Page 878 - Total War on PTSD

I am thankful for the Military training me to have attention for details, organization skills, leadership training, After Action Reports, positive enforcement of having a load plan and have a plan and timeline for excursions. I am still angry at the military for the way I was discarded when they had used me up. I was just another piece of equipment that had to be turned in and decommissioned for excessive wear and tear...damaged. I was diagnosed with a Mild TBI and PTSD by the VA. I was alone and unafraid, of anything. Well, that is what I kept telling myself. I finally felt it was time to seek help from others.
I have been diagnosed with PTSD and mild TBI. I really haven't decided whether I see my PTSD and its related issues as a strength or not. I do believe that being diagnosed with PTSD shows that you have been broken. I have gone through, and continue to get, treatment. Overall, I don't think it is helping. Most of all, it was a very tough road to actually get the treatment from the government.
At one of my Veteran Peer Counseling sessions at the Indianapolis, Indiana VA in 2010, a fellow Veteran was talking about an organization that assisted OIF/OEF Veterans diagnosed with PTSD by awarding them a Service Dog. I thought that might help me as well. So, I applied.
Puppies Behind Bars is a nonprofit organization that takes puppies at eight weeks old and assigns them to vetted and approved inmates at prisons located in New York and Colorado (https://puppiesbehindbars.com). They are then trained day and night by these handlers. For the next 20 to 28 months, they are trained before they are assigned to a Veteran (https:// puppiesbehindbars.com/our-video). During this 15-day program, the first couple of days, they rotate five dogs among four Veterans. The purpose of this is so the organization can observe how
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