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the Veterans Multi-purpose Center. We publish
monthly articles on the latest in news developments involving
Veterans and the military. If you have any questions or comments,
please contact us at: 866-598-8387
Please join us in the fight to provide
hope. Your partnership truly can make a
difference.
The
Veterans Multi-Purpose Center – a
veteran’s mental health care advocate
and veteran support organization in the
field for more than 20 years – is
pleased to introduce our new Corporate
Sponsorship Program. Corporate Sponsors
are now invited to join our Center in
its continuing mission to develop and
promote programs that touch people, and
save lives.
Family Support Gathering For Parents of
Deploying and Deployed OEF/OIF Personnel
With the upcoming deployment of our local
National Guard units, the South Florida Veterans
Multi-Purpose Center will begin two very
important support programs. One program will be
for parents of those deployed and the second one
will be a support group for Spouses and Loved
Ones. (See Below)
Monthly Family Support Gathering For Parents
of Deploying and Deployed OEF/OIF Personnel
There is no greater honor than to have our sons
and daughters serve our great country. It’s
emotionally challenging, however, when those
sons and daughters are preparing to deploy,
while we await their safe return from duty and
while they reintegrate back home.
Please join us for our free monthly support
gathering for parents of OEF/OIF personnel.
Come and meet with other parents in a
non-threatening, casual environment to share
tips, insights and supportive advice during this
often frightening and challenging time.
Gatherings meet the first Wednesday of every
month, beginning Jan. 6, 2010 from 7:00 -
9:00 PM at the South Florida Veterans
Multi-Purpose Center located at 4311 SW 63rd
Avenue, Davie, FL 33312. The gathering is free
of cost to all parents of deploying personnel.
For more information, please call 954-791-8603
or 407-493-9656.
Read Full Article
War-torn Troops Soothed
by Horses’ Spirit
(zootoo.com)
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.
Support Gathering for Spouses and Loved Ones
of Deploying & Deployed OIF/OEF Personnel
Please join us for a monthly gathering of
spouses and loved ones of OEF/OIF personnel
preparing for deployment, currently deployed, or
recently returned from duty. The gathering is
informal and designed to create a supportive
network of loved ones dealing with the stresses
and emotional challenges faced when those we
love are called to duty. You are not alone. Come
and join us.
Meetings are the 2nd Saturday
of every month beginning Jan. 9, 2010 from
10:00 AM - Noon at the South Florida Veterans
Multi-Purpose Center located at 4311 SW 63rd
Avenue, Davie, FL 33312. The group is free of
cost to all spouses and loved ones of deploying
personnel. For more information please call
954-791-8603 or 407-493-9656
Read Full Article
New addition to South Florida Veterans
Multi-Purpose Center
We
call him Charlie Brown. He came to us
from “Pets in Distress Inc” with no information
on his back ground. Charlie is a mix of Boxer
and Ridgeback around four years old. Charlie is
also a trauma survivor.
According to the
Veterinarian it appears he may have been
attacked by another dog. One of Charlie’s hind
legs had to be amputated. Charlie recovered from
his ordeal and now is showing us his
determination to overcome his disability and is
in training to become a Therapy Dog.
This is a new site for the South Florida
Veterans Multi-Purpose Center’s program of
Equine Assisted Family Therapy.
"The Center serves as an internship site for the
Family Therapy Program at Nova Southeastern
University. Master's and Doctoral students in
Family Therapy provide services to individuals,
couples, families, and groups at the center,
under the supervision of licensed mental health
professionals and clinical faculty from the NSU
program."
Feb. 19th NOVA Southeastern
University’s Family Therapy workshop (our
office)
Read Full Article
Veteran Battles Suicide Epidemic
By Halimah Abdullah (McClatchy Newspapers)
WASHINGTON — Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Samuel
Rhodes keeps pictures of the dead in his
pockets.
They’re the faces of young soldiers
whose eyes stare out resolutely from photocopied
pages worn and creased by the ritual of
unfolding them, smoothing them flat and
refolding them.
They’re the faces of men who, haunted by
problems at home or memories of the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan — the dead children, the fallen
comrades and the lingering smell of burnt flesh
— pressed guns to their heads and pulled the
triggers or tied ropes with military precision
and hanged themselves.
The pictures remind Rhodes of how close he
came to joining them and how, sometimes when the
sadness presses in dark and suffocating, he
still mentally pens suicide notes.
“How many times have I written that letter in
my head?” he said. “I still think about suicide,
but when I start thinking about it I have to
think, ‘What’s the impact on everyone I care
about?’...
The U.S. Marine Corps wrapped nearly seven years
in Iraq on Saturday, handing over duties to the
Army and signaling the beginning of an
accelerated withdrawal of American troops as the
U.S. turns its focus away from the waning Iraqi
war to a growing one in Afghanistan.
In
Baghdad, meanwhile, Vice President Joe Biden
held talks with Iraqi leaders amid growing
tensions over plans to ban election candidates
because of suspected links to Saddam Hussein’s
regime.
The White House worries the bans could raise
questions over the fairness of the March 7
parliamentary elections, which are seen as an
important step in the American pullout
timetable.
The Marines formally handed over control of
Sunni-dominated Anbar, Iraq’s largest province,
to the Army during a ceremony at a base in
Ramadi — where some of the fiercest fighting of
the war took place.
If all goes as planned, the last remaining
Marines will be followed out by tens of
thousands of soldiers in the coming months.
President Barack Obama has ordered all but
50,000 troops out of the country by Aug. 31,
2010, with most to depart after the March 7
parliamentary election. The remaining troops
will leave by the end of 2011 under a U.S.-Iraqi
security pact...
Travis Pendergrass, an Iraq war veteran, is now
on house arrest, in Bradenton. He says he knows
other veterans who are having trouble with the
law.
MANATEE COUNTY - Former Army Spc. Travis
Pendergrass cannot forget what happened in Iraq,
when he and other soldiers fired on a car
speeding toward their roadside checkpoint.
Instead of an attacker, it turned out to be a
father rushing his family home before curfew.
The man's 8-year-old son and 11-year-old
daughter were killed.
Although Pendergrass never saw the dead
children, he is haunted by what happened; since
returning to the U.S., he has been unable to
keep a job and was even arrested...
Internal documents and e-mails show that Navy
officials unfavorably doctored a psychiatrist’s
performance record after he blew the whistle on
what he said was dangerously inept management of
care for Marines suffering combat stress at Camp
Lejeune, N.C. The internal correspondence,
obtained by Salon, also includes an order to
delete earlier records praising the work of the
psychiatrist, Dr. Kernan Manion, who was fired
last September after lodging his complaints.
Now top Navy officials are tangled up in the
blackball campaign. Soon after Manion was fired,
Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., asked the Pentagon
about Manion’s concerns about healthcare at Camp
Lejeune. In a Dec. 17 letter to Jones, Navy
Secretary Ray Mabus panned Manion’s ethics and
professionalism, presumably based on information
Mabus received about Manion from Camp Lejeune...
We
call him Charlie Brown. He came to us
from “Pets in Distress Inc” with no information
on his back ground. Charlie is a mix of Boxer
and Ridgeback around four years old. Charlie is
also a trauma survivor.
