A Village For Christmas

Army Spec. Richard New broke his leg in three places during basic training. After six months of therapy, he was back to running and ready to move on with his military career. He thought he had the worst of the injury behind him. He was wrong. Just a few months later, during hand-to-hand combat training, [...]

Read Full Post »

Facing Fears

Alfredo De los santos is afraid. The Army staff sergeant survived an RPG attack on his humvee in Iraq two years ago. His right leg was amputated at the hip, and he’s still struggling to get the right fit on his prosthetic. He has severe PTSD and TBI. That means nightmares, crippling headaches, fear of [...]

Read Full Post »

Not Really Gone from Iraq

The big story last week was the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. The Today Show ran a lengthy package entitled “American Forces Withdraw from Iraq” — misleading if not outright inaccurate. Folks took exception to that vein of reporting on our Facebook page. In reality, our troops are not gone from Iraq. The New York [...]

Read Full Post »

PTSD in GA — the abbreviated version

Thanks to chats and texts, abbreviations now abound in our common speech. This is nothing new for members of the military community; they speak their own subset of English that raises ? from most of the outside world. But a couple of  military-related truncations are now part of the popular consciousness, thanks to the wars [...]

Read Full Post »

The Courage to Get Help

We say it over and over and over in so many ways to as many people was we can: If you’re struggling with mental health issues, get help. May is Mental Health Month. I consider destigmatizing mental health support a critical mission of Operation Homefront and every other organization that’s here to help our military [...]

Read Full Post »