“Accepting the Ashes” is for American military men and women, and all those who love them. 

”Accepting the Ashes” is one daughter’s attempt to increase communication among veteran families so that long-term healing can occur.

“Accepting the Ashes" does not attempt to diagnose or treat any veteran. It is written from the perspective of an adult daughter, honestly highlighting one man and how PTSD negatively affected him and his family.

In addition to assisting many American families deal with PTSD, “Accepting the Ashes” is being used by a growing number of VA Chaplains and National Guard Family Readiness Offices around the country to aid their veterans, families and volunteers as they attempt to understand and treat Post Traumatic Stress. Also, the director of the National Chaplain Center has included “Accepting the Ashes” as a resource for a new program that trains community members around the country to help veterans as they return from Iraq or Afghanistan.

”I commend the author for preparing this very helpful little resource for the spouses and families of our veterans.  The descriptions of the struggles of combat veterans with the symptoms of PTSD are very accurate.”  
A. Keith Ethridge, M.Div, Acting Director, National Chaplain Center

"Accepting the Ashes" comes in a 60 page book with illustrations, and as a 58 minute audio book narrated by Quynn, both in CD and download formats. See “Purchase” for more info.

If you assist veterans and their families, wholesale prices are available to you!
 

An excerpt from “Accepting the Ashes”

Two years before his death I found my father alone in his apartment, looking horrible. This was by far the worst I had seen him.  I could tell he was at the end of his proverbial rope and that he was deciding to live or die. I insisted on taking him to the VA’s alcohol diversion program that very moment because he had just recently got his first ever DUI.  Once there, I watched my father as he sat across from a grey haired veteran and substance abuse counselor. Immediately, this man began talking to him about Viet Nam, saying things like “I know how you feel, you can’t sleep, and you feel guilty, right?”  The dumbfounded look on my father’s face said so much.  Thirty years after his war experience, and after a couple of alcohol diversion programs, he still felt that his problems were only his failings, that he was “weak” and just couldn’t “handle it”.  Obvious to me, but an amazing revelation to him, he was not alone in how he felt.  This humbling experience helped give my father the strength to get a second wind and in his last two difficult years, he was able to look at much of his past.  The summer before he died, I spent five days camping with him.  I was quietly shocked to hear him tell stories about Viet Nam, saying over and over, “I’ve never told this to anyone”.  I was grateful that he could finally speak them and that he felt he could say them to me. 

As a strange gift, my father kept every paper relating to his life. While going through the boxes after his death, I found documentation of everything, his youth, his warrior phase, his family years, legal battles, and his fall into a deep well of emotional pain that he had been able to keep at bay as a younger man. Through reading these papers, I was able to step into his world which I had not known before.  For years, I only saw him occasionally because alcohol and sadness had overtaken his ability to hold his life together and it was just too painful for me to watch. However, we were both given a chance to heal old wounds. Little did I know that it was a last chance before he died.  I’m glad that I took the opportunity.

“At any one time, more than 3,000 veterans are waiting for their first visit to the doctor.  Those whose injuries from battle qualify them for disability compensation often wait six months to two years to receive it.”  Department of Veteran’s Affairs (“Altered Lives”, Timothy Dwyer, LA Times-Washington Post Service) Quoted in “Accepting the Ashes”