Help Veterans Heal From Wartime Wounds

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Even decades after war, veterans can suffer the extreme mental and physical consequences. Agent Orange was a warfare herbicidal weapon the US government used during Vietnam in order to kill vegetation and force guerrillas out of hiding. But the chemical has had other detrimental effects — it’s killed humans, caused birth defects, and continues to cause health problems for those who were exposed to it.

It has been the source of cancer, heart disease, and other conditions for many veterans; yet proposed legislation aims to block their insurance coverage. Chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Patty Murray told President Obama, “Vietnam veterans have paid enough for that war. They should not end up paying for our debt.”

Amen to that! Please help, if you can!

Marine Organ Donor Family and Recipient Aim To Meet

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Sgt. Jacob Chadwick, 23, left, received a lifesaving kidney from Lt. Patrick Wayland, 24, right, who died after going into cardiac arrest on Aug. 1, 2011. (ABC News)

“On Aug. 7, Sgt. Jacob Chadwick, 23, of San Marcos, Calif., underwent a four-and-a-half hour kidney transplant at UC San Diego Medical Center that saved his life. His kidney donor was a fellow marine, 24-year-old Lt. Patrick Wayland from Midland, Texas, who went into cardiac arrest on Aug. 1 at Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida.

“Now, both the Wayland and the Chadwick families have told ABCNews.com that they would like to meet, when the Waylands have moved pass the aftershocks of grief and Chadwick has healed from his surgery…”

Sgt. Jacob Chadwick

“Currently, nearly 90,000 Americans are on a waiting list for a kidney transplant, according to data from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. In 2010, there were 16,898 kidney donations in the U.S.

“As of December 2010, 36 U.S. service members had donated 141 organs to gravely ill patients in the previous five years, according to an article in the military publication “Stars and Stripes.”

“Since then, Chadwick endured dialysis treatments for three and a half hours each day for rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis, a condition that caused his immune system to attack his kidneys, slowly scarring them beyond repair.”

On Aug. 5, Lt. Jeffrey Moore, a Navy flight surgeon at the Naval Aviation School’s command, acted as a witness when Carole Wayland signed her son’s organ donor forms at the Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola. Lt. Moore said that Wayland expressed in passing that she would like one of her son’s organs to be donated to a fellow Marine.

He said, “That’s kind of a mantra of the Marine Corps: taking care of your own.”

Late that evening, Lt. Moore entered three words into a Google search: Marine needs transplant. Operation Gratitude’s website popped up.

Lt. Moore helped the Wayland family donate their son’s organs to five recipients, all of whom remain anonymous except for the receiver of Wayland’s kidney: Jacob Chadwick.

“My job is to take care of aviators and being that [Patrick] was at Sacred Heart Hospital where I couldn’t really do anything, I felt like this is my way of helping the family, giving them a happy ending to a tragic event,” Lt. Moore said. PLEASE CONTINUE READING

Americans taking care of Americans … doing what has to be done. Obviously, there is a tremendous need for donated organs. Please consider the option for the sake of those around you … or even an American stranger!

RELATED ARTICLES:

MILITARY: San Marcos Marine receives gift of life from late comrade

Breaking Update on Marine Needing Kidney

Design a Patriotic T-shirt — Win $500 from Goodjoe.com! (via Operation Gratitude Blog)

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GREAT OPPORTUNITY for creative patriots to help design a really COOL shirt!

Goodjoe is a "community-based t-shirt company with a passion for doing good." Elevation Nation is an internet-based network with a mission to unite Americans "in the satisfaction that comes from a life-long commitment to worthy charities and social issues." Now these two companies are partnering with Operation Gratitude for a fun, new contest to benefit our very patriotic cause.  The contest — Design for a Greater Good — is open to creative peo … Read More

via Operation Gratitude Blog

7 Deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan!

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SFC Leroy A. Petry

I hear often from civilians, what a “shame” it is that some of these young men and women are sent back over for multiple tours in Iraq or Afghanistan, and while I certainly understand their rational, I also understand that a vast majority of these soldiers CHOOSE to go back, not for any exceptional zeal or bravery, but simply to be “of service,” to help their fellow service members. They do not seek fame or fortune; they are just doing their job – serving you and me. The politics are lost and irrelevant. The rewards are un-thought of amidst their daily routine of keeping mentally and physically fit and alert.

Do-It-Yourself Battlefield Medicine Saves Lives

When Army Ranger Leroy Petry‘s hand was blown off by a grenade as he was saving his comrades in battle, he knew just what to do. He used his remaining hand to twist a tourniquet around his arm to avoid bleeding to death.

Sgt. 1st Class Petry, awarded the Medal of Honor last month, was with a regiment trained in do-it-yourself battlefield treatment. That kind of quick care on the field led to a 92 percent survival rate for the regiment over more than seven years, a study found.

Of the 32 deaths, just one had wounds considered potentially survivable, in this case massive bleeding. That Ranger died from post-surgery complications.

Throughout history, it is remarkable that war has been a catalyst for medical advancement. Transplants, penicillin, aortic grafts are just a few medical skills that were either first tried or advanced on the battlefield.

“Historically, about 90 percent of combat-related deaths have occurred in the field, before troops reached a medical facility. Mindful of that, the Rangers adopted a new approach more than a decade ago, focusing on certain types of injuries, after a review of casualties in previous wars.

“The idea is straightforward: There aren’t enough doctors or medics to treat battlefield wounds, so Rangers must be equipped with their own first aid devices and trained to use them.

“If you can’t do it to yourself, then you grab somebody to do it for you,” Kotwal said. PLEASE READ MORE

SFC Petry and Mrs. Petry

Just one MORE thing for the American people to be grateful for – an indirect benefit of brave men and women serving in military conflicts, is the medical advancements made as necessity rears on the battlefield.

Prosthesis helps Medal of Honor hero stay with Rangers

“There was a little bit of a meat skirt, for lack of better words, hanging around the edges. It was oozing. I could see the radius and ulna bone sticking up maybe about half an inch.”

Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry, who will have the Medal of Honor placed around his neck July 12, 2011, by the president of the United States, recounted the moment after his hand was taken from him by a grenade during a May 26, 2008, combat operation in Afghanistan.

“It was vivid — where I could see the black marks from where the burns were. And a little bit of the dirt and the smell of explosives. I sat up and I grabbed it. And it’s a little strange,” Petry said. “But this is what was in my mind: ‘Why isn’t this thing spraying off into the wind like in Hollywood?’”

After that, the seasoned Army Ranger — who was at the time on his seventh deployment in support of combat operations both in Iraq and Afghanistan — had to take charge of his own situation, and of the young Soldiers whom he led. PLEASE CONTINUE READING

There is a cool page that contains a “Battlescape” of SFC Petry’s mission.

Thanks to SFC Petry and all the amazing men and women who serve in uniform because they DO represent the very best of America, and they deserve the very best from US!

Medal of Honor