An Anniversary of Anguish

In August of 2007 one of the first post I put up on this blog was Why Isn't the Press on a Suicide Watch? because of a report written by Greg Mitchell. The link must have been broken since then but the truth of his report shows that the link between service and suicide has not been broken.

Why Isn't the Press on a Suicide Watch?
You'd never know that at least 3% of all American deaths in Iraq are due to self-inflicted wounds. And that doesn't include the many vets who have killed themselves after returning home.
By Greg Mitchell
NEW YORK (August 13, 2007) -- Would it surprise you to learn that according to official Pentagon figures, at least 118 U.S. military personnel in Iraq have committed suicide since April 2003? That number does not include many unconfirmed reports, or those who served in the war and then killed themselves at home (a sizable, if uncharted, number).

While troops who have died in "hostile action" -- and those gravely injured and rehabbing at Walter Reed and other hospitals -- have gained much wider media attention in recent years, the suicides (about 3% of our overall Iraq death toll) remain in the shadows.

I did what I usually do with a suicide report. I made it personal. We can look at a number and then move on but a name, a story about the person or the voice of a family left behind to grieve makes that "number" matter.

There is a very long list on that post and that's why I am so depressed today.

Wounded Times Blog is 5 years old this month and I am still having to post about military suicides along side of claims the DOD and the VA are doing something about all of this. They also claim what they are doing will work. Nothing has worked.

So I sit here reading more emails and comments from families after they had to bury their sons and daughters, wondering why they came home from combat but didn't want to live anymore. Wondering what they could have done. Wondering why no one told them about what they are painfully discovering now.

This is not an anniversary to celebrate. It is one of anguish because of how little has been actually achieved.

Soldier with PTSD sues D.A. for lack of care

Veteran with PTSD, jailed on attempted murder charges, sues D.A.
By David Zucchino
July 31, 2012

Staff Sgt. Joshua Eisenhauer, with his mother Dawn Erickson, was diagnosed with severe PTSD from two combat tours in Afghanistan. Charged with attempted murder after opening fire on emergency workers, he said he believed police and firemen were insurgents attacking his position. (Courtesy of Dawn Erickson)

WILMINGTON, N.C. -- A North Carolina soldier diagnosed with combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder has filed a civil lawsuit against a local district attorney for allegedly failing to allow access to specialized PTSD treatment while the soldier is imprisoned on attempted-murder charges.

Staff Sgt. Joshua Eisenhauer, 30, has asked that his case be transferred from civilian courts to the military justice system so that he can receive specialized PTSD treatment mandated by the military. The soldier's civil suit, filed last week, alleges that his right to comprehensive mental health treatment has been violated by the Cumberland County, N.C., district attorney's refusal to transfer jurisdiction.

Eisenhauer was charged in January with 15 counts of attempted murder and assault for firing on firefighters and police responding to a minor fire in Eisenhauer’s apartment complex in Fayetteville. Eisenhauer and his attorney say the soldier was experiencing PTSD-related flashbacks and believed that police were Afghan insurgents attacking his position.
read more here

Parents say Fort Bragg soldier charged with shooting at firefighters has PTSD

Four people charged with kidnapping and torturing soldier

Four charged with kidnapping JBLM soldier for “snitch” money
STACIA GLENN
Staff writer
Published July 31, 2012

A Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier was kidnapped and tortured last week by four people who sold him drugs and then demanded money because they thought he was a snitch, Pierce County prosecutors allege.

The 23-year-old soldier was tied up with electrical cord, Tased, shot with a pellet gun more than 100 times and repeatedly punched while being held in a mobile home in the 14600 block of Union Avenue Southwest, prosecutors said.

On Monday, prosecutors charged Frederick Clifford, 34; Melissa Parr, 33; Krista James, 30; and Jacques Gerber, 33, with first-degree kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment.

Gerber and Parr also face charges of unlawful possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver and unlawful use of a building for drug purposes.

A bench warrant has been issued for Jacques Gerber’s arrest. The other defendants are in custody and pleaded not guilty at their arraignments Monday.

The victim reported the incident July 25 after persuading Clifford to take him to the JBLM gate so he could get cash from a bank on post, prosecutors said. Instead, he asked a clerk at the gate to call Lakewood police. Clifford was arrested and the others later taken into custody.
read more here

Opera opens for Iraq veterans with PTSD

First opera about Iraq War reaches out to veterans suffering from PTSD
By Gael Fashingbauer Cooper
NBC News

Can the stirring sounds of opera reach out to a young generation of veterans dealing with the pain of post-traumatic stress disorder? That's what Marine and Iraq War vet Christian Ellis and Iraqi American playwright Heather Raffo are hoping.

Along with composer Tobin Stokes, Ellis and Raffo worked to set Ellis' wartime experiences to music, creating "Fallujah," the first-ever opera written about the Iraq War.

But it wasn't easy for Raffo and Ellis to come together to work on the project. Ellis said that while it's hard for him to admit he held prejudice against those of Iraqi descent, those feelings were there.
read more here

Veterans Courts help veterans succeed

Vets helping vets succeed
NEW TREATMENT COURT WILL SPECIFICALLY TARGET CONVICTED VETERANS WHO ALSO HAVE UNDERLYING, RELATED ISSUES

KRISTEN ZAMBO
The Journal Times
Veterans and crime

According to Wisconsin Department of Corrections statistics:
• Racine County had 12,432 veterans
• Kenosha County had 10,439 veterans
• Walworth County had 6,763 veterans
• The three-county judicial district had a combined total of 29,634 veterans
• In the three-county judicial district, a total of 330 veterans were incarcerated
— Figures as of Sept. 30, 2011

If discharged, it must have been an honorable discharge or general discharge with honorable conditions, according to program requirements. Combat experience is not required

RACINE COUNTY — In about three months, what is believed to be the nation’s 92nd specialty treatment court for military veterans will open in southeastern Wisconsin and, at least initially, will operate from a Racine County courtroom.

This post-conviction Veteran’s Treatment Court is designed to combine substance abuse and mental health treatment, federal benefits and services already available to veterans, and punishment for the crimes they committed, advocates said Tuesday during an unveiling of the specialty court.

Proponents say they want to treat the underlying problems — such as alcohol abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or drug addiction — which led to these veterans breaking the law.

“It stops the revolving door through the criminal justice system,” Racine County Circuit Judge Eugene Gasiorkiewicz said Tuesday. “If we get these people early, their chance of success is greater than later on. This is less money that the county has to spend (later).”
read more here

Army Dumps Special PTSD Screenings

Army Dumps Special PTSD Screenings
Austin Jenkins
OPB News
July 31, 2012

The U.S. Army is revising the way it diagnoses soldiers with post traumatic stress disorder. In the Northwest, it means the Army will no longer use a special psychiatric unit at Madigan Army Medical Center near Tacoma.

Some soldiers at Madigan complained the psychiatric team downgraded or reversed their PTSD diagnoses. That limited what benefits they are eligible for.
read more here

also

Army reinstates medical center head in PTSD investigation

Sergeant gets 30 days for Pvt. Chen

Army sergeant sentenced to 30 days for private's suicide death
By David Zucchino
July 31, 2012

WILMINGTON, N.C. -- Army Sgt. Adam Holcomb was sentenced to 30 days in prison Tuesday and was reduced in rank for assaulting and maltreating Pvt. Danny Chen, 19, a Chinese American who endured abuse and ethnic slurs before committing suicide in Afghanistanon Oct. 3.

A court-martial panel of 10 service members could have sentenced Holcomb, 30, to a maximum of two years in prison with a dishonorable discharge. He was convicted at Ft. Bragg, N.C., on Monday of assault and maltreatment for dragging Chen across a rocky pathway, bloodying his back, and for calling him "dragon lady’’ and other slurs.
read more here

Marine Gunnery Sgt. Jonathan Gifford 2nd KIA in a week from Palm Bay

Marine killed in Afghanistan was due home in a month
Gifford is 2nd service member from Palm Bay to die in a week
Written by
R. Norman Moody
FLORIDA TODAY
12:48 AM, Aug 1, 2012

Marine Gunnery Sgt. Jonathan Gifford of Palm Bay was one month from completing his deployment to Afghanistan when he and another Marine were killed while on patrol.

Gifford — a 1996 graduate of Melbourne Catholic High, where he played soccer and baseball — had been in the Marine Corps for about 15 years.

He is the second service member from Palm Bay killed within a week in the war in Afghanistan, and the third in the past year.

Army Spc. Justin Louis Horsley, 21, a 2009 graduate of Bayside High, died July 22 while on patrol in Pul-E Alam, Afghanistan. Jeremiah T. Sancho, 23, died Oct. 13, 2011 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan. Both their units were attacked with improvised explosive devices.
read more here

Witnesses take action after WWII veteran was beaten and robbed

World War II veteran beaten, robbed during his weekly walk after buying lottery tickets
By Rosemary R. Sobol and Mitch Smith
Chicago Tribune reporters
8:51 p.m. CDT, July 31, 2012

Porter B. Cross lost his dentures, wallet and hearing aid when three young attackers knocked him to the ground and beat and robbed him in broad daylight Monday, but the proud World War II veteran hung on to the lottery tickets he had just bought and stuffed into a pocket.

The 87-year-old retired postal worker was returning from his weekly walk to a neighborhood store to buy $25 worth of Pick 4 and Mega Millions lottery tickets when he was assaulted from behind.

"I don't know what happened," Cross, struggling to speak without the dentures that were broken during the robbery, said Tuesday from his bed in his West Englewood residence on the South Side.

"I know they broke my teeth and they hit me here," he said as he pointed to his still-hurting chest. "They hit me and they kicked me."

Two meat delivery drivers, Dennis Weekly and Aiman Samad, said they witnessed the midafternoon attack and followed the attackers at a safe distance before flagging down passing patrol officers.

"I saw the man lying on the ground and three males standing over him, going through his pockets," Weekly said. "I followed them about four blocks until police got there. I kept my distance so they wouldn't know."
read more here

Congress passes bill for Marine families hurt by tainted water

Congress passes bill for Marine families hurt by tainted water
By Franco Ordoñez
Washington Correspondent
Posted: Wednesday, Aug. 01, 2012

This photo provided by Jerry Ensminger shows his daughter Janey, in an undated photo. Janey died of leukemia at age 9 not long after this photo was taken. Her father, former Marine master sergeant Jerry Ensminger said he believes she died due to exposure to contaminated water, while he was stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

WASHINGTON The day after Janey Ensminger would have celebrated her 36th birthday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a historic bill in her honor that would help thousands of sick Marine veterans and their families who were exposed to contaminated water at Camp Lejeune.

Legislation that has languished for years could soon be on the president’s desk after the House followed in the Senate’s footsteps and passed the measure under suspension of the rules by a voice vote.

Janey was just 9 when she died of a rare form of leukemia. Her family struggled for years to understand how, or why, she fell prey to the mysterious illness.

It was her father, Jerry Ensminger, who helped uncover that his daughter was one of as many as 1 million people who were exposed to contaminated drinking water at the Marine base near Jacksonville.
read more here