The still curiously named SyFy channel has imported a Canadian series titled Lost Girl and it is showing Mondays at 10 pm EST. Similar to the import of the first season of Sanctuary, the channel has snagged an existing quirky show that is a modest hit for its ever changing lineup.

Lost Girl is the very sexy tale of a mysterious woman named Bo. For the last decade, Bo has roamed the country feeding her hunger for human energy but not understanding it. It’s a hunger that is fatal to the human involved.

Bo is discovered by the two factions of the Fae, the show’s amalgam of mythic creatures from a number of different cultures. She learns that she is a succubus, a supernatural being that feeds of the life force of humans. The Light and Dark factions of the Fae put her to a test, which she survives with the assistance of a new found human friend, a teen named Kenzi. In an act of defiance, Bo chooses neither side and thus begins the series.

The Light and the Dark war with each other. They also intend to keep their secret hold over humanity, no matter what. Dyson, a Fae working in the police force, acts as a guide and mentor for Bo, and his true motivation remains to be seen.

The show carries a TV M rating, and it was well deserved in the first episode. Bo feeds in manner that feels sexual and gratifying to the human, whether clothing is on or off. There is a lot of very attractive skin shown, and Bo appears willing to feed of men and women, to add a bi-sexual kink to the process.

Bo is played by Canadian actress Anna Silk. She did a fine job in the first episode, displaying the confusion and conflict that Bo feels. Her good looks and athleticism are also note worthy. At age 37, she has a decade plus of work on her resume.

Street urchin sidekick Kenzi is played by Latvian Ksenia Solo. At age 24, she has been working for over a decade. She portrays Kenzi, a somewhat street smart and tech savvy teen, with gusto.

Providing the eye candy for female viewers is Kris Holden-Ried, who plays Dyson. A year older than Silk, he has had been a model and had a nearly twenty year career in show business. He was also a world-class athlete, competing for Canada on the Canadian National Pentathlon Team (riding and fencing).

This is going to be a must watch for fans of supernatural tales. The beasties will be drawn from a variety of cultures so there will be some the viewer will recognize and other will be new. The drama will take Bo into the world of Fae and into her own background as she learns to control her power and discover herself.

One addition to the CBS lineup for Fall of 2011 is the police drama Unforgettable. Starring Without a Trace veteran Poppy Montgomery, it adds a little quirk to the usual ensemble cast detective story.

Montgomery plays a former Syracuse, NY, police detective who is discovered to be living in New York City by her former boss and ex-lover. She is haunted by the childhood death of her sister. Her character, Carrie Wells, has a problem, hyperthymestic syndrome, which means that she is unable to forget anything, ever. Except, disturbingly, she cannot recall the details of her sister’s childhood death.

Wells is recruited to the NYC police department by Al Burns, played by Dylan Walsh. Wells’s ability plays a key role in solving the crimes that the unit investigates. The rest of the unit is played by Michael Gaston as the grumpy older detective Mike Costello, Kevin Rankin as the quirky Roe Saunders, and Daya Vaidya as Nina Anara.

Poppy Montgomery is gorgeous with red hair and a casual wardrobe. Some of the best qualities from her character on Without a Trace are featured in her current role. She is sexy, humorous, confident and appears very comfortable in the role.

This is must-see TV. The writers and directors of Unforgettable are working hard to provide the viewer with challenges each week. Some of the details Wells discovers are also seen by the viewer, allowing for some detecting at home. As Carrie Wells slowly recalls details of her sister’s death, the viewer is drawn into that mystery. The contrast between the successful police work and the unsolved mystery in the past is well executed and compelling.

In the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, appearance is almost everything and plastic surgery – to achieve the perfect body, the perfect face, and perfect skin – is commonplace if tabloids and TV shows can be believed.

So, as soap opera star J.R. Martinez of “All My Children” sees it, he fits right in. After all, he’s had more than 30 surgeries. The only difference between Martinez and other young actors: Instead of getting a nose job or Botox shots from high-priced Beverly Hills surgeons, Martinez spent more than two years at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, undergoing skin grafts and treatments for burns that covered 40 percent of his body.

That’s because Martinez – who plays Brot Monroe, an Army veteran burned in combat – used to be Cpl. J.R. Martinez of the 101st Airborne Division. He deployed to Iraq during the initial invasion in March 2003 at the age of 19, only six months after enlisting, still so green he wasn’t sure he could find Iraq on a map. Less than a month later, April 5, the front left tire of the Humvee he was driving hit a landmine. Three other Soldiers were thrown from the vehicle and sustained mostly minor injuries, but he was trapped inside.

Minutes before, he and the Soldier riding shotgun had been joking about how cool it would be to get a Purple Heart and not have to wait in line at restaurants back in the States.

“The things you say and never think it’s going to lead to anything,” he remembered, “because humor is the biggest thing you’ve got to maintain while you’re over there. That’s what keeps you going.”

But it wasn’t cool, and instead of laughing, he was soon screaming for help as smoke filled the Humvee and flames consumed him.

“It’s going to end for me. This is it,” he thought.

Raised by a single mother, Maria Zavala, who had emigrated from El Salvador and had already lost one child, he realized that there was no way he could put her through that again. He had to hang on. By the time his buddies were able to get him out (Martinez later learned insurgents had attacked their convoy as soon as the landmine went off), 10 or 15 minutes had gone by and, conscious the entire time, he was in unspeakable pain.

“It’s really hard to explain,” Martinez said. “You know how you burn yourself on an iron or stove and how painful that is, or maybe a sunburn, and the pain is just excruciating’ This was just on-another-world-, on-another-universe-painful. It was just so far beyond what I had ever known and what I’ve ever experienced that there’s no way to explain it. It’s an unbearable pain. Burns are something I would never wish upon my worst enemy.”

The third-degree burns were so deep, and he lost so much fluid and tissue, that after a while, they destroyed the nerves. The smoke damage was so severe that his lungs and other organs began to shut down. Martinez was put in a medically induced coma for the pain-that and because he kept trying to touch his face, thinking he could make it feel cooler.

One of the medics later told him that he had to be strapped to his bed at the evacuation hospital after he bounced up and told everyone to leave him alone because he was “fine.” In reality, when he arrived at BAMC four days later, doctors still weren’t sure if he would make it, and kept him in the coma for almost three weeks.

After he came out of it, he remained completely dependant on others for weeks, and nurses escorted him to the showers every morning for debridement (removing the dead, scarred skin), which Martinez said was even more painful than the initial burns. But after several days of the torture, he became suspicious: “What the hell is going on’ Why is this so painful’ What does it hurt so much’” he thought, and demanded to see a mirror, although his doctors and nurses were vehemently opposed. They thought it was too soon and would be traumatic, but Martinez insisted.

“‘I want to see my face. I want to see my body, now,’” he told them, explaining that he was the one who would have to live with it for the rest of his life. Why bother putting it off? It would be just as devastating later, so surely it was better to get it over with. When they finally agreed and sat him in front of a mirror, the sight of his face, neck and hands was a shock that sent him into a depression so deep, he began to wonder if he would have been better off dying in that Humvee.

The life he had dreamed of was certainly back in its burned out shell. At the age of 19, he was no longer the handsome young athlete everyone had talked about, and he no longer knew how he would ever find a girlfriend, let alone get married or have children.

“I just felt, looking at my body, there’s no way I’m ever going to be able to experience that,” he said. “My life was spared, but for what?”

Martinez grieved for the man he had been, only going through the motions of his recovery, wondering what he had done to deserve such a punishment, until about five weeks after he had arrived at the hospital when his mother — who had gone through her own ordeal watching her only son face death and disfigurement — snapped him out of it. She explained that he had a lot to learn about life. Looks weren’t everything. In fact, she joked, she was proof.

“‘People are going to be in your life for who you are as a person and not what you look like,’” she told him. “‘I remember when I was younger, everyone told me I was pretty and gave me compliments. No one tells me that now.’”

Something clicked and Martinez immediately answered, “‘You know what, Mom? You’re right. And now, I’m actually glad this happened to me.’”

“‘Wait a minute, what do you mean you’re happy?”

“‘Now I get to see who liked me as a person, versus who liked me for being the popular guy in school, being the athlete, being the handsome young man. Now I get to see who really loves me or likes me for who I am as a person,’” he said. In that instant he understood, and he suddenly had a new mission.

Between his 32 (eventually 33) surgeries, and therapies to stretch his tender, growing skin (he even had to wear a mask to compress the scarring on his face), Martinez began to visit other, newly wounded servicemembers on the wards at BAMC. They too were often badly burned, some with faces that had been nearly charred off. They too were devastated and sometimes didn’t want to go on living, but Martinez noticed that after he talked to them, they seemed to cope a little better.

“I said to myself, ‘I think this is my gift. I’m going to share my gift with other wounded troops because a lot of these guys are arriving here without a clue of what to expect. I’ve been through it. Maybe I can just kind of help them and prepare them on what to expect.’ So I started visiting patients on the wards every day,” he explained.

The local and then national media began to pick up his story, and before he knew it, he was in the Washington Post and on “60 Minutes” and “Oprah,” talking about hope and renewal, explaining that if wounded warriors could just find the strength they had in battle, or even when they enlisted, they could make it through this war too.

Due to his heavy scarring, Martinez is used to getting some strange looks when he hits the streets, and he wants injured servicemembers, burn victims and other people with disfigurements to know that that’s OK. In fact, he embraces the strange looks, and if someone wants to ask about his scars, that’s fine too, because Martinez views the looks and questions as opportunities to educate people about true beauty.

“We have the power,” he explained. “The more we sit there, the more we accept the unfortunate things that have happened, the more we embrace those things and own them, we have the power to actually change the mindset and allow these people to be completely comfortable with scarring, with disfigurement. But what we have to do is go out to the public. We can’t be afraid. We have to step up and say we’re going to go out there, because the more they see, the more they start to say, ‘OK, you know what’ There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s unfortunate, but it’s kind of common.’”

In 2006, when one of his noncommissioned officers urged him to stay in the Army and continue motivating other Soldiers after he was finally discharged from BAMC, Martinez explained that his new uniform was his scarred skin, and his new weapons were his words. He spent two years doing motivational speaking and nonprofit work for wounded troops, and then one day in 2008 he got an e-mail: “All My Children” had decided to launch a short-term storyline about the difficulties returning veterans faced, and thought it might be interesting to cast the role with a real veteran. Martinez had no acting experience, but he had done hundreds of speaking events at that point, and figured he had nothing to lose by auditioning.

Getting the role of Brot Monroe, who had let his fiancee and family believe he was dead rather than let them see his scars, was surreal to Martinez, especially because during his recovery at BAMC, while forced to watch his mother’s telenovelas every night from his hospital bed, he had joked with her that he would be on a soap one day. He already knew the plot and everything: Man gets beautiful girl. Man is in car accident or fire. Girl visits man in hospital. Man turns out to be Martinez. Martinez gets beautiful girl.

Things have been far from that straightforward for Brot as he struggles to come to terms with his scars and civilian life in fictional Pine Valley, Pa., but he has connected with audiences. Martinez’s three-month stint became a long-term contract, with Brot joining the local police force, and even finding possible romance with a beautiful lady detective. The show’s writers and producers, Martinez said, try to be as accurate as possible, and give him a lot of input. They even incorporated his 33rd surgery last summer to fix one of his eyelids into “All My Children’s” storyline.

While his character carries a lot of anger and grief, and occasionally lashes out at friends and coworkers, Martinez hasn’t found those scenes to be especially painful, explaining that because he has already worked through his own pain, he can go to that place for the scene and then turn his emotions off. Many viewers are actually surprised that he’s a real veteran and not a regular actor wearing heavy makeup, waiting for a “miracle” plastic surgery cure.

“I remember one day sitting in Grand Central Station (in New York), waiting for a friend, and all of a sudden a guy’s walking by and he said, ‘Are you guys filming a scene here” At first it’s understandable that people think it’s makeup because TV does crazy things. However, it’s nice for people to understand and learn over time that it’s real and become educated about it,” Martinez explained, adding that “All My Children” is a great way for him to educate people about wounded Soldiers and motivate people going through their own battles.

Martinez is writing a book about his experiences, and hopes to have his own talk show some day. In the mean time, he still does a host of motivational speaking and charity work on behalf of wounded troops, who he’ll often invite to the show’s new Los Angeles set (the show, and Martinez, just moved to LA from New York). In time-honored military tradition, once they’ve finished making fun of him for acting on a soap opera, and bonding over shared experiences, Martinez explains that it might be his name and face out there, but that’s it. He’s out there for them. They inspire him. He’s been home from war for seven years, so recently returning vets are fighting for his freedom as much as anyone else’s, and he has a debt to repay.

“Although a lot of these guys say that I inspire them, a lot of them inspire me,” Martinez said. “When I’m having a bad day, I just think about a lot of them, and I just think, ‘What am I sitting here complaining about’ These guys have gone through so much more.’”

Elizabeth M. Collins
U.S. Army

In Romeo & Juliet, Shakespeare never wrote “A pox on both your houses”. He used the word “plague” instead of “pox”. The word just sounds older than plague, and in the author’s time either term would have been used for the pox and the plague were universal.

Episode 7 of Season 7 of the hit television show, House, M.D., featured the pox as its difficult to diagnose illness. It turns out that there are a number of illnesses that are now called pox, all of which feature sores and rashes of some type.

Perhaps the original pox, syphilis was also known as the “Great Pox”. It is a sexually transmitted illness that seems to have been far more severe centuries ago than it is today. The appearance of sores on the genitals and other parts of the body, the “pox”, were the hallmark of the illness. In its earliest stages, syphilis is quite treatable but can prove fatal if allowed to progress for years. In 2010, the CDC reports over 10,600 cases in the United States through early November.

In the House episode, it was pointed out that smallpox had not been seen since the 1970′s. Samples of the virus are known to exist in storage with the Centers for Disease Control and in a similar facility in Moscow, Russia. There is no treatment for this viral illness although antiviral medicines would be tried if a case was diagnosed. It can be fatal in as much as one third of the cases. As the television show told us, one of the key symptoms is the appearance of the pustules on the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet.

Greg House originally thought the illness might be related to the smallpox vaccine the patients had been given. The immunization uses the vaccinia virus, and that may produce similar though less severe symptoms to smallpox.

Cowpox is the virus that was originally used as an immunization from smallpox. In 1796, an English doctor named Edward Jenner first experimented with cowpox as a preventative to smallpox. He had noticed, with others, that milkmaids seemed to have far fewer cases of smallpox and theorized it was due to their exposure to cowpox. Whatever his interest in milkmaids might have been, when done properly the method seemed to be effective.

Chickenpox was undoubtedly rejected by House and his staff for two reasons. Immunization for chickenpox has been common since 1995 and, though unsaid, the non-adult patients may have received it. More importantly, the rash from chickenpox appears on the trunk and face before it travels to the arms and legs, the opposite of smallpox.

Monkeypox is another illness that produces a rash and pustules, though these eventually scab and fall off. Several dozen cases in the Midwest in 2003 created some concerns that a smallpox outbreak was happening. It turned out that the infected patients had all had contact with rodents, prairie dogs and an imported African rodent, that carried the illness. It can be a serious illness, and fatal in less than 10% of cases in Africa. The smallpox vaccine can be used as either a treatment or a preventative.

Amber Tamblyn‘s character, Martha Masters, eventually diagnosed the real culprit, rickettsialpox. This illness is spread through the bite of a mite that lives on mice. It is easily treatable with antibiotics. As the show presented, a key finding is an “eschar “, a black scab at the site of the bite. Due to this sign, the illness is sometimes confused with cutaneous anthrax.

There are many illnesses that can be called a pox. Physicians have to be alert to the appearance of any rash, and its location, in order to diagnose their patient. Greg House and his staff did just that.

U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Alana Ingram, a native of Las Vegas, a broadcaster with American Forces Network Afghanistan based at Bagram Airfield, interviews U.S. Army Spc. Aaron Franklin, a native of Greenville, S.C, during taping for a personality feature at Forward Operating Base Sharana Sept. 18. Ingram, a 9-year Air Force veteran, is completing her second six-month combat deployment, her first was to AFN-Iraq in 2007. Ingram will soon leave the military to pursue degrees in literature and history in order to teach those subjects at the high school level. Ingram is deployed from Royal Air Force Base Feltwell, United Kingdom.

U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Alana Ingram, a native of Las Vegas and a broadcaster for American Forces Network Afghanistan, based at Bagram Airfield, isn’t afraid to let her voice be heard.

She better not be. It’s her job.

Ingram, a broadcast producer deployed from AFN at Royal Air Force Base Feltwell in the United Kingdom, is in the twilight days of her second deployment.

Assertiveness is something that was ingrained in Ingram throughout her childhood, most notably by her mother.

“My mom was my rock growing up,” said Ingram. “She taught me to be strong, independent and outspoken. I use every single one of those things every day in the Air Force. The strength my mom had when she was raising me is something I’ve always looked up to, and it’s something I’ve tried to emulate as much as I can as an adult.”

Besides her mother, there are other key influencers who helped make Ingram the person she is today.

“My grandfather, a U.S. Army Korean War veteran, is someone I definitely looked up to growing up,” said Ingram. “I never felt pressured that I had any sort of family legacy to carry on, but I always knew I wanted to do something that would make him proud, and this is it. But that’s not the only reason I joined the Air Force. I wanted to do something bigger than what the majority of those around me were doing after we graduated high school.”

It would only be natural for any family to be apprehensive about letting their daughter run off and join the military at 18 years old, but if Ingram’s family felt that way, they never showed it, said Ingram.

“When I decided to join the Air Force back in 2001, my parents were immensely proud and very supportive,” said Ingram. “They just wanted me to do something that would make me happy. I think they’ve always been, my mom especially, a little saddened that I wasn’t at home, but that doesn’t stop them from supporting me as much as they can throughout my career.”

Little did she know, nine and a half years later, that her decision to join would take her to several different countries and give her incalculable experiences to carry on throughout her life.

Two of those countries she’s been able to visit are Iraq and Afghanistan.

“There have been so many things I’ve been able to accomplish over the past nine and a half years that I’m proud of,” said Ingram. “My two combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, however, stand out for me. We all think we’re strong people, that we can handle all things that come our way, but you sometimes don’t get a chance to find out. I think I came out of my first deployment, and I will come out of this deployment, a much stronger person and much more sure of myself. I’ll always be proud I was able to serve my country in wartime.”

Even though Ingram cherishes the experiences and lessons she has had over the past decade, a new chapter is about to unfold in her life and the life of her daughter.

Early next year, Ingram will be leaving the Air Force after 10 years of active-duty service and will pursue another passion and family pastime: teaching.

Her plan is to complete her college education and eventually teach high school history and English.

“Leaving the military will be hard, but I’m grateful that being in the military has given me some great tools I’ll use my whole life, especially when I become a teacher,” said Ingram. “The Air Force has given me some really valuable people-skills, especially this particular job, as I’ve had the opportunity to train a lot of broadcasters. I think that will help me when I eventually transition into a classroom environment, and I have to deal with several students at once, each with differing personalities, and get results from them.”

Ingram learned another lesson from her mother early in life that has guided her decision making.

“I learned early on to stand up for what you believe in, even if you’re standing alone,” said Ingram.”It’s always given me a moral ground and guide to focus on. My mom always wanted me to be my own person, and I think that really helped push me to be independent, and I’m thankful for that lesson.”

Fitting for a literature major, Ingram is perhaps most influenced by the example of Elizabeth Bennett, the fictional main character in Jane Austen’s classic novel, Pride and Prejudice.

“The strength and perseverance her character displays throughout the book is absolutely amazing,” said Ingram. “When all is said and done, the amount of strength she shows, her incredible ability to reevaluate both herself and her situation to realize that maybe she was wrong; I think that’s an amazing quality everyone should have, and that I hope to always apply in my life, regardless of the circumstances.”

Ever the instructor, Ingram has words of advice for those coming into the military today.

“No matter how long you’re in, whether it’s two weeks or 20 years, everything will change with time,” said Ingram. “But rest assured; what you do while you’re in the military will define you forever. Your experience in the military will change you, so let it change you for the better.”

And, of course, always make sure your voice is heard.

CJTF-101
Story by 2nd Lt. Mark Lazane