Over the Deepwater Horizon

Rigs drilling a relief well and preparing the static kill are shown in the Gulf of Mexico July 31, 2010, over the Deepwater Horizon well 40 miles from the southern coast of Louisiana. (DoD photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Sara Francis, U.S. Coast Guard/Released)

Family Matters Blog: Families Take Center Stage at Guard Workshop

By Elaine Wilson
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON : Families have been the focus this week at the 2010 National Guard Volunteer Workshop in New Orleans.

Sheila Casey and her husband, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr. talk with attendees at the 2010 National Guard Family Program Volunteer Workshop in New Orleans, Aug. 3, 2010. Mrs. Casey emphasized military spouses taking care of themselves as well as their loved ones. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Jim Greenhill   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was at the workshop Monday, and spoke about the challenges facing military families. I highlighted the thoughts he shared on those issues in my blog, "Mullen Addresses Military Family Challenges."

I wanted to share what other leaders had to say at the workshop as well.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Harry M. "Bud" Wyatt III, director of the Air National Guard, said the Guard's family readiness groups need to receive the same support as National Guard members deploying overseas.

"If we allow these rotations and what we do to become common, accepted and routine, then we need to give the families the focus that we should and that they deserve," Wyatt said in an interview with Army Sgt. Darron Salzer that was published in the article, "Guard Leaders Urge Family Readiness Support."

Wyatt also commented on the economy's impact on family programs.

"Your immediate response is [to ask] why anyone would cut back on the most important part of combat readiness, but it's not easy," he said, adding that the services also are cutting back on equipment.

Army Maj. Gen. Raymond W. Carpenter, acting director of the Army National Guard, said the Army is looking at the programs available to the families of unmarried soldiers. "And I am confident that at the end of the process, the right support will go to the right people.
"For us here in the Army National Guard," he continued, "people are our No. 1 priority, and taking care of people is absolutely part of that process."

At a separate event, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey and his wife, Sheila Casey, spent about two hours talking with volunteers who support National Guard families.

"It's not just the Guard families, it's the entire volunteer force," Casey said in an interview with Army Staff Sgt. Jim Greenhill for the article, "Casey Shares Vision of National Guard's Future."

"We realized back in 2007 that we had to significantly increase what we were doing for all Army families because of what we were asking of them. We were asking of them far more than what our programs were delivering," Gen. Casey said.

As a result, spending on family programs doubled, and an Army covenant recommitted leadership to supporting active, Guard and Reserve families, Greenhill wrote.

The general's wife, Sheila Casey, focused on the importance of caring for caregivers.

"Part of the problem that caregivers have is that they don't take care of themselves," Mrs. Casey said. "Everybody else comes first. What I end up seeing is people who after extended deployments ... are burnt out and they're tired.

"What I ask them to do is to change that and to start putting themselves first, on top of the pile," she added. "If they do that, then they will have the strength and the wherewithal to take care of their families." (Issued on : Aug. 4, 2010)

To comment on this blog, please visit the Family Matters blog.

Examines the teeth

Xavier Solis, a doctor from the Palau National Hospital, examines the teeth of Palauan child as her mother looks on during a dental clinic being held by U.S. service members from USS Blue Ridge (LCC 19) July 29, 2010, at the Ngarachemayong Community Center in Koror, Palau. Blue Ridge is in Palau conducting Pacific Partnership 2010, the fifth in a series of annual U.S. Pacific Fleet endeavors aimed at strengthening regional relationships with host and partner nations. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Steven Khor, U.S. Navy/Released)

weapons nomenclature training

An Afghan National Police trainee covers another trainee’s eyes during weapons nomenclature training at Forward Operating Base Ghazni, Afghanistan, July 28, 2010. (DoD photo by Tech. Sgt. JT May III, U.S. Air Force/Released)

Building a drainage system

U.S. Soldiers build a drainage system after a rain storm on Forward Operating Base Finley Shields, Afghanistan, July 28 2010. The Soldiers are from Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division out of Fort Campbell, Ky. (DoD photo by Tech. Sgt. John Barton, U.S. Air Force/Released)

'Real Warrior' Loses Leg, Gains New Perspective

Retired Army Maj. Ed Pulido poses with his wife, Karen, and daughters, Kaitlin and Kinsley. Courtesy photo 

By Elaine Wilson of American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Aug. 4, 2010 - With a combat escort at front and rear, Army Maj. Ed Pulido drove a sport utility vehicle into an area of Iraq known as "IED Alley" on his way to Kirkuk from a base northwest of Baghdad.

Pulido chatted with the colonel next to him, mostly about going home again, all the while unaware of the roadside bomb lodged in the asphalt directly ahead. The soldiers in front saw it, but it was too late to warn Pulido. The bomb detonated, and smoke, glass, noise and dust filled the air. The air bag had deployed, and Pulido shoved it to one side. That's when he saw the damage the fragments had inflicted on his leg. It's been six years since that day, and more than any other moment, that one still sticks in his mind. "I've had dreams about it all the time," Pulido said. "The night sweats and terrors -- it was that moment right there when I put the air bag aside and saw the blood." That day launched Pulido on a life-changing physical and psychological journey that is documented in a new "Real Warriors" profile. The Real Warriors campaign is sponsored by the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, and it features stories of servicemembers who sought psychological treatment and continued successful military and civilian careers. Pulido's leg was broken in three places and partially on fire, but he felt no pain. He wasn't concerned for himself, he said, but for his fellow soldiers and his family. "How will my family live without a father?" he asked himself. He was flown to Baghdad, then on to 60 days in quarantine in a U.S. hospital's intensive care unit. Due to infections, including two staph infections, Pulido dropped from 195 to 118 pounds in a 40-day span. He underwent more than 18 surgeries in the course of his treatment. He and his family made the tough decision to amputate. One night in October, at about midnight, Pulido sat wide awake in his room in San Antonio's Brooke Army Medical Center in pain after the amputation, his heart racing due to the medications. It was at about the same time two months earlier that he had been injured in Iraq. "I felt this overwhelming feeling of loss," he said. He worried about how he was going to live without a limb, how he was going to learn to walk again. "I thought, 'Why don't I just pull the plug on this thing?'" he said. He drifted into sleep and woke up hoping it was all just a dream. "But it wasn't," he said. "It was a dark time." Pulido struggled with his depression for three days. His wife, Karen, and his mother tried to encourage him to think positively. He leaned on them and on chaplains and other wounded servicemembers who came to visit him and slowly fought his way back. Unknown to him at the time, his wife, mother and daughter, who was 2 at the time, were visiting other wounded warriors in the hospital, a memory that still stirs emotion in him. "I was in my deathbed, and they were taking time to visit other servicemembers and families," he said. "My little girl still has that gift of giving." Pulido was medically retired in May 2005 and continues the therapy he started while on active duty, but through the Veterans Affairs Department. And every month he meets up with a group of servicemembers he once served with. It's vital for people to surround themselves with a support group, he said. Although he's come a long way, he still struggles with night sweats and terrors. He was driving to Fort Hood, Texas, last week, and saw images that reminded him of traveling to Brooke for treatment. He shed a tear, he said, but then he was OK. "I don't look at it negatively," he said of the experience. "What's important is that you don't do something negative with it." Pulido also shares his story with servicemembers as a way of helping others, and he is passionate about his work for the Folds of Honor Foundation, which offers scholarships to spouses and children of fallen and wounded servicemembers, as well as information on counseling and benefits. In his public speaking, Pulido urges wounded warriors to stay active as a way to avoid going into an "inner hole" and shares resources that can help to support them. His message is consistent: "Recovery is possible." "My goal in life now is to take care of the noncommissioned officers and enlisted personnel who sacrificed so much for our freedom," he said. "I won't leave them behind in the field of battle, and that goes for the families as well." Pulido often refers people to the Real Warriors campaign, which, along with the profiles, offers helping resources. "I would like to encourage all first-line leaders and commanders to use these resources as a way to empower their service men and women and their families to realize that help is available," he said. Now living in Oklahoma City with his wife and two daughters, Pulido said he often thinks of his father, a decorated military veteran who was the inspiration for his military service, and that he'll never forget the flagpole that sat outside his childhood home. He recalled that his father would turn on the lawnmower on Saturday mornings at 7:30 a.m. "That meant two things," he said. "First, it was time to mow the grass, and second, it was time to get a cup of coffee and stand outside and look at the flag." Just the other day, Pulido put a new flagpole up in front of his new house. And when he looks at it, he said, he no longer feels that cavernous feeling of loss. "I lost my leg on that day, but I don't know if I'd want my life the way it was before," he said. "It opened up a world and life that is different. I may have changed, but what I've changed to is a challenge that can be overcome with support."

Related Sites: Real Warriors Profiles Real Warriors Campaign Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury

Air Refueling Squadron

U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Charles Dalton II, a reservist assigned to the 465th Air Refueling Squadron, controls the boom aboard a KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft as an F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft approaches for refueling during Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2010 over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, July 22, 2010. RIMPAC is a biennial multinational exercise designed to strengthen regional partnerships and improve multinational interoperability. (DoD photo by Tech. Sgt. Cohen A. Young, U.S. Air Force/Released)