The Big Battle of Iraq Has Yet To Begin

The Big Battle of Iraq Has Yet to Begin - At Home, Not Abroad

The number of dead soldiers in Iraq continues to climb. Others lose their limbs when yet another IED blast blows up their transport vehicles as they move in and out of war-torn Baghdad.
The potential after-effects that soldiers may suffer from this war, however, has become one big ticking time-bomb that could explode the military's already fragile morale - if nothing is ever done about it.
And post-traumatic stress disorder has the potential to tear apart families already burdened by the roller-coaster ride of National Guard soldiers being called in-and-out of duty that they thought would simply help pay their college tuition.
Already, this PTSD enemy looks firmly entrenched: A recent report showed that 32 soldiers killed themselves in the war zone last year - a record high since the war began five years ago, according to The Hartford Courant.
The number of suicides in Iraq in 2007 climbed 18 percent from 2006, despite efforts by military officials to improve training and education in suicide prevention and mental health, The Courant reported.
The number of Army troops suffering from severe combat stress is "skyrocketing," rising from just over 1,000 new cases in 2003 to more than 28,000 soldiers today diagnosed with PTSD, according to The Baltimore Sun.
Yet, no one who has, or may have the power to do something - that being Congress, the Pentagon, Barack Obama, John McCain, President Bush and on and on - has come out with a clear-cut battle-plan for tackling post-traumatic stress disorder on a large scale.
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5 Soldiers a day try to commit suicide by Senator Arlen Specter wants hearing on sports again

This is a bigger priority to Specter
Arlen Specter - The Huffington Post
That seems to be what Arlen Specter wants to know. He's asking why the NFL surreptitiously destroyed all the evidence associated with the Patriots' illicit ...
www.huffingtonpost.com/topics/Arlen%20Specter

Concern mounts over rising troop suicides

Story Highlights
Average of 5 soldiers per day tried to commit suicide in 2007, Army figures show

Sen. Jim Webb introduces legislation to improve care for soldiers

Army psychiatrist says soldiers must overcome stigma of treatment

Psychiatrist: "We know that soldiers don't want to go seek care"

Next Article in U.S. »

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Every day, five U.S. soldiers try to kill themselves. Before the Iraq war began, that figure was less than one suicide attempt a day.

The dramatic increase is revealed in new U.S. Army figures, which show 2,100 soldiers tried to commit suicide in 2007.

"Suicide attempts are rising and have risen over the last five years," said Col. Elspeth Cameron-Ritchie, an Army psychiatrist.

Concern over the rate of suicide attempts prompted Sen. Jim Webb, D-Virginia, to introduce legislation Thursday to improve the military's suicide-prevention programs.

"Our troops and their families are under unprecedented levels of stress due to the pace and frequency of more than five years of deployments," Webb said in a written statement. Watch CNN Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre on the reasons for the increase in suicides »

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, took to the Senate floor Thursday, urging more help for military members, especially for those returning from war.

"Our brave service members who face deployment after deployment without the rest, recovery and treatment they need are at the breaking point," Murray said.

She said Congress has given "hundreds of millions of dollars" to the military to improve its ability to provide mental health treatment, but said it will take more than money to resolve the problem.

"It takes leadership and it takes a change in the culture of war," she said. She said some soldiers had reported receiving nothing more than an 800 number to call for help.

"Many soldiers need a real person to talk to," she said. "And they need psychiatrists and they need psychologists."

According to Army statistics, the incidence of U.S. Army soldiers attempting suicide or inflicting injuries on themselves has skyrocketed in the nearly five years since the start of the Iraq war.

Last year's 2,100 attempted suicides -- an average of more than 5 per day -- compares with about 350 suicide attempts in 2002, the year before the war in Iraq began, according to the Army.
go here for the rest
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/01/military.suicides/index.html

When will it become too many? More soldiers are trying to end their own lives than lives lost to combat. Five soldiers a day try to end their lives equals 35 a week. 120 veterans succeed at committing suicide each week. There are more who try to but by the grace of God they survive. Some will try again.

What are we doing? What is congress doing besides talking about it and under-funding it? Senator Specter part of the Republican leadership that held the power since the Clinton Administration, had been responsible at the time of the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. Did he or any of the others hold the lives of the troops and our veterans in the highest regard? No, they wanted hearings on steroid abuse committed by sports players instead of soldiers. Again Specter wants hearings on the tapes concerning yet another sports team scandal, the Patriots. Is he out of his mind?

Our soldiers and veterans are committing suicide on a daily basis but he seems to find it more important to take issue with sports? They held more hearings on Terri Schiavo and her feeding tube being removed than they did on the fact the DOD and the VA were undercut by budgets that did not include the care of our soldiers and veterans. They put more interest on deciding what to call french fries than they did on what to do about all the wounded entering into an already overloaded VA. This is all too insane!

What is wrong with the GOP and what is wrong with the citizens of the states these people come from? What is their priority in all of this and why aren't their elected representatives listening to any of them? What is wrong with the Democrats holding office as well when they take the steps to correct the problems as if they are new problems and they have time to waste? While it is needed that new VA hospitals be built, it will take years for them to be open for business and many more years to be fully functional. What about between now and then?

I've heard the hearings and listened to the testimonies. What needs to be done has already been brought to their attention but apparently they have not acted on any of it. Veterans in rural areas of the nation need Veterans Centers up and running today, not five years from now. Families need support groups all across the country today, not sometime in the distant future.

It's time America got serious about who the real heroes in this nation are and it isn't the sports players. It's the men and women risking their lives on a daily basis for what this nation asked them to do and many more who will see their lives as well as futures at risk because the nation they served abandoned them.

The soldiers and veterans need every single one of us standing up for their sake. Call your elected official today.

PTSD:Suicides and stress, the world is watching

Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside, attempted suicide again, but failed and is still here. Thank God!

US military suicides reach record level


Roxanne Escobales and agencies
Friday February 1, 2008
The Guardian


The suicide rate among US soldiers has reached its highest level since records began almost 30 years ago. Last year, 121 active members of the army took their own lives, up 20% on the previous year. Thirty-four of last year's deaths were in Iraq, compared with 27 in 2006.
Also on the rise are attempted suicides and self-harm. The number of US soldiers who tried but failed to kill themselves or who deliberately injured themselves rose to 2,100 in 2007, up from 500 in 2002.
go here for the rest
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2250400,00.html

When the Washington Post reported on the suicides and the attempted suicides of US forces, the world was watching as they have since the beginning of deaths following the Vietnam War. The entire world has been watching and waiting for America to take this seriously and take action. While our healthcare as a whole is sorely lacking, our doctors, scientist and psychologists have been leading the way in many treatments. So why not this one?

While the military has been focusing on "winning" the "war" which is really two occupations producing higher and higher deaths, they fail miserably at focusing on what these two occupations are doing to the US forces they sent to risk their lives. In the silent suffering of the American military families, we also fail to see how this is all effecting them. Has anyone tracked how many divorces or suicides or suicide attempts they have made since this began?

Why "silent suffering" term is used? Because no one is paying attention to them. They are key to the survival and healing of the wounded when they come home. They are key to the families they are raising. Why are they forgotten?

When my husband came home from Vietnam, his father, a WWII veteran, told him to get over it. His mother opted to ignore it. By the time we met, he had been home for 10 years. The signs of PTSD were there to the point where my father, a Korean War veteran, said Jack had shell shock. The hunt for the invisible killer inside of him began. What I didn't know was that Jack had mild PTSD to the point where he could function enough to go to work, be sociable enough that he was willing to enter into movies and clubs, but not enough to stay. He was able to talk a lot more to me, but still had a hard time talking to others. His nightmares, flashbacks and physical symptoms left him drained but not to the point where he was unable to do things during the day. I accepted the oddities of him as "quirks" finding some of them cute. Even with all of this the day we got married 23 years ago, I married my best friend.

It was not until a secondary stressor hit that our world took a nosedive and I was suddenly married to a man I no longer knew.

This is happening all across the country today. Some come home with PTSD in a mild form and function but their family members can see the changes. They can see the times when the veteran has a flashback but if they don't know what it is, the connection between combat and the zone out are not made. They can see the odd reactions to sudden moves or noises, they can become shocked with the mood swings and wonder what they did to set it off. They notice it all but if they don't know what they are witnessing first hand, they are helpless to do anything about it.

It is damn near impossible to get them to go for help. Even knowing what I did back then it took years to get Jack to go for help. They go into a denial stage where they know there is something wrong with them but refuse to come to the conclusion they need help to get back to "normal" and seek to deal with it in their own way. They turn to self-medicating to kill off feelings they don't want to feel.

This is only the PTSD part of all of this. The families need support to go through the stress of separations and being a single parent over and over again. They have to deal with the loneliness as well as the constant worry while their spouse is deployed, risking their lives and facing death or serious wounds. This adds to the stress of the families. When the spouse, son or daughter comes home, there is a euphoria epidemic taking over the entire family. The relief that they returned covers the problems that are there. Then they enter into their own state of denial that with time, they will get over what they went through and everything will go back to normal. The family cannot see that there is nothing normal about combat.

There needs to be a nation wide emergency alert to address all the issues the soldiers face along with their families. We know the redeployments increase the risk of PTSD and increase the pressure on the families at home. We know financial problems associated with the Reservists and Guardsmen make all of this worse for them. We know that early intervention for PTSD works best. We also know that medications need to be monitored and there has to be therapy included in on addressing PTSD for it to work. We know all of this because of our researchers but we do none of it. When will this nation take the lead on this? The rest of the world is watching our troops and their families suffer. Do we really want to be considered leaders in needless suffering instead of healing?

Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
www.Namguardianangel.blogspot.com
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington

PTSD: I was right 25 years ago and still am

The questions is, if I was right 25 years ago after reading what the experts had to say back then, what took these people so long to catch up?

SAGE Publications

How do multiple deployments affect soldiers and their families?

Research published by SAGE in a special issue of Traumatology



The U.S. Military researched that question last year and put together a report, “the Mental Health Advisory Team IV,” that studied soldier mental health and well-being. The current issue of Traumatology, published by SAGE, takes a sobering look at that study, exploring the three most critical elements of the 100-page report:

* The intensity of combat and other stressors of those serving “down range”

* Battlefield ethics

* Results of efforts to prevent suicides



The special issue of the journal features commentaries written by mental health professionals, most of whom are members and veterans of the U.S. armed forces. They each write about aspects of the study’s findings, for example, how early interventions are critical in avoiding stress injuries and subsequent long-term mental health problems, including such things as: posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, substance abuse, family violence and suicide. The commentaries will enable readers to more effectively understand and help the brave combatants and their families return to civilian life with excellent prospects for resilience and post trauma growth.

“What has set these most recent wars apart from the Vietnam War is the enduring appreciation and respect for the men and women in uniform who, despite their personal misgivings, answer the call to serve their country in war,” writes Charles R. Figley, PhD, Traumatology editor. “We as a nation and as mental health professionals owe them and their families the very best help possible for as long as it is needed. I trust that this special issue contributes to that goal.”

go here back to VAWatchdog
http://www.vawatchdog.org/08/nf08/nfJAN08/nf013108-7.htm

These reports are great but they are not new. Why is it we have not stopped the redeployments knowing this? Why is it we have not made sure they all got treated early? For all they suddenly re-discover, look at all the time lost on what needed to be done to FIX IT ALL!

PTSD: Point Man Ministries showing the way

Group organizing help for veterans
By R. Eric Burdette, News Staff Reporter
Wednesday, January 30, 2008

MOUNT VERNON — Point Man Ministries is organizing a local chapter for Knox and the surrounding counties of Morrow and Coshocton to help veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Veterans of the Army Reserve and the National Guard are seeing PTSD rates as high as 40 percent, said Larry Waltman, spokesman for the newly organized chapter. Typical symptoms for PTSD include anger, insecurity, alcohol or drug abuse, or an inability to adapt with job or family. Because the reserve and guard members return to a civilian life, isolated from other veterans with similar experiences, they are more prone to PTSD symptoms, said Waltman.

He said the highest rates are in returning Army reserve and Army guard combat service support units such as transportation, supply, aviation, medical and military police, among others.
go here for the rest
http://www.mountvernonnews.com/local/08/01/30/ptsd.html

PTSD:Dogs chase nightmares of war away

Dogs chase nightmares of war away
Story Highlights
Service dogs can help veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder

Dogs can sense and ease panic attacks, depression

Caring for animal forces patient to overcome social isolation

Small survey found less dependence on drugs after dogs arrived
By Joan Shim



(LifeWire) -- Jo Hanna Schaffer's dog is more than a best friend. The 67-year-old Vietnam veteran, a former Army medic, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and three years ago, she decided to get a service dog, a Chihuahua named Cody. Cody barks if someone is approaching from behind and cuddles with her when she is depressed.


With Cindy, a Bernese mountain dog, by her side, retired Air Force Capt. Karen Alexander can leave her home without fear


"I never took a pill for PTSD that did as much for me as Cody has done," says the Billerica, Massachusetts, resident, who no longer takes medication for the disorder.

Schaffer is one of a growing number of veterans with PTSD who are turning to an alternative therapy: psychiatric service dogs.

Like guide dogs for the blind, psychiatric service dogs aid people with mental illnesses, from anxiety disorder to bipolar disorder to PTSD. The dogs are trained to know when their owners are depressed or having a panic attack, for example, and the animals might calm them down by curling up in their lap or giving a nudge. Watch dogs who help calm troops on frontlines of war »

For five years, Persian Gulf War veteran Karen Alexander, 52, of Pensacola, Florida, has relied on Cindy, a Bernese mountain dog that can sense when Alexander is having an anxiety attack.

"She'll come up and touch me, and that is enough of a stimulus to break the loop, bring me back to reality," says the retired Air Force captain. "Sometimes I'll scratch my hand until it's raw and won't realize until she comes up to me and brings me out. She's such a grounding influence for me."

More veterans diagnosed

The use of service dogs for mental illness has emerged in the past decade, says Dr. Joan Esnayra, founder and president of the Psychiatric Service Dog Society. Esnayra coined the term "psychiatric service dog" in 1997 and has worked with thousands of people who are using the animals. She estimates that the society's online community is adding more than 400 members each year.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/01/29/dogs.veterans/

Returning vets symposium planned in Pennsylvania

Returning vets symposium planned
January 27, 2008
BY TED POTTS
The Tribune-Democrat

As the suburban Johnstown-based Pennsylvania Disabled Veterans Rehabilitation/Vocational Retraining Project enters its third year, Tom Caulfield, director of Veteran Community Initiatives, believes the program is growing in influence.

“I think we’re really starting to make an impact,” said Caulfield, who is coordinator of the rehabilitation/vocational retraining project.

The project is sponsored by VCI and Hiram G. Andrews Center, both at 727 Goucher St. in Upper Yoder Township, and the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology.

The purpose of the project is to provide physiological, psychological, vocational and employment assistance to veterans of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom.

Enduring Freedom is the designation given to U.S. operations in Afghanistan and surrounding regions.

Caulfield said that PDVR/VRP has been working with providers of treatment for soldiers suffering from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), plans to reinstate veterans rap sessions and is considering extending its readjustment counseling efforts.

He said an increased emphasis is being placed on issues and needs relating to families of those in the military and those who have returned home.
go here for the rest
http://www.tribune-democrat.com/local/local_story_027215943.html

Piece of advice, use videos.

More than 240,000 deployed received counseling at veterans centers

72,000 American casualties: toll of war on terror
IAN BRUCE, Defence Correspondent January 25 2008

A second request to the Veterans' Administration, the government-funded body responsible for taking care of ex-servicemen and women, showed 263,909 soldiers with experience of the two 21st-century wars have so far received treatment for everything from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to the aftermath of amputated limbs.

It also showed 52,375 veterans had been diagnosed with PTSD and 34,138 have received approval for disability claims for the psychological disorder. As of October 31 last year, 1.6 million Americans have been deployed overseas since 2001.

Harvard University estimates the cost of caring for Iraq and Afghan veterans over the next 40 years will amount to between £125bn and £350bn, depending on the long-term effects of trauma.

More than 240,000 of those deployed have received some form of counselling at veterans' centres.

click post title for the rest


What happened to the other 18,237 veterans diagnosed with PTSD but not granted disability? What happens to all the 240,000 other veterans with their claims still tied up in the system like the veterans who had to go to veterans centers for help? You have to assume that none of them are included in on the figure released. It is bad enough there hundreds of thousands of claims tied up in the backlog but when you understand these are not just claims, they are for the most part, wounded veterans waiting for care and for compensation.

Whenever the government releases information, it's usually a good thing to follow up and ask them what happened to the others. The next point to appreciate is that with 240,000 of them going to the veterans centers for help, it is more beneficial to them to ramp up veterans centers all over the country because this is where they want to be.

We need to look back at the data from Vietnam because these are the same numbers that came back from what was considered "combat zones" all through the years. It produced 500,000 diagnosed cases of PTSD by 1978, 300,000 homeless veterans and between 150,000 and 200,000 suicides, Agent Orange illnesses, and that was just the beginning. We are still seeing Gulf War veterans, Vietnam veterans, Korean War veterans along with WWII veterans seeking treatment for PTSD today.

Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
www.Namguardianangel.blogspot.com
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington

Veterans in rural areas of nation suffer needlessly

Kagen testifies on plan to help rural veterans obtain care
Families also could qualify for counseling
Green Bay Press Gazette

By ELLYN FERGUSON

Press-Gazette Washington bureau
WASHINGTON — Rural veterans struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder should get federal help to pay for private care if Veterans Affairs facilities are too far away, U.S. Rep. Steve Kagen testified Thursday.
Under his proposal, veterans who live 30 or more miles from a VA medical facility would have the option of getting more readily accessible care for problems such as combat stress and drug and alcohol abuse. Families also would be able to use federal vouchers for mental health counseling if a health professional concluded it would help in a veteran’s treatment.
Read the full article at greenbaypressgazette.com

All across American, there are empty buildings, Mom and Pop type shops in towns, along with wounded veterans needing to be cared for. The excuse is that the VA hospitals and clinics were built for "need" and they are in the cities with higher populations.

The problem is, the veterans come from these tiny towns, entering into the National Guard, Reserves and military units. They did not make the nation wait for a more convenient time for them to deploy. They went when and were the nation said they were needed to go. So why can't the government do the same for them?

They are no less wounded than others living in the "right area" where care is not too far away from them. They are no less worthy of having their wounds treated than someone living in cities. They are however more neglected than other veterans. In a time when the government is talking about building hospitals and clinics, that they should have been doing six years ago, there is suffering going on right now.

Veterans from across the country have to wait to be diagnosed, wait to be seen, wait to be treated and receive the added burden of having their claims tied up for months, or in most cases years. In the time between a wound being received, a claim filed and compensation granted, there is usually no income for them. They are no longer paid by the Department of Defense and their wounds are no longer treated by them either. They are not approved by the VA for compensation until their claim has been processed. Would you want to have to wait for your disability check because you can't work? Does your mortgage company want to wait or your landlord? Food bills, heat and electricity, gas for transportation do not wait either.

The very least that can be done right now is to use some of the already empty buildings for clinics and veteran's centers. Get them staffed by veterans who are aware of the unique problems veterans have. Stop excusing what has not been done and replace it with what can be done today, not just years from now.

PTSD veterans get ready for shaft again

More must be done for PTSD vets, panel says

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jan 24, 2008 17:23:00 EST

The head of a commission that spent 2½ years studying veterans’ disability benefits says the government needs to do more for those suffering post-traumatic stress disorder.

Testifying Thursday before the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee about a proposal for a comprehensive treatment, rehabilitation and benefits plan for veterans with PTSD and other mental disorders, the chairman of the Veterans’ Disability Benefits Committee said current benefits could be described as “just paying people with PTSD to go away.”

Retired Army Lt. Gen. James Terry Scott, whose 13-member commission issued its final report late last year, said the government needs a holistic approach that links disability benefits, treatment and vocational training, with an evaluation every two or three years of a veteran’s disability to see if treatment is working.
go here for the rest
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/01/military_ptsd_080124w/

If they want to know if treatment is working, then that's fine, that is, if their intent is to come up with better treatment, but if it's to try to just get them out of the system, scream!

The newer veterans have a hard enough time with the wound as it is. Between the backlog of claims and appointments lower than needed, what more stress do you think they can endure? For the older veterans, especially Vietnam veterans, you need to know that because of the newer veterans coming into the system and all the problems, the Vietnam veterans are being pushed back to make room. For a veteran who has spent years in treatment on a monthly basis, now being forced to accept once every three months, this is the wrong thing to do to them. It only exacerbates the problem.

What they really need to do is focus on getting the Veterans centers and clinics up and running to get them all into treatment. There have already been cases over the last 30 years where veterans with mild PTSD have recovered enough to go back to work, but that happens when they are treated early. If they are not getting treatment at all, then they are getting worse. PTSD gets worse without treatment so you'd think they would stop screwing around and invest their time into finding out how to get them into treatment instead of trying to figure out how to get them out of it.

They are killing themselves everyday!

Fort Campbell to be first to get such facilities from DoD funding

The DOD and the VA need to get centers open and running across the country now. They need to do what is being done at Fort Campbell. More, they should use the empty buildings across the country and put in Vet's centers to take care of all of them until they have these buildings ready for them. Don't make them wait until we are ready to help them. They didn't make us wait when we sent them to get wounded.

New post clinics to fight dual threat: PTSD, TBI
Fort Campbell to be first to get such facilities from DoD funding
By JAKE LOWARY
The Leaf-Chronicle
Fort Campbell has found itself at the forefront of a different kind of fight — to keep soldiers healthy.

Post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury have vaulted to utmost importance with military officials as more and more soldiers return from deployments with noticeable symptoms of the conditions.
Soldiers with the 101st Airborne Division are no exception, said Maj. Michael McGhee, M.D., chief of neuropsychological services at Fort Campbell.

For that reason, two separate clinics are being built on post to help treat soldiers who have suffered such injuries.

Condition details
About 20 to 25 percent of soldiers who have returned from combat have shown signs of PTSD, McGhee said, noting "a significant problem has been recognized."

"They are clearly having PTSD problems" he said.
click post title for the rest

Up to 20% of troops serving in Afghanistan, Iraq have brain injury

Brain trauma common in Iraq
Up to 20% of troops serving in Afghanistan, Iraq have brain injury
By ED KEMMICK
Of the Gazette Staff

When an improvised explosive device blows up, Army Spc. Nicholas Wells said, the first 10th of a second "feels like forever."

The blast is enormous, "and the first thing that hurts is your ears. It's like somebody stabbing you with a screwdriver," he said.

During his one-year tour of duty in Iraq as an Army scout and lead gunner on a Humvee, Wells was close to more than 20 IED explosions. The roadside bombs are a favorite of insurgents in Iraq.

While he was in Iraq, Wells said, nobody thought about the cumulative effects of the explosions. "It was weird," he said. "Nobody told us anything."

Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and Harvard University budget expert, has estimated that the lifetime cost of care for severely brain-injured troops from Iraq and Afghanistan could rise to $35 billion, according to Discover.

Dawna Lynn Wells said the frightening thing about traumatic brain injury is that so little is known about it. She said it is possible that people who have it might be at higher risk for early-onset dementia or other maladies.

Nor does she know whether her son will recover his short- and long-term memory. "And I don't know if he'll ever sleep through the night again," she said.

go here for the rest
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/01/23/news/state/21-truama.txt

For now, he said, he thinks he'd like to work for the railroad. He wants a straightforward job where he can work outside and where he's not around too many other people.

For my husband it was working in construction and being outside, then he worked jobs where he was also on the road and usually working alone. We met when he was a cable technician. They don't like to be around other people and they have low tolerance for an office job.

PTSD and TBI shouldn't have to be a "to die for" wound.

PTSD: The carnage of war weighs heavily on the soul

Most of the emails I receive break my heart. Some of the emails I receive piss me off. The ones that tick me off the most, contain rants by some jerks who would rather attack the media when they finally do report on important stories, instead of understanding what the reporter actually said.

When we read numbers like "1 in 5" returning from Iraq have psychological wounds, that should be an eye opener. These bullshit artists will turn that into a personal attack instead of noticing the magnitude of the problems we need to deal with. The rate of PTSD is one out of three, but we need to clearly understand what that rate means and where it comes from. It is for every three exposed to a traumatic event, one of them will walk away with the event eating away at them. We've had an inkling all through this about the numbers of PTSD wounded this will create for many years.

At first, using the data from Vietnam, it appeared to be heading at over 100,000 but that was in the first two years of the occupation of Iraq. Knowing that many would not present symptom right away, they were included in that figure. The following year we were fearing 300,000, then 400,000 and now we are looking at 800,000.

The figure includes the rate of kill to wound rate at 1-7. For every soldier killed, seven survive. This is a great accomplishment for the military doctors, however it is also producing seriously wounded who will need to have their bodies and minds taken care of for the rest of their lives.

Vietnam had 1.6 million in what were considered combat zones. Actually there were more exposed to the violence but it gave a good starting point since we are close to that figure with Iraq and Afghanistan already.

IN UNIFORM AND IN COUNTRY...
Vietnam Vets: 9.7% of their generation.
9,087,000 military personnel served on active duty during the Vietnam Era (Aug. 5, 1964-May 7, 1975).
8,744,000 GIs were on active duty during the war (Aug 5, 1964 - March 28, 1973).
3,403,100 (Including 514,300 offshore) personnel served in the Southeast Asia Theater (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, flight crews based in Thailand, and sailors in adjacent South China Sea waters).
2,594,000 personnel served within the borders of South Vietnam (Jan. 1, 1965 - March 28, 1973)
Another 50,000 men served in Vietnam between 1960 and 1964.
Of the 2.6 million, between 1 - 1.6 million (40 - 60%) either fought in combat, provided close support or were at least fairly regularly exposed to enemy attack.
7,484 women (6,250 or 83.5% were nurses) served in Vietnam.
Peak troop strength in Vietnam: 543,482 (April 30, 1968)
http://history-world.org/vietnam_war_statistics.htm

Yet by 1978 the DAV study found that 500,000 had already been diagnosed with PTSD. They knew the numbers would rise for at least the next 10 years. The at "least part" was very telling. Last year a report came out an additional 148,000 Vietnam vets sought help for PTSD in an 18 month period. We need to calculate the numbers of deployed in both occupations, considering they are rotated in and out of both and Afghanistan has seen an increase in attacks against the occupying forces. Two studies put the number of suicides between 150,000 and 200,000. The homeless rate was over 300,000. This does not even include those who ended up in jail also suffering from the price of combat. I don't know if we will ever know how many of them were there because of PTSD or because they were just like the rest of us where some commit crimes and some do not. I doubt there have been many studies done on how many had PTSD.

The Vietnam vets were considered collateral damage as just another price of the war and they were then ignored. They fought to have their wounds tended to. They fought for equal attention as with generations before them, but they also demanded more for all of them. No one thought about the families these wounded would also affect.

The carnage of war weighs heavily on the soul and we need to address this instead of ignoring it. No matter how many times the fools attempt to minimize the damage done to those we send, it will not make the problem disappear. It will only make the problems worse as the veterans begin to experience progressively worsening symptoms. Their families will be needed to be added to the grim figures of damaged by war.

What we are now seeing is just the beginning of many more years to come and we have a choice to make. Do we disregard the reports and the studies, attack the reporters for bringing this all into the public's knowledge or do we really do something about it? Do we tend to the needs of all wounded now or do we cast them aside and hope they die early? Do we wait until more have committed suicide because of PTSD or do we go into emergency mode to make sure fewer of them actually succeed at ending their suffering?

What do we owe them? It is not about supporting the occupations or being against them. It is about the price paid by other humans we send into abnormal situations.


If you want some really grim numbers go to this site.http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf


Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
http://www.namguardianangel.org/
http://www.namguardianangel.blogspot.com/
http://www.woundedtimes.blogspot.com/
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington

Mom Searches for Missing Veteran Son Gary Chronister

Mom Searches for Missing Veteran Son
By DAN BARRY,The New York Times
Posted: 2008-01-21 15:15:38
Filed Under: Nation News
KENNESAW, Ga. (Jan. 21) -- The man emerged from the night’s anonymity to sit at the counter, across from the stainless steel grill and the stacks of white plates. He wore a blue jacket appropriate for the January cold, but his left hand was covered with writing of some kind. And, ever so softly, he was talking to himself.

It was 3:20 on the second morning of a new year indistinguishable still from the difficult one just past, in a 24-hour chain restaurant on Highway 41 called the Huddle House, where pie and respite are served to the hungry and solitary. The tired waitress, Patsy Schirmer, pulling a rare overnight, approached the customer and asked:

What can I get for you?

The man accepted this open-ended question in terms of food only, muttering an order of scrambled eggs and grits and requesting water, with lemon. He ate everything on his plate, continuing his private conversation all the while. He paid his bill, left no tip, and slipped back behind night’s curtain.

A woman walked in 20 minutes later, carrying leaflets. Her name was Sheryl Futrell and she had been searching for weeks for her disoriented son, an Iraq-Afghanistan war veteran named Gary Chronister. Here is his photograph, she said — and you know the rest.

Soon the waitress was wailing Oh my God, he was just here. Soon the mother was making frantic telephone calls, searching for a flashlight to beam into the brush out back, bouncing between sorrow and joy. Yes, my son always orders scrambled eggs. Yes, he always asks for lemon with his water. Yes, he is so off his meds that he would be talking to himself.

Not enough chaplains in National Guard units

Va. National Guard has chaplain shortage

The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Jan 21, 2008 16:53:07 EST

NORFOLK, Va. — The Virginia National Guard has a chaplain shortage amid the wartime needs of an expanding military, a trend that mirrors the nationwide shortfall.

The Virginia National Guard has eight chaplains, well below the 19 slots it’s allotted, said Chaplain J.D. Moore, who works full time with the Guard.

Prospective recruits know that “if you join as a chaplain, you’re pretty much guaranteed to deploy,” said Daniel Pruitt, who went to the Middle East in September with a Portsmouth-based Army Guard unit, the 2nd Squadron 183rd Cavalry.

Virginia’s shortage is part of the National Guard’s overall shortage of 350 chaplains — out of the 700 it is authorized, said Chaplain Randall Dolinger, spokesman for the Army Chief of Chaplains Office. The Army Reserve only has filled 220 out of its 650 allotted slots, Dolinger said.

Active-duty units without their own chaplain often request a Guard chaplain to fill the post when deployed overseas. Guard chaplains not only accept such assignments, they’re “double-volunteering” and deploying more frequently to make up for the shortage, Dolinger said, and he fears that clergy may burn out with more frequent tours.
go here for the rest
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/01/ap_guardchaplains_080121/

Very troubling considering the DOD said they were relying more on the chaplains to fill in the gap for stressed out forces. There are not enough psychologist to fill the need and now we're finding out there are not enough chaplains either. So who is taking care of deployed soldiers with PTSD and a pocket full of pills?

Richard Stengel, exactly what part of "dinosaur stuck in a tar pit" didn't you understand?

On The Chris Matthews show, Richard Stengel, the managing editor of TIME gives us a chilling new report that the Pentagon is releasing about the serious head injuries our troops are sustaining in Iraq.
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Stengel: When we got into the Iraq war we didn’t know how long it would last. When we got into the Iraq war we didn’t know how much it would cost. It’s lasted longer, it’s cost more than we ever expected. The real toll is coming out now. The Pentagon is releasing a report saying, one in five American serviceman and women who have been in Iraq are coming back with brain injuries. Mild, traumatic brain injuries. More than 250,000 people. That legacy of that will last all of our life times and it’s incalculable.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/01/21/
pentagon-report-due-1-in-5-soldiers-returning-from-
iraq-with-brain-injuries/

First, 1 out of 5 troops is really high considering the rate of PTSD is 1 out of 3 exposed to a traumatic event. That would mean over 80% have been exposed to traumatic events at least once.

The part that got me in all of this was how angry I am with the media. Richard Stengelis managing editor of TIME and considering TIME has been around for a long time, along with some fantastic reporters and photographers through the years, I'm pretty sure they have a massive archival system that they could refer back to whenever they saw the need to look back at a little history. In this case, they didn't have to go back further than 1991. Heck, they didn't even have to go back that far but considering this all involved the first Gulf War, it would have been a really good place to start to figure out what they claim "they didn't know" what they were getting into.

FROM PBS INTERVIEW
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral/schwarzkopf/1.html

Schwarzkopf
"Plain and simply, Washington came to me after we had won an overwhelming victory at a minimum loss of lives and said "We want to stop the war at midnight tonight. Do you have any problem with that?"

And my answer was "No I don't have any problem with that". So it's just that simple.

Schwarzkopf: Wait a minute. Wait. Just a minute now. Realistically, it is not a military decision to go to war any more than it is a military decision to end a war.

Schwarzkopf:
So anyone who says it was a military decision to end the war is a cop out artist, that's what it is. OK, it's just that simple. Again, I wasn't in the room, any more than I was in the room on the 6th October briefing that I dearly wished I had been there, but I wasn't there. So I know nothing about what went on in that room. I know what I said, I know what said to me on the other end of the telephone and I have explained a thousand times how that came down.


Schwarzkopf: On the question of going to Baghdad. If you remember the Vietnam war, we had no international legitimacy for what we did. As a result we, first of all, lost the battle of world public opinion and eventually we lost the battle at home.

In the Gulf War we had great international legitimacy in the form of eight United Nations Resolutions, every one of which said "Kick Iraq out of Kuwait", did not say one word about going into Iraq, taking Baghdad, conquering the whole country and hanging Saddam Hussein. That's point number one.

Point number two, had we gone on to Baghdad, I don't believe the French would have gone and I'm quite sure that the Arab coalition would not have gone, the coalition would have ruptured and the only people that would have gone would have been the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

And, oh by the way, I think we'd still be there, we'd be like a dinosaur in a tar pit, we could not have gotten out and we'd still be the occupying power and we'd be paying one hundred percent of all the costs to administer all of Iraq.

Thirdly, I don't think we could have found Saddam Hussein if we'd done that. We forget the lessons of Panama. We had ten thousand Americans on the ground in Panama before we went into that very small country, we still couldn't find a fellow named Noriega, so what makes you think that we would go into a nation the size of Iraq and be able to find one person who has all the ability in the world to escape and hide and fly out of the country.

But I think, more importantly, there's a strategic consideration. Saddam Hussein portrayed that war from the very beginning as "This is not a war against Iraqi aggression against Kuwait. This is the Western colonial lackey friends of Israel coming in to destroy the only nation that dare stand up to Israel, that is Iraq".

Had we proceeded to go on into Iraq and take all of Iraq, I think that you would have millions of people in that part of the world who would say Saddam was right, that that was the objective.

Now there were many more interviews and speeches given following the Gulf War. Some by Cheney and some by Bush 41. What is very telling about all of this history is that they did in fact know in full what they were getting into, what would happen, how long it would go on and what kind of a toll it would take on the men and women sent to do it. They knew what would happen to the Iraqi people. They knew what it would do historically to the minds of the men and women who survived but were wounded and they did absolutely nothing about any of it.

I changed the name of my other blog from Nam Guardian Angel G I Care to Screaming In An Empty Room for this very reason. The media all played a role in the invasion and occupation of Iraq along with everything that came with it and they had a responsibility to report the facts to prepare this nation because the president did not. They failed and now they are trying to play catch up to what they cannot cover up.

No one cared about the troops or they would have increased all services to make sure they would meet the need for all of them because they knew exactly what kind of carnage would follow this. No one did anything in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and baby steps were taken in 2007 once the GOP was no longer in power. So please tell me what part of any of this was not understood and "not known" because I would really love to know how any of these people got their jobs when I knew it and I'm unemployed.
Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
http://www.namguardianangel.org/
http://www.namguardianangel.blogspot.com/
http://www.woundedtimes.blogspot.com/

"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation."

- George Washington

A Veteran’s Descent, and a Prosecutor’s Choice

A Veteran’s Descent, and a Prosecutor’s Choice
By DEBORAH SONTAG
Published: January 20, 2008
TOOELE, Utah — Not long after Lance Cpl. Walter Rollo Smith returned from Iraq, the Marines dispatched him to Quantico, Va., for a marksmanship instructor course.

Mr. Smith, then a 21-year-old Marine Corps reservist from Utah, had been shaken to the core by the intensity of his experience during the invasion of Iraq. Once a squeaky-clean Mormon boy who aspired to serve a mission abroad, he had come home a smoker and drinker, unsure if he believed in God.

In Quantico, he reported to the firing range with a friend from Fox Company, the combined Salt Lake City-Las Vegas battalion nicknamed the Saints and Sinners. Raising his rifle, he stared through the scope and started shaking. What he saw were not the inanimate targets before him but vivid, hallucinatory images of Iraq: “the cars coming at us, the chaos, the dust, the women and children, the bodies we left behind,” he said.

Each time he squeezed the trigger, Mr. Smith cried, harder and harder until he was, in his own words, “bawling on the rifle range, which marines just do not do.” Mortified, he allowed himself to be pulled away. And not long afterward, the Marines began processing his medical discharge for post-traumatic stress disorder, severing his link to the Reserve unit that anchored him and sending him off to seek help from veterans hospitals.

The incident on the firing range was the first “red flag,” as the prosecutor in Tooele County, Utah, termed it, that Mr. Smith sent up as he gradually disintegrated psychologically. At his lowest point, in March 2006, he killed Nicole Marie Speirs, the 22-year-old mother of his twin children, drowning her in a bathtub without any evident provocation or reason.

“There was no intent,” said Gary K. Searle, the deputy Tooele County attorney. “It was almost like things kept ratcheting up, without any real intervention that I can see, until one day he snapped.”
click post title for the rest

When in doubt about redeployment emotions, don’t fear to seek help

18. January 2008
When in doubt about redeployment emotions, don’t fear to seek help


Glad to be home, but...
Screening for traumatic brain injury is a routine part of care at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. See story and photo by Chuck Roberts

Written by Chuck RobertsLandstuhl Regional Medical Center Public Affairs
LANDSTUHL REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER – Persistent chest pain, difficulty breathing and high fever are symptoms that normally prompt people to seek medical help.

Anger, apathy, irritability and insomnia can also be symptoms alerting Soldiers they may need medical treatment, said Lt. Col. (Dr.) Gary Southwell, an Army psychologist at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.

For Soldiers redeploying from downrange, such symptoms can often be normal reactions to abnormal situations encountered in Afghanistan or Iraq. When Soldiers find themselves struggling to cope, Southwell encourages seeking help.

"Just look at it as a checkup," Southwell said. "If you’re feeling odd, it doesn’t hurt just to get checked out. Just come on in and say, ‘This is what I’m going through,’ and we can help sort it out."

When they do seek medical help, Soldiers often learn they are experiencing normal symptoms and are going through a normal recovery.

For those requiring more extensive help, Southwell there are a variety of avenues for treatment, such as anger management classes, and individual or group therapy.
In some cases, a physical problem may be discovered during a behavioral health examination, Southwell said.

Thanks in part to increased awareness and strong backing from the Army Chief of Staff and leadership down the chain, more Soldiers view seeking such help as a normal and positive thing, Southwell said.

"People now feel like it’s an acceptable condition just like any other medical condition," Southwell said. "It’s one of the hazards of war, and problems such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder need to be evaluated and treated just like any other medical condition."

However, some remain reluctant to seek help for reasons such as fear of being seen as weak, or concerns that coming forward may be a career killer in regards to security clearances.

Behavioral health is part of the security clearance coordination, but Southwell said anyone’s record of seeking treatment is viewed as a positive indicator.
click post title for the rest

Mom says "The Army killed him with incompetent care"

Dead soldier's doctor is fired
Psychiatrist treated veteran at Fort Knox

By Laura Ungar
lungar@courier-journal.com

The Courier-Journal



A psychiatrist who treated Sgt. Gerald Cassidy, the wounded Iraq veteran from Indiana found dead in his Fort Knox barracks, has been "relieved of his duties," a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh said yesterday.

Bayh press secretary Jonathan Swain identified the psychiatrist as Dr. William Kearney.


The civilian doctor, contracted by the Army, is the fourth person to face job action in connection with the Sept. 21 death. Three soldiers in Cassidy's chain of command have already lost their posts.

Bayh, an Indiana Democrat, has linked the Westfield man's death to inadequate staffing and problems with care at the Fort Knox Warrior Transition Unit, which opened in June and is devoted to healing the wounds of war.

"The fact that (Kearney) has been relieved of his duties confirms the validity of the questions Sen. Bayh and the family have been asking," Swain said.

Although the Army is still investigating the death and its cause, preliminary reports show that the brain-injured National Guardsman may have been unconscious for days and dead for hours before someone checked on him.

Cassidy left a wife, a 5-year-old daughter and a 3-year-old son.

"This was a beautiful young man who did nothing wrong," said Cassidy's mother, Kay McMullen of Carmel, Ind.

She declined to comment specifically on the psychiatrist, but said: "The Army killed him with incompetent care."
click post title for the rest

It's about time this was brought out and people are held accountable for what they fail to do. This has happened too many times and very few have been held responsible for any of it.

Changing Thought Patterns Crucial in Treating PTSD

Changing Thought Patterns Crucial in Treating PTSD
Jan 16, 2008
BY Kimberly Gearhart, USAG Schweinfurt Public Affairs Office
It's normal and adaptive for Soldiers to experience heightened fear responses following combat experience. But if the occurrences don't subside within a few months, professional medical help may be needed.

They are easily irritated, react suddenly and unexpectedly to loud noises, or become withdrawn and unwilling to communicate. Understandably, this can be frustrating for family members. But the situation usually improves with time.

If it doesn't, then it may be time to seek professional help.

People who experience a frightening, traumatic event - such as many do during war - often react with heightened levels of arousal and fear. Memories of the event are painful, and may trigger a fear response similar to that caused by the original event.

"It's normal" and adaptive to experience these heightened fear responses, said social work care manager Rick Thompson. "But most people, over a period of time, usually around three months, get back to normal."

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, occurs when a person gets "stuck" in the grip of that fear. The cause, though not completely understood, appears to be both neurobiological - a result of chemical reactions in the brain - and also related to the way the patient thinks.

The chemical aspect of the disorder may be treatable with medications, but the thought processes that foster and perpetuate the disorder are often difficult to change.

Click post title for the rest
more on this tomorrow.