#Military Benefits

[wounderwarriorproject]

Empower Women Vets | Warrior Tonya Oxendine | Wounded Warrior Project

According to the 2021 #AnnualWarriorSurvey, nearly 67% of women warriors WWP serves reported experiencing military sexual trauma (MST). #Veteran Tonya Oxendine shares how MST impacted her life and how she found new strength through our programs which empower female veterans.

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The 2021 survey asked WWP warriors about military sexual trauma (MST) in two separate contexts. First, MST was included in a list of possible injuries incurred during service. In this context, 10% of warriors selected MST as an injury they had experienced during service. Later in the survey, warriors were asked again about MST but in more detail surrounding specific experiences. In this context, more warriors reported experiencing MST; 16.3% indicated they had experienced sexual assault or sexual harassment involving military personnel (active duty or Reserve), DoD civilian employees, and/or contractors (of either gender) while in the military.

The VA defines military sexual trauma (MST) as sexual assault or harassment experienced during military service. Sexual harassment is the request for or pressure to engage in sexual favors (i.e., threats of negative treatment, refusal to cooperate, or WWP Talk promises of better treatment in exchange for sex), unsolicited sexual advances, or verbal comments that are sexual in nature. Sexual assault is unwanted sexual contact or activities without your consent, including when you are asleep or intoxicated and being overpowered or physically forced to have sex.28 MST, like any trauma, is associated with a higher likelihood of PTSD, depression, and substance use disorder (SUD).

After 30 years in the Army, Tonya Oxendine retired with the highest enlisted rank as command sergeant major. It was only after she retired that her life started to unravel. She faced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety, even after securing a promising new career on the civilian side.

“I was struggling with my mental health and had suicidal thoughts regularly,” Tonya said.

She eventually found female veteran resources in  WWP Talk, a free mental health phone support line provided by Wounded Warrior Project® (WWP). The program provides wounded veterans with free emotional support and tools to help them set and achieve goals.

Tonya started talking with a teammate from WWP Talk and participated in other WWP mental, physical, and financial health programs.

Through WWP Talk especially, Tonya realized how important it is to take care of herself for her own sake. “The truth was, at the time, I didn’t think that I mattered.”

WWP Talk offers individualized emotional support over the phone. Each participant is paired with a WWP Talk partner who will call them at the same day and time each week. They will typically talk for 20 minutes and work through setting goals and finding solutions that fit.

WWP Talk helps veterans like Tonya with PTSD, anxiety, and depression. It lets them know they are not alone.

“When I started talking with my WWP Talk partner, I felt alone and isolated,” Tonya recalled. “But soon I came to look forward to talking with him and took notes on what to share with him in between appointments. I knew he would want to know how I was doing.”

Tonya recalled how her WWP Talk partner changed her outlook with skills she could use “to cope with day-to-day anxiety.” “My WWP Talk partner wasn’t pushy, he just listened,” Tonya said. “Sometimes I would just be crying and even his silent listening was comforting.”

“Thanks to WWP Talk, my counselors, and my mental health providers, I am now able to express myself in ways that can help others, which in turn helps me,” Tonya said.

“WWP Talk is about resilience,” Tonya added. “It helps build resilience and find ways to be happy, better, and healthy. In helping my mental health, I’m going to be able to help other people find happiness.”

[reportwire]

ETS-SP and CollegeRecon Partnership Helps Transitioning Service Members, Veterans Navigate Civilian Life, Higher Education

Organizations Bridge Military-to-Civilian Gap, Empower Active Duty, Veterans & Their Families Through Education & Tuition Assistance Information Press Release – Feb 21, 2023 10:00 EST ARLINGTON, Va., February 21, 2023 (Newswire.com) – The Expiration Term of Service Sponsorship Program (ETS-SP), a national non-profit organization bridging the gap between military and civilian life, is…

[destielmemenews]

"More than 800 records of service members who were kicked out of the military under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy were recently upgraded to receive honorable discharges, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Tuesday.

“Just over a year ago, I announced that the Department would, for the first time, begin to proactively review the military records of former Service members discharged during ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ because of their sexual orientation who might have been eligible for upgrades to the characterization of their discharge or changes to their reason for separation but had not yet applied,” Austin said. “After a year of exceptional work, the Military Department Review Boards directed relief in 96.8% of the 851 cases that they proactively reviewed.”"

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[black-white-life]

A special photo just for the Marine Corps Birthday!

Happy Birthday Marines

[sergle]

yall are about to piss me off by not having any PASSING basic knowledge of the way the u.s. military manipulates its recruits into joining by typing up one of your uninformed, unresearched, unempathetic, individualistic, unbelievably annoying posts about how 100% of the people in the military ended up there because they just Love America So Damn Much! they're extremely mature and informed at time of recruitment, they can totally leave anytime they want, they totally had tons of other avenues in life they could've taken, there was no rush at all to get income as fast as possible, and everyone in the military also totally is part of the combat divisions and personally enjoys being IN the military very much, big believers of violence. everyone in the military is shooting guns all day, that's how that works. they LOVE BLOODSHED. also I love the "amewicans haha" twang to this type of shit because you're actually TOTALLY stealing our Thing, which is turning systemic issues into Individual Issues. Instead of talking about the powers that be, it's so Personal Choice up in here. It's, "well you shouldn't have done it then. I totally wouldn't because I know better." you don't wanna talk about the military industrial complex as a whole, and you don't want to talk about recruiters, you just want to pin the blame on Specific Individual People one-by-one, as if they're responsible for the system that they're being ground up in. someone was in the military? bad person, no matter what. it's easier to believe that, I guess, than to acknowledge that Normal People (with high school educations) are manipulated and incentivized into joining a system that is Bad. at like age 18. but yeah no that 18 year old should have just been smarter lol haha anyway here are some screenshots for no particular reason

side note this reply of someone going "umm just get loans and go into a high paying field it's easy XD" as a direct response to someone trying to explain how most americans joining the military are being funneled in that direction out of a need for money.

and another person who Decided that americans join the military just CLENCHING their teeth thinking of other people, and not thinking completely selfishly about their own selves and their own income/housing/healthcare.

[hawkogurl]

[aro-simp]

I still think the funniest turnout from watching Top Gun (besides my dad's concerning obsession with Miles Teller) is the fact my dad now has a sort of "transitioned sean sona" in his head and it's just a guy with sunglasses and a mustache

I literally never even wear shades

but in his mind I'm just gonna be a smaller Rooster

and you know what I appreciate the dedication

[essektheylyss]

It is actually buckwild to learn that the Prime Consector is straight up one of three heads of government, and the Trust has been effectively using the role as an easy scapegoat. They've been playing games with Company Valor earnings, and they're publicizing every moment of their time on the job and then some. This is the Trust's most effective tool for putting action behind the ideals they want to push, and they're shooting themselves in the foot.

On one hand, a cult of this kind will of course be more effective if its leadership has drank its own Kool-aid, but on the other hand, the quantified tangibility of their ideals and the way the Upper Trust fabricates public opinion and manipulates those in debt means that it's hard to believe they aren't at least somewhat aware of this. So it's astounding to me how much trust they have in the general populace's belief in the Valor system.

The Company is probably the most visible group of individuals outside of literal media personalities. If the Upper Trust committed to making it just a little easier for Company members to break even than for the general public, they would have no issue with control. The Company, after all, are taking on personal risk to themselves in their line of work, and in theory what they're doing is all for the good of the Trust. This is a job that could easily be accounted as worthy of higher rates of Valor, allowing Company members to accrue and break even more quickly, and showcase the societal commitment to upward mobility.

Of course, as in real life, high-control cults do fall victim to their own messaging, and have blind spots which often lead to their demise. This is not to say that it's unbelievable that the Trust has hampered their efforts in this way.

But it is fascinating to consider that, as they're pinning the blame for the devaluation of Valor on their Prime Consector, the routine procedure of this blame game is in fact a cornerstone of the erosion of the Valor system's credibility and by extension effectiveness, and it's been a very long time coming.

[artemisbarnowl]

I say this every time I rewatch Stargate sg1 but calculating overtime must be a PAIN.

[divorceblogger]

love how dune was like paul is following in his mother’s footsteps (achieving revenge by exploiting an entire people and subjecting the rest of the universe to unimaginable violence from grief) and chani is following in her mother’s footsteps (fighting for her people and the ecological health of her planet) and you know they’re so fucking doomed from the very beginning.

[bijoumikhawal]

*sees a long post from an American comparing Cardassia to the USSR/China* *rolls eyes and keeps scrolling*

[time4hemp]

This Christmas ornament pays tribute to the brave members of the United States Military - both current and past. Please share it if you like it.

[ladyfatiquette]

I really don’t give a flying fuck about those 2 candidates fuck both dems and republicans. Both are liars. Both endorse war and weapons sale. Both stated how proud they are to ruin the climate whether denying climate change or more oil production and furthering fracking. 2 agents of Wall Street will never have claim to my freedom. Fuck them both. I personally draw the line at genocide everyone else who thinks that 2 people receiving money from lobbyists of a rogue state have in anyway, shape or form the tenacity to run this country to anywhere except the ground is dead wrong. I’m voting for Dr.jill.

[black-white-life]

An old Dress Blue Jacket of the Colonels for WSW

[wonder-worker]

"The feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist being appointed as the day upon which the coronation of the king [Edward V] would take place without fail, all both hoped for and expected a season of prosperity for the kingdom."

— Excerpt from the Croyland Continuator / David Horspool, Richard III: A Ruler and Reputation

Even though Edward IV’s death was unexpected, after twelve years of peace there need not have been too much of a sense of foreboding about the succession. The great dynastic wound from which the Wars of the Roses had grown had not so much been healed as cauterized by the extinction of the House of Lancaster. There was no rush for London, as had happened in earlier, disputed successions. The royal party didn’t set out from Ludlow for ten days after hearing the news of Edward IV’s death, while Richard took his time, too. And the new king had [his mother the dowager queen and] two uncles to support him: his mother’s brother, the sophisticated, cultured, highly experienced Earl Rivers; and his father’s, the loyal and reliable Duke of Gloucester, to whom Edward IV had entrusted unprecedented power and vital military command.

... [Richard of Gloucester] had achieved his goal by a mixture of luck and ruthlessness, and if he made it appear, or even believed himself, that destiny played a part, this only made him a man in step with his times. Modern historians have no time for destiny, but sometimes the more ‘structuralist’ interpretations of the events surrounding the usurpation can come close to it. When we read that ‘the chances of preserving an unchallenged succession were . . . weakened by the estrangement of many of the rank-and-file nobility from . . . high politics, which was partly a consequence of the Wars of the Roses and partly of Edward IV’s own policies’, it is hard not to conclude that an unforeseeable turn of events is being recast as a predictable one. But without one overriding factor – the actions of Richard, Duke of Gloucester after he took the decision to make himself King Richard III – none of this could have happened. That is, when the same author concedes ‘Nor can we discount Richard’s own forceful character’, he is pitching it rather low*.

Edward IV had not left behind a factional fault line waiting to be shaken apart. Richard of Gloucester’s decision to usurp was a political earthquake that could not have been forecast on 9 April, when Edward died. After all, Simon Stallworth did not even anticipate it on 21 June, the day before Richard went public. We should be wary of allowing hindsight to give us more clairvoyance than the well-informed contemporary who had no idea ‘what schall happyne’. This is not to argue that Richard’s will alone allowed him to take the Crown. Clearly, the circumstances of a minority, the existence of powerful magnates with access to private forces, and the reasonably recent examples of resorts to violence and deposition of kings, made Richard’s path a more conceivable one. But Richard’s own tactics, his arrest of Rivers, Vaughan and Grey, the rounding up of Hastings and the bishops, relied on surprise. If men as close as these to the workings of high politics at a delicate juncture had no inkling of what might happen, the least historians can do is to reflect that uncertainty [...].

(*The author who Horspool is referencing and disagreeing with is Charles Ross)