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The Soldier and the Squirrel introduces children to the Purple Heart

through a loving story of a friendship between a newly wounded soldier

and Rocky the squirrel with his backyard friends. This story began as a

blog during my first year in bed after my incident. With much

encouragement, it is now a book and has been placed in the

Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum. Please watch the video

on the About page to learn for the Soldier & Rocky are changing children's

lives.

 

ORDER NOW

 

 

In 2018, Bensko founded Veterans In Pain - V.I.P. Facilitating OrthoBiologic solutions for Veterans suffering from chronic pain, by connecting volunteer physicians with our country's heroes, nationwide. 

V.I.P. is a Platinum Certified GuideStar Nonprofit, and Certified Resource of Wounded Warrior Project.  

501(c)3 EIN# 83-0600023

www.VeteransInPain.org 

Socializing
Wednesday
Oct272010

Talking to God


I looked at the world today...




And had to look away...





All I wanted to see was peace.





So I waited.





We looked everywhere for a sign.





So what's the deal, God?...





The world is this big...Can't you do something?





What?...... It could begin with ME?...





Really?...
Sunday
Oct242010

Marine Shares Iraq Experiences with Rio Norte Jr. High

By Carol Rock of KHTS www.hometownstation.com


Students in Ron Ippolito’s history class at Rio Norte Junior High got a first-hand lesson in history Thursday morning when Marine Sgt. Bret McCauley stopped by.


McCauley isn’t a local, but he isn’t that much older than the kids he held in awe. Calling on students who had questions, he’d ask “what’s up?”
The lanky brunette perched on a stool in front of the class, looking much like the older brothers many of the students had at home. He wore no uniform, no military insignia. His blue plaid shirt, black jeans and ear piercings made him look like the musician he returned home to be.


But his story of teaching himself how to play guitar all over again made for a silent and attentive crowd.

McCauley is part of the Tempered Steel, a veteran’s support group that encourages soldiers who were severely injured due to military service to speak to schools, community groups, assemblies and other gatherings about the stories behind their scars to build compassion and understanding for the veterans.

After the Indiana native joined the Marines in June 2001, McCauley spent two years working on the Presidential protection detail. In 2004, he deployed to Iraq and was shot in an ambush in March. Six months later, he and 14 Marines in his platoon were traveling in a truck enroute to Falujah when a suicide bomber drove into the side of the vehicle, killing nine of the men in the truck. McCauley woke up stateside. His left arm had nearly been severed, he lost his left kidney and spleen, had shrapnel in his intestines and severe head trauma. Both of his eardrums had been blown out, his corneas were rippled from the impact and his back was broken in two places.

“The military is not that great at getting medical care to its soldiers,” he explained. “I had 30 surgeries in the first year and was on all kinds of pain medications. I could barely take care of myself.”

When he was discharged from the service, he said he was “still kind of a mess.” He moved out to the West Coast, settling at first in Oceanside near the Marine base, then moving to Hollywood to live with his cousin, who was attending music school.

“About a year later, I was sitting on the couch when the phone rang,” he said. “It was Rhonda from the Dr. Phil Show. I’m not exactly their demographic, but she was calling to invite me to a big dinner that this veteran’s group was having. My mother watches the show and when they announced they were looking for someone who deserved a seat at the dinner, her letter was picked.”

McCauley went to the dinner, which was sponsored by the Iraq Star Foundation, a wounded warrior group. He made some valuable connections, including Tempered Steel photographer Micaela Bensko, who is the daughter of Iraq Star founder Maggie Lockridge.

“Within six months, my arm and head were fixed,” he said.

That dinner turned his life around and he joined the troops visiting classrooms to tell the real story of life in the war zone.

Within a month of deploying in Iraq, where McCauley said they were told they were to operate much like the police, his unit found out that the situation was very different. During a changeover with the Army three weeks after their arrival, he said they were walking down the street, sweltering in long sleeves, flak jackets and helmets and the weight of their guns when he “got a weird feeling that something was going to happen.”

“I told myself ‘you’re in a combat environment, you’re supposed to be nervous’ but I couldn’t swallow the feeling,” he said.
The platoon was inside the city wall with three companies of Marines outside when suddenly a spray of gunfire shattered the night and a rocket flew over his shoulder hitting the building behind him.

“It was mind-blowing,” he told the rapt students. “It was coming from behind us and in front of us and we didn’t know where to cover. We were being ambushed from the rooftops, just 28 guys and me. And the Marines outside never got our radio transmission, so we were under friendly fire too.”

Running for cover, he felt something in his leg snap, but adrenaline kept him going. It wasn’t until the gunfire stopped and he tried to stand that he looked down and saw the baseball-sized hole in his pants and felt the warm blood coursing down his leg.

“It wasn’t at all what I thought,” he said, pointedly speaking to the video gamers in the crowd.

In that firefight, one of his friends was killed; a fellow Marine with whom he’d just had dinner. The students squirmed in their seats as he related the details of his evacuation, explaining that his injury kept him out of a seat on the aircraft; forcing him to lay on the floor of the helicopter, face-to-face with his dead friend.

He was given the choice to be treated and returned to the field or be sent home, and said the choice was very clear.

“I just watched my friend get shot,” he said. “I’m not going home.”

Three weeks before his deployment was to end, his platoon was going down to Falujah to relieve another platoon.

“My squad, everyone I slept with and ate with, we’d done this a hundred times before,” he said. “Then I blinked and woke up two weeks later. I had no idea what happened.”

The suicide bomber that drove into their vehicle was carrying a 500 pound bomb and two artillery shells, decimating their truck. One of his friends survived only because he ducked under the dashboard a split second before the crash to retrieve the bottle of water. Everyone else on that side of the truck was killed immediately.

“It’s the sacred geometry of chance,” he said. “You don’t know why and you don’t know how, but you just do something that saves your life.”

“We don’t really know why things happen the way they do,” McCauley stressed to the students. “The only thing we know is that you don’t get to choose what will happen to you, you do get to choose what you do about it.

“You gotta learn to sing in the rain,” he said, smiling.

After the students applauded his story, he took several questions, which ranged from the innocent to the intensely personal.

“Do you have dreams about the war?” one asked.

“War is nothing you really get over,” he said. “You learn to live with it. And you learn not to think about it.”

His musical career was of interest, and when asked if he plays guitar now, he started to laugh.

“Yes, I learned again, thanks to Guitar Hero, of all things. I started playing a little bit and my fingers hurt at first, but then my hands started working again.”

A young girl asked him if he would return to the military and McCauley hesitated.
”That’s a very hard question,” he said, pausing. “Knowing what I know now, yes. Yes, I would. It’s given me so much fortitude, drive and direction.”

The inevitable inquiry about “have you ever killed anyone?” brought a technical answer, with McCauley explaining how Marines handle such situations with a tactical approach, trailing off into a description of a firefight.

“You probably know already,” he said.

Asked about his years guarding the President, McCauley started to laugh.

“I stood in the woods watching a lot of chipmunks around Camp David,” he said. “It was extremely boring. Sure, I was on CNN, saluting when the helicopter landed and the President would come down the stairs, but I wouldn’t have volunteered to go to war if I liked that job.”

A follow-up question about any threats during his Camp David assignment brought a cautionary answer.

“That’s top secret information,” he chided. “But I will tell you that there were not too many incidents of terrorists in Maryland.”

A boy asked if it was dark when McCauley was in a coma. He answered that the dreams were pretty vivid and strange, but that he heard everything people said. How his brain interpreted it, he added, was sometimes pretty weird.

Asked “are there girls in Iraq?” brought a smile again. “Yes,” he answered. “But they don’t look like you guys.”

“The best thing about sharing these experiences with you is that it isn’t just for you guys to learn about what it’s like, to hear some guy and his crazy war stories,” he said. “It helps me too, to be able to share. The emotional part of healing is a bigger beast than the physical thing.”
Thursday
Oct212010

Introduction to Sisterhood…

Big Sister at home

Awaiting the unknown

A key turns

Dog barks echo off the kitchen walls

Tiny feet peek through Mama's arm

Big Sister is no longer alone

unsure

two feet

not four

Is it as fun as a pet? Will it roll on the floor?

We shall see

Until then,

It's time to find out

what sisters are for...



























Wednesday
Sep292010

Daddy's Shirt

His little girls

with curls

slept while he was gone

His badge lands gently on the counter

it taps an echo through the hall

they hear

It lands on their cheeks

a kiss

a knowing

Daddy is home.



"Peace"



"Pride"


"Innocent"

"Surrender"


"The Stand Off"


"Joy"


"Hope"
Wednesday
Sep222010

A Senior Moment

There is nothing more exciting as a teenager than graduating high school (besides getting your driver's permit, or well, you know...other things kids do...). For Jordyn, Valencia High School, Class of 2011, this was the first time in her life she had ever had professional images captured of herself. As we arrived at the beach in Santa Monica she was prepared with a bag of goodies, shirts, hats, dresses and the enthusiasm of a kitten batting a ball of string ;0) It was play time! Having her Senior photo taken was an adventure, and one I was so very grateful to be a part of. It was FUN, it was LIFE, it was...Jordyn...

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Thursday
Sep092010

Bensko Photography Theme Song

Sunday
Aug292010

Children of the Wedding

There is a joy, an innocence, in most every wedding. It's the history of the bride's childhood her mother sees dance across the face of the seven year old flower girl holding that treasured basket of pedals. The ring barer in the suit is not simply a pre-teen in an awkward clip-on tie, he is the embodiment of the groom's youth passing before his father's eyes.

Children at weddings are a gift to those who cherish that added layer of frosting on the Hostess Wedding Cake. They are a reminder of the fragility of time, moments captured, and of moments lost. They offer an inclination to reflect that we all were once that small, our hearts were once that large, our spirits were once unbridled.


Children have a way of spicing up any event, whether it be with a dash of Cinnamon, Nutmeg, or Cayenne Pepper...It's my personal mission as a photographer to not only capture a wedding day's obvious moments, but also the obscure, the moments lost by the business of the day's momentum.

It was with absolute joy that these children allowed me to wrangle their choas with my lens...sprinkling my efforts with sugar and spice to last, a lifetime...













Friday
Aug132010

Fifty Years and Losing It…

     You came, you shot, you conquered...or so you thought. That's what I did. On vacation. Until I lost my camera. No, not the big fancy one. It was the disposable waterproof kind, but it would have been better had I lost my big one than to have lost the images I had on that rinky-dink plastic-cased excuse for a submarine.
     It was more than a summer vacation to San Diego, it was my wonderful in-laws' 50th wedding anniversary / family reunion, and I was darned if I was going to miss one shot from that entire weekend. With my husband's crazy schedule, my weekends mostly booked out, and with four children scrambling around, any time we are all together is like oxygen shot through a cellophane muzzle.
     So, when the opportunity rose to go sea-cave kayaking in La Jolla with our relatives, I left Big Bertha on land and picked up that yellow disposable which leers at you from the Walmart checkout stand. The one which makes your husband cringe, knowing the film will never truly be developed, confirming his prediction of 12.99 down the proverbial sea-cave...
     As I strapped on my life jacket and helmet, I secured my 12.99 waterproof Hasselblad in my vest pocket and set out on our journey of exploration.
     Throughout our great sea adventure, I proudly snapped away at every breathtaking moment we would never forget for the rest of our lives: kayaking over five foot tiger sharks lurking the ocean floor, pelicans soaring overhead our gaggle of gluttons for adrenaline, the joy on the face of my child with her daddy paddling away with the cliffs peaking, the tides swelling, Joey agog at the seals perched on their protruding bellies...and I caught every moment. I wound that camera like an archaic sewing machine, intuitively searching it's spine for a digital readout or picture display. Click, wind, click, wind, click...
     After two breathtaking hours of capturing images that I knew I would develop and slip into our incredible weekend of family reunion and anniversary images, we returned to our car. I reached for my plastic Hasselblad. I searched through my bag. We drove back to the hotel. We got out of the car. I had lost my camera. My plastic, waterproof submarine image creator had vanished, with every precious water-splashed lens dropping...gone.
     My heart imploded like a helium balloon sucked into a vacuum. My memories were gone, I had lost such a simple object, but it was my best friend through that journey. We clicked, we wound, we clicked, it scoffed at me when I asked it to show me a picture, it smelled like chemicals...it was perfect.
     This made me ponder what made me most sad...was it that I lost the pictures, or was it losing a part of the process that makes capturing memories so special? In my heart, I will never forget those incredible moments. No one will ever take those memories from me, not even the sea, so perhaps it was the process which swells in my soul, an addiction with waves of fulfillment confirming the preciousness of life.
     I do have one photo from that day however, one I took with Big Bertha before we set out, of the kids in front of some kayaks. We were at the wrong kayak place, these weren't the kayaks we paddled in, and we all changed our clothes before we launched, but you get the idea...

 "Joe, Cassie May, with cousins Turner and Mason, in front of the kayaks we didn't use in the store we weren't supposed to be at, in the clothing they didn't wear..."


And a few others from our weekend...

"Cousins at Bay"



"Utopia"



"Peace"



"I <3 U"



"Wonder"



"Awe"



"Gillette Poster Child..."



"Our Little Bugs"



"Joe"



"Uncle Dave's DilEmma"



"Fifty Years"

Thursday
Jun102010

Aspen Bliss

Mount Sopris sprung through the backdrop emitting it's grandeur upon the back lawn of the prestigious Aspen Glen. Shakira and Noah, from Miami, juggled bipolar weather forecasts of pending storms (a continuing theme in my latest May-June weddings) yet won the meteorology sweepstakes with gorgeous skies and 75 degree winds. The most precious flower girl, Mollie, (with a touch of stage fright) melted the guests. They toasted Mother Nature with bubbly and danced the night away with stars a flutter and candles humming by outdoor fireplaces. As I sat under the pristine skies, having shot my last image, I reflected upon my job and realized...life is good.











Monday
Jun072010

Grace at the Jefferson

The skies taunted Grace & Adam for days, constant threats of thunderstorms and tornados...yet! Mr. Jefferson stood firm, seemingly emitting a protective umbrella of defiance resulting in a perfect day of simple overcast and fleeting humidity. Here are just a few samples of our session at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington D.C., the ceremony took place on the West Lawn of the memorial that afternoon. This wedding was the perfect example of a couple who got it right, enjoying every aspect of their day, and chalking up any possible hiccups as simply another anecdote of their wedding day to share with their future children. Pure joy, pure love, pure bliss...it was MY blessing to know them, to cheer them on, and to shoot them...;0)

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