Earlier this month, soldiers currently assigned to Brooke Army Medical Center s Soldier Recovery Unit organized and participated in the Bataan Death March remembrance event on Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston. The intent was to recreate – virtually – the Bataan Death March remembrance event that is normally held in New Mexico, said Army Staff Sgt. Edward Nelan, a veteran-track squad leader in BAMC s SRU. Nelan served as the lead coordinator and non-commissioned officer in charge of the event. We have 33 personnel from the SRU who volunteered to be part of the march and we have participants from outside the SRU.
BAMC s virtual commemorative march was part of the national march. The Army Reserve Officer Training Corps department at New Mexico State University began the event in 1989 in White Sands, New Mexico according to the Bataan Memorial Death March site. The participants can either choose the full 26-mile march, or the shorter version of 14.2 miles. They can also
Military families may face financial challenges for a variety of reasons, and without assistance these issues could affect the health and well-being of children of those families.
But help is readily available. Military families have access to financial counselors and other Department of Defense personnel - for free. Service members and families have access to free financial counseling and education services through Military and Family Support Centers and Military OneSource, said Beth Darius, a program analyst and an accredited financial counselor in the Department of Defense Office of Financial Readiness. With the assistance of a financial counselor, service members and families proactively create realistic spending plans to meet financial challenges and goals such as planning for retirement, paying down debt, and making major purchases.
Army Lt. Gen. Ronald Place, director of the Defense Health Agency, visited Naval Medical Forces Atlantic at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, to participate in a socially distanced establishment ceremony to mark the standup of the Tidewater Market, April 28, 2021.
Tidewater Market is on the leading edge of the Military Health System s historic change, following its certification by the Defense Health Agency on April 19, 2021. By standing up the Tidewater Market, DHA enables greater collaboration across military hospitals and clinics strengthening the medical readiness of service members and enabling these facilities to deliver better care and a better patient experience. I m excited to hit the ground running as Tidewater s director, said Rear Adm. Darin Via, director of the Tidewater Market. This change benefits everyone in our market. Our patients can now access a larger network of providers and specialists; our medical professionals have greater opportunities to maintain their
Children have had an especially rough time since March 2020.
COVID-19 largely took away their schooling, in-person relationships with friends and fellow students, their teachers, extracurricular activities, and any semblance of a normal life. It gave them worried parents and iffy internet connections for school - and for game playing or other fun uses.
And for the almost 2 million kids of activity-duty families, already saddled with the burden of frequent moves, it gave them more emotional instability. There has been more of a demand for mental health services as military kids are coping with the pandemic, said Kelly Blasko, a research psychologist and lead for the mHealth Clinical Integration Connected Health Branch with the Defense Health Agency (DHA). Depending on the age, military kids are experiencing anxiety, depression and behavioral concerns.
The Defense Health Agency s Immunization Healthcare Division has been instrumental in ensuring that all the Department of Defense s military medical treatment facilities guarantee safety protocols during the complex process of receiving, distributing, storing, and administering COVID-19 vaccinations.
The process, ongoing since December 2020, involves IHD s immunization health care specialists at four regional safety vaccine hubs across the United States assisting DOD MTFs around the world to ensure COVID-19 vaccination operations follow the eight standards for military immunization, a set of guidelines IHD developed from a combination of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-issued recommendations and joint DOD-issued policy. Immunization Healthcare Specialists are our boots on the ground professionals strategically embedded to provide expeditious support to DOD immunization sites , said Air Force Col. Tonya Rans, chief of IHD. They assist with the safe and effective imple