diabetes Smr Lost In Fire!

[Swan]

Hello everyone. I need your expert advice once again. I have a friend from work that is very depressed and she was telling me why. She is married and has to care for her husband who is very ill as well as work ten hours a day to take care of the bills etc. As we were talking she kind of mentioned that he han't been right since he came back from Vietnam. All types of bells went off in my head!

Her husband served in the Army as a ranger/special forces type of guy. She said that he has a lot of flashbacks of the POWs they went and rescued. She says he has sleepless nights due to seeing a fellow soldier brains blown away etc. One of his problems is he is in denial. He feels the VA will not due anything for him. She had to get a close friend to persuade him to go to the VA to get his medicine because it was too expensive to pay out of pocket. He is on approxiamately 13 different medications. Here is a list of his ailments:

PTSD- Combative to Wife

Alcoholic

Severly Depressed

Denial - Feels the VA cannot and will not do anything for him

Quadruple Bypass 2 stints put in

Bloodflow complete blockage one side of head 80% other side

Pancreas Removed

Had Yellow Jaundice

High Blood Pressure

Diabetes

This person is 72 years old and his wife is 54. She is killing herself trying to care for him and work and maintain it all. Is their anything that can be done for him? Can he at least get hospice to help with his care?

I was going to try and help him out but I am not an expert at this so this is why I came to you guys.

I did have the wife request his SMRs an Personnel Records to see if he had any awards but they sent back saying his records were destroyed in the St. Louis fire. They sent a certificate that basically states that he served and put the dates, his rank upon separation and his type discharge.

Please Help!

Thanks a bunch!

Swan B)

[Guest terrysturgis]

Swan, I appreciate your efforts to help this family. I feel that the best way to help them is to give them the information about HADIT. If they don't help them selfs the claims are next to impossible to get completed.

My wife meet a lady at her work and somehow the conversation turned to her in country Viet Nam Veteran husband that has Diabetes so bad he has had part of his foot amputated. He called and I explained presumptive conditions and offered to take him to a SO. That was three months ago and he still has not done anything. The old addadage that you can take a Horse to water, etc.

I think Berta and others can help with the SMR question, Good Luck and THANKS! Terry Sturgis

[Testvet]

If he went thru ranger or SF courses the schools maintain rosters of the classes and who was in them and if they graduated training, he should be able to remember what unit he was in and get someone to get the daily reports from the unit in Nam, they are in storage, if he was on POW rrescues that stuff is notated somewhere, the only attempted POW rescue I know of was the raid at Son Tay and it was an empty POW camp. I am sure there were raids on small units that were moving POW's but they were usually notated in the unit records/ If he can't find his records try and find the units record from Nam, mo one ever forgets the unit they went to combat with.

[Guest Berta]

Swan- I commend you for trying to help this vet-he must have been an officer, he was 30-31 when the Vietnam war began.

You listed

"Alcoholic" as one of his problems.

If this veteran is not in an AA program and is an alcoholic- and coupled with his reluctance to go to the VA-for his PTSD-

in my opinion- there is absolutely nothing else you can do- you have helped already by hearing out the wife and I am sure she needed someone to talk to.

The wife should see if the local VAMC has a PTSD program for spouses of PTSD vets-

we have one here , a PTSD vet's wife started it and it has been a great help to other spouses.

This wife might even consider starting a program like this her self-

the local VA allows this group to use their community room once a month and they hacve a telephone exchange list.

The woman who started this program had some help from our PTSD shrink anfd the Chaplain and then simply put up posters around the county-

stating this is an anonymous reach out group for any spouse or significant other who is dealing with PTSD in their family and she put her phone number on the flyers as contact.

Did you see his DD 214 yourself? and the NARA letter?

Red flags are going up for me reading your post-

cant say why- just a feeling that all might not be as it appears-

The wife might also want to start attending Alanon-

The disease of alcohol, just like PTSD ,can be in my mind-contagious-

what I mean is a family member with these types of probelms can put the whole family into denial.

She certainly needs help and support-

and she sounds willing to get some-

Nothing will get this veteran closer to the help he needs- except the veteran himself.

my opinion-others will post here too---