On Sunday, August 3rd 2008, Veterans, Families, children and friends enjoyed the Grand Opening of the new Florida Veterans Multi-Purpose Center.

The Center will offer mental health and Equine Assisted Therapy to veterans facing pre and post deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Center also offers free weekend retreats for returning service men/women and couples.

For more information on this and any other programs offered, please call us: 866-598-8387

MIAMI -- The science of the human-animal bond is proving very effective in a new arena: on the home front of a new war. Returning veterans are finding help, as well as healing in therapy that involves a saddle and a set of reins.

"It feels pretty good. I feel tall," said U.S. Marine Gene Calonge, who recently returned from his deployment. Learning to ride again is strengthening the bodies and minds of young vets here at the South Florida Veterans Multi-Purpose Center in Davie, Fla.

The last time Calonge mounted a horse, was his service with the Marine Corps. This time around it's Sam, a 4-year-old Arabian, giving him a much-needed boost.

"It's different bonding with an animal, you feel like you're not going to be judged so much about anything so ... you and him just have a good time,” said Calonge.

A new study from Brigham Young University may support the idea that post-traumatic stress disorder manifests as a neurological disorder, with research suggesting that adults who suffered PTSD-causing maltreatment as children have reduced volume in the hippocampus.

“The size reduction in the hippocampus seems to occur sometime after the initial exposure to stress or trauma in childhood, strengthening the argument that it has something to do with PTSD itself or the stress exposure,” said Dawson Hedges, an author in the study and a BYU neuroscientist.

He punched a caffeine tablet out of a blister pack and washed it down with two cans of Red Bull. He finished it off with a gulp of Pepsi. He figured this would keep him awake four more hours. Then, he jumped back into his video game.

Hood, 25, spent two tours with the Marines in Iraq. Now, like many other veterans and millions of civilians, he faces a new enemy: sleep. "I'm afraid I'm going to have nightmares and I'm going to get stuck there," he said. "I try with all my strength not to sleep. "When he eventually crashes and sleep overtakes him, Hood relives combat, or sometimes his mind creates new horror-filled scenarios. Once, he punched his fiancé, Natalya Gibson, while having a nightmare. She insisted it didn't hurt, but Hood has not stopped apologizing.

The Army is activating a new Special Forces battalion at Fort Campbell, Ky., the first such expansion of those units in nearly two decades.

The addition to the 5th Special Forces Group is the first of five planned new battalions for the Army Special Forces over the next several years.

Adm. Eric T. Olson, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, has said demand for the nation's elite forces in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will continue to increase even as the overall American force shrinks.

On the record, the men and women of the Oregon National Guard salute and say they are ready to do their duty when the 41st Brigade Combat Team is summoned to Iraq next year. They are soldiers, they understand the chain of command and they know the "Big Army" doesn't care much what they think anyway.

ST. PAUL, Minn. — In the end, Chad Malmberg put his framed Silver Star on the wall and stowed away his helmet, some old uniforms and the dusty combat boots he wore in the Iraqi desert.

Editor’s note: Called to arms from their civilian life, members of a National Guard unit said their goodbyes to their loved ones, not knowing that they were about to depart on the longest deployment of the Iraq war. The first of seven parts.

MCGUIRE AIR FORCE BASE —With just a month left before they start shipping out for Iraq, New Jersey's National Guard soldiers will get no more than four days' leave in the desert of West Texas and New Mexico, to the frustration of some Guard families who would like to see soldiers have the last visits home that were allowed in past wars.

"The families are questioning it," said Donna Vandergrieft of the National Guard's Family Readiness Council, whose husband, Gene, will be going on his second deployment to Iraq next winter with the Guard's Blackhawk helicopters. "You want to see them. But you want them to get enough training so they're safe."

Tightly wound training schedules at Camp McGregor in New Mexico are one reason the First Army Division training command cites not being able to schedule longer leaves.

AMARILLO - It's a perfect storm of demand for medical care. Vietnam War veterans are aging, more Gulf War vets need medical care and the number of soldiers injured in Iraq and Afghanistan continues to increase. The Department of Veterans Affairs health care system is stretched thin, serving nearly 8 million patients nationwide. VA hospitals across the country, including the Thomas E. Creek Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Amarillo, are struggling to meet veterans' needs.

Officials have tracked about 1,500 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan seeking VA care in Amarillo. "There's a big push to meet the needs of these guys," said Franke Robertson, chief of admission and referral service.

The hospital has tried to increase services to meet the demand. "We are looking at adding staff and other capacities to improve our times in our more difficult areas," reads a letter from the hospital's public affairs office.
Jim Benson, national VA spokesman, said about 300,000 of the nearly 1 million veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan need health care.

The officers, along with military and civilian medical specialists, are meeting Aug. 12-14 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt to discuss the latest treatments for troops suffering as result of their combat experience.

The conference also will focus on the children and spouses of troops who have been disabled by post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury. In its first-ever such conference last year, Marine Corps leaders vowed to eliminate an institutional mind--set that prevented some troops from seeking help for stress-related problems.