WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week, U.S. Reps. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) and Elaine Luria (D-Va.) led a letter to conferees for the annual defense bill, requesting the inclusion of their bipartisan measure to research and treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for veterans.
The United States-Israel PTSD Collaborative Research Act would leverage research and assets from both the U.S. and Israel for the research, diagnosis and treatment of PTSD. The legislation also creates a grant program for universities and private non-profits to research PTSD.
Language from the bill was initially included in the U.S. House of Representatives’ version of this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The final conference report is still being negotiated.
“Israel, under constant attack from terrorist groups, has experienced similar issues with their veterans and civilian populations facing the symptoms of PTSD. Several leading Israeli hospitals, universities and non-profits have dedicated their efforts to researching and treating PTSD,” the letter reads. “A better understanding of this disorder, along with treatment options, can help us better recognize, diagnose and treat those suffering from traumatic incidents.”
Waltz and Luria’s bill currently has 98 bipartisan co-sponsors in the House.
Paul Plante says
As a veteran with PTSD, I can say that there is no “treatment” for PTSD!
Paul Plante says
As a veteran with PTSD who has lived with it, co-existed with it, perhaps, for fifty years or so, I think it is a bit dishonest for Congresswoman Luria to be touting that she is going to be able to come up with a “treatment” for PTSD, which is nothing at all new, and which has been the subject of much research in this country going back to the 1970s, at least, and that research in turn has already spawned a whole host of “treatment” programs, many of them stupid, childish and worthless, so why is the Congresswoman spending taxpayer dollars re-inventing the wheel?
Into whose pocket is she funneling this money, one must wonder.
Paul Plante says
As a combat veteran who has been demonized quite publicly and held up to ridicule because of PTSD, which was used as a political weapon against me, it is my thought that if Congresswoman Luria really wants to strike a blow for freedom from the shackles of PTSD that bind so many people in this very troubled nation, then instead of shipping our tax dollars over to Israel, especially in a time of sky-high deficits with no end in sight, Congresswoman Luria should simply do a literature search which is so easy even for those just about totally computer illiterate by typing into GOOGLE search term “coping strategies for ptsd” and a veritable host of sites come up including “Scholarly articles for coping strategies for ptsd.”
Or she should simply go to the National Institute of Health site.
And to really strike for freedom and equality, she should stand up on the floor of the House of Representatives when in full session and she should read this following letter to the full House and when done, ask all her fellow members why a decorated and disabled combat veteran has been treated this way, and what does the House intend to do about it:
10 April 2014
Hon. Barack Obama
United States President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
Because I would not take bribes, Mr. President, in the words of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in early-1989, I upset “some of the most powerful men in Rensselaer County,” and my boss, the Rensselaer County public health director, could no longer “protect” me.
To my continued horror, on Wednesday, February 22, 1989, the Troy, New York RECORD, the newspaper of record for Rensselaer County in New York state ran an article wherein Deputy Rensselaer County Attorney Gordon Mayo was quoted as follows:
“Mayo said Plante suffers from a post-combat stress condition that could result in irrational behavior.”
“Plante is a Vietnam veteran.”
end quotes
There, Mr. President, is what stigmatization of combat veterans with PTSD as a means of political retaliation looks like in real life.
Because I would not take bribes, I was publicly branded by Rensselaer County as being “irrational.”
That label, which was pinned on myself and every other Viet Nam veteran, as well, has destroyed my life to this day.
Any hopes I might have had for being a good, productive American citizen, perhaps a person in the middle class, upon my return to this country from Viet Nam disappeared in smoke that day when that news article was published.
All Viet Nam veterans with PTSD suffer from a post-combat stress condition that could result in irrational behavior.
It is true because it was published in a newspaper of record and never retracted or refuted by a person of responsibility in the government.
All the years I spent rehabilitating myself as a productive citizen upon my return from Viet Nam, the years I spent in engineering school, the hours I spent getting a master’s degree on a fellowship from the USEPA so I could be a responsible public servant in America were all for naught, Mr. President.
After being publicly branded by the Deputy Rensselaer County Attorney, an authority figure, in the February 22, 1989 Troy, New York RECORD as being a Viet Nam veteran suffering from a post-combat stress condition that could result in irrational behavior, my career as a responsible, law-abiding public health engineer in service to the community was over, and my life as a fugitive began, for once the government has branded you as being irrational you can no longer fulfill the functions of an engineer, because you cannot be trusted with the public trust.
Respectfully,
Paul R. Plante
Paul Plante says
And if we go to google and type in search term “israeli experience with ptsd,” not only do we get “Scholarly articles for israeli experience with ptsd,” but we also get a Guardian article entitled “Israeli government accused of abandoning soldiers with PTSD” by Amanda Forslund and Charlotta Lindblom in Tel Aviv on 5 Sep 2019, where we have as follows:
Israeli soldiers have accused the government of abandoning them with little support for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) caused by their military service, according to local mental health groups and several former conscripts.
As many as one in 12 Israeli soldiers who experience high intensity combat report PTSD symptoms, one study found, yet the lack of recognition for mental health problems caused by combat has left many former service personnel without treatment after they leave the army.
end quotes
Wow, sounds just like here, doesn’t it.
Getting back to that article, we have:
“I shot my first person before I was 19.”
“I had people die in my arms,” said Or Eilon, 24, who was a combat medic and unit commander.
He experienced severe symptoms of PTSD and was released from his 32-month compulsory service in 2016 with only a few months to go.
“I started to go crazy, I burnt things, I hit my mum.”
“I woke up with urine all over my bed.”
“I saw pictures, smelled things, tasted things.”
“It’s scary.”
After Eilon was released he was diagnosed with PTSD.
Despite this, he struggled for three years to be recognised by the Ministry of Defence, an essential step to receiving benefits and treatment paid for by the government.
“They want you to give up, they make you go through so much,” he said.
end quotes
So what, pray tell, does Congresswoman Luria see of any value to our veterans in this country from any of that?
Getting back to that article, we have:
The struggle for recognition of the mental health problems caused by combat exposes a separate, hidden cost of control over the Palestinian territories and decades of intensive Israeli military operations in the Middle East.
One former soldier, Ben Goor Levy, 39, developed PTSD after he shot and killed a man but had to press for years to get the condition officially recognised.
“The psychiatrist in the army diagnosed me with PTSD but it took the Ministry of Defence eight years to approve it – they tried to get away from their responsibility,” he said.
“They say: ‘So what if you shot someone?'”
“We trained you to do that.’”
To get official recognition of a PTSD diagnosis often means a hefty legal bill, according to Guy Konforti, a lawyer and former legal adviser to the army.
“The process costs a lot of money and can take years.”
end quotes
And again, that raises the question of just what exactly does Congresswoman Luria see of any value in that to our combat veterans in this country?
Is she advocating that to get official recognition of a PTSD diagnosis in this country, it should also mean, as it does in Israel, a hefty legal bill and a process that costs a lot of money and can take years?
Paul Plante says
29 October 2020
Assemblyman Jake Ashby
Assembly District 107
LOB 720
Albany, NY 12248
RE: Treatment of veterans with PTSD in Rensselaer County and New York State
Dear Assemblyman Ashby:
As a Viet Nam combat veteran who has been demonized quite publicly and held up to ridicule because of PTSD, which was used as a very public political weapon against me, I read with some degree of interest your recent campaign propaganda where you took credit for building a bipartisan coalition to restore funding to something called the Joseph P. Dwyer Veterans Peer Support Project, which according to its own propaganda is named to honor the memory of an Iraq war hero from Mount Sinai, NY, and is a peer-to-peer program for Veterans facing the challenges of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and takes a confidential, one-on-one, peer-to-peer approach that has rapidly captured the attention and support of both veterans and mental health professionals statewide and across the nation with the program steadily demonstrating that the peer-to-peer model holds tremendous, untapped value as a tool for helping Veterans transition and reintegrate back into civilian life.
All well and good, but I can see nowhere in there where you have done anything to remove the stigma in the minds of the public concerning PTSD which certainly has a great impact on a veteran’s ability to transition and reintegrate back into civilian life in a world where politicians have ingrained in the minds of the public that veterans with PTSD aren’t really human, as you can see inh the following letter from myself to then-President Barack Obama, to wit:
10 April 2014
Hon. Barack Obama
United States President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
Because I would not take bribes, Mr. President, in the words of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in early-1989, I upset “some of the most powerful men in Rensselaer County,” and my boss, the Rensselaer County public health director, could no longer “protect” me.
To my continued horror, on Wednesday, February 22, 1989, the Troy, New York RECORD, the newspaper of record for Rensselaer County in New York state ran an article wherein Deputy Rensselaer County Attorney Gordon Mayo was quoted as follows:
“Mayo said Plante suffers from a post-combat stress condition that could result in irrational behavior.”
“Plante is a Vietnam veteran.”
end quotes
There, Mr. President, is what stigmatization of combat veterans with PTSD as a means of political retaliation looks like in real life.
Because I would not take bribes, I was publicly branded by Rensselaer County as being “irrational.”
That label, which was pinned on myself and every other Viet Nam veteran, as well, has destroyed my life to this day.
Any hopes I might have had for being a good, productive American citizen, perhaps a person in the middle class, upon my return to this country from Viet Nam disappeared in smoke that day when that news article was published.
All Viet Nam veterans with PTSD suffer from a post-combat stress condition that could result in irrational behavior.
It is true because it was published in a newspaper of record and never retracted or refuted by a person of responsibility in the government.
All the years I spent rehabilitating myself as a productive citizen upon my return from Viet Nam, the years I spent in engineering school, the hours I spent getting a master’s degree on a fellowship from the USEPA so I could be a responsible public servant in America were all for naught, Mr. President.
After being publicly branded by the Deputy Rensselaer County Attorney, an authority figure, in the February 22, 1989 Troy, New York RECORD as being a Viet Nam veteran suffering from a post-combat stress condition that could result in irrational behavior, my career as a responsible, law-abiding public health engineer in service to the community was over, and my life as a fugitive began, for once the government has branded you as being irrational you can no longer fulfill the functions of an engineer, because you cannot be trusted with the public trust.
end quotes
Given all of that, which cannot be denied because it is public record, this creation of veterans with PTSD into second-class citizens with no rights in the State of New York, which stigmatizing and stereotyping in turn dooms the veteran’s transition and reintegration back into civilian life, what comfort should we take from your support of the Joseph P. Dwyer Veterans Peer Support Project?
What is that going to do to restore rights we would have enjoyed as American citizens if we hadn’t of been diagnosed with PTSD, rights which are now enjoyed by Persons of Color and LGBQT, but not by veterans with PTSD in New York state?
Respectfully submitted,
Paul R. Plante
Paul Plante says
30 October 2020
Assemblyman Jake Ashby
Assembly District 107
LOB 720
Albany, NY 12248
RE: Reprisals against veterans with PTSD in Rensselaer County and New York State
Dear Assemblyman Ashby:
Staying with the Joseph P. Dwyer Veterans Peer Support Project which you are a supporter of, if we go to its background literature, we come across this sentence, to wit:
“The Vet-to-Vet approach of the program allows for complete anonymity without fear of reprisal.”
end quote
Complete anonymity without fear of reprisal, Mr. Assemblyman?
Why should veterans with PTSD have to fear reprisal, Mr. Assemblyman?
Why should veterans with PTSD have to “keep it in the closet” out of fear of reprisal in the country they served to protect?
Why are veterans with PTSD second-class citizens in the United States of America and the State of New York with no protection of law?
If we were reading about reprisals against an LGBQT, we would be talking about a hate crime.
If we were reading about reprisals against a Person of Color, there would be shock and outrage and again, we would be talking about a hate crime.
But obviously, from the language in the literature for the Joseph P. Dwyer Veterans Peer Support Project which states the Vet-to-Vet approach of the program allows for complete anonymity without fear of reprisal, reprisals against veterans are socially acceptable in this country and are not considered as anything for society to trouble itself about, because veterans with PTSD are not considered human, and so, are without rights, which is why we are supposed to remain nameless and faceless, i.e., anonymous, “in the closet” forever out of fear.
Why are acts of reprisal against veterans with PTSD not crimes, as reprisals against LGBQT’s and Persons of Color are crimes?
Why must veterans with PTSD have to live in fear of reprisals in America, Mr. Assemblyman?
What is wrong with that picture?
The candid world and the veteran’s community would like to hear an answer from you on that.
Respectfully,
Paul R. Plante
Paul Plante says
So, in the light of “reprisals” by our own “government” against those in this country with PTSD, and in light of the Guardian article entitled “Israeli government accused of abandoning soldiers with PTSD” by Amanda Forslund and Charlotta Lindblom in Tel Aviv on 5 Sep 2019, where we we learned that Israeli soldiers have accused their government of abandoning them with little support for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) caused by their military service, what, pray tell, is the game Congresswoman Luria is playing at here with her United States-Israel PTSD Collaborative Research Act would leverage research and assets from both the U.S. and Israel for the research, diagnosis and treatment of PTSD and also create a grant program for universities and private non-profits to research PTSD?
Sounds to me like it is the veterans with PTSD who are going to get the short-end of this stick.
Suzanne Hallberg says
I agree with Paul Plante on this one
MJM says
We have a serious and confusing enough situation with our own veterans when it comes to PTSD. I see no reason to muddy the waters more with Israel’s input via Congressional Legislation.
The excellent Drs. in this country have access to tons of credible information for any and all medical conditions. Drs. around the world create a library of information that other Drs. are able to access. Our Drs. research other Drs. opinions and results, and they ours, every day all day long and consider those methods and results for applications for their own patients. Therefore I have to say that I believe Ms. Luria is building more pork into a system that loves to grant more money to universities for things that they already have. They can also access all that information. It’s just another case of her tooting her own horn for duplicating processes and wasting our money. NO I don’t like her. The best thing Ms. Luria has going for her is her team that produces these press releases that make it sound like she’s doing something cool when she indeed is not. She’s just sinking deeper into the swamp. She needs chest waders. Her hip boots no longer suffice.
Paul Plante says
Well said, MJM – it sounds to me that by following what they do or don’t do in Israel, that Congresswoman Luria is trying to create another cottage industry around veterans with PTSD here in this country, with government money being funneled into that cottage industry where the veteran is little more than a piece of meat being passed through the system so all the different specialties and analysts and counselors can use the veteran to get a piece of the action, while the veteran simply gets used and passed though, a commodity, not a person.
Veterans with PTSD are societal discards in this country, afterall – not wanted by polite society here in the United States of America where those veterans are treated as if they are not human.
But so long as we have them, why not create an opportunity for some money to be made off of them?
Seems to be what Congresswoman Luria is thinking, anyway.
Paul Plante says
1 November 2020
Assemblyman Jake Ashby
Assembly District 107
LOB 720
Albany, NY 12248
RE: State-sanctioned Reprisals against veterans with PTSD in Rensselaer County and New York State
Dear Assemblyman Ashby:
Staying with the Joseph P. Dwyer Veterans Peer Support Project, of which you are a supporter, and specifically this sentence from that program’s literature, “(T)he Vet-to-Vet approach of the program allows for complete anonymity without fear of reprisal,” why your silence on the subject of “reprisals” against veterans with PTSD, especially when the “reprisals” are coming from the State of New York itself and its political subdivisions the County of Rensselaer and the Town of Poestenkill, which entities happen to be in your assembly district?
That these reprisals against veterans with PTSD are not only sanctioned by the “state,” but perpetrated by the “state” as well is made clear in a 10 April 2014 communication from myself to Hon. Barack Obama, United States President, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500, to wit:
Dear Mr. President:
Because I would not take bribes, Mr. President, in the words of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in early-1989, I upset “some of the most powerful men in Rensselaer County,” and my boss, the Rensselaer County public health director, could no longer “protect” me.
To my continued horror, on Wednesday, February 22, 1989, the Troy, New York RECORD, the newspaper of record for Rensselaer County in New York state ran an article wherein Deputy Rensselaer County Attorney Gordon Mayo was quoted as follows:
“Mayo said Plante suffers from a post-combat stress condition that could result in irrational behavior.”
“Plante is a Vietnam veteran.”
end quotes
When Gordon Mayo was spreading that intentionally harmful and damaging poison about veterans with PTSD being irrational, he was speaking on the record not as a bystander, but as an official of the County of Rensselaer without a shred of proof to back up his false assertions, and when he was uttering those slurs, he was speaking them on the record before a New York State Supreme Court Justice who let the slanders into the record despite a lack of any proof to back them up, with the press in attendance to take down his every word, as if he were speaking truth, as opposed to slander, while who was missing was myself, who was never notified that the slander-fest was taking place, so I was not afforded any opportunity to defend myself, or to clear the record, precisely because reprisals against veterans with PTSD are sanctioned by the State as a formidable political weapon, which is something President Obama had absolutely no problems with himself, which makes your silence on the subject that much more troubling.
Which again raises the question of why your silence on reprisals by the “state” against veterans with PTSD.
Why are you not pressing for hate-crime legislation to make reprisals against veterans with PTSD a crime, the way reprisals against LGBQT’s and Persons of Color are crimes?
Why do those groups have human rights that veterans with PTSD do not have?
Are we less human than they?
Why are acts of violence against veterans with PTSD socially acceptable when acts of violence against LGBQTs are criminal acts?
Why isn’t your voice raised in protest at this shabby treatment of this nation’s veterans?
Respectfully,
Paul R. Plante
Paul Plante says
One must wonder as well about the silence of Congresswoman Luria concerning these government-sanctioned reprisals against veterans with PTSD.
Paul Plante says
3 November 2020
Assemblyman Jake Ashby
Assembly District 107
LOB 720
Albany, NY 12248
RE: State-sanctioned Reprisals against veterans with PTSD in Rensselaer County and New York State
Dear Assemblyman Ashby:
Staying with these words from the Joseph P. Dwyer Veterans Peer Support Project literature that “(T)he Vet-to-Vet approach of the program allows for complete anonymity without fear of reprisal,” let us not sugarcoat the fact that acts of reprisal against veterans with PTSD by the “state” are acts of volition, acts done with intent to cause harm.
Acts of reprisal by the “state” against veterans with PTSD are not accidents as in, “oh, sorry, I stepped on your toe!”
They are a form of violence, plain and simple.
As to acts of reprisal against veterans with PTSD being acts of volition – intentional acts by the “state” to cause harm, consider the language in the first sentence of my 10 April 2014 communication on the subject to Hon. Barack Obama, United States President, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500, to wit:
Dear Mr. President:
Because I would not take bribes, Mr. President, in the words of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in early-1989, I upset “some of the most powerful men in Rensselaer County,” and my boss, the Rensselaer County public health director, could no longer “protect” me.
end quotes
Action and reaction, Mr. Assemblyman – I wouldn’t take bribes or honor bribes taken by politicians in Rensselaer County, an action, and Rensselaer County reacted by retaliating against me and in an act of reprisal, went into my medical records, dug out the fact that I was diagnosed with PTSD, and then used that PTSD as a potent political weapon against me by publicly implying or openly stating that because of PTSD, I was mentally ill and dangerous, an intentional smear that dogs me to this day, which smear is indelibly etched in the public record as though the lie was based on fact, because the law does not allow for a veteran with PTSD any way to clear their name when their PTSD has been used by the “state” as a weapon against them, as it was for me.
As to what state-sanctioned acts of reprisal against disabled veterans with PTSD look like in real life, here is a video of an act of reprisal against a veteran with PTSD on a public thoroughfare in the Town of Poestenkill which is in your assembly district, to wit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M89m5TEuu3M
Notice the disabled veteran being termed a “f***ing retard.”
This video was reviewed by the New York State Police, the New York State Veteran’s Service Agency, the Rensselaer County Veteran’s Service Agency, then-Circuit Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the federal 2d Circuit Court of Appeals, and Patrick Tomaselli, the attorney for the Town of Poestenkill, who put in writing that he did not consider what occurs in the video to be an assault, at all, given the disabled veteran is not considered human in Poestenkill, which opinion was concurred in by the above named.
So reprisals against disabled veterans with PTSD are clearly lawful in New York state and the veteran has no other recourse than to stay hidden and live like a fugitive with no rights under the law.
Why is that, Mr. Assemblyman?
Why your silence on the subject of “reprisals” against veterans with PTSD, especially when the “reprisals” are coming from the State of New York itself and its political subdivisions the County of Rensselaer and the Town of Poestenkill, which entities happen to be in your assembly district?
Why are you not pressing for hate-crime legislation to make reprisals against veterans with PTSD a crime, the way reprisals against LGBQT’s and Persons of Color are crimes?
Why do those groups have human rights that veterans with PTSD do not have?
Why are we considered less human than they?
Why are acts of violence against veterans with PTSD socially acceptable when acts of violence against LGBQTs are criminal acts?
Why isn’t your voice raised in protest at this shabby treatment of this nation’s veterans?
Respectfully,
Paul R. Plante
Paul Plante says
7 November 2020
Assemblyman Jake Ashby
Assembly District 107
LOB 720
Albany, NY 12248
RE: State-sanctioned Reprisals against veterans with PTSD in Rensselaer County and New York State
Dear Assemblyman Ashby:
Given these words in the record from the Joseph P. Dwyer Veterans Peer Support Project literature which you are a supporter of that “(T)he Vet-to-Vet approach of the program allows for complete anonymity without fear of reprisal,” how many lives have been ruined or destroyed by those reprisals against veterans with PTSD while the “state,” which is the perpetrator of some or many of those reprisals looks the other way and allows them to go on, as they obviously are, or else that language in the Dwyer program literature about reprisals wouldn’t be in there?
How many veteran suicides can be attributed to the feeling of helplessness and hopelessness and despair caused by those reprisals?
How many veteran suicides can be linked to despair caused by this Troy Record article on Wednesday, February 22, 1989 “Court delays Paul Plante’s disciplinary hearing”, wherein was stated in relevant part as follows:
“We believe there is just cause for closure,” Rensselaer County Deputy Attorney Gordon Mayo told Judge Conway Tuesday.
“Not only could Paul Plante say things during the hearing that could affect pending litigation, but Paul Plante’s behavior is questionable.”
“Mayo said Plante suffers from a post-combat stress condition that could result in irrational behavior.”
“Plante is a Vietnam veteran.”
end quotes
How many veterans, Mr. Assemblyman, who suffer from PTSD read that intentional and malicious slur by a high-ranking Rensselaer County official, which malicious slur incidentally was printed not once, but twice, on two separate days, to ensure the maximum harm possible, and were driven to suicidal despair because of it?
As to the “state,” of which you are a part, being the perpetrator of reprisals against veterans with PTSD with impunity and immunity, since there is no law against reprisals or hate crimes against veterans with PTSD who are fair game for whatever violence society wants to inflict on them, consider this October 13, 1988 correspondence from Kenneth Van Praag, the public health director of the corrupt Rensselaer County Department of Health to Dr. Ian T. Loudon, M.D., Regional Health Director, State of New York Department of Health, Albany Regional Office, Building 7A, State Office Building Campus,
Albany, New York 12226, as follows:
Dear Dr. Loudon,
As of October 13, 1988, our Director of Environmental Health/Associate Public Health Engineer has been placed on a paid leave of absence status for thirty working days.
Although there are other options available for dealing with this issue I have hopes that the least painful and most humanitarian approach has been initially taken.
Whether Paul Plante sees it that way or not, I can’t say.
end quote
As to “the least painful and most humanitarian approach” taken by Rensselaer County, it was to have the media announce to the public that I was mentally ill and dangerous and was the object of a search by law enforcement, which “humanitarian” approach destroyed not only my career as a public health engineer, but my very ability to support myself as a disabled veteran, which was its intent, to cause as much harm to myself as possible after I made it clear that I would not make or file false reports on behalf of the county, and after I had made it clear that I was bringing Van Praag up on charges of felony violation of the Education Law for practicing engineering without a license, which charges were backed up by then-state health commissioner Dr. David Axelrod in a 15 March 1989 Report of Investigation that was subsequently tossed in the trash can after Rensselaer County used my PTSD to destroy my professional reputation as a witness.
That is what a reprisal looks like in real life, Mr. Assemblyman.
As to the intent of the “state” to cause harm to veterans with PTSD as a form of reprisal, consider this excerpt from the March 13, 1989 sworn testimony of Rensselaer County Personnel Director Felix Pugliese on that very subject, to wit:
Q: Do you recall meeting with Paul Plante in the hall and having him discuss his suspension with you as you walked out to your car?
PUGLIESE: Yes.
Q: Do you recall whether you gave Paul Plante any advice about whether he should try to keep his job?
PUGLIESE: I told him that based upon what he had been telling me I felt he was certainly putting himself into a great personal negative situation in that if he had an opportunity to avoid being charged he should work it out between him and his supervisor and that you know his professional career was going to be examined.
end quotes
In other words, if I would not agree to be corrupt and honor bribes taken for fraudulent health department approvals and make and file false reports, then the county was going to use my PTSD as a weapon against me to destroy my life, which they have effectively accomplished.
That, Mr. Assemblyman, is what state-sanctioned reprisals look like in real life.
If the “state” was going to use someone’s sexual orientation as a weapon against them by publicly “outing” them as a “queer” or homosexual, it would be the cause of a huge outrage and would be considered a hate crime.
But not so in the case of “outing” someone with PTSD to turn them into a deranged monster or mental case.
Why is that, Mr. Assemblyman?
Why are disabled veterans with PTSD the only class of people in New York State without human rights?
Respectfully,
Paul R. Plante
Paul Plante says
8 November 2020
Assemblyman Jake Ashby
Assembly District 107
LOB 720
Albany, NY 12248
RE: State-sanctioned Reprisals against veterans with PTSD in Rensselaer County and New York State
Dear Assemblyman Ashby:
With regard to state-sanctioned reprisals against veterans in New York state with PTSD, in this state, pursuant to provisions of the New York State Public Health Law Article 21, Title 4: Rabies which protects the civil and constitutional rights of dogs in this state to due process of law, if a dog is suspected of having rabies, its civil rights under the law in this state are spelled out as follows in section 2140.7, to wit:
“Confinement and observation” refers to the conditions under which apparently healthy dogs, cats, domesticated ferrets, and domestic livestock, which are not exhibiting symptoms of rabies, must be maintained to determine rabies status if such an animal has potentially exposed a person to rabies.
end quotes
In other words, you cannot violate the civil and constitutional rights of the dog by jumping to a conclusion that the dog has to have rabies without further proof.
Not so with regard to a disabled veteran with PTSD, however, as we clearly see in a correspondence from myself to Poestenkill Town Supervisor Thomas Slavin, now the town justice, on 20 June 2005, to wit:
Dear Mr. Supervisor:
Annexed hereto, Mr. Slavin, is a copy of an October 3, 2002 decision of Hon. James B. Canfield, J.S.C., in Plante v. Planning Board, Renss. Co. Index No. 204938 (Oct. 3, 2002), which I hand-delivered to you personally, in your office in Poestenkill Town Hall, at the time that you personally had hired Ms. Sue A. Proulx to be secretary to the Planning and Zoning Boards of the Town of Poestenkill, as your “eyes and ears”, I recall you saying to me, when you personally brought Ms. Proulx into your office and pointed me out to her, with words to the effect, to me, as I understood them, that as your personal representative, Ms. Proulx was to make damn sure that I never, ever again was able to file an Article 78 against the Town of Poestenkill, as I had just done in Plante v. Planning Board, supra.
That was the first time that I served this Court document on you in your capacity as Supervisor of the Town of Poestenkill.
The second time that I served this same document on you, it was at a regularly-scheduled meeting of the duly-constituted Poestenkill Town Board, of which you are the presiding officer.
At that meeting, in full view of yourself, Poestenkill Town Councilperson Keith Hammond spoke for yourself and the Board, denigrating that Court decision, and calling me a “RETARD”, which was on the record in an official Poestenkill Town Board meeting, where you presided, and where you let stand, without objection, that highly discriminatory position as an official response of the Town of Poestenkill, to myself, that in the opinion of the Town of Poestenkill, I was a “retard” or mentally-ill person, when the Town of Poestenkill and yourself are completely without evidence to support such a position.
end quotes
Veterans with PTSD in New York state do not enjoy the same protections of law that a dog suspected of rabies enjoys, which makes the disabled veteran with PTSD less than the dog, because the veteran with PTSD can be accused of being anything a corrupt politician wants to accuse the veteran of being, and the laws of the state of New York contain absolutely no provisions for the veteran with PTSD to be able to defend him or herself, nor to clear their names.
For the record, the Keith Hammond mentioned in that 20 June 2005 correspondence above is now the Poestenkill town supervisor.
In the state of New York today, if one were to even hint at lynching a person of color, there would be a huge outcry and it would be considered a hate crime, as it should be.
Not so with regard to disabled veterans with PTSD, however, as we see from an Albany, New York Times Union article on 8/24/1988 entitled “Environmental health chief focus of Rensselaer County meet,” to wit:
In front of (East Greenbush) Town Hall, a pickup truck with East Greenbush contractor Alfred G. Maxwell’s name across the door displayed an effigy of Plante.
A stuffed life-sized doll, wearing jeans and a workshirt labeled “Paul Plante” was propped up in the back of the truck with a rope around its neck.
end quotes
A Troy Record article by Jean Kalavski on 8/24/1988 started out with a large photo of me being lynched, with a hangman’s noose around my neck as Rensselaer County whipped up a frenzy of mob violence against me because I refused to take bribes and falsify public records, and despite the fact that the lynching occurred outside East Greenbush Town Hall on public property, not a word of outrage was uttered, anywhere, by anyone.
Because in the state of New York, there are no laws on the books that say you cannot perpetrate or incite acts of violence against veterans with PTSD, or intimidate them by threatening to lynch them.
In New York state, disabled veterans with PTSD have no civil rights or human rights, not even the rights a dog has under the law in this state.
Why is that, Mr. Assemblyman?
Why do those who stand up for this country and put themselves in harm’s way by wearing the uniform not have the rights of a dog suspected of rabies when they return to here?
Respectfully,
Paul R. Plante
Paul Plante says
9 November 2020
Assemblyman Jake Ashby
Assembly District 107
LOB 720
Albany, NY 12248
RE: State-sanctioned Reprisals against veterans with PTSD in Rensselaer County and New York State
Dear Assemblyman Ashby:
Staying with the subject of state-sanctioned and perpetrated reprisal attacks on disabled veterans with PTSD in your Assembly district, and your advocacy of a program that makes it clear to disabled veterans afflicted with PTSD in New York state that in order to be safe from society in this state, get in the closet, stay out of sight, stay silent, because the quality people in society who didn’t go, and wouldn’t go, don’t want you around as we see in this video of a reprisal attack on a veteran with PTSD because he was outside his house walking on a public road instead of staying hidden out of sight https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M89m5TEuu3M , this in your Assembly district, and going back to a Federal Bureau of Investigation report dated June 30, 1989, one of over 200 pages of a Report of Investigation of public corruption in your Assembly district, which investigation was shut down by the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York to protect the powerful and the endemic corruption they feed off of according to the FBI agent who informed me of thus, at the same time telling me that because I had “powerful” enemies in your Assembly district, that the best thing I could do for myself would be to flee your corrupt Assembly district and go somewhere else far away to live, someplace where I wasn’t known, as these powerful people in your Assembly district intended to do me harm and make my life a living hell where the FBI Report to the Office of the U.S. Attorney informs that Office that “Plante stated that he was told by Rensselaer County Public Health Director Kenneth Van Praag on October 12, 1988 that he, (Plante) had ‘upset some of the most powerful men in Rensselaer County’ and that Van Praag could no longer ‘protect’ Plante,” clearly, based on that statement about Van Praag no longer being able to protect me, I clearly had no civil or human rights which were my own, which has proven to be the case, for if Van Praag could no longer “protect” me from these most powerful men in your Assembly district, then clearly, I was merely baggage or chattel, as assuredly as if I were a Negro slave in the deep south before the Civil War and Emancipation and they were my owners at a time when the owners of slaves could do whatever they wanted to the slave, me not considered a human being in your Assembly district with civil rights such as do the Persons of Color in this state and the LGBQTs, who have protection of law afforded to them by this state, protection of law not afforded to or available to disabled veterans with PTSD.
That Federal Bureau of Investigation report was dated June 30, 1989.
One hundred twenty-eight (128) days prior to, on Wednesday, February 22, 1989, in the Troy Record article “Court delays Paul Plante’s disciplinary hearing”, Rensselaer County Deputy Attorney Gordon Mayo told New York State Supreme Court Judge Conway as follows:
“Not only could Paul Plante say things during the hearing that could affect pending litigation, but Paul Plante’s behavior is questionable.”
“Mayo said Plante suffers from a post-combat stress condition that could result in irrational behavior.”
“Plante is a Vietnam veteran.”
One hundred eighty-two (182) days after the FBI report, on 29 December 1989, and 310 days after Mayo’s slander and smears in state Supreme Court, I was run down in front of my home while crossing the street from my paper box by a political goon from your Assembly district who then had me arrested for causing damage to his vehicle by throwing my body at it, parroting Mayo in his criminal information under oath by stating that I was irrational, and was dangerous and was trying to kill him by tossing my body at his truck like a deadly weapon.
TV Channel 13 and the news media made a big thing out of that arrest, furthering the intentional damage to my standing in the community Mayo had when he appeared in state Supreme Court with the media in tow to hold a press conference where he denounced me as being irrational because I was a Viet Nam veteran.
Two years of my life were stripped from me because of that false arrest, while my assailant had me prosecuted on false criminal charges and he went free.
After allowing the goon to file false charges against me, while denying me the right to charge my assailant with vehicular assault, the judge issued Orders on Protection against me which effectively made me a prisoner in my house without the ability to use or enjoy my land outside out of fear of further arrest.
Thereafter, at page 17 of the 11 December 1995 edition of Sand Lake Advertiser, Keith Hammond, a town councilman in your Assembly district at that time, now a town supervisor, posted the following libels in a further reprisal attack, to wit:
Unfortunately, not everyone who reads your articles realizes, as I do, that you are mentally disturbed, a condition that causes your inability to effectively function in society.
That is why you are forced to live on public assistance.
Mr. Plante, I do not have a criminal record and I have never been arrested for harassment or fired from a job because I could not get along with my fellow workers.
These are things that have forced you to live in the manor in which you do.
end quotes
That is what reprisals against disabled veterans with PTSD look like in real life, which is why there is merit in your telling veterans with PTSD to stay in the closet and stay out of sight if you know what is good for you.
Following that, in June of 2005, that same councilman, now the town supervisor, in a town board meeting, on the record, when I was not there to defend myself, speaking for the town board, called me a “RETARD.”
That is what reprisals against disabled veterans with PTSD look like in real life.
Why, Mr. Assemblyman?
Why don’t we have the civil rights of a dog in New York state suspected of having rabies?
Why can acts of violence be perpetrated against us with impunity as if we were Negros in the deep south after the Civil War who could be lynched with impunity while those doing the lynching were never held to account?
Respectfully,
Paul Plante
Paul Plante says
11 November 2020
Assemblyman Jake Ashby
Assembly District 107
LOB 720
Albany, NY 12248
RE: State-sanctioned Reprisals against veterans with PTSD in Rensselaer County and New York State
Dear Assemblyman Ashby:
On this Veteran’s Day 2020, Mr. Assemblyman, let me say as a disabled veteran in your Assembly district that there is no worse miserable, hate-filled hellhole that I can think of being in as a disabled veteran than your Assembly district and the Town of Poestenkill.
Sincerely,
Paul Plante, RVN 69, Silver Star, Combat Infantry badge, Purple Heart w/oak leaf cluster, Air Medal w/oak leaf cluster, Army Commendation medal w/oak leaf cluster
Paul Plante says
Now, if asked what actions she would take as a United States Congressperson with respect to these state-sanctioned and perpetrated reprisal attacks on disabled veterans in the Assembly District https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M89m5TEuu3M of this New York State Assemblyman Jake Ashby, which Assembly district is in the Congressional district of Democrat Antonio Ramon Delgado (born January 28, 1977), an attorney who in 2005 graduated from Harvard Law School and politician serving as the U.S. Representative for New York’s 19th congressional district, which district includes most of the southern and eastern suburbs of the Capital District as well as the majority of the Hudson Valley and Catskills regions, Congresswoman Luria would have to say, and I would back her on this, that since she works for the taxpayers of her district, and since the reprisals are taking place in the Congressional district of Antonio Delgado, she cannot directly involve herself in the matter as a Congressperson, beyond, as a veteran herself, and supposed advocate of veterans, when she saw Congressman Delgado at one of their Democrat functions, asking him what the hell is going on in his district, and taking him to task for allowing veterans to be treated that way, and the way our democracy works, with each Congressperson being the one that says what the law is and isn’t and for whom in their separate Congressional districts, if in the end Congressman Delgado told here to say out of his business and that he has no problem with reprisal attacks on veterans because there are now laws against it, she would have no other choice than to back off and stay out of it.
However, where she is advocating as a Congressperson for this relationship with Israel, whose record with regard to veterans and PTSD appears to be abysmal, and spending federal tax dollars on that project, these acknowledged reprisals against veterans in New York with PTSD is certainly relevant from the perspective of how she sees this initiative of hers dealing with these reprisals.
Does she intend to spend federal tax dollars all over America on programs that tell veterans with PTSD that if they want to keep themselves safe from society-at-large in America that is hostile towards veterans that they must stay in the closet, stay silent about being a veteran with PTSD, or fear reprisals against them they will have no legal way of defending themselves against, because of how that hostile society views veterans with PTSD as essentially ravening beasts that nobody wants around?
If so, what good does that expenditure of federal tax dollars do for the veteran with PTSD who is told to hide themselves away from the public, to get in there and stay in there for their own good?
Isn’t that a case of spending federal tax dollars to support and encourage discrimination against veterans with PTSD in America?
Paul Plante says
12 November 2020
Assemblyman Jake Ashby
Assembly District 107
LOB 720
Albany, NY 12248
RE: State-sanctioned Reprisals against veterans with PTSD in Rensselaer County and New York State
Dear Assemblyman Ashby:
As we compare the status of disabled veterans with PTSD in your Assembly district, and especially the Town of Poestenkill, specifically, with that of Negro slaves in Mississippi before the Civil War and Emancipation, if we go back to high school history, we come across this essential difference between a Negro slave in Mississippi and a disabled veteran with PTSD in your Assembly district today, to wit: in Mississippi in or about 1817, their state constitution authorized laws obliging the owners of slaves to treat them with humanity, to provide them with necessary clothing and provision, and to abstain from all injuries to them extending to life and limb.”
Not so disabled veterans today in you7r Assembly district who have no such protection of law afforded them, which renders them less today than was a Negro slave in Mississippi in the early 1800s.
Prior to that, in Mississippi in 1805, the territorial legislature decided “to protect this useful but degraded class of men from cruelty and oppression” by declaring that “no cruel or unusual punishment shall be inflicted on any slave within this Territory.”
Thus we can see that Negro slaves in Mississippi in the early 1800s were actually living in a more enlightened state and had more protections of law afforded to them than does a disabled veteran with PTSD in your Assembly district, and especially the Town of Poestenkill, where disabled veterans with PTSD are not considered as humans, and thus, unlike the Negro slaves in Mississippi, have no human rights that need to be protected by the “state” as we hear in this video of a reprisal attack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M89m5TEuu3M on a disabled veteran caught walking on a public street in full daylight where he didn’t belong, instead of staying locked out of sight of polite society in your Assembly district who do not tolerate disabled veterans with PTSD in their company.
When you hear the attacker saying to his victim, “who are you going to show that to,” referring to the video which caught the reprisal attack on film, and then saying “nobody cares,” he is referring to local government, county government, state government, and the national government, because he well knew that he could perpetrate that daylight assault on a disabled veteran in Poestenkill and in your Assembly district because he would never be held to account, just the way the Ku Klus Klan wasn’t held to account for burning crosses and lynching Negros after the Civil War, when it is the policy of the Town of Poestenkill to drive the disabled veteran out of that town.
In that, we can see that disabled veterans with PTSD in your Assembly district have achieved some degree of parity with Negros in Mississippi in and after 1831 when Mississippi required free blacks to “remove or quit the state.”
Why is that, Mr. Assemblyman?
Why is it that disabled veterans with PTSD in your Assembly district today do not have the same protections of law afforded to Negro slaves in Mississippi in the early 1800s?
Respectfully,
Paul Plante
Paul Plante says
So once again, we are back to this question of exactly what game it is that Congresswoman Elaine Luria (D-Va.) is playing at here, and for whose benefit with her letter to conferees for the annual defense bill, requesting the inclusion of her measure to research and treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for veterans.
Research what, and treat it how?
Treat it like the Israelis do, which is to not treat it?
We veterans are told by Congresswoman Luria that the United States-Israel PTSD Collaborative Research Act would leverage research and assets from both the U.S. and Israel for the research, diagnosis and treatment of PTSD by creating a grant program for universities and private non-profits to research PTSD, which is simply a diversion of money away from the veterans themselves.
The programs are already ridiculous with these colleges being involved, turning out thumb suckers who know nothing of combat and who often are afraid of the veterans whose solution is “let’s give them a hug, that’s what they need, a good hug.”
Is that what we really need?
By funneling this money to these universities, it seems Congresswoman Luria must think so, which brings us to this language from her press release, to wit:.
“Israel, under constant attack from terrorist groups, has experienced similar issues with their veterans and civilian populations facing the symptoms of PTSD.”
“Several leading Israeli hospitals, universities and non-profits have dedicated their efforts to researching and treating PTSD,” the letter reads.
“A better understanding of this disorder, along with treatment options, can help us better recognize, diagnose and treat those suffering from traumatic incidents.”
end quotes
So, in what year can we expect that that finally might happen, that we finally get a better understanding of this disorder, along with treatment options, which can help us better recognize, diagnose and treat those suffering from traumatic incidents?
And what about these reprisals against veterans with PTSD that clearly exist, or they would not be made mention of in the literature for the state-funded Dwyer program in New York?
What does Congresswoman Luria plan to do about them?
Dorthy Gray says
What is the persistent fascination with this woman, Elaine Luria?
Note: Ms. Luria was a DESRON Commander in the US NAVY. Anyone that survives that billet and comes out with her career and reputation in tact is an American Hero.
Paul Plante says
She is in congress; that makes her famous, like a rock star, like AOC and Hillary Clinton, and you now how the common folks in America go totally ga-ga over rock stars and famous people like Kim Kardashian; we just can’t get enough of them, because they are so fascinating to us who aren’t rock stars who have otherwise dull and boring lives, but for.