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If you receive the www.eftuniverse.com newsletter, you have already heard about the meeting with a  Colonel from Walter Reed last week, as well as the round table at the committee for veterans affairs on July 21st.

I was honored to attend the meeting, and to share about the work with Veterans and EFT.

As a result of the meeting, Walter Reed is now open to duplicate our stressproject.org study with their own personnel.

Please read the full report of David Feinstein of the second visit to congress, the meeting and the roundtable hearing, which was attended by Dawson Church and David Feinstein, PhD and others.
For Report of First Visit See http://www.eftuniverse.com/images/pdf_files/eft-1st-visit-congress.pdf

The other day, I had a very interesting conversation with a high ranking officer: Even though he was well aware of studies about the effectiveness of EFT for releasing PTSD symptoms, he shared with me that the Army deals with the well being of the soldiers internally and they don’t need outside help.

To explain why this strict policy is in place, he shared that the military is very afraid of organizations, which, as he put it, “only want to make a buck of our soldiers.” I was told that the military is tired of people who offer services that the soldiers have to pay for, or that they ask to get reimbursed with free advertising or other benefits.

To protect the soldiers and their families, they have decided to not let anybody offer help and support. They also feel that if they allow one person or organization in, they have to permit everybody.

The commitment to protection from fraud is, of course understandable and even necessary to a certain degree. But unfortunately, this means that many free community resources will not be brought to the attention or made available to the soldiers.

Given the 18 suicides per day that the military has to justify these days, I find this policy to be questionable. I believe that every soldier, every family should have the freedom to decide for themselves if they see benefit in an offered service. However, given the stress of deployment, and the isolation that many experience, a great number of military families have no idea how supportive their community actually is, and how many wonderful services they often receive free or almost free access to.

I know of massage therapists, chiropractors and business owners who are happy to donate free services to Veterans and their families. However, they have hardly any requests, because they either don’t know who to talk to or their offers are not communicated.

At the same time, I have talked with many soldiers who wish that someone would help them, but they simply don’t know what is possible and available. They are usually positively shocked when they hear how supportive and appreciative their community is. Knowing and experiencing this helps them overcome the feeling that nobody cares, that many troops suffer from.

A list of EFT practitioners who are willing to donate services to veterans can be found on www.stressproject.org. It is my sincere hope that the chain of command will overcome their fear of civilian supporters and accept and communicate the help that is readily available for the troops and their families.

We have heard a lot about soldiers returning from deployment with PTSD, TBI or depression.

At the same time, studies show that many Veterans prefer not to use the VA to deal with their trauma, feel that their spouses, buddies or spiritual counseling can help them better than mental health treatment, and many prefer not to consider themselves as traumatized at all.

But the truth is, that deployment to a war zone changes people. This is not a sign of weakness, but a normal consequence of having been exposed to war.

Not all changes are bad: many soldiers report great satisfaction that they were finally able to use what they have trained for for so long, and they are proud of their mission and their service.

But this is only a part of the picture. I think we have to get over the assumption that “inner toughness” prevents traumatization, and honestly recognize that being able to deal with trauma does not mean that it doesn’t exist in some form.

How could finishing business at home, preparing a will “just in case”, attending predeployment events that explain to the family how the death of their loved one will be communicated, not be traumatic?

How could leaving wife and children behind, not knowing if he or she will ever see them again and what that will be like, not break a soldier’s heart, even though he or she is prepared and ready to deploy?

How could seeing buddies suffer from injuries and different kinds of trauma not hit even the toughest person hard?

The majority of troops report having seen dead bodies during deployment. The constant threat, the mindset of war, the fear and exposure of attacks and combat are traumatic. Toughness helps through this, but there is an end to how much someone can heal alone. And why should they have to?

They are trained to “suck it up” and “toughen it out” to the point that, as some of my Vietnam Veterans told me, they stepped over dead bodies saying “there ain’t nothing to it”. But where does this trauma go?

How could separation and tough and difficult circumstances not wear somebody down? Should Veterans really have to wait until PTSD, depression or TBI is diagnosed, in order to get help? Why is it so hard to admit that most troops can’t just “return back to normal” and deserve respectful support to deal with this?

I believe that we need to change the way we think about war exposure, and acknowledge that nobody comes back unchanged.

If EFT was routinely offered to all troops after a mission, simply as a destressing tool, could it be that the long term effects of war exposure lessen, especially if it was accepted and offered by loved ones, buddies and spiritual coaches?

I feel that everybody deserves to get some EFT coaching after returning from deployment.

Nobody comes back unchanged, nobody should have to deal with this alone.