Acupuncture Used in Afghanistan to Treat Brain Injuries

The April 23-24 Wall Street Journal carried the story "Can Needles Soothe Wounded Warriors?" by Michael M. Phillips.

The article begins:

Marine Lance Cpl. Tristan Bell was injured in a jarring explosion that tore apart his armored vehicle, slammed a heavy radio into the back of his head and left him tortured by dizziness, insomnia, headaches and nightmares.

He is recovering on a padded table at Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan, beneath strings of soft, white Christmas lights, with the dulcet notes of "Tao of Healing" playing on an iPod and a forest of acupuncture needles sprouting from his head, ear, hands and feet.

In a bit of battlefield improvisation, the Navy is experimenting with acupuncture and soothing atmospherics to treat Marines suffering from mild cases of traumatic brain injury, commonly called concussions — the most prevalent wound of the Afghan war.

The article reports some amazing results, and all because in 2008 the Navy put a few doctors through a 300-hour acupuncture course.

One of these doctors, Cmdr. Keith Stuessi, arrived at Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan, planning to use these skills for sprained ankles and sore backs. He then came across an article about using acupuncture to treat PTSD and realized that many of the PTSD symptoms were similar to those of mild traumatic brain injury.

Read the rest of the article to learn about the specific amazing results.

Also read the Mrs. Lieutenant post "Important News for Treating Traumatic Brain Injury."
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Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of the novel MRS. LIEUTENANT and her social media marketing company Miller Mosaic Power Marketing works with clients to use social media to attract more business. Read her social media marketing blog.

Afghani Interpreter Thanks Army Personnel for Fighting for His Country

Here is a guest post that I am very pleased to have on my blog:

Hi, my name is Shah Wali Fazli. I have written a book called "The Interpreter" which will be published in June/July this year. (See his website www.shahsight.com and his blog http://shahsight.blogspot.com/)

It is a fiction based on my experiences as an interpreter working in the U.K. and Germany to help NATO forces in Helmand, Afghanistan.

We tend to know soldiers if we are a member of their family or a friend or a soldier ourselves or we work with them.

I know soldiers from working with them.

Now I know why their families are proud of them because I am proud of myself for working with them.

I joined them to help free my country. I didn't particularly feel anything for them at that time. They were doing what I needed them to do.

Then, as I saw the hell they chose to go through to help my people, I grew to understand them and to care for them. Now I consider them as being part of my own family.

You, their countrymen, love them because they fight for your country. I love them because they are fighting for my country, Afghanistan.

I was filled with love for them to see how much they cared about the women and the children of Afghanistan. I was thrilled to see how much they wanted to avoid offending my people.

I was sure they would be careful not to harm us in Afghanistan if they could possibly avoid it. I had their full attention when I advised them on how they should behave in my country.

At that moment I realized that there is no job more fulfilling and more prestigious than being a soldier or than being among these soldiers.

I am proud to say I work for the army not because they carry guns and fire them, but because they care for our children, for our women and for our men, and because they fight the enemy of our humanity, the Taliban.

I am sure you have seen the Taliban execute couples merely for being in love. I am sure you have seen the Taliban beating women on the street. I am sure you have seen the footage on TV.

I have seen it with my naked eyes.

I know what these soldiers deserve to be called. They deserve to be called "heroes."

I know why they should be looked at as the saviors of humanity in my country. They are fighting one of the worst people on earth in the most difficult terrain -- in the mountains of Afghanistan.

From the bottom of my heart I am grateful to these soldiers, to your spouses, to your relations, to your friends who are fighting for us.

And I am grateful to you for your own courage and untiring support in allowing them to free my country.

Spirit of America Helps Create Friendship Between Afghanistan and U.S.

On the May 13th BlogTalkRadio show YourMilitaryLife.com that I co-host with Nancy Brown of YourMilitary.com we spoke for a second time with Dennis Norris, the executive director of the five-year-old nonprofit Spirt of America.

Dennis has just returned from his first trip to Afghanistan to get a firsthand look at how the medical and other non-weapon supplies furnished by Spirit of America are being used.

The interview was reassuring that the U.S. can befriend the Afghan people when the right resources are implemented.

Listen to the replay of the show now to hear Dennis' firsthand report.

Then visit the Spirit of America website to learn how you can help this vital mission.
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Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of MRS. LIEUTENANT: A SHARON GOLD NOVEL and the co-author of the Jewish holiday book SEASONS FOR CELEBRATION. She also blogs at LA Internet Business Examiner, Operation Support Jews in the Military, and Fiction Marketing, and she is the co-host of the BlogTalkRadio show Your Military Life. Her company Miller Mosaic LLC builds call-to-action websites for book authors and small businesses.

Afghan Warlords Are Partnering with U.S. Military

"U.S. Courts Former Warlords in Its Bid for Afghan Stability" was a March 20th front-page Wall Street Journal article by Matthew Rosenberg. I read this story with interest and then later reflected on it when I watched the documentary BROTHERS AT WAR directed by Jake Rademacher.

I've read that the Iraqis are not great fighters (clearly demonstrated in BROTHERS AT WAR) and that the Afghans are great fighters (they've been fighting for centuries). And reading this Wall Street Journal article in conjunction with seeing the documentary BROTHERS AT WAR makes it quite clear how different the two countries are. And this, of course, means that different military/political strategies are required for different cultures and situations.

Read the article now about the Afghan warlords and form your own opinions.
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Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of MRS. LIEUTENANT: A SHARON GOLD NOVEL and the co-author of the Jewish holiday book SEASONS FOR CELEBRATION. She also blogs at PZ the Do-Gooder Scrooge and Operation Support Jews in the Military, and she is the co-host of the BlogTalkRadio show Your Military Life. Her company Miller Mosaic LLC builds call-to-action websites for book authors and small businesses.

“Ban on Sex for Soldiers in Afghanistan Lifted…Sort Of”

This was the subject line in the email from www.military.com that greeted me this morning when I awoke. As busy as I am, I had to read the article reprinted from the May 15^th Stars and Stripes and reported by Drew Brown. Here are the first paragraphs of that story:

JALALABAD, Afghanistan -- Single soldiers and civilians working for the U.S. military in Afghanistan can now have sex legally. Sort of.

A new order signed by Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, commander of Combined Joint Task Force-101, has lifted a ban on sexual relations between unmarried men and women in the combat zone.

General Order No. 1 outlines a number of prohibited activities and standards of conduct for U.S. troops and civilians working for the military in Afghanistan. Previously, under the regulation, sexual relations and "intimate behavior" between men and women not married to each other were a strict no-no. The regulation also barred members of the opposite sex from going into each other’s living quarters unless they were married to each other.

But the latest version of General Order No. 1 for Afghanistan, which Schloesser signed April 19, eases those restrictions.

The new regulation warns that sex in a combat zone "can have an adverse impact on unit cohesion, morale, good order and discipline."

But sexual relations and physical intimacy between men and women not married to each other are no longer banned outright. They’re only "highly discouraged," and that’s as long as they’re "not otherwise prohibited" by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, according to the new order.

I’m not sure what I think of this new order for U.S soldiers in Afghanistan partly because, for me, the idea of sex in a combat zone is connected to U.S. troops in Vietnam: In my book MRS. LIEUTENANT: A SHARON GOLD NOVEL that takes place in 1970, Sharon worries about her husband Robert sleeping with Vietnamese women after she’s run into a high school classmate of hers at the Officers Club who is just back from Vietnam:

“She wonders whether Mark had a lot of experience dancing quite close to those Vietnamese women she's heard about, their thick black hair hanging straight down their backs, their native costumes – Sharon isn't quite sure what these look like so she pictures the revealing garment worn by the young lieutenant's Polynesian girlfriend in the film version of "South Pacific" – leaving bare shoulders exposed and no undergarments underneath.

“Will Robert be dancing with those sexy Vietnamese women soon?”

Does anyone reading this blog have an opinion about the new Afghanistan “sex” order? If so, I hope you’ll share your opinion in the comments below.