Rants: Small and Large. Yoga Annoyances & Military Frauds

Okay, so I'm back. And for those of you who would like to throttle me, well, too bad. It's already been done.

WarRetreat.Org is going well. We continue to get hits from the yoga community, and hopefully they'll figure out that the VA isn't going to do everything.  I mean, not to single them out. But they are a particularly narcissistic crowd and quite frankly I find a lot of them just annoying. I enjoy yoga as an exercise, I just don't put a lot of stock into the community when it comes to understanding war and peace.

A lot of people in the yoga community think what most other civilians do: the VA will handle all of the problems of veterans. In fact, the #1 question from yoga teachers is how they can get hired by the VA to teach yoga.
But that's so opposite of how I think.
Look, public health has never handled the mental health needs of the population as well as it ought. Why? Well, for all the money we put into splitting monies between social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists, and other therapists in the public sector, the demand will always outstrip the supply. And that doesn't make for a very successful outcome all the time. So where WarRetreat.Org comes in is to encourage yoga doers to work within the yoga community and the non-yoga business world to find financial resources to address needs for veterans.

Look, there's enough money in the yoga industry alone (some people estimate it's a $5-6 Billion a year industry) to fund yoga classes in communities large and small. There's enough money in large corporations to put a yoga DVD into the house of every combat veteran.  As my friend Paul Zipes, founder of Yoga For Vets,  said to me, "The role of the military is to fight, kill, and win." That's what I like about Paul. He's a yoga guy, but in his soul he is 100% warrior (Navy). Always. So really, the civilian community --i.e. the business community, can really make a difference stepping forward for veterans. Government funding is such a slow moving beast, really --we don't have the time to wait.

The other news is that I learned of a fraudster in Orange County. Apparently, there's a woman who surfaced over a year ago, with varying stories of woe. We'll call her "Mama Fraudster." She posted on Dear Deployment, I Hate You, as well as other military spouse sites  she had lost her boyfriend in combat in Afghanistan. When asked for the name, she gave a KIA date, plus name and rank. However, when one of the wives went to look it up on the DoD, it wasn't there. Mama Fraudster then gave a different name to someone else.
Here were the two names:  Andy Mittendorf and Andy Hernandez.
Really, you can't get two names that are more different.  And neither Andy Mittendorf nor Andy Hernandez had been listed as wounded or treated at a military hospital, or deceased.  You see, very well-placed people looked for him at Landstuhl and through data bases after being moved by her story and emails.
By the way, Andy Mittendorf is a U.S. Soccer player.
Anyway,  she told one of the wives she was having his child. This good soul then wanted to toss a baby shower for the Mama Fraudster. She was going to ask people to send her gift cards.
That's when everything fell apart.
A Facebook warning was posted, and Mama Fraudster's Facebook ID was outed.
An all-day long fight ensued.
Mama Fraudster claimed she was "fat" not pregnant (ouch!).  She back peddled  by saying she met a man, and fell in love, and she knew him as Andy. A real man mystery. Or is that bedstery?


She called military wives and girlfriends not nice things in CAPITAL LETTERS.  Some military wives who decided to overlook the fact that Andy Mittendorf or Andy Hernandez had been searched for and not found on databases, decided to support Mama Fraudster anyway.  A woman who claims to be a Major  and worked as a doctor for 2 years in the Army sided with Mama Fraudster too.
Upon checking the Army Major Doctor's profile --she listed Chick-Fil-A as "a great place to work."
Shit. Things go down hill for Army Majors who are Doctors.
Then the suspense grew...well, but only if you're into conspiracy theories.
Her friend  claimed that the reason there was no DoD notice was because Andy Mittendorf or Andy Hernandez was Special Ops.
Now you tell me, why is every fraud claim to be Special Ops? 
His death was supposedly covered up, and his sister and parents were placed in protective custody.
Yeah, this gets better and better.
Some digging around, and we couldn't a listing on Zaba Search for Mama Fraudster in Costa Mesa where she claims to live.
Even her name is a fraud.  Or maybe she's Special Ops too.

So stay tuned.

The Final Chapter?

I'm really undecided about this blog.  The KD was the blog I started as a way to find my way in this military landscape three years ago. I took my existing writing and editing skills --used for literary fiction, book reviews, and writing posts and applied them here. The result was a marvelous journey where I met a lot of friends, got my feet wet, and while coming to grips about this new life.

I feel I've posted some fine writing on this blog. But I also feel --like a good book, some blogs must come to an end. It might be time for this one to have its final chapter. What I've learned about myself is the best favor I can do the military community is to be myself.  Because anything else would be a compromise, too boring, and way too contrived.  And I'm at an age, where really --I don't have the time for a charade.

The sequel to this blog (of course) is one that I have been spending more time on: WarRetreat. It's oriented to addressing the needs of our service members and their families in the aftermath of war through stress reduction. Jillian and I have been writing it in consultation with the wonderful Dave Emerson, and also with input from Paul Zipes. The feedback is positive: we've become a bridge from the military side into the yoga community. We have an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of a new generation of service members coming home in small communities across the U.S.

I've always felt the future well being of veterans should not be the sole responsibility of the V.A. or the military itself. I've also felt that a lot of people get caught up in philosophical discussions about war, and prefer to stay in that zone because helping veterans is too darn hard.

But for all the talk, and even though we all give much needed money to national organizations, the question that packs the most punch is whether or not our efforts are making a difference for the veterans in our community. PTSD is a community concern: if someone can't sleep, if they can't hold down a job, if they can't get along with others, and if they cease to believe in themselves, then the direct impact is on the people they love, and those with whom they work.

By sharing empirical data gleaned from studies about trauma and stress, WarRetreat can serve as a useful tool to not only help those suffering, but those who want to help, find pathways to work together.  While Kitchen Dispatch will always be my home, WarRetreat is the need that beckons me more everyday. I think I can bring the same aesthetic sensibilities that I've used on the KD, and before that Easy-Writer to War Retreat. But the truth is --I can't do them both at a level that would make me pleased. Three years --have I run out of steam? Not quite. But I sense the rails are shifting to a different plain.