Carla Newton, in her own words 7/21/2018 Three and a half years ago I had surgery to remove a tumor, that had been there for eight to ten years on my spinal cord. Due to the long-term spinal cord compression, I have a permanent spinal cord injury which affects my gate and balance. I have metal anchors in my spine where bone was removed and I deal with chronic pain daily. I use a walker on a permanent basis now because my balance is simply too unpredictable. When you add this to PTSD from Military Sexual Trauma (MST). My whole life has been changed. My income has been drastically affected, I haven’t worked in four years. I lost a $40,000 a year job after I had surgery. So, life has changed materially, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I was losing hope, believing that my quality of life was over, but a female veteran friend of mine connected me with BattleForged Nation (BFN). I told BFN what was going on with my life. They immediately linked me up with another veteran’s organization that provided some financial relief and it took some stress out of my life immediately. The other thing I have been trying to accomplish for over three years was to obtain a service dog, but because I was not a post 9/11 veteran I was being turned away by almost every agency I contacted. Now that has changed with the help of BFN and their connections, tomorrow I will be getting a service dog. I believe that it will help me feel safe when I leave the house and encourage me to become an active member of my community once again. Besides BFN the other two organizations that helped me with my attaining my service dog “Kona” are R.W.B. Dog Tags and No One Left Behind. I would like to give thanks to Dena K. DeVanter and M.P. the two ladies that coordinated everything and drove round trip from Las Vegas to my home in Arizona. BFN has accomplished more for me in six months then I was able accomplish in three years and I will be forever grateful to them. The other amazing thing that has happened is I have a purpose again. I have become part of the BFN volunteer force that helps other veterans. This is what has been lacking in my life since I had surgery. Finally, a reason to think of others everyday instead of thinking of myself and my own problems. An opportunity to reach out to veterans who are facing becoming a number, 21 or 22 because I have faced that number myself and if it wasn’t for BFN I could have become just another sad statistic in the veteran’s community.
Carla A Newton USMC
