A Hero Among Us

Just a few days away from leave, Sgt. Joel Tavera volunteered to take another soldier's duty shift. He soon learned that his life was about to take an abrupt turn.



On March 12, 2008, inside the Tallil air base in southeastern Iraq, Sgt. Tavera's armored SUV was hit by an enemy missile, killing three soldiers. Joel was one of two who survived the blast, but we was burned, blinded and bleeding.

"The last thing I saw was a flash of blue sky, and that was it," recalls Joel.


The force from the rockets and explosives also fractured Joel’s skull, and he spent the next three months in a coma. When he finally came to, the pain from his burns, which cover 60% of his body, was so intense that he needed heavy medication for nearly a year.



He gained a Purple Heart and Bronze Star, but lost sight in both his eyes. He also lost four fingers, and his right leg below the knee; but he didn’t lose his will to live; far from it.


For the past two years, Joel has spent his time relearning the basics. He said many people thought he would never walk again, and for the majority of time since the accident, he was confined to a wheelchair. Amazingly though, this hardworking young man has beaten all the odds, and not only walks, but recently finished a 5k walk in an hour and 13 minutes!


“It felt really good to finish!” said Joel, “And I’ve got another 5k planned in two weeks!”


What’s the rush? Joel has a surgery coming up that will replace a piece of his skull, and will likely keep him from doing much of anything, let alone walking three miles. So, he’s taking in as much life as he can, before he has to cut back.


When asked if he ever gets angry, Joel admits that he does, but says it’s not the way he chooses to live his life.


“My mentor, who is a blind Captain in the military, always told me that there’s no way I can change things,” recalled Joel, “He said I can either be depressed and die in my sorrows, or live life and help others.”


So, that’s exactly what he does. Still active duty, Joel’s new job is not only to get better, but to give back to others. He says his injuries have opened up a whole new world to him and he wants to share his story in the hopes of inspiring other people to keep trying.


The only thing that keeps this motivated soldier down is pain. That’s where HHN comes in. Joel receives weekly Acupuncture on his amputated leg from HHN provider William Lichter, DC; something that makes a huge difference in his life.


“The Acupuncture decreases the pain, and makes it so I don’t have to take as much pain killers,” said Joel, “I can’t imagine not having the treatments.”


With the help and support of talented providers like Dr. Lichter, we at HHN are happy that we can provide this true American Hero with a little relief. Especially when people said he should be satisfied with the miracle of survival, and that he would never walk again or function on his own. To their surprise, he did just that, and continues to have hope for his future.


“I want to get married and have a family and live on my own,” said Joel.

Read the entire newsletter and see what HHN has been up to and the Heroes we're helping!

"Like" it for TIME

Today is the day to let TIME know how much America values the Military Family by asking the magazine to name the Military Family it's 2011 TIME Person of the Year.

LIFT has penned a letter (pasted below). Tsetsei's goal is to "overwhelm TIME Magazine with letters from across the country. The letters will introduce the editors to the idea, and with luck, they’ll get so many of them it will attract media attention".

Please take a moment today. Print the letter below, sign it, and send it to TIME.

Mailing Address: TIME Magazine Letters / Time & Life Building / Rockefeller Center / New York, NY 10020


You can also find more info about the effort here



Letter:

Dear TIME Magazine Editor(s),


I’m writing this letter to ask you to consider the military family as your 2011 TIME Person of the Year. If you accept nominations from the public/your readers, please consider this an official nomination.
Military families will be the first to say they don’t want to be honored or praised, but I understand Person of the Year isn’t an honor; it’s a “recognition of somebody’s effect on the world,” as Richard Stengel has said.

I also understand Person of the Year is, as another TIME editor has said, “given to the person, group, or thing that has most influenced the culture or the news during the past year.”

Evidence of the military family’s impact on recent news and popular culture can be found in the efforts of Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden to raise awareness of the military family, in Oprah Winfrey’s multiple shows honoring the military family, in the upcoming fifth season of Lifetime network’s “Army Wives,” and in the E! Entertainment channel special, “E!Investigates: Military Wives.” Any time the wars in the Middle East are in the news, so is the American military family.

Regarding the military family’s effect on the world, Rudy Giuliani was chosen for Person of the Year following the September 11 attacks because he “embodied what was really most important, what we learned about ourselves, which was that we could recover,” explained a TIME editor.

The military family embodies what is most important after a decade of war and multiple deployments: a resilient and unifying force even as the families grow weary of being separated - sometimes permanently - year and year, those years apart filled with agonizing anxiety and uncertainty about the future of their families. That resiliency speaks volumes about who we are.

When the American Soldier was chosen for 2003 Person of the Year, it wasn’t for making the news. It was, according to TIME, “[f]or uncommon skills and service, for the choices each one of them has made and the ones still ahead, for the challenge of defending not only our freedoms but those barely stirring half a world away.”

According to a February 2009 study conducted by Boston University’s Sloan Work and Family Research Network, “43.2% of active duty forces have one or more children.” Without a military family care plan—siblings, grandparents, spouses, or others to care for those children—nearly half of our deployed forces would be rendered useless.

The challenges the families of service members experience don’t include the direct threat of mortar rounds and IEDs, but they do include the 24-hour awareness that mortar rounds or IEDs could kill the person they love – their parent, their child, their best friend – any minute of any day, as well as the unique task of trying to maintain a sense of normalcy for children who have a revolving parent and a home environment that is in a perpetual state of flux.

I hope you’ll give this nomination the serious consideration it warrants.


Sincerely,

Grandma Shares Her Top 10 Deployment Lessons Learned

It's often said that wisdom comes with age. Even still, our Hero veterans are often wiser beyond their years, as they face life and death situations in the field. But what about those left at home? When a loved one deploys, there's new meaning to the phrase "stay-at-home-mom" or "stay-at-home-dad". Hopefully you agree that we can all learn a thing or two from someone who's been there before. That said... we just love this post, and we hope that you do too!

Debbie Nichols - Top 10 Deployment Lessons Learned

4 Reasons to Jump on the Military Saves Bandwagon

We at HHN love the opportunity to help our Heroes when they come home, but from time-to-time, we like to pass on useful articles that will help all the Hero families out there.


By Joseph Montanaro, USAA Certified Financial Planner® Practitioner

The 2011 Military Saves Campaign kicks off with Military Saves Week Feb. 20-27. Normally, I'm not big on keeping up with the Joneses or jumping on bandwagons, but in this case it's a no-brainer. Here's why:

You won't miss it and even a little adds up. The Thrift Savings Plan is a great way to systematically set aside money for retirement. Just start with 1 percent of your pay and bump it up with every pay raise and promotion and you're on the way to what could be hundreds of thousands of reasons to save. Are you in the savings game? If not, visit your personnel office and sign up now. If you are, visit myPay and kick off Military Saves Week by increasing your contribution.

Stress relief. If you've ever lived with a big "debt cloud" hanging over your head, you would know what I mean by stress. Can you wipe out this problem overnight? Probably not, however having a plan to get your financial house in order - one that doesn't involve burying your head in the sand - will start to give you control and allow you to shed the stress.

Curve balls. Even $25 per paycheck going into your new savings account will begin to prepare you for Murphy's arrival on your doorstep. And if you're fortunate enough to avoid life's surprises for a bit, you'll have a full-blown emergency fund.

To live your dreams. Whether it's a family vacation or that new set of wheels, most dreams come with a price tag - sometimes, a hefty price tag. Visualize that dream as you set up your new savings program.

The first step is the hardest. Visit www.militarysaves.org and take The Saver Pledge: "I will help myself by saving money, reducing debt, and building wealth over time. I will help my family and my country by encouraging other Americans to Build Wealth, Not Debt."
Now that's a bandwagon worth riding on!

Sometimes, Making it Home is Only Half the Battle

It’s a brand-new year, and for many injured veterans, it’s also the start of a brand-new struggle. Technology continues to change on a daily basis, and yet here we are in 2011, and the care our veterans receive hasn’t evolved to where it needs to be. In fact, according to the Veterans Health Administration, since May 2008:


• 892,848 Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans are eligible for VA healthcare
• 324,846 Iraq veterans have sought VA healthcare
• 41.1% of those veterans have been diagnosed with PTSD and/or a mental illness
• There is a backlog of over one million existing claims

Our Heroes deserve better than this. Ask most Americans, and they’ll tell you they whole-heartedly support the troops. Even still, many troops are fighting an entirely new battle here at home for the medical care that would help them heal. They come home needing certain treatments, only to find that those treatments are either not provided, there's limited access, or they require long waiting times before they can see a physician; and with more than one million backlogged cases, the problem is only getting worse.

The question remains though… in this day and age, why are we experiencing such a build up? Quite simply, the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have created a new generation of injured veterans. With medicine making remarkable advancements over the years, doctors are now mending wounds that would've once been deadly. While we've gotten very good at saving lives, we need to turn our focus on improving our Heroes' quality of life. Because of the advancements in medicine, today’s veterans are suffering from a myriad of injuries and ailments, but there are three injuries that stand out as the most common.

• Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) - Because of its prevalence, TBI has been called the "signature injury" of today's wars, and disrupts the function of the brain. It’s estimated that 320,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans may have experienced a TBI during deployment.
• Along with TBI, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is wreaking havoc on combat veterans. PTSD can disrupt a person's life and make it hard to continue with daily activities. As we saw with veterans returning from the Vietnam War, PTSD can lead to substance abuse, marital and employment problems, homelessness, and in drastic cases, suicide. It’s estimated that 300,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are suffering from PTSD. If we don't act now and treat these veterans, history is sure to repeat itself.
• Many veterans throughout history have experienced Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD). It is a debilitating disorder that dates back to the American Civil War. Long after bullets are removed, or limbs are repaired, the pain remains strong, and in many cases, even more unbearable. Imagine living with a severe burning pain and extreme sensitivity to touch… that’s the reality for many injured veterans living with RSD.


While these are three most common injuries, we at HHN recognize that there are hundreds more injuries that need to be healed. These injuries, coupled with the knowledge that many injured veterans are still in need of care, is the motivation behind Healing Heroes Network, a 501 (c)3 charitable organization. With a nation-wide network of medical providers, HHN can get our Heroes the medical care they need today - not tomorrow. HHN is determined to help heal the whole veteran. That's why we offer treatments in all areas of medicine and rehabilitation. Our nation's Heroes should be able to return to their families and communities as healthy as they can be. They've earned at least this much.

Spread Season's Greetings with Last-Minute Giving

Do you have one of those hard-to-buy for people on your gift-giving list? That Uncle who has everything, or the Grandmother who tells you to save your money? Or, are you strapped for cash, but still want to give something meaningful? Consider giving the gift of health!

Donations to Healing Heroes Network can be made in honor of your Uncle or Grandmother. We'll tell your donation honoree all about the Heroes your gift will help. Heroes like Chad from Virginia who's getting new dental work to save his teeth from the grinding caused from his PTSD; or James from Tennessee who will start the new year receiving Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment for his PTSD and chronic headaches. This holiday season, your gift can give back!

Here's how!

Another letter of support from one of our Hero families!

SSgt. Jose Pequeno began seeing an HHN Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy provider in April 2010. Jose lost the bottom two lobes of the left-side of his brain, and is known as one of the most severely wounded servicemen to come home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. To this day, Jose is unable to care for himself and requires around-the-clock care. While his outlook appears grim, HHN is determined to give this true American Hero every opportunity to regain as much function as possible.


“The treatment that Jose receives from Healing Heroes Network is fantastic and very loving,” said Nellie Bagley, Jose’s mother. “Both my son and I feel like we are welcomed with open arms with the care they provide. Healing Heroes has made a difference in our lives by their accommodating atmosphere, offers and health care. They are willing to try what others are not, and give us the time to gain progress. Healing Heroes is a wonderful network that not only opens their arms and hearts to us, but veterans of all kinds.”

From War in Mortar-Ville to a New War at Home

"Your life can be over in a second."
"You can die from standing in the wrong place."
"Why does one person make it out of there and another person doesn't?"

These are the thoughts and questions that run through Spc. Brian Taylor's head. After heading to Iraq in 2004 with the Washington State National Guard's 81st Brigade, Brian's life was forever changed. His infantry unit was assigned to provide security for an EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) team. As you can imagine, Brian lived through some terrifying experiences.

"I didn't really realize the scope of what I was doing and where I was, until we started carrying our fellow soldiers out in body bags," recalls Brian. Read More...



Help HHN refresh our injured veterans!

Help HHN refresh our Heroes! Today is the 1st day to vote for HHN in the Pepsi Refresh Project. If we get in the top 10...we'll be awarded $50k for our Heroes! Help HHN and vote today & everyday through the month of December!! Here's the link: http://www.refresheverything.com/healingheroesnetwork

Did you know that Heroes & shopping go hand in hand?

Helping injured Heroes heal is now only a few clicks away! As eager shoppers rest up for the mad-house known as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you can get all your shopping done at home, and give the gift of health. For your shopping convenience, HHN has a few ways you can raise money, while scratching off some items on your shopping list...& they won't cost you a thing! Happy shopping!

Click on the link for more information: http://myemail.constantcontact.com/The-Black-Friday-Hero-Connection.html?soid=1103523648356&aid=JHNi4QfPOiA