a site you should visit

i happened to come across this photo and i googled the name lorin bannerman

i found this too: stacy bannerman

photo: Oregon National Guardsman and Iraq war veteran Lorin Bannerman, left, offers a carrot to Larry, a former testing animal, with wife Stacy at his side in the Oregon Animal Sanctuary at Double Oak Farm in the Applegate Valley outside Ruch, Ore., May 10, 2008. The sanctuary is seeking to involve traumatized veterans in its programs. Bannerman suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. (AP Photo/Drew E. Fleming)

a photograph - of joseph dwyer

and some memories are what is left of the (former) medic
he died an ugly death. our sons and daughters are dying ugly deaths. the fault lies with that rotten, oozing maggot infested administration of king george. we cannot allow our loved ones to continue to die in this manner and ways far worse (which the military does NOT readily admit to).

this is not a war we can win. this is a war we NEVER should have entered. let's save who we can right now. it's too late for some, but we CAN AND MUST preserve their memories

just because they're home DOES NOT MEAN THEY ARE SAFE

Soldier in famous photo never defeated 'demons'
Associated Press
By ALLEN G. BREED and KEVIN MAURER, Associated Press Writers

PINEHURST, N.C. - Officers had been to the white ranch house at 560 W. Longleaf many times before over the past year to respond to a "barricade situation." Each had ended uneventfully, with Joseph Dwyer coming out or telling police in a calm voice through the window that he was OK.

But this time was different.

The Iraq War veteran had called a taxi service to take him to the emergency room. But when the driver arrived, Dwyer shouted that he was too weak to get up and open the door.

The officers asked Dwyer for permission to kick it in.

"Go ahead!" he yelled.

They found Dwyer lying on his back, his clothes soiled with urine and feces. Scattered on the floor around him were dozens of spent cans of Dust-Off, a refrigerant-based aerosol normally used to clean electrical equipment.

Dwyer told police Lt. Mike Wilson he'd been "huffing" the aerosol.

"Help me, please!" the former Army medic begged Wilson. "I'm dying. Help me. I can't breathe."........

and from the photographer who took that picture

My photograph made Joseph Dwyer famous. Did it also help lead to his death?

Posted by Warren Zinn

Warren Zinn covered Afghanistan and Iraq as a photojournalist for the Army Times from January 2002 to December 2003. He is now a student at the University of Miami School of Law.
The e-mail was a punch in the gut: "the soldier you made famous -- killed himself last Saturday -- thought you should know."
I thought I'd put photojournalism and war behind me four and a half years ago when I traded in the dusty battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan for law school in Miami. But those words reminded me that you never truly leave the battlefield behind.
I knew at once what the message meant: Joseph Dwyer was dead. I drove home in a daze and walked into my apartment. And there was Joseph, on the wall, looking at me. ........

some more consequences of the war

this time they have names (and they are NOT just the veterans, THEY ARE THE FAMILIES)
Injury in Iraq was just start of troubles
By Barbara Barrett McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — When Army National Guard Lt. Michael McMichael returned to Franklinton, N.C., from Iraq in January 2005, it took a while for his wife to recognize the changes in him.
They came on slowly at first: A hotter temper. Migraines. Sore bones.
Then the problems grew. McMichael lost his job, exploded at home and walked out on his family. In the three years since his return from Iraq, McMichael has tumbled from being a skinny but content war veteran to a troubled husband and father who's unemployed, walking with a cane and suffering tremors and nightmares.
His wife, Jackie McMichael, has suffered, too. Even when she repeatedly tried to get help, calling doctors in tears, officials turned her away, citing confidentiality requirements about her husband's health, she said.
The isolation of military families has become a common story in Congress, where lawmakers still are trying to understand how they can help veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Laws and rules have been passed to get counseling to troops in war zones, to expand research into traumatic brain injury and to ease the bureaucratic transition from the Department of Defense to the Department of Veteran Affairs........

.........."My assessment is the VA doesn't see the human face behind the patients they're treating," ...............

a five part abc series

on drugs in the military

High at the Mountain Post (Part 1 of 5)

'when i came home'

"When I Came Home": The Best Film Yet About Iraq War Veterans
Through the story of Herold Noel, a homeless Iraq war veteran suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and living out of his car in Brooklyn, "When I Came Home" reveals a failing system and the veteran’s struggle to survive after returning from the war.
This post, written by Josh Bolotsky, originally appeared on Open Left
My situation is right now! Not five years from now, not two years from now, not next year, not next month, it's right now!
- Herold Noel, a homeless Iraq War veteran, roughly 5 minutes into When I Came Home
If No End In Sight is the best film yet to be produced on the effects of the Iraq War on the Iraqi people, then Dan Lohaus' When I Came Home is the best film yet to be produced on the US troops who fought that war. Not that there's much competition - the Iraq war is much like the Vietnam War, in that no matter how one views Hollywood's politics, it's hard to deny that there haven't been a lot of films about Iraq. Barring one or two documentaries, the films about the Middle East made in the last few years almost invariably limit themselves to other conflicts (e.g. the brilliant Syriana, the decidedly less brilliantThe Kingdom).........