Just a bit disappointed....

Last month I read an article about a war widow who feels disconnected and possibly overlooked by the general public of us Americans. She is a 26 year old woman who lost the love of her life while he was defending our nation. She is what is known as a Gold Star Family Member. A Gold Star Family Member is someone who has lost a loved one serving our country. Yet somehow the term Gold Star Family is not a commonly spoken word in our society even though thousands have given their lives leaving tens of thousdans(if not hundreds of thousands) of Gold Star Families behind. First Lady Michele Obama said recently "Not every American knows what Gold Star family is". That's a shame if you ask me.

In my last blog I touched on world icon Whitney Houston's death. I also mentioned "Cheetah", the chimp made famous by the old Tarzan flicks. I talked about how out of touch our society seems to be from the types of sacrifices our public servants make. We are too caught up in fame, fortune and Snookie to involve ourselves in honoring those who serve us.

Let me make something clear, I whole heartedly believe that anyone who is a public servant in some way, shape or form, including first responders, teachers and garbage men, they all deserve more respect and appreciation than what we show them. I think it goes without saying as Americans we owe even more gratitude to those who have defended our freedoms by serving in the military. The sacrifice's by our service members extends far beyond the reach of deployments. Service members give up countless months of memories with their families to fight on foreign soil to protect us and the countries we are working in as well as train, train train.

In some way each and every community in America is effected by the selfless service of our men and women in combat fatigues and the families that love them. Nearly every community in America there is a veteran that can be found. But since they don't go around wearing a T-Shirt that says "I am a veteran" on a daily basis, we often walk past them not knowing how they have made our lives better and safer.

In addition to the countless veterans walking around our communities there are family members of veterans and service members who stroll alongside us on a daily basis. These folks may be even harder to spot. At least with a veteran there could be a haircut, tattoo or the way one carries them self that could give a clue they are prior service members.

When I accepted the invitation to participate in the fundraiser I am doing I had VERY high expectations. I am a dreamer, I have come to accept that I have much higher hopes than what reality may offer. I had the dream that while the goal set for me was $2,000 that I could raise $20,000. I know, crazy, right? But really, how crazy is it?

I planned on using my blog as the main engine to push my part of the fundraiser since it seems hundreds reach each blog I post. I also had hopes of some other folks believing in what I am doing and pushing it with me. And so far I have done that and others have helped, but I was looking for a little something more. Something beyond my control.

In order to fully get the word out about the fundraiser I contacted two media sources from my hometown area. The first one was The Daytona Beach News Journal. The News Journal is the main written news publication of Flagler County, which I call home although it is based in a neighboring county. The News Journal is a pretty large paper so I wasn't all that surprised when I contacted them about my part in the fundraiser and didn't get a response. But I was surprised to not get the support of the "true" local paper of where I call home.

I grew up in a VERY small community. When my family moved there in 1988 it was literally a one stoplight town. Today it is a blossoming community after seeing a major boom from the late 90's until about 4 years ago. In fact it was named the 4th fastest growing county in the United States from 2000-2010. The city I called home in Flagler County, Palm Coast, was named the fastest growing city in the country during that same period. So I saw a lot of change in the time I lived there. Yet still Flagler County and Palm Coast remain closed knit, as do the surrounding communities in our county. Because of working at the bowling center we had in town for about 8 years I came to know or be known by many people. The bowling center, Coquina Lanes, was the "hot spot" for many years. It was literally one of the only places to go in town for recreation that had A/C(in case you didn't know, A/C in Florida is a must).

Having grown up in such a small community and knowing or being known by so many people I decided to reach out about the fundraiser to the true local newspaper we have, The Palm Coast Observer. The "Observer" really is a hometown newspaper. While the News Journal covers all the goings on in the world, state and local communities, our Flagler community was often overlooked because we are one county north and a much smaller county than our neighbor Volusia county. Since the Observer is a "hometown" paper reporting "hometown" stories, I thought for sure I could get them to pick up the story about my fundraiser. But I was wrong.

I emailed Observer editor Brian McMillan at the beginning of January sharing my story and the fundraiser. Within two days I received a reply from one of the Observer's reporters that Mr McMillan passed along my email to. When I saw the name attached to the reply I got really excited. It was a young woman that my family has known since she was a tiny tot. My mom was an aide in her preschool class, my family knew her family, I knew her parents from years of working at the bowling center. And if my memory serves me correctly, for one of the 300 games I bowled her and and sister watched the entire time and I told them they were my good luck charms. Her reply email was straight forward. The Observer wanted to know how what I was doing impacted the Flagler community because the stories they cover are limited to Flagler County stories about Flagler County residents.

I first tried sharing how the not for profit I am working with, Not Alone, looks to serve any veteran, service member or family member wherever they are. I was unsuccessful in my attempt to convey the message that if there is a family member who struggles with a loved one who has served or is serving in the military that they can get help through Not Alone. I also explained that even though my family lives in Kansas that we are STILL Flagler County residents. We own a home in Flagler County. Our voting rights are in Flagler County. Our roots and our families are in Flagler County. Flagler County IS our "home".

After a couple weeks of being blown off by the reporter due to the lack of connection between myself, Not Alone and Flagler County I again emailed the editor. I was once again pleading my case about how this fundraiser can help Flagler County families. But I still couldn't get my point across. I still couldn't convince him that there are families in Flagler County that would benefit from what Not Alone is trying to do.

I think I would have let sleeping dogs lie and not emailed the editor again had a tragic event not happened in Volusia County, our neighboring county that up until recently was where any Flagler resident would have to go to find any quality shopping/job options. In early February a decorated Iraq war veteran killed himself and his wife. You may remember I blogged about this in my blog "AGAIN!!! This is why I am doing it...".

The Iraq war veteran was possibly suffering from PTSD. He snapped. And it hit close to home. TOO close to home for me. I wondered if I shared that story if I could convince the editor of the Observer that if his paper would report on what I am doing that Flagler County would hear about Not Alone. And maybe there was a resident who needed guidance about how to deal with their own PTSD after being blown off or frustrated via the red tape via the VA.

The thing that makes me so supportive of Not Alone is they are thinking of the family members too. Like I mentioned in my blog about the murder suicide of the veteran and his wife, what if the wife had known she had resources available to her to deal with her husbands PTSD? Would she have been able to help him? Would she have been able to avoid the tragedy that came about?

While Flagler County is not a very large community, roughly 100,000 residents, there is certainly a veteran population there. There is without a doubt families who have been effected by the service of loved ones.

I have a good friend from Flagler County who has a son serving in the Army. He has deployed numerous times. His latest deployment was pretty rough. Both on him, but his mom also. She didn't cope with the fact her son was riding in a vehicle that was struck by an RPG and the man sitting next to her son had the RPG lodged into him, later dying. She spent countless nights without any sleep throughout the deployment, both before and after the incident. There is a chance she suffered from depression(undiagnosed). Without a doubt through correspondence with her I know she had a hard time both while he was deployed and even after he returned. This latest deployment changed him. Had I known about Not Alone during the time I was trying to walk through her struggles with her, I could have provided the resource for her. Thankfully I can now though.....

Growing up I had three best friends. These were guys that I will neither admit or deny some of the things we did together. But for sure we became men together.

One is now a vice principal of a school(possibly a principal now). One is now doing something along the lines of environmental advocacy. And one.... I don't know what he is doing.

Right around 2004 that third friend returned from having served in the Marines. When he came home he was not the kid I grew up with. He was leading a very risky life. A life that was not only hurting him, but all of us around him. At the time PTSD wasn't a household word. We were still at the beginning stage of our war in Iraq and our war on terrorism. As a society we had very little knowledge of what our returning troops were going through when coming home. None of us knew how to deal with our friend. We all tried talking to him about his drinking. We all tried convincing him he needs to slow down and stop taking so many risks. We all tried asking him why he felt the need to be so sexually active. We all watched as whatever he saw/did "over there" grabbed hold of his life.

At the time of my friends return from service I was oblivious to any of the true sacrifices our service members were making. My friend would make my stomach turn as I watched him go down hill, taking many of his family and friends with him. I tried talking to him in an intervention type of setting with others, and I pleaded with him in an individual setting. I begged him to get help, but I had no clue what he needed help with because of my ignorance to what our service members go through.

There came a point where I had to step away from that friendship because of his destructive behavior. I told him, "man, I can't stand you. You have changed. You are self destructing and need help. I have tried, you won't listen. I can't be around you anymore because it is hurting me to watch you suffer. But as much as I hate you right now, I love you. I would die for you."

That was one of the last conversations I had with him. A couple months later he moved to another state. I can only hope that he was "man enough" to get rid of the marine mentality of getting help was a weakness. If things were like this today, I could of course direct him to the VA or other agencies. But like I mentioned, their lies a few miles of red tape.

I remember having conversation with his family about him during that time I was around him. We were all worried. I remember talking to his grandfather and as we tried to figure something out, his grandfather who was a giant of a man that I grew up loving, respecting and calling grandpa too, he was crying. Grandpa was shedding tears because he felt helpless to help the boy he loved so dearly. It crushed me to watch his grandfather suffer like that. Had I known then what I know now, I could have shared with him a group like Not Alone.

I have many other stories about people in my "home" community that have been effected by a loved one serving, but this blog needs to end somewhere.

I really am a bit disappointed that the Observer chose not to run with this story. I can only hope that the tragedy that struck our neighboring county when the veteran killed himself and his wife doesn't hit my community. That is the worse case scenario. But the truth is the effects of the wars and PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury(TBI) don't always manifest in a shootout and deaths. PTSD and depression and anxiety, they effect marriages, they effect the job a parent does, they effect how someone functions in day to day life. Some never escaping the reality they now live in and being oppressed by their inability to have an outlet to share their stories and get the pain off their chest.

I am going to forward this blog over to Palm Coast Observer editor Brian McMillan. It is my last ditch effort to try to get the point across to him that it is our local communities that need to bear the burden our service members and their families carry.

If you would like to help me try to convince Mr McMillan how the struggles our service members and their families are in fact impacting every community nationwide, then you can email him here: bmcmillan@palmcoastobserver.com. We can only hope he will do the digging to find out exactly how helpful Not Alone could be to our small beachtown community. I can provide my tax statement or voters registration card to prove I am a Flagler resident, but I don't know how to convince him that we need to stand together for our service members. It is our small communities that need to stand with our veterans, service members and their families... both extended family members and those of us who are listed as dependants. If our smaller communities got the steering wheel on this ship going, just maybe the bigger communities would actually get the ship pointed in the right direction. And maybe... just maybe we wouldn't have stories like the one I started this blog off with. The one about the woman who lost her husband during the war and feels the general population has forgotten both him and her.

If you would like to make a donation to the fundraiser that benefits Not Alone and Her War Her Voice, click on this secured link: http://www.active.com/donate/notaloneteam/wayneperry