who has this bio posted on the UW Psychiatry website: Professor of Psychiatry; Chief, Mental Health Service Line at VA-Madison and Director, Mental Health Service Line for the Great Lakes Network of VA. According to him due to recent outreach efforts and budget efforts years after the War of Terror began the VA mental health personnel around the country has increased 42 per cent since 2005. There are now double the people in Madison at 130.

The next speaker was Jean Bromley, MSW, OEF/OIF VISN 12 Lead and Milwaukee Program Manager. She highlighted the outreach done to reach veterans on campuses, at drill weekends, WDVA events like the Supermarket held in Marshfield recently. She also discussed the Post Deployment Health Reassessment (PDHRA) (Est. 2005) that is done 90 to 180 days post deployment to address concerns and provide care for the veteran. This is mandatory for all active and Reserve members, not for the Guard because of the dual role they have other assessments that I will discuss later and other speakers talked about. For Wisconsin there is the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration program that is 30, 60, and 90 days post deployment. At these events the veteran can enroll in VA health care. The USMC since this year has been holding IRR musters, which I couldn't find in any media but there is media of IRR musters for other reasons, to let them know about signing up for the VA and providing other important information for them. The focus of these different programs and gatherings is to provide tools and skills for reentry into civilian life. It seems that the word on the street that the Navy TAPS program is very good compared to Army and Marines is right otherwise they would only need to provide info on VA benefits and help getting them at these events. She went on to say that over 280000 service members/veterans had completed the PDHRA and over 104000 service members/veterans have been referred to a Vet Center of the VA. The top five diagnoses for servicemembers at these events, both men and women, are PTS, depression, back pain, knee/joint pain, and excessive tobacco usage. The ranking changes for the sexes but not the issues they are facing. To wrap up what I recorded for her comments, she mentioned that only half of those who were found to have PTS and referenced to a Vet Center or VA were getting care for PTS.

After these two speakers there were a few questions which were interesting. According to Dr. Krahn there are three ways that a veteran can receive care: Inpatient, Outpatient and via residential services. As part of inpatient care there are Community Based Outreach Centers or CBOCs, which he quipped is a popular acronym on CSPAN (too bad I don't have cable anymore since it is the only way to find out what is actually said nowadays with all of the news commentators instead of reporters). These CBOC can provide assessments and basically the same services as the VA for veterans who are not near a VA center just by billing the VA. There is also a rise in telemental health services being offered at CBOCs which was a concern in this 1999 report. This is a system where a $3000 camera/CPU device is used at a CBOC, and now at college campuses, which links the veteran to a VA where they can receive treatment without the trip from the rural area to the VA center. They said there was data that telemental health works as well as in person meetings but didn't say where it came from. The Uniform Services Package for Mental Health document mandates what the CBOCs must provide in terms of mental health help. From the new head of the VA, Shinseki, a directive has been created to determine whether the PTS treatment is working and making the symptoms lessen or worsening each time the veteran is seen. He is also directing outreach similar to that in Wisconsin to get veterans into the VA and building bridges with veterans. One concern with his directive on PTS and evaluating whether treatment is working or not is the BATTLEMIND program the Army is currently using. This training teaches resiliency and claims to be a way to avoid PTS but may be a way to teach military members how to shut down their brain when it comes to trauma just like they have been taught to do when it comes to killing. One comment at the end was a link between Porchlight and per diem housing to get a 20 unit place in Madison in the near future to serve homeless veterans.

Tracey L. Smith was the next speaker and described complex PTS as PTS from the childhood which is compounded by further trauma later in life. She said that there is no data on multiple deployments and the rate of PTS but only that the number of firefights is the factor which PTS increases and once a certain number is reach the PTS rate levels out. Also mentioned was that the high number of suicides but that they primarily occur in one or zero deployment members. She referenced an Institute of Medicine study from Oct. 2007 but all I can find online is that it was rather inconclusive regarding treatments for PTS. The VA is using large scale psychotherapy trainings and follow-ups for its personnel. Two therapies used are Cognitive Processing Therapy which is 12 - 1 hour session including where the veteran must write in detail their most traumatic experience and Prolonged Exposure Therapy which wasn't described that well. Their results show that OEF/OIF veterans get better results from the treatments than Vietnam veterans. She offered that it may be because they are receiving treatment sooner after the trauma. 7 out of 10 veterans refuse mental health services even if they are offered due to the stigma which besides the rural problem is a main concern when gettinng vets to come to the VA.

The next speaker was David Hosking, Global War on Terrorism Outreach Readjustment Counselor Madison Wisconsin Vet Center. He served for a total of 28 years and would probably still be in if allowed. He was in Vietnam and Iraq although was wearing a flight jacket with wings so I don't know what his MOS was. His talk was to read off the powerpoint slides and he seemed to like he had PTS or social anxiety, think Tom Smykowski from Office Space the people person. He talks to all units that demobilize through Fort McCoy to discuss the Vet Centers, CVSOs, Workforce Devlopment and other governmental programs available to veterans. One question from Rep. Hubler was about getting a call from a constituent who wanted help for a veteran loved one. He said that they should call the Vet Center and the Vet Center will set up and appointment for them in their locale.

Next up was Col. Kenneth Koon, Director of Manpower and Personnel at Wisconsin National Guard. He descibed a number of things including the Yellow Ribbon program, Battlemind, and resiliency Training as ways to help with trauma. In 2008 more National Guard members committed suicide thatn died in combat. According to him 60 per cent had never deployed.

The next speakers described the Veterans Court process, Krista Ginger (Public Defender) and Bil Klister (WDVA). These courts now exist in 7 states with New York the first in Buffalo started last year. In Wisconsin there is one in Rock County in VISN 12 and one to start in Eau Claire County in VISN 23 in the near future.

Following this there was questions about the telemental health services. They are springing up on campuses around the state. UW Plattteville was the pilot in Spring 2008 with 4 individuals receiving 7 sessions. In the Fall of 2008 there were 6 to 8 routine veterans receiving service. Later this fall UW Whitewater will start and UW Parkside and Oshkosh will follow. UW Eau Claire will be starting this fall but is under control of the Twin Cities VISN.

The session was then brought to a close.

My one question I jotted down early which was never answered except that we need to do more outreach is how to get past the VA stigma. When I first got into the VA and was getting physical therapy for my arm injury, thanks health insurance industry for forcing me to get socialized medicine, I was deeply depressed every time I had to go to the hospital. It is a very unwelcoming place to be. Also they never mentioned one alternative treatment that was available or that had been tested to be effective. One of their main talking points was that they want to focus on using what works as proven by research not what the practitioner thinks works or has been doing for a long time, so why no other methods besides their own?

F-16s' roar worse in Afghanistan, Iraq - Craig Fabian

Wisconsin State Journal
Posted: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 5:45 pm

Craig and Steve Books at the White House following the 2009 Veterans for Peace Convention.

At 3:25 a.m. Tuesday, the roar of F-16s taking off at Truax Field woke me and I assume many of my neighbors.

Many people in Afghanistan and Iraq probably hear the same noise, but they hear the explosions of the ordnance well before the roar of the engines. Death and destruction all around them, the survivors are displaced to tents and elsewhere, starving and dying slowly.

I ask President Barack Obama: Is it about the Taliban or is it about lining the pockets of the corporations that make the ordnance?

Gen. Stan McChrystal wants more troops to stop the Taliban. The Soviets had half a million and left defeated. The Brits tried three times and left. We, too, will leave without winning anything, except benefits for corporations.

Many economic conscripts fighting for unobtainable goals return to the United States with permanent damage. Amputations and mental health issues will cost the current generation years of their lives. Many may never recover. These vets will need assistance forever. Will this government provide for them? If history repeats itself, the answer is no.

Crimes against humanity is what I call it. Obama, stop this nonsense.

Craig Fabian, Madison
Craig is a member of the Clarence Kailin Chapter of Veterans for Peace.

Loss of Fitchburg Star disappointing

The Capital Times

9/01/2009 6:36 am

Dear Editor: We were shocked and disappointed when we learned that the Fitchburg Star will no longer be.

For the last several years, we have learned to look forward to the excellent, in-depth articles that Kurt Gutknecht has put into each issue. We can honestly say that he has provided in-depth coverage of goings-on in Fitchburg, as well as occasional coverage of other things occurring elsewhere in Wisconsin or the U.S. (or the world). The trends in eliminating newspapers in the U.S. do not bode well for an educated and illuminated citizenry.

We urge Kurt to continue his coverage of events in and around Fitchburg, and if he wants to start up an online newspaper, we will be the first to subscribe. Few things worth anything are free and the information Kurt provides is certainly worth our financial support. Go, Kurt!

John Fournelle and Judi Munaker, Fitchburg

John is a member of the Clarence Kailin Chapter of Veterans for Peace.

Respect is the main lesson of 'suds summit'

SAT., AUG 1, 2009 - 4:10 PM
Wisconsin State Journal
By DAVID COUPER

The "suds summit" is over.
After nearly two weeks of furor and national introspection, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met with the professor and the cop.
The professor said: "We hit it off right from the beginning. When he's not arresting you, Sergeant Crowley is a really likable guy."
The cop said: "What you had today was two gentlemen who agreed to disagree on a particular issue."
But two "gentlemen" two weeks ago had a major disagreement that ended up in the White House.
Was this the teaching moment in American race relations that many of us were hoping for, or was it something else? To me, this is more about class than race. And the real issue is whether the police have to keep calm under provocation and not use arrest as a way to try to gain respect from citizens.
In my first year as a police officer, a wise old sergeant gave me some good advice. I had exchanged heated words with a person I had stopped for a traffic violation. Afterward, the sergeant took me aside and told me: "David, it's our job to keep our cool when everyone else is losing theirs. That's what police do."
He also didn't believe that disrespecting the police, "contempt of cop," was something that should prompt an arrest.
His advice served me well during almost a decade patrolling high-crime, inner-city Minneapolis. And it stayed with me when I became chief of the Madison Police Department.
It was why, when I first came to Madison, I said my job was to build a department of police officers who were also "human behavior experts" -- police officers who were able to understand the problems police get themselves into.
Depending on who tells the story about what happened on the afternoon of July 16, it goes something like this: A black college professor returning home from vacation is unable to open his front door. He forces the door open and enters just as a suspicious neighbor calls police. A white police sergeant arrives and asks the homeowner for identification.
Heated words are exchanged inside the home. The professor is asked to step outside where he is arrested for disorderly conduct. He is handcuffed, taken to the police station, booked, photographed, and, about four hours later, charges are dropped and the professor is released.
In the inner city, this is not an unusual occurrence. What made this case different was that Henry Louis Gates is a Harvard professor. And what really made it different was Sgt. James Crowley feeling he had been disrespected.
Civil rights advocates say this proves the police are racially profiling. Police leaders say it has nothing to do with race and citizens should cooperate with police -- not insult them.
There are explanations, excuses and counter-charges from all sides.
But class and respect are the best explanations for what went wrong. It was a meeting between two men wanting respect in a society not conditioned to give it to them.
Comedian Rodney Dangerfield joked about wanting a "little respect," but this is no joking matter -- and Rodney didn't wear a badge and carry a gun.
And that's why the responsibility here is clearly and primarily on the police. They are the representatives of our government and the protectors of our Constitution. They are, and should be trained, to keep their cool because often citizens do not keep theirs.
Respect does not come from using either fear or force. Police earn the community's respect by staying calm -- even under a barrage of hostile and contemptible language.
This does not mean that police should no nothing when they are physically pushed or shoved. Gates did not lay his hands on Crowley nor push him. If he had, I might not be writing this.
President Obama may have spoken too quickly in calling the actions of the police "stupid." But the officer's action was unnecessary. This arrest should not have happened. Period.
If my old sergeant were still alive and had sat in on the "beer summit," he would have told them all to settle down. And as he was leaving, I am sure he would take Crowley aside and remind him that it's our job to keep our cool -- even when Harvard professors don't.
Couper, Blue Mounds, served as Madison police chief from 1972 to 1993. He is also a member of the Clarence Kailin Chapter of Veterans For Peace.

Health care rally coverage missing

MON., JUL 27, 2009 - 5:34 PM

Wisconsin State Journal

As a longtime State Journal subscriber I was disappointed that you did not give any coverage to the Saturday health care march and rally at the state Capitol.

There were about 1,000 people there with banners and signs, led by a brassy New Orleans-style band cakewalking up State Street.

U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin spoke out for a single-payer plan, as did people who thought they had decent insurance but had their claims for critical care denied. An emergency room doctor from UW Hospital described the plight of a newly diagnosed diabetic who couldn't afford his insulin.

When we are in a health care crisis, it confounds me that the State Journal chose to give front-page coverage to Civil War re-enactors at Camp Randall rather than efforts to change our health care delivery system that will affect everybody.

-- Richard Chamberlin, Monona

Richard is a member of the Clarence Kailin chapter of Veterans for Peace.

Why the Torture Photos Should Be Released - A Call to Vote No on War Funding Bill

Recently Senators Lieberman and Graham authored a horrendous addition to the 2009 War Supplemental bill. Their addition says "a photograph that was taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States" will not become public if "the disclosure of that photograph would endanger—(A) citizens of the United States; or(B) members of the Armed Forces or employees of the United States Government deployed outside the United States." The photograph has to be certified "endgangering" by the SecDef in consultation with the Chair of the JCS.

The New York Times recently ran an op-ed saying that Obama is right in calling for torture photos to not be released. The author, Philip Gourevitch, is also the co- author with Errol Morris of a book titiled: The Ballad of Abu Ghraib in which he interviews the military members who served at Abu Grhraib but says at the end that no photos are in the book because they can be found elsewhere. To support his op-ed he says, "They are mistaken. Just as it was a public service to release the Abu Ghraib photographs five years ago, Mr. Obama is right today to say we don't need more of them.

The president claims that a new round of images of prisoner abuse flashing around the globe would enflame America's enemies and endanger our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. There's no doubt about it: the policies that the photographs depict have already done terrible damage to America's cause.

But there's another critical consideration. Releasing additional photographs would not be telling us anything that we don't already know. We don't need to see a picture to know that American interrogators used waterboarding — a crime our military has prosecuted as torture for more than a century — when we can see former Vice President Dick Cheney taking credit for having people waterboarded."

What Gourevitch, Morris, and Obama fail to comprehend is that we must show our military members and society at large what is unacceptable not by separating out a few bad apples as Bush called them. Obama has committed similar mistakes in saying that "what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals" when describing the torture. According to Edward Tick, the author of War and the Soul, we "must expose atrocities as soon as possible to curb troops from giving free rein to their primal impulses."… "Most offenders in these modern massacres (My Lai, No Gun Ri, Abu Ghraib) have been ordinary people, not sadists or psychopaths." They are simply a product of their situation, what Rober Jay Lifton calls an "atrocity-producing situation." "When fear, threat, violence, loss, proximity to death, moral confusion, alienation, disbelief, immersion in horror, power, and control over others, and sheer exhaustion coincide long enough - and when the enemy has been sufficiently dehumanized – we are in an atrocity-producing situation." This situation allows normal people, not bad apples, not a small number of individuals, our brothers and sisters in the military to descend into horrific action sometimes condoned by their superiors. By singling out supposed bad apples, the behavior is not properly condoned. To prevent future actions we must show what has been done and reinforce that this is unacceptable behavior from a bad situation that can be committed by any person who is thrust into such a situation. To prevent them from committing it we must open our soul to the brutality and commit to showing that it is unacceptable no matter how bad of a position someone may be placed in.

The same New York Times op-ed shows those committing and documenting their acts thought it to be wrong but were never told it was wrong. "What were the pictures for? "Just to show what was going on," Ms. Harman said. To say, "Look, I have proof, you can't deny it." Sometimes she and her fellow guards posed alongside their abused wards, but most of her photos from Abu Ghraib have a purely documentary quality — solitary prisoners, stripped and manacled in their cells, stretched over bed frames or forced to balance on a box. Cpl. Charles Graner, the M.P. in charge of the night shift on the intelligence block that fall, also took photographs. And Corporal Graner, too, spoke of his snapshots as a form of "proof." He showed the pictures to his superior officers, medics, lawyers.

Later, he told Army investigators how he had routinely beat up prisoners for interrogators, or kept them up all night, making them crawl naked back and forth across the floor. "Was all this stuff wrong?" he said. "Yeah." But his point was that it was no secret. He kept getting praised for his work."

In reading Tick's book it is clear that as a nation if we are to reconcile our conscience we must acknowledge wrongdoing and talk about it instead of hiding it and placing blame on individuals. By adding such a ridiculous earmark to the war funding bill, Sen. Lieberman and Graham are harming our nation. The request by the ACLU for the photos asks for the investigative files for the photos not just the photo itself deflating Gourevitch's argument that "Photographs cannot show us a chain of command, or Washington decision making. Photographs cannot tell stories. They can only provide evidence of stories, and evidence is mute; it demands investigation and interpretation." There is an old saying that the truth shall set us free. If we are truly a beacon of what the world should be we should release torture photos and work for peace and prosperity instead of just talking about it while doing the complete opposite.

There are many other reasons to oppose the 2009 War Supplemental, but including legislation banning the release of torture photos is important enough by itself to call for a vote against it.

Todd Dennis is a U.S. Submarine Service veteran, a board member of the Clarence Kailin Chapter of Veterans For Peace and the President of the Madison Chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War. He is currently an outreach staff member at the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice. He has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin and a B.S. in Physics from the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire.