Suicide Prevention Mission Impossible Unless We Change

Preventing Veteran Suicides Mission Impossible With Same Weapons
Wounded Times
Katie Costos
February 1, 2015

We need to take a trip back in time to discover how we got to where we are on suicides tied to military service. Everyone seems to want to do something to save the lives of our troops and veterans but frankly, "You can't get there from here" unless you know how we got here.

At a family forum during the 2006 Association of the United States Army’s Annual Meeting, Col. Charles S. Milliken, MD, a research psychiatrist at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research-Psychiatry and Neuroscience, explained how “Battlemind”training addresses the stigma of PTSD and other combat-stress related symptoms. The 45-minute training program is part of a larger, comprehensive Post Deployment Health Assessment and Reassessment program that screens Soldiers for PTSD and other related mental health conditions twice after deployment.

We need to jump to 2007 when then Senator Obama was on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. He introduced bills back then addressing PTSD and military suicides. S.117 -- Lane Evans Veterans Health and Benefits Improvement Act of 2007 In the bill he had everything that folks said was necessary to honor the service and tend to those suffering for it.

(F) Subject to paragraphs (2) and (3), a veteran who served on active duty as described in subparagraph (D) during a period of war, or after the date, specified in that subparagraph is also eligible for-- `(i) a mental health evaluation to be provided by the Secretary not later than 30 days after the date of the request of the veteran for such evaluation; and `(ii) hospital care, medical services, nursing home care, and family and marital counseling for any mental health condition identified pursuant to such evaluation, notwithstanding that there is insufficient medical evidence to conclude that such condition is attributable to such service.'.

SEC. 102. POSTDEPLOYMENT MEDICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH SCREENINGS FOR MEMBERS OF THE ARMED FORCES.

`(2) The postdeployment examination shall be conducted not later than 30 days after the date of the return of a member to the United States from a deployment as described in subsection (a). The examination shall include a comprehensive medical and mental health assessment conducted on an individualized basis by personnel qualified to conduct such examinations.'.

"SEC. 104. ENHANCED OUTREACH TO MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL GUARD AND RESERVE ON AVAILABLE BENEFITS AND SERVICES" and the rest you can read from the above link

As Senator, Obama tackled a lot of the issues. Discharges for Personality Disorders among a long list of other issues and we were told the military was paying attention as well.

‘Battlemind’ Prepares Soldiers for Combat, Returning Home Jan. 3, 2008 – Every soldier headed to Iraq and Afghanistan receives “Battlemind” training designed to help them deal with combat experiences, but few know the science behind the program.

Consequently, Dr. Amy Adler, a senior research psychologist with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research’s U.S. Army Medical Research Unit Europe, in Heidelberg, Germany, visited Patch Barracks here, breaking down the program, which is a system of support and intervention.

The Battlemind system includes separate pre-deployment training modules for soldiers, unit leaders, health care providers and spouses. Psychological debriefings are given in theater and upon redeployment. There are also a post-deployment module for spouses and several post-deployment modules for soldiers.

Army studies show the greater the combat exposure a soldier encounters, the greater the risk for mental health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anger and relationship problems. When soldiers first return home, they may not notice any problems; sometimes it takes a few months for problems to develop.

With running for Commander-in-Chief Obama took some time away from major media reporters and met with the step-brother of a young National Guardsman from Montana. Chris Dana couldn't speak for himself because he committed suicide.

Montana National Guard Spec. Chris Dana will never know the impact his life and ultimately his death may someday have on the lives of veterans nationwide.

Dana took his life in March 2007, less than two years after returning from a tour in Iraq. His family believes he was a victim of post traumatic stress disorder, brought on by his combat experience.

Since Dana’s death, his stepbrother Matt Kuntz has campaigned for more awareness of the costs of untreated post traumatic stress syndrome in Iraq war veterans. Wednesday, he was invited to meet with Sen. Barack Obama to share the message he’s been spreading statewide for more than a year. At a quiet picnic table at Riverfront Park Obama sat across from Kuntz, his wife Sandy and their infant daughter Fiona.

Kuntz was heavy with emotion, but hopeful and eager to share Dana’s story, and tell the senator about his work to ensure other Montana veterans aren’t suffering from the same condition that made his step-brother take his life.

The new Mental Health Advisory Team (MHAT 6) report, a "snapshot" of the morale and behavioral health of Soldiers deployed last spring and early summer in Iraq and Afghanistan, found the mental health of Soldiers in Iraq improved since the first survey in 2004, but several morale and mental health problems had increased in Afghanistan since the 2005 survey. Officials surveyed said that Battlemind Training has helped to improve coping skills.

By 2009 Associated Press was reporting Army suicides had reached a 3 decade high of 128 soldier suicides for 2008. The U.S. Marine Corps reports that a service member dies by suicide every two days, and one attempts suicide every two hours. Those reports came out in February but by March, the numbers were revised.

In calendar year 2008, the Army reported 140 confirmed or suspected suicides. That’s 20.2 suicides per 100,000 troops — an all-time high that is nearly twice the national average of 11.0 suicides per 100,000. The service’s suicide rate has more than doubled since 2004.

The Navy reported 41 suicides in 2008, a rate of 11.6 per 100,000. The Marine Corps lost 41 Marines last year to confirmed or suspected suicides — up from 25 two years earlier — a rate of 19.0 suicides per 100,000. The Air Force lost 38 airmen in 2008, a rate of 11.5 suicides per 100,000.

More ominously, 780 callers to a national Veterans Affairs suicide prevention hotline in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2008, identified themselves as active-duty troops, said Kathryn Power, director of the Center for Mental Health Services in the Department of Health and Human Services.

Law enforcement was already saying they had increased issues with veterans needing help struggling to adjust.

Due to the rates of mental health problems experienced by Iraq war veterans, experts say it isn't the last time a soldier will barricade himself in a house, forcing a police response that in the mind of someone suffering from post traumatic stress disorder or a traumatic brain injury could seem like a battle zone.

"We are training these people to be unconsciously competent at defending themselves," said Eleanor Alden, a clinical social worker in Denver who treats PTSD in private practice. "They just do it. And then they came back and we put them in a different situation, but the same triggers will have the same kind of response. Then they end up in some sort of fugue state where they are responding the way they are trained to respond but in the wrong situation."

For local law enforcement agencies, standoffs with the suicidal or people involved in domestic disputes are intense situations, often with multiple X factors. Adding in somewhat unpredictable behavior of someone suffering from mental and physical wounds of war can heighten the situation.

After Battlemind was followed up by Comprehensive Soldier Fitness and billions of dollars spent the result has been deadly both in and out of the military.

Year after year, members of Congress have written bill after bill, spent billions and there have been more suicides in the military, more suicides as veteran, more standoffs with law enforcement and while the "solutions" they pushed wasted time, they delayed proper efforts to actually do something that would work.

All these years later, advocates have actually lost count on how many were lost to suicide. The rate of veterans committing suicide is double the civilian population and younger veterans are triple the rate of their peers. These folks managed to survive deployments into combat but not being back home? Yet it was a news story back in 2007 that actually sums up the abyss we allowed to grow.

Suicide Epidemic Among Veterans
They survived the hell that's Iraq and then they come home only to lose their life.

The latest "solution" of the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention Act with absolutely nothing new in it. Clay Hunt was a Marine. He committed suicide in 2011.

His suicide has shaken many Iraq and Afghanistan veterans; 'he led an exemplary life,' says his father

The 28-year-old former Marine corporal earned a Purple Heart after taking a sniper's bullet in his left wrist. He returned to combat in Afghanistan. Upon his return home, he lobbied for veterans on Capitol Hill, road-biked with wounded veterans and performed humanitarian work in Haiti and Chile. Then, on March 31, Hunt bolted himself in his Houston apartment and shot himself.

Hunt's suicide came after everything else had been done and redone included in the bill that has his name attached to it. The trouble is, if they really want to prevent more suicides, they can't get there driving in circles. They need to stop and actually ask for directions instead of running over the veterans they claim to be helping.

UPDATE Article on Business Insider takes a look at suicide.

Military veterans are especially prone to suicide. Data from 48 states suggest that 30 out of 100,000 veterans kill themselves each year — a rate far higher than among civilians. Many find it hard to overcome the trauma of combat, or to adjust to civilian life.