New York Workshop, August 10-12, 2012

Vets4Vets will be hosting a FREE peer support workshop at Christ the King Spiritual Life Center, Greenwich, NY, August 10-12, 2012. This workshop is open to all OEF/OIF veterans  in the New York area. (If you are not an OEF/OIF veteran, however a veteran, and would like to attend this workshop, please call our office at 520-393-8302 to check availability).

All you need to do is fill out the Vets4Vets Workshop Registration Form and email it to Info@Vets4Vets.us.

Unfortunately some websites are unable to download our Registration forms. Please email info@vets4vets.us if you are having trouble downloading our forms and we will email the forms to you.

REGISTRATION FORMS MUST BE RECEIVED BY  July 26, 2012 !  Available seats will fill up quickly so get your forms in ASAP.

Once your form has been received, we will be in contact with you regarding the workshop details.

Again, the workshops are COMPLETELY FREE, which means your  lodging, food and activities are paid for. We want all returning veterans to be able to make positive connections with one another without worrying about the cost.

If you have never attended a Vets4Vets workshop before and would like more information before registering, please browse our website or email us at info@vets4vets.us You can also post a question below.

Thanks, and we look forward to meeting you! Thank you for your service!

Vets4Vets Staff

Newman’s Own Award winners honored

By Karen Jowers – Staff writer
Posted : Friday Sep 11, 2009 15:33:12 EDT

Groups helping wounded troops in a variety of ways — sewing adaptive clothing, providing trained service dogs, connecting them with donors, establishing peer support groups, building new homes — are at the forefront of this year’s winners of the Newman’s Own Awards.

Eleven organizations received a total of $75,000 in grants, ranging from $5,000 to $15,000 apiece, for their efforts to improve the quality of life for the military community.

USA Together, a Web site that links wounded service members with donors, was the overall winner, receiving a $15,000 grant and a bust of Paul Newman, provided by Newman’s Own, which sponsored the competition, along with the Fisher House Foundation and the Military Times Media Group, which publishes Army Times, Air Force Times, Navy Times and Marine Corps Times.

Newman’s Own makes sauces, salsas, dressings and other foods, many of which are sold in commissaries. Founded by the late actor Paul Newman more than 26 years ago, the company has given all its profits — about $270 million to date — to charities, including military charities.

“My overwhelming message is to say thanks to all of you for doing this and for meeting the needs,” said Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, speaking to the charities during the awards ceremony Sept. 10.

Including this year’s winners, the annual competition has recognized 125 programs that improve the quality of life for the military community, with awards totaling nearly $600,000 since the competition began in 2000.

“As Paul Newman said, we’re the perfect recyclers — we take the money and then we would give it right back,” said Tom Indoe, president of Newman’s Own.

The actor, who died almost a year ago, “always loved reading about the organizations who were getting this award,” he said.

USA Together’s founder, Dave Mahler, said he plans to use the $15,000 to create a program working with other veterans service organizations to allow more help to flow to veterans with unmet needs.

Since USA Together became fully operational in December, donors have helped about 150 families through the site. Needs vary from help with child care costs or purchasing new tires, to help making a mortgage payment or buying a mattress.

“The requests are shockingly mundane,” Mahler said.

“This is the most polite, grateful, thankful group of people I’ve ever worked with,” Mahler said. “These service members are a joy to work with. They thank you for answering the phone.”

During the ceremony, Mahler said his initial idea was “let’s just put the list on the Internet and people will step up.”

Although getting the idea up and running was harder than one would think, he said, “Americans have proved they would step up and meet these needs.”

On any given day, you won’t see a lot of requests for help on the USA Together Web site, Mahler said; there are so many donors out there ready to help injured and wounded service members, and their families and Gold Star families, that requests are fulfilled quickly.

Whether they received $5,000 or $15,000, the winning programs plan to put their money to good use.

Operation Patriot’s Call, operated by AMVETS Post 12 and local citizens and businesses in Winder, Ga., will use its $5,000 to continue helping National Guard families of the 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment, currently deployed to Afghanistan.

“Our families are all over the state,” said Heather Oliver, a family readiness group leader whose husband is deployed. Operation Patriot’s Call “is helping people keep the lights on by paying their electric bills, rolling up their sleeves and going to people’s homes” to help out with repairs and replacing appliances, and engaging the community to help with things like car repair and after-school care.

“We’re indebted to Patriot’s Call for their help. They began prior to the deployment and will continue after the deployment, which is a testament to their commitment,” Oliver said.

Other groups that received awards:

$10,000

• Vets4Vets, a national peer support community of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans helping each other heal from psychological injuries of war, will organize two weekend workshops and form two ongoing peer support groups for Marines, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, and their spouses in the San Diego and Camp Pendleton, Calif., areas.

$7,500

• Homes for Wounded Heroes, an effort of the Bay Area Builders’ Association Support Our Troops, Inc., in League City, Texas, builds new homes for families of troops severely wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq. Their fifth new home is being presented soon, completely free, with taxes and insurance paid for two years.
• Three Step Transformation, Operation Life Transformed, Woodbridge, Va., will provide training to 57 members of the military community, including active duty, Guard and Reserve spouses, veterans, widows and widowers, and caregivers of wounded soldiers. This training leads directly to job opportunities in high-demand fields.

$5,000

• Beck PRIDE Center for America’s Wounded Veterans, at Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, Ark., which supports the reintegration and preparation of combat-wounded service members into new careers, providing educational opportunities, extensive learning assistance, and physical and mental health rehabilitation, within a university environment.
• Carolina Canines for Veterans, Carolina Canines for service, Wilmington, N.C., provides trained service dogs for wounded veterans. Dogs are rescued from shelters, trained by military prisoners, and given to wounded veterans.
• Camp C.O.P.E., Dallas, Texas, provides small group counseling specifically designed for the children of deployed or injured service members, designed to help them cope with the effects of war and deployments and their own sacrifices.
• Support Our Wounded Heroes, Family & Friends for Freedom Fund, Inc., Pompton Plains, N.J., has helped more than 170 families of the wounded with grants of more than $400,000 to help ease their financial hardship.
• Expanding the Comfort, Sew Much Comfort, Burnsville, Minn., provides free adaptive clothing to wounded service members. Some injuries require large fixators, prosthetics and casts that are too bulky to fit under ordinary clothing and underwear. Sew Much Comfort has produced and delivered more than 75,000 pieces of adaptive clothing to the wounded since the effort began in December 2004. Without these items, the only option is a hospital gown.
• Camp STRIDE Wounded Warrior Fall Family Retreat, STRIDE Adaptive Sports, Rensselaer, N.Y., is hosted in the Adirondacks with three days of kayaking, whitewater rafting, hiking, campfire cooking and tent camping — connecting wounded warriors with children in the community who have similar challenges.

Back on Campus

I wanted to take a moment and blog about something that I am dealing with on a daily basis. I am a full time college student at the University of Arizona as well as the Outreach Director here at Vets4Vets. As I walk around campus on my way to class I am always struck by extreme contrast I feel between myself and every other student that goes walking, biking or skating by me. I see the innocent and unknowing look of youth and inexperience on them. When I sit in my classes and we are encouraged to speak up I hear the book knowledge that I am trying to acquire coming from them and I hesitate to add my worldly knowledge to the conversation. It can be such an overwhelming mix of feelings, some days it is anger at their lack of real knowledge, others it is sadness for my lost college experience. I am fortunate to have been involved in a number of peer support groups over the past year with many veterans going through the same or similar situations. The thing that has been most helpful to me while I trudge through the rigors of college is the presence and encouragement of other veterans. I have meet many other vets though the Student Veterans of America, the U of A Student Vets club and Vets4Vets workshops. It turns out that most if not all fo us have struggled to acclimatize to civilain life, especially at educational institutions. I am often reminded that the majority of society doesn’t have a clue about the sacrifices the men and women in uniform make everyday. I am also reminded that other men and women who served understand exactly how I feel most days and are feeling that way too. I hope that if you are a veteran reading this and are having difficulties readjusting or finding your way that you would seek out other veterans at the VA, the Vet Centers, student veteran groups through SVA, the National Veterans Foundation, US Vets or one of the many Vets4Vets support groups (either local or national workshops). College is tough for anyone to get through without support, but for a veteran who is not just changing lifestyles but changing cultures, languages and careers this challange can feel insurmountable. It doesn’t have to be this way, find a support system that encourages your growth and potential and you will find success.

Doc Randle – OUT

New York Times: Veterans, Alone Together, Share Stories They Can’t Tell You

By LAWRENCE DOWNES
The war on terror, which has now lasted longer than World War II, is producing a growing family of combat veterans. It’s a disconnected family, large and far-flung, but close in ways that battle-tested soldiers always are.

I saw that for myself the other day in Stony Point, N.Y., at a church conference center as tranquil and green as Iraq and Afghanistan are not. It was a weekend workshop run by Vets 4 Vets, a Tucson nonprofit that is setting up peer support groups around the country for a new generation of veterans.

Most of those attending — two dozen men and two women — had never met, but they immediately opened up to one another, sharing war stories that some said they had never told anyone. These were not disabled vets — not visibly, anyway. But after two days, listening from a chair outside their circle, it was clear this was a wounded group.

Michael Rudulph: “A lot of times my anger, my frustration, feels totally, 100 percent justified. But in the back of my head I know that’s messed up.”

Kevin Cajas: “We were exposed to trauma so much we became addicted to it. We became trauma junkies. It doesn’t go away, so you’ve just got to learn how to manage it. I liked it; I’m not going to lie.”

Everyone had a transition story. Shifting from “hunter-killer mode” to husband-student mode is so sudden, it’s insane. One day you’re in Baghdad, the next you’re in Atlanta, passing rows of cheering civilians at Hartsfield airport. Then you get on with your life. The price is steep, in sleepless nights, troubled consciences and buried anger.

People have no idea, the veterans said. Ryan Knudson, from Phoenix, told me what a lifeguard at a pool had asked him: “Is it, like, all warry over there?”

Yes it is. Do you want to hear about it? No, said Mr. Knudson, you probably don’t.

Mr. Cajas: “We were the go-to platoon. When you’re on the go, you’re in a manic rage of violence, nonstop. My body’s just accustomed to that. I picked up my friends’ body parts. My roommate got his face blown off.”

Mr. Cajas was in a quick-reaction force, the guys who knock down doors. “We did a good job,” he said. “The irony of service is, we did a good job, and came back different. This is what it does to humans. The analogy we used was prison. We were locked in the base, and every time we were released, we had to go kill people. We acted like animals because that’s what we were.”

It was hard to watch them beat up on themselves, although their intense expressions of guilt seemed like signs of intact souls. One veteran told me he was haunted by the realization that any trauma he suffered was multiplied a hundredfold for the Iraqis he shot at.

Some gave me tips to pass on to the civilian world: Don’t ask The Question (Did you kill anybody?). “Support the Troops” magnets mean nothing to them. And military culture is not big on touching: the main things civilians want to do to soldiers — hug them and get them drunk — are generally not welcome.

Vets 4 Vets has only a few hundred members in about a dozen cities. Its founder, Jim Driscoll, has roots in the antiwar movement, but insists that this group is apolitical. Nor does it make therapeutic claims; nobody who runs its workshops is a qualified therapist.

Is there a place in the age of antidepressants for Vietnam-style rap sessions? It seems so. Tens of thousands of soldiers are coming back next year. The Department of Veterans Affairs has ramped up outreach at its hospitals and Vet Centers, but demand is great. Military officials always complain about how hard it is to get soldiers to talk about their problems. A lot of veterans say professional help feels useless. Some of those at Stony Point were adamant that medication checks and group therapy every few months didn’t add up to much.

Kevin Cottrell, a former medic, said that at his group sessions, he sat between an old Vietnam guy and a sailor who had been in Bahrain, and had nothing to say to either of them. But after last weekend, he said, he wanted to start a Vets 4 Vets chapter in his area.

The veterans broke into small groups, for the workshop’s most wrenching part. At a picnic table under a tree, Mr. Cottrell shared worst-moment stories with Michael Gillespie, Stephen Wade and a workshop leader, Abel Moreno. He told about trying frantically to save a soldier whose truck had been blown up, who had lost parts of both legs, and died in the hospital.

Mr. Wade then told of phoning his wife, who put her new boyfriend on the line. She called him a bad husband for going to Iraq. He is praying a judge grants him custody of his little girl.

Mr. Wade fell silent, distraught. Mr. Moreno said the next step was usually a hug. They began an awkward, 45-degree guy hug, patting each other’s backs. Mr. Gillespie joined them, and then Mr. Cottrell, a big guy, enveloped them all. They stood still for an unbearable moment, holding one another up.