VMW Leadership Conference Schedu

July 13, 2008

Veterans of Modern Warfare, Inc.

*Friday lunch with VA Sec. Peake has cost of ONLY $5.00 with Q&A session.

VMW Conference Business Agenda

2:00 pm - 2:15 pm VVA President - John Rowan Hyatt - Redbud
2:15 pm - 2:30 pm VetJobs - Ted Daywalt Hyatt - Redbud
2:30 pm - 2:45 pm NY Dept. of Corr - Susan Verbeke Hyatt - Redbud
2:45 pm - 3:15 pm Keynote - Pat Kerr Hyatt - Redbud
3:15 pm - 3:30 pm Break Hyatt - Redbud
3:30 pm - 3:45 pm VMW President - Julie Mock Hyatt - Redbud
3:45 pm - 4:00 pm VMW Website Debut Hyatt - Redbud
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm 1st VMW Business Session Hyatt - Redbud
5:00 pm - 5:15 pm Break Hyatt - Redbud
5:15 pm - 6:00 pm Lost in the Shuffle* Hyatt - Redbud
6:00 pm - 7:00 pm 2nd VMW Business Session Hyatt - Redbud
7:00 pm - 7:15 pm Closing Remarks Hyatt - Redbud

*1st Business Session to include; strategic plan presentation, membership dues ratification, Committee nominations.
**2nd Business Session to include; Committee elections / formation, any and all other business proposed and requiring resolution by the membership prior to Conference conclusion. (Members will be encouraged to raise questions and concerns throughout the Conference proceedings. The final business session should allow for a general Q&A / items to be considered and resolved by the National BOD and Officers within a TBD period of time).

Presentations

Seminar: "Traumatic Brain Injury Understanding this current medical issue and its coexistence with PTSD". This seminar will offer a description of what Traumatic Brain Injury is and the short term and long term effects from these injuries. The seminar will assist service officers in understanding the issues for these injuries in filing claims for compensation. It will also show the current reasoning of PTSD issues that will occur with this injury and the most updated information on how these two medical issues will be combined for future compensation.
Karyn George
Tom Berger
Karen George, MS, CRC, Manager, Office of Care Coordination for The Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center/Defense Center of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury and Tom Berger Ph.D, VVA will co present these highly relevant issues impacting veterans of all eras. Dr. Tom Berger is a Life Member of Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) and founding member of VVA Chapter 317 in Kansas City, Missouri. He currently serves as National Chair of VVA's PTSD and Substance Abuse Committee. As such, he is a member and Chair of the Veterans' Healthcare Administration's (VHA) Consumer Liaison Council for the Committee on Care of Veterans with Serious Mental Illness (SMI Committee), the Executive Committee of the Mental Health Quality Enhancement Research Initiative Depression Work Group (MHQUERI), and the South Central Mental Illness Research and Education Clinical Center (SC MIRECC). In addition, Dr. Berger holds the distinction of being the first representative of a national veterans' service organization to hold membership on the VHA's Executive Committee of the Substance Use Disorder Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (SUD QUERI). He also serves as a member of the National Leadership Forum for Behavioral Health and Criminal Justice Services with the CMHS National GAINS Center, the National Steering Committee of the CMHS National Center for Trauma-Informed Care and as a reviewer of research proposals for DoD's "Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs". He is a member of VVA's national Health Care, Government Affairs, Agent Orange and Toxic Substances, and Women Veterans committees. At the local level he serves as a Board member and Secretary of the Missouri Vietnam Veterans Foundation and as both President and Secretary of Welcome Home, Inc., a non profit domiciliary for veterans suffering from PTSD and substance abuse, located in Columbia, Missouri. Dr. Berger served as a Navy Corpsman with the 3rd Marine Corps Division in Vietnam, 1967 to 68. Following his military service and upon the subsequent completion of his postdoctoral studies, he held faculty and administrative appointments at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, the State University System of Florida in Tallahassee, and the University of Missouri Columbia, as well as program administrator positions with the Illinois Easter Seal Society and United Cerebral Palsy of Northwest Missouri. His professional publications include books and research articles in the biological sciences, wildlife regulatory law, adolescent risk behaviors, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Seminar: "PostWar Integration: From Battlemind to PTSD", although most war veterans will have a successful homecoming, all should be prepared for a few bumps in the road, especially during the early going. A significant minority, however, will experience problems that require professional attention, such as PTSD. The seminar will review what can be done to promote normal reintegration and what treatments are available for those with PTSD and other mental health issues.
Dr. Matthew J. Friedman
Matthew J. Friedman, M.D., Ph.D. is Executive Director of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Professor of Psychiatry and of Pharmacology and Toxicology at Dartmouth Medical School. He has worked with PTSD patients as both a clinician and researcher for thirty five years and has published extensively on stress and PTSD, biological psychiatry, psychopharmacology, and clinical outcome studies on depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and chemical dependency. He has over 200 publications, including seventeen books and monographs. Listed in "The Best Doctors in America", he is a Distinguished Lifetime Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, past president of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS), Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America and has served on many VA, DoD and NIMH research, education and policy committees. He is the recipient of many honors, including the ISTSS Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999.

Seminar: "Lost in the Shuffle: Veterans of the 1991 Gulf War", an overview of Gulf War hazardous exposures and resultant Gulf War Illness among the 697,000 veterans of the 1991 Gulf War.
Anthony D. Hardie
Mr. Anthony Hardie is a U.S. Army veteran with more than seven years active duty military service from 1986 through 1993, including service in the Gulf War and Somalia. He currently serves as the State of Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs Executive Assistant for Legislative, Public and Intergovernmental Affairs, a senior executive position he has held since 2003 where he directs, oversees, and conducts the agency's external relations with the state legislature, Congress, the media, stakeholders, and the public. He was appointed in 2006 for a two year term by U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary James Nicholson and reappointed in 2008 for a second two-year term to the VA Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses. He is also currently serving a second term on the U.S. Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program's FY08 Gulf War Illness Research Program Integration Panel. Due in part to his own deployment health issues, he has worked extensively on policy issues related to Gulf War veterans' illnesses and deployment health. In 2007, he testified before Congress in a hearing entitled, "Gulf War Exposures." In his role in Wisconsin state government, he has assisted in passing state legislation creating an annual Gulf War Illness Recognition Day every January 17th, a Purple Heart Recognition Day each August 7th, a state registry on Gulf War Illness, Agent Orange, and other military health issues, and mandating the provision of information on depleted uranium exposures and testing. In 1999, he served as a panelist for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Gulf War Research Planning Conference. He is serving as a national officer of Veterans of Modern Warfare from 2006 to the present, and is a current member of the Disabled American Veterans, Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, AMVETS, and is an Associate Member of the National Association of State Directors of Veterans Affairs. He was a member, National Secretary, and Vice President of the National Gulf War Resource Center between 1995 and 2001. He is a former Congressional staff member, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin Madison, a recipient of the Bronze Star Medal and numerous other military awards and decorations, the 2007 recipient of the AMVETS Department of Wisconsin Legislative Advocacy Award, and the 2005 recipient of Wisconsin's Disabled American Veterans Department Distinguished Service Award, the organizations' highest statewide awards.

Seminar: "Wounded Warrior Regiment: USMC Recovering Service Members", an overview of USMC WWR programs, to include updating conference participants on current, active duty wounded, injured, and ill Marines' issues.
Ed Salau
After serving 11 years in the Marine Corps, First Lieutenant Ed Salau had reenlisted in the Army National Guard and was mobilized for duty in Iraq. Ed had spent his entire adult life serving his country and was proud of his military career. But on November 15, 2004, his life in the military was tragically interrupted. The mechanized infantry platoon that Ed commanded in north central Iraq was responsible for training the Iraqi National Guard and teaching them how to police their communities. In November, as they were returning to their base after a training session near Tikrit, the enemy fired three-rocket propelled grenades into their Bradley fighting vehicle. After a loud explosion, the vehicle filled with smoke. Ed tried to radio for help, but the transmitter wouldn't work. He and the vehicle gunner, Andy Butterworth, who was also injured, crawled out of the hatch. My leg flopped down in front of me," Ed shared. "It was still attached somehow, so I grabbed my leg and rolled off." Ed forced himself to crawl to the radioman who reached the commander. The rest of the platoon continued to fight and all the insurgents who had ambushed them were captured. Ed remained conscious throughout the battle. An hour later, he was undergoing surgery in the field hospital and was later transferred to a hospital in Germany. In addition to the damage to his left leg, he had received second-degree burns on the left side of his face. When he woke the following morning, the first thing he asked the nurse was, "Am I going to make it?" When she told him he was going to be fine, Ed felt a full realm of emotions glad to be alive, yet anxious about the life ahead of him. Ed and Andy were returned to the United States and were roommates at Walter Reed for their extensive rehabilitation. They worked together towards regaining their lives and independence. With his new prosthetic leg, Ed admits that his life is different, but he doesn't think of himself as a changed man. He was medically retired from the Army due to wounds received in combat and he began working as a Navy Occupational Safety and Health specialist, as a civilian. He continues to enjoy downhill snow skiing, volunteer work to help veterans, and watching my son play soccer and my daughter's dancing. He's even learned to water ski. Ed admits that his life is well different. "I always prided myself in being self reliant," he says. "I'm still me, with one leg." Ed received the Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart, Meritorious Service Medal, Army Commendation Medal, and the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal with two (2) gold stars. Ed is also a Cum Laude graduate of Southern Illinois University and a Masters Degree recipient of Boston University. Ed is a certified professional ski instructor.

Veterans of Modern Warfare look forward to welcoming you to this exciting event in Greenville SC.

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