Master Sergeant: Research and Do Not Give Up on Getting Help for Invisible Wounds

Master Sergeant Aaron Tippett’s wife, a soldier herself, told her husband he needed help as he ex exhibiting the classic symptoms of PTSD – agitation, sleep issues, anger, outbursts, headaches.

He tried in 2005 but didn’t get the help he needed.

In 2008, after another deployment with cumulative effects, he did get the help he needed. Now he is taking part in the Real Warriors’ campaign of encouraging service members to get help for “invisible wounds.”

In a DoD’s Bloggers Roundtable discussion, when I asked about advice the master sergeant would give others, he said:

“Research and do not give up. I gave up [the first time]. But why give up when you don’t give up in other things? It is only going to get worse.”

The master sergeant also said, “Getting help is stronger than not getting help. It is a much stronger thing to do to reach out.”

And he added that there are service members and veterans who know him and have heard that he got help who have now gotten help themselves.

Also taking part in the roundtable was Nancy St. Claire, Chief Operating Officer of Real Warriors’ campaign partner Give an Hour, an organization founded by Barbara Van Dahlen, Ph.D.

Thanks to Give an Hour, psych professionals donate their time to service members and their loved ones in total anonymity with no records kept. At this point there are 7,000 clinicians donating their time, and a conservative estimate is of 110,000 hours of free counseling service already provided.

At www.giveanhour.org you can search for providers near you, and if you cannot find one, email info@giveanhour.org for help.

For the stories of other service members who have gotten help for invisible wounds, go to www.realwarriors.net

And if you are exhibiting signs of PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury, do get help. As Master Sergeant Tippett said, he is telling his story to help break the stigma about getting help.

P.S. For more info about PTSD see my site www.SolomonsJustice.com

Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of the 2008 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award semifinalist MRS. LIEUTENANT and the co-author of the Navy thriller LT. COMMANDER MOLLIE SANDERS. Read her book-related posts at www.PhyllisZimblerMiller.com

Starting October 1 in Connecticut Patients Will Be Asked Veteran Status

Finally, something that makes so much sense in order to give veterans better medical care that, once heard, it is obvious that all medical facilities need to do this.

The June 19, 2014, article by Peggy McCarthy in The Courant titled "To Improve Patient Care, CT Hospitals Will Ask: Are You a Veteran?" begins:

Connecticut hospitals will be required to ask all patients if they are veterans, under a new state law that takes effect Oct. 1.

The law is part of a nationwide effort conceived by the State Veterans Affairs Commissioner Linda Schwartz to make private health providers aware that they are treating veterans, since most veterans don't go to federal Veterans Health Administration facilities. The goal is to improve veterans' diagnoses and health care because military experiences are linked to certain illnesses, she said.

Schwartz said veterans don't always know about health risks connected to their military service and that health providers need to become educated about them.

The article also states:

In addition to the state law, Schwartz convinced the American Academy of Nursing to undertake a national awareness campaign informing health providers of illnesses connected to military service. Called "Have You Ever Served," nurses are distributing pocket cards and posters to doctors and hospitals where they work. They provide detailed information about physical and mental illnesses linked to eras and locations of military service, suggested questions to ask patients, and resources for veterans.

Let's hope this question becomes routine at medical facilities across the U.S. and that, if the answer is yes, the medical staff takes this into consideration.

Read the entire article now.


Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of the 2008 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award semifinalist MRS. LIEUTENANT and the co-author of the Navy thriller 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 book-related posts at www.PhyllisZimblerMiller.com

In Honor of the Anniversary of D-Day: Excerpt From Cold War Memoir

Chapter 27 of my Cold War memoir TALES OF AN AMERICAN OCCUPYING GERMANY begins with a visit to the D-Day beaches of Normandy in April 1972:

Mitch and I stood at the site of the Allied D-Day invasion during World War II — the audacious landing in Normandy that began on June 6, 1944, and eventually led to the end of the war.

We were the only ones here on this windswept French landscape, the five landing beaches spread below us as Mitch explained the invasion to me.

When we reached Pointe du Hoc, a 100-foot cliff with Nazi concrete gun batteries still visible at the top, I gasped.

“To get off the landing boats and face this cliff, they had to know they would die,” I said.

Mitch nodded. “Tremendous casualties here.”

Then he added, “By the time my father landed in France, Normandy was already secured.”

The enormity of this military operation was almost too much to imagine, especially as the surrounding landscape was now so barren.

Equally disquieting was the thought that the success of the invasion did not immediately end the war. The Allied forces had to fight the Nazis for 11 more months after D-Day.

And the ultimate victory was not soon enough to save Anne Frank, whose hiding place in a secret annex Mitch and I had just visited in Amsterdam.

Betrayed by an informer, Anne and the others had been arrested two months after the D-Day invasion, on August 4, 1944. Then Anne died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945, weeks before the British liberated the camp and two months before the Nazi surrender.

Mitch and I turned away from the desolate landscape.

Click here to read the entire Cold War memoir for free on Wattpad now.


Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of the 2008 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award semifinalist MRS. LIEUTENANT and the co-author of the Navy thriller 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 book-related posts at www.PhyllisZimblerMiller.com