Shameeka Gray, one of the Iraq war vets featured in "Choose or Lose & Kanye West Present: Homecoming" this summer, also had a chance to attend "A Night for Vets: An MTV Concert for the BRAVE" last week. Here's what she thought about the event.

I would first like to say on behalf of myself and all veterans, thank you to MTV and all the participants for making this event very touching and memorable. The performances and messages from the artists and entertainers were great. I would also like to thank the individuals and organizations out there that have implemented and developed ways to help our veterans.

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This whole year of covering veteran issues for MTV's Choose or Lose has really opened my eyes to what our young Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are going through. "A Night for Vets: An MTV Concert for the BRAVE" was one of the most gratifying experiences I've had as an MTV News correspondent.

The overall theme of the show — a celebration of vets — seemed to resonate with the crowd. All the veterans I met were elated to be acknowledged. The packages CNN and MTV produced really hit home with what they've been going through in terms of transitioning back into civilian life. And the BRAVE petition excited them and showed them that we haven't forgotten them as a country.

50 set the tone. He answered the crowd's excitement and anticipation. The fact that you could get one of the top artists in the world for these guys says a lot about the cause. And every one of the vets appreciated it. Read more...

By Nicole Guanlao

I don't usually get star-struck. I didn't hyperventilate once when I was working on the red carpet at this year's Video Music Awards preshow in Hollywood (OK ... maybe I did once when Chace Crawford and Miley Cyrus were 2 feet away from me). I was surrounded by music's biggest stars, and I managed to refrain from being a wide-eyed and giggly superfan. This definitely was not the case last night during the taping of "A Night for Vets: An MTV Concert for the BRAVE."

"A Night for Vets" was created to thank the courageous soldiers who put their lives on the line to protect our country. I was honored to help out with the show. Of course, I was still surrounded by celebrities like Ludacris, 50 Cent and Whoopi Goldberg, but there was one major difference between this event's celebrity guest list and the VMAs'. Not only was I among some of the music industry's biggest stars, but I was also amidst CNN's finest! I knew it was going to be hard to keep my composure when Robin Meade of CNN's "Headline News," international correspondent Michael Ware and Anderson Cooper of "Anderson Cooper 360" were in the room. As an aspiring on-air reporter myself, I've always admired journalists like them. I knew that I just had to meet them (especially Anderson), and show day was my last chance to do it. Read more...

Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is an illness that most people have a surface knowledge of, at best, even though its earliest reports date back to 6th century B.C. In the post-Vietnam War era, it made a more frequent appearance in the media, as combat veterans returned home and struggled with anger, insomnia, hyper-vigilance and flashbacks, among other symptoms. Since then, some people owe their knowledge on the subject to Oliver Stone's "Born on the Fourth of July," or even the current presidential election, as political pundits have accused John McCain of being unfit to run the country because he may have been traumatized by his POW experience.

But what do we really know about it? How close have most of us ever been to someone suffering from the disorder?

(Watch Iraq veteran Bryan Adams' story after the jump.)
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Tonight, just before the taping of "A Night for Vets: An MTV Concert for the BRAVE" (which airs Friday on MTV at 8 p.m. ET), I was out on New York's 44th Street to speak with a number of combat veterans about their experiences overseas, their expectations for the big night and the Bill of Rights for American Veterans (BRAVE), a petition presented by MTV and several veterans' organizations. Most of those I'd spoken with stood outside for hours, braving the increasingly unbearable cold, huddled together as a mass, in an attempt to conserve body heat, waiting for the concert's 7:30 p.m. start.

What struck me about the vets I'd met was the overall sense of family they seem to share. Having all endured similar experiences, war has, for better or worse, bonded these brave men and women, who displayed their dog tags with pride and recounted for me their time in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan — oftentimes, in vivid detail. In fact, one soldier I spoke with was the guy who was ordered into the narrow, dark hole Saddam Hussein was hiding in, beneath a two-room mud shack on a sheep farm ... but I'll have more on that tomorrow afternoon.

Waiting to get inside, I saw Marines greeting each other with that familiar call, "Semper fi, do or die." I saw soldiers reuniting — men and women who'd shared the same battlefields, hugging each other solidly. Veterans shared doughnuts and entire pizza pies with complete strangers — other soldiers they'd just met, but people they share a unique connection with; a familial connection. One soldier, Air Force veteran Jerry McDougal, perhaps summed it up better than any of the soldiers I'd met.

"By being there, we became something of a family," the 27-year-old Alabama son said; he just returned from Baghdad six months ago, and is still adjusting to civilian life. "You bond with the rest of your unit, and you're there to protect each other. When you leave, you're leaving behind family members."

With additional reporting by Rich Sancho

NEW YORK — 50 Cent is a boss, so he'll boss you around and you'll like it! The G-Unit general was throwing out orders to people who weren't even there on Friday afternoon at the Nokia Theater in Times Square. The entire G-Unit got onstage for a brief performance of their stint for "A Night for Vets: An MTV Concert for the BRAVE" (check out their full performance when the show airs Friday night at 10 p.m.).

"I have the savoir-faire," 50 rapped. "I'm the reason everybody's here/ I say, 'Get up!'/ I make it hot, I make it hot in here/ Your feet hurtin', I really don't care/ I said, 'Get up!'
I want see you, I want to see you move/ And get all into the groove/ I said, 'Get up!' "

Check out photos from 50's rehearsal after the jump. Read more...

We recently took a trip to Sallisaw, Oklahoma, to talk to a Marine Corps veteran named John Bennett who now works for the Sequoyah County Sheriff's Department down there. John proposed an interesting idea for a veterans' court that he adapted from a court in Upstate New York.

While nobody comes home from war unchanged, most vets are able to deal with the transition back to civilian life just fine. But many have to deal with big-time mental-health problems, like post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury (more commonly known as PTSD and TBI). If untreated, these often lead to alcoholism and drug use, which can get a lot of vets into more trouble and land them in the criminal-justice system for anything from possession charges and DUIs to domestic violence and theft.

Once John heard about the court in New York, he thought they should implement this concept in his own state. Because Sequoyah County is so small, he headed next door to Tulsa County, which has one of the highest rates of returning vets in the country. He worked extremely hard to get a judge to volunteer for vets' court, and got the DA as well as the mayor of Tulsa involved as well.
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Saving Abel might not be household names just yet, but that could all change when the band performs alongside Ludacris, 50 Cent and other superstars on "A Night for Vets: An MTV Concert for the BRAVE," airing Friday at 8 p.m. ET on MTV.

We got a sneak peek at the band's performance during a rehearsal of their song "18 Days" inside New York's Nokia Theatre Times Square. Frontman Jared Weeks plans to send a special message to veterans before their performance — but we're not giving everything away here. You have to tune in to hear what he has to say!

The band should fit right in with the mostly veteran-filled crowd during the show: Weeks was sporting a few dog-tag chains around his neck, which he said were sent to him by fans in the military.

There were four giant chandeliers hanging from the ceiling above the band during rehearsal that we could have sworn were going to fall because of the vibration from the band's rocking. The stage also had what looked like ninja stars stacked on top of one another behind the band. The lighting scheme — appropriately enough — was red, white and blue, except when the guys were bathed in a golden-red glow during their rehearsal.

But why take our word for it when you can see for yourself? Check out our pictures from the run-through, and make sure to tune in Friday night at 8 p.m. ET on MTV for even more.

(Follow us inside the BRAVE rehearsals and see more Saving Abel, after the jump!)

"Stand up for the vets," Ludacris said onstage during his rehearsal for "A Night for Vets: An MTV Concert for the BRAVE." For the most part, 'Cris kept his practice pretty low-key, but you know he's going to bring the thunder during showtime.

"Check one, two," Luda said into the mic.

"Play 'Stand Up,' " he told his DJ during soundcheck. Luda was very normal and businesslike as he paced with his hand in his pocket while going over his bars.

"Turn it down a little," the Grammy winner directed. "On the monitor, not the vocals. That's perfect. So do it from the top? Good.

Read more and check out photos from the rehearsal after the jump.
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Right after coming back from Athens for the launch of MTV Greece, I went straight to Washington, D.C. — a few hours' train ride from New York's Penn Station — for my next assignment. I was excited. It was my first time ever to D.C., and, most importantly, it was my first time ever meeting an actual student veteran.

Graham Palter is a 24-year-old freshman at George Washington University and a veteran of the war in Iraq. Seeking adventure, he joined the Marine Corps at 19 — and he got exactly what he asked for, and then some. While his fellow students at GWU were firing machine guns and blowing things up on their PlayStations, Graham was serving three deployments in Iraq.

(Watch Graham's story after the jump!)
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