(Spoiler Alert! Read to the end to see USCG Videos)
USCG Veteran Design by Vision Strike Wear.
VSW Honors The United States Coast Guard and for many years Vision-Strike-Wear.Com has been proud to be a licensed and authorized custom designer for the US Coast Guard and has supplied units, MSST Teams, Coast Guard Stations from coast to coast, US Coast Locations referred to as the Crystal Coast, The Graveyard of The Atlantic to Cape Disappointment, training facilities for rescue swimmers to MLB rough water training, designed rates and ranks for our men and women in uniform and those having served in prior service capacities.
Vision-Strike-Wear.Com has designed Kodiak Bears, Blue Crabs, USCG Racing Stripes, Motor Life Boats, paddles and USCG Cutters, skulls, designs for active duty and United States Coast Guard Auxiliary, Harbor Masters, Jay Hawk Crews, USCG Deck Apes, EOD, K-9 Teams and much more. The relationship The US Coast Guard has had with the custom USCG shirt design team of Vision-Strike-Wear.Com has been an honor for VSW and through this relationship it has spawned countless designs that are worn with pride by the United States Coast Guard personnel.
What Are the Missions and Roles of the US Coast Guard?
There are 11 key and critical missions that the USCG carries out everyday. As referenced on the USCG.Mil website they include: By law, the Coast Guard has 11 missions and VSW has had the pleasure to create designs for several of these important mission types.
[Tweet “VSW honors the #US Coast Guard (#USCG) with custom unit designs.”] A small but highly viable force!
So while the United States Coast Guard has the smallest force during peaceful times or during times of war there is a vital force of highly trained and focused men and women with very specific roles. As the smallest force they are still responsible for more geographical areas than one can image from all coast lines of America to the ports and waterways across this great nation.
A Kodiak Mascot For The United States!
For decades the USCG has adopted traditionally a dog for its mascot. Seen at a variety of USCG Air Stations, at graduation from the Coast Guard Academy, kept shore crews company or were seen chasing around a US Coast Guard cutter. The USCG had had a long tradition of keeping a mascot and in more recent years has come to accept the strength and overall powerful presence of a Kodiak bear. At several units request the Kodiak Club design created by Vision-Strike-Wear.Com has been seen worn and displayed by a variety of USCG personnel and it has been VSW’s honor to have been called upon to create the Kodiak Klub design in keeping with the USCG traditions. For more information about the history of US Coast Guard mascots please click USCG Mascots!
A salute to the ranks of the United States Coast Guard!
Like the other military branches of the United States, the United States Coast Guard has its own rank structure that makes it unique and creates the same level of professionalism from the lower and learning ranks to the what is often referred to as the backbone of the USCG, the Chiefs, and of course the upper leadership found with the officers. Over the years Vision-Strike-Wear.Com has been tasked by the USCG to produce iconic and stylistic looks for the ranks which are worn on a variety of apparel items. Each of the ranks created by VSW used the ranks and found within each chevron was an image pertaining to a mission or role, cutter or other important piece of equipment recognized within the USCG. Created with the same level of detail and professionalism expected from the USCG.
SKILLS, TRAINING, DEATH
Custom USCG Designs For United States Coast Guard Shirts!
Raising PTSD Awareness In June Through Organizational Support Every time a sale for more than $50.00 is generated at Vision-Strike-Wear.Com a percentage of every sale is donated to the Purpleheartfoundation.Org to support their mission and activities related to our men and women in uniform. This is the month that Vision Strike Wear Supports Purpleheartfoundation.Org!
PTSD is too important not to discuss, raise awareness and support when our men and women in uniform past and present need our help the most. Now is our turn to do for them. Their selfless sacrifices we must acknowledge and for many that do not know how to ask we need to help them and provide assistance, information and the proper care they more than definitely deserve and have more than earned.
June is PTSD Awareness Month
June is PTSD Awareness month and there is no better time to get the word out, the message and inform your friends, family members and those you work with about the importance of recognizing what PTSD is, what is does and how it can be treated effectively. This month three brand new PTSD military shirts have been created to spread awareness and when sold the necessary revenue to send to organizations whose mission it is to identify and treat PTSD.
[tweet “Vision Strike Wear sends a percentage of all June sales to #PTSD charity, Purple Heart Foundation.”]
PTSD Military Awareness Shirts and Designs
Don’t Give Up The Ship PTSD Awareness Shirt
2000 Yard Marine Stare PTSD Awareness Shirt
The Soldier May Leave The Valley But the Valley Will Never Leave The Soldier PTSD Awareness Shirt
Giving Back To The Military Community
Vision-Strike-Wear.Com has received several orders over the 50.00 dollar threshold already this month. Below are the names and links to the variety of military designs and PTSD designs that have been purchased so far. It is important to thank the individuals who feel as you do that PTSD is important and needs to be recognized. Vision-Strike-Wear.Com would like to thank the following customers for their patronage and for supporting June PTSD Awareness Month and their support for the Purpleheartfoundation.org. All these customers participated with their over 50.00 purchases made in the month of June.
Vision-Strike-Wear.Com has for many years been humbled by participating with our active duty men and women in uniform, veterans, prior service through supporting an environment of pride through creativity, designing apparel and items that are worn on the backs of our servicemen and women, designed in collaboration with them and ensuring the highest level of satisfaction and service. Our returning OIF and OEF Veterans with whom VSW began its company designing for we salute for standing up and making Congress know about the effects of PTSD. Vision-Strike-Wear.Com is honored to work with organizations like IAVA.Org and send year round funds to support their efforts.
June is PTSD Awareness month and throughout the month VSW will be supporting causes, non-profits and organizations whose mission it is to bring not only awareness but also find solutions and combating PTSD so our soldiers, Marines, sailors, airmen and guardsmen can find the tools and solutions necessary to help with issues related to post traumatic stress.
One such organization, Vision-Strike-Wear.Com, will be supporting through the month of June is the Purple Heart Foundation, a congressional Charted organization founded in 1948 whose mission is to serve and support our veterans.
A percentage of every sale at Vision-Strike-Wear.Com will be donated to this fine organization to support their work helping our American Veterans.
In the modern day of our military never has such an important topic been discussed as the one called PTSD. Vision-Strike-Wear.Com is dedicated to helping and working with many other talented organizations whose firm goal is to help our men and women in uniform both past and present.
The mud, the trenches, the desolate battlefields and the fighting between hedgerows found throughout France and Europe during the First World War found soldiers battle weary, drowned souls without sparks of a willingness to live and move past the gray and black of artillery pock marked French soil found themselves shell shocked. America has never turned from a fight and since their great grandfathers of old that unified 13 colonies and ultimately fought the British for control of our country, a way of life and ultimately for a preservation of a way of thinking: freedom.
World War I
The shell shocked American doughboys of World War 1 faced the illusion of invincibility as these Yanks traveled to distant European shores and fought a German adversary they had not experienced since Washington crossed a river and cleverly destroyed the Hessian mercenaries during the American War For Independence. The doughboys and later the Marines found a well prepared, modern German army, and for years experienced the devastating effects of war that ultimately would lead to stress, weariness and stress disorders that would haunt them for the rest of their lives. Their victory in Europe came at substantial cost.
World War II
1000 Yard Stare Tom Lea
World War 2 came largely on the heels of the First World War and America found herself back in Europe fighting as we all know, Germany and the Third Reich, but also her Axis Ally in Japan and their expansive desires for controlling the South Pacific from Japan to Australia and as far away as Hawaii. US Army soldiers from the Normandy invasion to the ultimate taking of Berlin fought over the same ground their fathers had battled.
They battled in the skies with bomb laden B-17’s on daylight bombing missions with very little hope of return to safe shores, sailing across the Atlantic seeking out German U-Boats who were successfully for many years sending millions of tons of merchant tonnage to the ocean bottom. Then came the Army and Marines as they fought in dense jungles, intense heat and often without proper food and supplies against a determined Japanese Imperial Army on orders from their leadership to fight to the last man.
Battle Fatigue
US Army Out of the Valley…
It was during one of these US Marine island hopping battles, The Battle of Peleliu, when then Marine correspondent Tom Lea, created a piece pf art that would become the icon for battle fatigue experienced daily by our fighting soldiers. Coined as the 1000 yard stare, this artwork Lea created became the stark reminder of the stress and disconnection to reality, the giving up on caring and the need to distance oneself from the experiences on the battlefield.
Like the image taken from the top of Mount Suribachi with Marines and a Corpsman hoisting the US flag over a war torn battlefield, the 1000 yard stare would become important as the image of a battle fatigued “America’s Greatest Generation” would have to experience as they returned to home.
US MARINES- 2000 yd Stare
The Forgotten War
Korea and its generation of American soldiers would find a different climate, a different nemesis as they battled for control of a peninsula fighting in a Civil War. The frozen hills and valleys of the Korean War produced its own element of battle weariness and stress.
Named the Forgotten War, Korea and its fighting, its threats, and the demands placed upon our soldiers was no different than their brothers in WW2 and though their sacrifice was just as great when fighting the incredible numbers of Chinese Communist troops the severity of their stress and mental anguish was no less severe. The Forgotten War was not forgotten in the minds of our Korean Veterans.
US Navy Don’t Give up the Ship!
The Vietnam War
The Vietnam War, the Ten Thousand Day War, ushered in a fight in Southeast Asia that would pit the United States against a Russian backed Communist North Vietnam whose desire it was to control the southern half of Vietnam and claim it. Like Korea, America found itself battling Communism once again and fighting to restore freedom and unification of a country torn by Civil War.
The jungles of Vietnam where Army soldiers and Marines fought in densely populated jungles, in cities like Hue City, in places not heard of before on American televisions reporting on the war.
Places like Da Nang, Long Binh, Khe Sanh, Phu Bai, Dak To were soon filling American living rooms with stories of battle, casualties not previously reported and for the first time an American population no longer supportive of our troops.
American Warriors of the Vietnam War
Our American Vietnam Veterans returned home to a place that was hostile towards our soldiers, Marines, sailors, airmen and guardsmen. Placing the blame of the war for the first time on the soldiers asked by its leadership to go to an unknown country, to fight and die in preservation of American interests abroad were heaped upon our soldiers already battle fatigued by their involvement in this unpopular war.
Like the dedicated Americans they are they found ways to deal with these issues, some keeping the issues internalized, never to be discussed, others turning to business or artistic endeavors or projects aimed at keeping these issues at bay. Nevertheless, our American warriors of the Vietnam War also experienced the same battle fatigue their fathers experienced and issues of veteran suicide began to get some exposure to the balance of the American population.
Under prepared and without the ability to deal with the mental issues our veterans were undergoing, the Veteran’s Administration was incapable of identifying and diagnosing the mental states of our returning veterans which even to this day is still a subject that alludes them, and something they have been incapable of helping our veterans with.
On the battlefield, emergency trauma treatments can be difficult and painful. Field Medics stuff gauze directly into a wound to stop bleeding coming from an artery. The process is agonizing and after three minutes, if the bleeding continues they must remove all the gauze and do the treatment again for it to be effective. It is so painful that they always ensure they disarm the patient before starting so that the patient does not try to defend themselves to stop the pain. (source: PopSci.com)
Even with immediate field treatment, many soldiers still bleed to death. Hemorrhaging is a leading cause of death on the battlefield. Steinbaugh of Oregon Startup RevMedx, who helped invent the new treatment, treated soldiers in over a dozen deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Gauze bandages just don’t work for anything serious”
With Steinbaugh, a small group of veterans, scientists, and engineers have been working on a better way to stop bleeding.
[Tweet “Oregon Startup’s Invention Seals A Gunshot Wound In 15 Seconds. #military #usarmy #startups #oregon”]
XStat, before and after RevMedx
RevMedx recently asked the FDA to approve a pocket-size invention: a modified syringe that injects specially coated sponges into wounds. The xStat device could boost survival and spare injured soldiers from additional pain by plugging wounds faster and more efficiently than gauze.
The team’s early efforts were inspired by Fix-a-Flat foam for repairing tires. “That’s what we pictured as the perfect solution: something you could spray in, it would expand, and bleeding stops,” says Steinbaugh. “But we found that blood pressure is so high, blood would wash the foam right out.”
So the team tried a new idea: sponges. They bought some ordinary sponges from a hardware store and cut them into 1-centimeter circles, a size and shape they chose on a whim but later would discover were ideal for filling wounds. Then, they injected the bits of sponge into an animal injury. “The bleeding stopped,” says Steinbaugh. “Our eyes lit up. We knew we were onto something.” After seeing early prototypes, the U.S. Army gave the team $5 million to develop a finished product.
But kitchen sponges aren’t exactly safe to inject into the body. The final material would need to be sterile, biocompatible, and fast-expanding. The team settled on a sponge made from wood pulp and coated with chitosan, a blood-clotting, antimicrobial substance that comes from shrimp shells. To ensure that no sponges would be left inside the body accidentally, they added X-shaped markers that make each sponge visible on an x-ray image.
“By the time you put a bandage over the wound, the bleeding has already stopped.”
In just 15-20 seconds the small sponges will expand and fill the entire wound cavity and create enough pressure to stop heavy bleeding. Because the sponges cling to moist surfaces they will not be pushed back out of the body by the flow of blood from the injury.
“By the time you even put a bandage over the wound, the bleeding has already stopped,” Steinbaugh says.
In battle, field medics carry all of their equipment with them and wear body armor. RevMedx had to find a lightweight and compact way to deliver sponges deep into an injury. They worked with Portland-based design firm Ziba to create a 3 centimeter in diameter, polycarbonate syringe that stores with the handle inside to save space. To use the applicator, the medic pulls out the handle and then inserts the cylinder into the wound. Pushing down the plunger injects the tiny coated sponges into the wound and as close to arteries as possible.
Cost and Space Savings of xStat
Three single-use XStat applicators replaces five bulky rolls of gauze in a medical kit. RevMedx designed a smaller version of the applicator, with a diameter of 12 millimeters, for narrow injuries as well. XStat will likely cost about $100 per unit at this time, but the price will go down as RevMedx boosts manufacturing of it.
If the FDA approves XStat, it will be the first battlefield dressing created specifically for deep, narrow wounds. Gauze, the standard treatment for gunshot and shrapnel injuries, is only approved by the FDA for external use, but “everyone knows that if you get shot, you have to pack gauze into the wound,” says Steinbaugh.
When RevMedx submitted its application to the FDA, the U.S. Army attached a cover letter requesting expedited approval. According to Steinbaugh, RevMedx and the military are now in final discussions with the FDA.
“I spent the whole war on terror in the Middle East, so I know what a medic needs when someone has been shot, ” Steinbaugh says. “I’ve treated lots of guys who would have benefitted from this product. That’s what drives me.”
This week marked the 20th anniversary of the Battle of Mogadishu, the deadliest firefight U.S. forces had faced since Vietnam. Think what a A Downed Black Hawk In Somalia Taught America and the repurcussions.
The incident ultimately pushed the U.S. out of Somalia, leaving a safe haven for extremist groups.
It continues to impact U.S. foreign policy today, from the rise of Islamists to the nation’s reaction when asked to send American troops into harm’s way.
‘Things Did Not Go Well’
There was never even supposed to be a Battle of Mogadishu. In one of his final acts after losing the 1992 election to Bill Clinton, President George H.W. Bush sent American forces into Somalia on a humanitarian mission to bring food to the victims of a raging civil war and man-made famine.
But by the fall of 1993, the mission had expanded to one of restoring a government in Somalia. On Oct. 3, a special ops team was sent into Mogadishu to arrest two top lieutenants of the warlord Mohammed Aidid, who controlled the city.
“They estimated it would take 30 minutes to 45 minutes to conduct the raid, but things did not go well,” says journalist Mark Bowden, who reported on the events of that day.
His account, first in The Philadelphia Inquirer, then in a book and finally in a blockbuster film, gave the Battle of Mogadishu the name by which it’s better known today: Black Hawk Down.
Bowden interviewed the men who survived the mission, including Shawn Nelson, an M60 gunner who roped down to the scene from a helicopter.
In December 1993, Somali children play around the wreckage of a U.S. helicopter in Mogadishu.
Alexander Joe/AFP/Getty Images
“We immediately started taking fire from the ground. I could see people below us with weapons maneuvering about,” he told Bowden.
Nelson said that rangers did arrest their two targets, along with about 20 other Somalis who were in a house with them. Buttaking on so much fire in the busy streets, there was no way to get out fast.
“The longer they stayed, the intensity of the fire that the troops encountered increased, including the fire directed at the helicopters overhead,” Bowden says.
About 40 minutes into the mission, one of the Black Hawk helicopters circling overheard was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, spun out of control and crashed. Not long after, a second Black Hawk was shot down. More men were sent in to secure the crash sites and get the soldiers out. But the rescue team itself got pinned down.
“I said a little prayer,” says Spc. Phil Lepre, who was on that rescue convoy, “took off my helmet, looked at my daughter’s picture, I said, ‘Babe, I hope you have a wonderful life.’ ”
The 15-hour battle that ensued left 18 Americans dead and 73 injured. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Somalis were killed. U.S. Army pilot Mike Durant was captured and held by Somali militants for 11 days.
Lasting Consequences
Meanwhile, back in America, the same news networks that broadcast the start of the peaceful humanitarian mission less than a year earlier now ran horrific footage of Aidid supporters desecrating the corpses of U.S. soldiers.
All of this intensified the pressure on then-President Clinton to get U.S. troops out of the country.
“We had gotten to a point … where we kind of thought that we could intervene militarily without getting hurt, without our soldiers getting killed. The incident that I call Black Hawk Down certainly disabused us of that,” Bowden tells Arun Rath, host of All Things Considered.
After the Battle of Mogadishu, Clinton said that it was a mistake for the United States to play the role of police officer in Somalia. He announced a six-month plan to remove U.S. troops from the country.
The battle likely caused “an excessive concern [to] avoid risking American forces on the ground” during the Clinton administration, Bowden says. And to an extent, that calculation continues to play a role in foreign policy decisions, he says, even through the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The incident also had an impact on extremists, who could take advantage of the U.S. withdrawal. The lawlessness that followed the American exit created a recruiting ground for terrorist organizations.
“They are by definition extremists, so they lack a large degree of popular support. They can only succeed in areas where they can impose they’re rule,” Bowden says. Plus, four years after the battle, the only schools open in Mogadishu were those run by Islamists.
“So we, by withdrawing from Somalia, left a lawless region ripe for al-Qaida and gave at least a whole generation of Somalis over to these Islamist fundamentalists to be educated and groomed,” Bowden says.
When the U.S. announced its withdrawal, it also gave Osama bin Laden a narrative to latch onto.
“His message was, ‘Well, we can defeat this great power because they’re not used to hardship and tragedy, so if we can inflict that they’ll retreat,’ ” Bowden says. That message was aimed at those who might have previously been deterred by the United States’ power.
If It Happened Again
Since 1993, there have been significant advances to America’s special operations.
“Our ability to gather intelligence to find people, to observe them from a distance with the addition of a fleet of drones that we now have flying is vastly improved,” Bowden says. “And we also have special operators who — after Iraq and Afghanistan — who have had more experience conducting the kind of raid that took place back in 1993 than any force like it in the history of the world.”
If conducted today, the Mogadishu raid would have been done more efficiently, Bowden suspects. He says there also would be better intelligence about the risks ahead of time. But that’s not to say there wouldn’t be hiccups.
“The men who conducted that raid [in ’93] were extremely professional, and they didn’t do anything wrong,” he says. “The fact is that when you go into combat, it’s very not only possible but very likely that … unanticipated things will happen and you’ll end up in a much bigger fight than you would prefer.”
