{"id":556,"date":"2009-04-06T08:43:30","date_gmt":"2009-04-06T14:43:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/?page_id=556"},"modified":"2010-09-06T09:50:54","modified_gmt":"2010-09-06T15:50:54","slug":"solutions","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/?page_id=556","title":{"rendered":"Solutions"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4 style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Returning from the War Zone Guides<\/span><\/h4>\n<p class=\"noindent\">These publications can currently be  located at: <a title=\"National Center for PTSD\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ptsd.va.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\">National Center for PTSD<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a title=\"Returning from the War Zone: A Guide for Families of Military Personnel\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ptsd.va.gov\/public\/reintegration\/returning-war-zone-guide-families.asp\" target=\"_blank\">Returning from the War Zone: A Guide for Families of Military  Members<\/a><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Information to help military family members understand what  to expect during the reintegration following time in a war zone, and to help  them adapt back to home life with their loved one.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Returning from the War Zone: A Guide for Military Personnel\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ptsd.va.gov\/public\/reintegration\/returning-war-zone-guide-sm.asp\" target=\"_blank\">Returning from the War Zone: A Guide for Military Personnel<\/a><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Information to help military personnel understand what to expect  when returning from a war zone, and to help them to better adapt back to home  life.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/images\/BrandiMacho.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<h4>Vets and Animals<\/h4>\n<p>If you want a good friend,\u00a0 that will love you unconditionally, will never judge you, and die to protect you, then get a dog.\u00a0 Cats are without exception, another source of unconditional love. Perhaps a little quieter than dogs (sometimes) but none the less, true companions.Over the course of the last 7 years, it&#8217;s become obvious to me that animals of all kinds,\u00a0 return far more love than I could ever give in return.\u00a0 The word animal itself means\u00a0 &#8221; Living Soul&#8221;, and these beautiful beings are examples to all of us of what <em><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">living in the moment<\/span><\/em> truly means. They don&#8217;t worry about the past or the future, and they sure as hell don&#8217;t bitch about how bad they&#8217;ve got or what they don&#8217;t have.<br \/>\nAs we used to say back in &#8220;The Land of the Little People&#8221; (the Nam), &#8220;Feel&#8217;in good is good enough!&#8221; and when conditions went from bad to worse, we&#8217;d say &#8220;Ain&#8217;t nothin but a thing&#8230;ain&#8217;t nothin&#8221; .\u00a0 Standing out with my cattle friends in the rain or snow, they just &#8220;Tuff it out!&#8221;&#8230;Ain&#8217;t nothin.\u00a0 That&#8217;s a good thing to remember when the world turns to shit at times.\u00a0 If it ain&#8217;t life threatening, then it truly &#8220;Ain&#8217;t nothin&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Having talked to hundreds of Combat Veterans over the years, I find it interesting that we all feel pretty much the same on the subject of Friendship.\u00a0 Animals are about the best examples of such Friendship that I know.\u00a0 It&#8217;s also interesting to me, how many Combat Vets run animal sanctuaries like I do, or take in numbers of animals that have been abandoned or abused by human assholes.<\/p>\n<p>Guess it&#8217;s sort of our way of giving back a little life, that we all had to take in war.\u00a0 I&#8217;m not real sure, but it does feel good to know that because of you, a loving animal has a little longer to live in this world, will get a little love they never had, and a chance to be a real important part of your life. Let&#8217;s face it,\u00a0 left to itself, the world would be a beautiful place.\u00a0 It&#8217;s humans that turn it into a shit hole.\u00a0 Just feels good to help old Mother Nature out a bit, by takin good care of some of Her animals.<\/p>\n<p>Animals are even\u00a0 being used in some hospitals to help out patients.\u00a0 My good friend, Billie Russel, a retired Army, Command Sergeant Major, from the 7<sup>th<\/sup> Medical Battalion told me a story about one such hospital that brought in a dog.\u00a0 These Combat Troops loved it!\u00a0 Trouble was, the Soldiers would open up and actually tell the dog all their traumatic experiences, and told the clinicians to &#8220;Eat shit and die&#8221;.\u00a0 Pissed all the shrinks off!\u00a0 But the Troops loved the dog being there and were actually happy, so was the dog.<\/p>\n<p>So if you don&#8217;t like humans much, like I used to, maybe go and volunteer at an animal shelter or sanctuary, get a dog or two from the local animal control folks, or start up an animal rescue place of your own.\u00a0 Somehow the money always seems to come. That is, when you&#8217;re workin for others, and not bein a greedy son of a bitch, taking advantage of the weak or disadvantaged.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve included a few shelters and sanctuaries here to take a look at.\u00a0 Think about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Returning from the War Zone Guides These publications can currently be located at: National Center for PTSD Returning from the War Zone: A Guide for Families of Military Members Information to help military family members understand what to expect during &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/?page_id=556\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"parent":1298,"menu_order":70,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-556","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=556"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2946,"href":"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/556\/revisions\/2946"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}