Return to Civilian LIfe Helped by Open Mindset

My guest post at Military Success Network begins this way:

My mother saved the letters from September 1970 to May 1972 that I wrote home when my husband Mitch and I were stationed in Munich, Germany, with the U.S. Army. (We met at Michigan State University as undergrads where he was in R.O.T.C.)

When reading those letters, I am surprised by how much worrying I did about what would happen after Mitch served his active duty commitment. My fears centered on how we would be behind our friends who had not put their lives on hold – who had not left good jobs to serve and now needed to start back at square one.

While my worries are from many years ago, the same concerns exist today with military personnel and their families returning to civilian life.

The more I think about this transition, the more I realize a core value of military service may be hindering successful transition.

Read the rest of this guest post now.
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Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of the novel MRS. LIEUTENANT and the co-author of the eBook technothriller LT. COMMANDER MOLLIE SANDERS. Phyllis is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company Miller Mosaic LLC, which works with clients to attract more business. Read her posts at the company's social media marketing blog.

Surviving Trauma: PTSD and “Battling Bare”

My novel MRS. LIEUTENANT deals with the fears in 1970 that newly married wives at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, had of their husbands being killed in Vietnam.

I know those fears because I personally had those in 1970.

What I realize now, so many years later, is that, had my husband gone to Vietnam and survived, he would have come home a changed man.

Today this aftereffect of trauma is called PTSD – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – and it can be triggered many years after a trauma event (not necessarily combat trauma) and can severely impact the life of the PTSD sufferer as well as his or her family and friends.

For the past four years I have done volunteer work online to help spread information about PTSD. And some of you already know about my newest project to focus attention on PTSD – the proposed TV drama Solomon’s Justice. (Click here to read this proposal.)

Battling Bare:

The news article “Military Wives Strip Down to Raise Awareness About PTSD: Battling Bare” by Sarah B. Weir in Shine (from Yahoo!) is a poignant story of one military wife trying to get help for her husband.

As I have explained to non-military people, while the military says it wants to help active-duty military personnel who suffer from PTSD, there is a huge risk of reaching out for help, as Ashley Wise found out when she contacted the Family Advocacy Service at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

In desperation, she had a friend use eyeliner to write on her bare back the following:

Broken by battle,
Wounded by war,
I love you forever,
To you this I swore:
I will quiet your silent screams,
Help heal your shattered soul
Until once again, my love, you are whole.

Wise posted a picture of her bare back on Facebook(“like” the Page at https://www.facebook.com/BattlingBare) and started the organization Battling Bare – “until every soldier is whole.”

Read Wise's compelling story now.

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Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of the novel MRS. LIEUTENANT and the thriller CIA FALL GUY as well as the co-author of the technothriller LT. COMMANDER MOLLIE SANDERS. Phyllis is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company Miller Mosaic LLC, which works with clients to attract more business. Read her posts at the company's social media marketing blog.