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

New Post: on YouServed Military Blog and Podcast about our Workshops

http://www.vamortgagecenter.com/blog/

Vets4Vets: Impressions

By CJ
Posted in Life in the Military, Veteran Benefits

Antiochian Village is a beautiful little resort located in the hills about an hour and a half to the east of Pittsburgh, outside the quaint little towns of Bolivar and Fort Ligonier.

Day 2 began a little too quickly as I didn’t do well sleeping last night. Not only did I forget to pack undershirts for this trip, but I forgot….my medications (let the motherly finger pointing begin). It was a touch and go night full of intermittent sleep and cold sweats for some reason. Perhaps, talking about some of the things I brought up and listening to other stories brought back some subconscious things.

Then, at about 4am, I got a call from the EOC that one of our Soldiers had been arrested for trying to sneak a girl onto post in the trunk of his car. I don’t understand that. He could have just brought her in normally in the passenger or back seat of the car. But, since he wanted to be a bonehead, he got himself arrested for something stupid and ignorant and I got a call at the wee hours of the morning.

I decided to try to sleep and skipped breakfast. Not a good idea since I was the only one that didn’t show up from the group. The rest of the group was worried about me and one of the participants that I’ve connected with stopped by to make sure I was okay. The fact is that I rarely eat breakfast even when I don’t have trouble sleeping.

The weekend was a resounding success in my mind. The retreat took place at a completely neutral location away from the hustle and bustle of normal life and allowed us to focus on each other. The building was located in the hills of a heavily wooded area and miles from the nearest highway. It included a small koi pond with some of the largest fish I’ve seen. There were also four geese that make the most serene noise. I enjoyed just walking down, sitting on the bench or leaning on the fence, and watching the fish slowly swim around while the geese scavenged for food in the well-manicured grass.

Vets4Vets is a way to get vets from all backgrounds together to discuss their experiences and help one another understand and cope with them. Through timed discussions, we were able to have equal time to discuss without worrying about any one person monopolizing the weekend. I was a little leery at first, but ended up liking the timed sessions. For one, it forced us to get to the point of what is bothering us without rambling and it ensured that everyone had equal time to speak (and listen).

At times, we broke into small groups for short and long timed opportunities to listen intently and personally to one another. The V4V staff provided coping strategies and counsel made sense at least to me. I had an opportunity to share some intimate combat experiences with other people who understand. For the first time, I was able to talk about some of the issues that I could never talk about before without just breaking into uncontrollable sobbing. While still difficult, I’m finding that talking about these experiences is truly helping me to cope with them.

The biggest take away from the event was camaraderie and being a set of ears for someone. I made some great friends, some great connections, and got away from it all for a few days. I’m going back to work recharged and ready to take care of troops.

I highly recommend that suffering veterans look into Vets4Vets.us and check out a workshop near you. They are generally held over the weekend, so minimal time away from the office is needed. I would also ask that if you are able, please donate to this organization or ask your business to sponsor a workshop. Each one costs about $30,000 and they are always looking for sponsors to bring veterans together to heal and cope. This is my plea and not an official request. Nor was I asked to make it.

I would also like to take a quick opportunity to thank Air Compassion for flying some of us out for free. We were treated better than we deserve and the opportunity to attend this workshop without having to worry about paying for a flight made the event that much more stress free. American Airlines. The staff and flight crew were top notch and uber-professional. If given the opportunity in the future, I will indeed consider American before any other airline. They even allow active duty military (in uniform or not) to board the plane with 1st Class Passengers.

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.

Vets4Vets helps soldiers adjust to civilian life

Mike Sakal, January 9, 2009
Tribune – original article

After returning home from service in Iraq for seven months, Matt Randle said he felt like a foreigner in a foreign land.

As a medic with the U.S. Army’s 507th Maintenance Co. in 2003 in Iraq, Randle witnessed the unthinkable: fellow servicemen who had just been killed as he drove along roads headed into combat and arriving into small towns with 14 other soldiers, all of whom were expected to take it over and take the lives of the enemy.

In the months that followed in his return home, Randle said he was hypervigilant about his safety. He slept with a gun beside his bed, awoke every hour to check if the front door was locked and said he still has nightmares of the things he saw in Iraq.

“If you don’t have a way to start talking about things like that, it’ll eat you alive,” Randle, 27, said.

Randle and Sgt. Abel Moreno, both of whom have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, will be among 36 other veterans who served in either Afghanistan or Iraq attending a leadership conference this weekend at the Fiesta Resort Conference Center in Tempe for Vets4Vets.

Vets4Vets is a national nonprofit organization based in Tucson and has a mission of reaching out to peers who are readjusting to civilian life after spending long periods of time in combat and away from their families.

Randle is the outreach director for Vets4Vets, and Moreno serves as its development coordinator.

By traveling around the country and helping to form outreach peer groups, Vets4Vets provides a service for veterans from the same generation who share a common bond: a way to unload their emotions and come to terms that they no longer are living the life of a soldier.

“Our generation of veterans provide a network of support where people understand their experiences,” said Moreno, who grew up in Chandler.

After Moreno returned home from serving in the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan and Iraq from 2002 to 2004, he also had experiences similar to Randle’s.

“My biggest adjustment was coming back and providing for my family and figuring out what I was going to do,” said Moreno, who has a wife and three children. “When I was in the service, I was in charge of other men. When I was out of the service, I worked different jobs and had to get used to not doing the same things I did in the service.”

The number of veterans who have served in Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 or in Iraq since early 2003, now stands at 1.8 million, according to statistics from the Veterans Administration in Washington.

“Who understands the experiences of a veteran better than veterans themselves?” Randle said. “These conflicts have been going on for a while, and it gets to be trying.”