Military brass may be caring but clueless on military suicide

Over 900 suicide prevention programs that do not work. Billions spent on "resilience" training since 2008 that have not worked. Their answer has been more of the same leading to more of the same deadly results, more suicides and attempted suicides. Keep in mind that it is not just enlisted but veterans as well that had been subjected to these programs and the results show more harm done than good.

New approach as Army confronts rising suicide rate
Associated Press
By BRETT BARROUQUERE
Published: August 1, 2013

FORT CAMPBELL, KY. — Gen. John F. Campbell's frustration with the Army's suicide rate is unmistakable when he raises his voice and drops his head as he speaks about it. Despite the programs offered to soldiers, the number taking their own lives keeps rising, including 14 possible suicides in June.

For Campbell, the Army's vice-chief of staff, it's a problem that seems at times almost impossible to solve.

"What's the definition of success?" Campbell asked Friday at Fort Campbell, a sprawling military post on the Kentucky-Tennessee state line. "You have only one suicide? That's still too many."

In an effort to cut the suicide rate as soldiers return from combat in Afghanistan, the Army is rolling out the Ready and Resilient Campaign — a mission to coordinate and integrate myriad Army programs and services.

Campbell said the effort will consolidate multiple programs already offered with the hope of getting to soldiers who are having issues before they rise to the crisis level. It includes an assessment of a soldier's fitness and exercises to strengthen the Army by increasing soldier resilience to bounce back from deployment and any issues related to duty.

As part of a national campaign, Campbell met with soldiers and families Thursday afternoon at the post where he commanded the 101st Airborne Division from 2009-2011. He visited Fort Drum earlier Thursday and will touch Fort Jackson in South Carolina on Friday. In a 30-minute briefing with reporters, Campbell said leaders must embrace the readiness program for it to work.
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Murder-suicide underscores need for PTSD awareness, funding

The biggest point being missed here is that after all these years of claims by the DOD they are "addressing" PTSD and suicides, every news report exposes how little any of it is working.

EDITORIAL: Murder-suicide underscores need for PTSD awareness, funding
By Express-Times opinion staff
August 02, 2013

It is strange, to say the least, to express sympathy for a person who took the life of another before taking his own. But that’s one of the starting points to try to understand the tragic turnaround in the life of Afghanistan war veteran Robert Kislow III, who shot and killed the mother of his fiancee in his Moore Township home Monday, then killed himself.

First there is the shock of the tragedy itself. Two lives gone. Kislow’s fiancee, Amanda Snyder, witnessed the shootings, according to police, and will have to go on without her partner and her mother, Michelle Snyder, and with the two young children she had with Kislow.

A family already dealing with one member’s post-traumatic stress disorder now must deal with its contagion of death, disruption and the cruel uncertainty of why these things happen at all.

Robert Kislow seemed to be coping. Unlike many active soldiers and veterans who suffer under the stigma of asking for help, Kislow was active in dealing with PTSD, according to many who knew him. After incurring multiple wounds a few months into his deployment in Afghanistan in 2005 and losing a leg, he recovered from his physical injuries, went to college, started a family, and demonstrated a willingness to share his story with others. Two years ago he and Amanda took ownership of a home built for them by Homes for Our Troops. Kislow spoke publicly about PTSD and reached out to other veterans struggling with its latent demons.
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State trooper’s suicide a red flag for Brockton area veterans

State trooper’s suicide a red flag for Brockton area veterans
Trooper Gregory Jasinskas served in Iraq and Afghanistan
Enterprise News
By Maria Papadopoulos
Staff Writer
Posted Aug 02, 2013

WEST BRIDGEWATER
In May 2011, then-Army Sgt. 1st Class Gregory Jasinskas wrote to The Enterprise while serving in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Jasinskas, then a state trooper on his third deployment overseas, praised Osama bin Laden’s assassination after learning about the event while watching the Armed Forces Network.

“(I’m) very happy, very relieved we finally got this mass murderer. I see him in the same light as Hitler,” Jasinskas said in an email to The Enterprise at the time.

Jasinskas returned from Afghanistan last year, and went back to work as a state trooper – a job he held for the past eight years, working out of the Milton barracks.

Monday afternoon, Jasinskas, an Abington native, committed suicide while under investigation for an alleged sexual assault while on duty.

His suicide has local veterans agents questioning what led Jasinskas, a married 40-year-old and decorated war veteran and state trooper, to take his own life.

“Oh my God. A kid that goes to two tours of duties and then ends up like this?” said Walter Thayer, West Bridgewater’s veterans agent and a retired police officer.

Jasinskas’ death highlights an ongoing issue within the military community – the staggering number of suicides among veterans.

According to a February study by the Department of Veterans Affairs, 22 veterans commit suicide every day nationwide.
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Triple shock for family of Vietnam Vet killed in fire

Imagine someone you loved dying in a fire. Then imagine someone else in your family did it then killed himself. Pretty shocking with just that but then add in the veteran you thought you knew turned out to have not been telling the truth.

Military medal doubted for vet found dead in south Sacramento fire
Sacramento Bee
By Sam Stanton and Morgan Searles
Published: Thursday, Aug. 1, 2013

By any standard, Dennis Felmley's death was a tragedy.

The 64-year-old Vietnam veteran died after suffering violent injuries and being found in a burning south Sacramento home on July 22, a fire that authorities say may have been set by a nephew who later killed himself in a Huntington Beach park.

On Wednesday, the tragedy appeared to be even greater, with Felmley's paid obituary in The Sacramento Bee listing him as a recipient of the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award.

But online databases do not show Felmley as having received the award, an honor that is closely tracked by authorities and military historians nationwide.

Felmley's daughter Shannon said her father's wartime experiences and the lore of the medals he received had been passed down over the years by family members. She added that the family had difficulty getting records of his service because of the July 12, 1973, fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis that destroyed as many as 18 million official records.
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Veterans Often Sleep Poorly, Don't Seek Treatment

Survey: Veterans Often Sleep Poorly, Don't Seek Treatment
Forbes
Rebecca Ruiz
August 1, 2013

Many veterans are “severely sleep-deprived” and are often kept awake by persistent thoughts and pain, according to a survey released Thursday.

Conducted by the firm VetAdvisor and a sleep expert at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the online survey questioned more than 2,800 veterans from each branch of the military, though it was a not a nationally representative sample.

Survey respondents slept an average of 5.6 hours; by comparison, the general population typically sleeps 6.7 hours. Though surviving sleep deprivation may have once been a point of pride for these veterans, it now leaves the majority of them feeling tired, fatigued or sleepy during the day.

Seventy percent had trouble falling or staying asleep while three-quarters reported experiencing the clinical criteria for insomnia. Enlisted soldiers reported higher rates of insomnia than officers, and combat veterans were more likely to experience nightmares and sleep-disrupting vigilance than those who hadn’t “engaged the enemy.”
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MIlitary moving costs in the billions

Coming Home From Afghanistan: The Billion-Dollar Moving Bill
Muslim restrictions, air attacks, White House indecision muddy herculean logistics effort
US News
By PAUL D. SHINKMAN
August 1, 2013

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SHARANA, Afghanistan—Dozens of empty cargo pallets line the dusty and windswept aistrip at this remote FOB in the Hindu Kush mountains of eastern Afghanistan. It's a familiar sight for many such installations across the country as the U.S. prepares to withdraw all combat troops by the end of 2014.

It also represents a leviathan task for logistics units responsible for moving hundreds of thousands of pieces of equipment valued at more than $36 billion at a cost of as much as $6 billion, according to Defense officials. As much as $7 billion of this equipment and gear will likely stay behind.

The full extent of this mission, however, remains unclear as the U.S. still has not determined precisely what will be left behind to assist the fledgling Afghan security forces and to combat any remaining enemy fighters.
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Army veteran survived combat and then suicide attempt because of it

Army Veteran Andrew O'Brien Saw Something Terrible in Iraq -- So Terrible That He Attempted Suicide
LA Weekly
By Gendy Alimurung
Aug. 1 2013

He shouldn't have looked in the truck. The IED had blown it up and sent its occupants to Kingdom Come. "What I saw in there was the worst thing I will ever see in my life," U.S. Army Specialist Andrew O'Brien says.

It was so bad that he later tried to kill himself. Because try as he might, he couldn't unsee it. Not even now, more than two years after that suicide attempt, standing in a suburban Corona strip mall, telling his story to a roomful of mothers who have sons or daughters freshly returned from war. The mothers hang on his every word. They're hoping this lanky 25-year old — a kid, really, with a sweet, handsome face and earnest manner — might hold the key to unlocking their own distant, troubled soldier.

For the past few months, O'Brien has been traveling the country by bus, giving speeches, talking to anyone who will listen. He was in Phoenix the other day, "and I swear that is Iraq." Something as simple as the sound of tires crunching on sand on a hot day can send him suddenly back.

He begins with why he joined the military in the first place. He didn't have much family growing up in Dallas. His parents "weren't the best people," he says, and leaves it at that. His older brother became his rock. So when big brother enlisted, O'Brien dropped out of high school and enlisted, too.
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$4.2 billion worth of property given away by Department of Defense?

Little restraint, oversight in military giveaways
The Associated Press
MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
Published: July 31, 2013

MORVEN, Ga. — Small-town police departments across the country have been gobbling up tons of equipment discarded by a downsizing military - bicycles, bed sheets, bowling pins, French horns, dog collars, even a colonoscopy machine - regardless of whether the items are needed or will ever be used.

In the tiny farming community of Morven, Ga., the police chief has grabbed three boats, scuba gear, rescue rafts and a couple of dozen life preservers. The town's deepest body of water: an ankle-deep creek.

An Associated Press investigation of the Defense Department program, originally aimed at helping local law enforcement fight terrorism and drug trafficking, found that a disproportionate share of the $4.2 billion worth of property distributed since 1990 has been obtained by police departments and sheriff's offices in rural areas with few officers and little crime.

The national giveaway program operates with scant oversight, and the surplus military gear often sits in storage, the AP found.
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"Warren began stabbing himself until his father wrestled the knife away"

Father says son accused of murder suffered from nightmares from Iraq duty
Daily Breeze.com
By Larry Altman, Staff Writer
Posted: 07/31/2013

The father of a U.S. Army veteran accused of murdering his girlfriend in Lawndale testified Wednesday that his son was "different" when he returned home from two tours of duty in Iraq, suffering nightmares, attempting suicide and requiring medication.

Tymarc Warren Sr., whose 28-year-old son, Tymarc Warren Jr., is charged with stabbing his girlfriend to death on Jan. 8, 2011, testified during his son's trial in Torrance Superior Court that the former sergeant encountered a mortar attack on his first day in Iraq in 2002 and later witnessed the death of a friend.

"He kind of scared me a couple times," the father said of his son's return home. "He woke up one day in a cold sweat and talked about his buddy being blown up."

Warren confessed to choking and stabbing 22-year-old Eileen Garnreiter to death inside their Rosecrans Avenue apartment after his arrest, prosecutors said. The crime occurred about a month after Garnreiter gave birth to their daughter.

During testimony Wednesday, Warren's father described rushing to the apartment the couple shared and breaking open the door when his daughter told him she feared something had happened there. Garnreiter was lying face down on the kitchen floor. His son had his arm over her.

"Tymarc asked me to grab the baby," the father said. "She was fine. Tymarc grabbed the knife and said, 'I don't want to live.' "

The younger Warren began stabbing himself until his father wrestled the knife away. Deputies arrived to take him into custody.

Deputy Casey Cheshier said he found Warren on the floor next to Garnreiter's body, and that he immediately confessed.

" 'I killed her because I have hate in my heart,' " Cheshier recalled him saying.

Warren told Cheshier that he stabbed Garnreiter and shoved the knife into her throat when she grabbed it, confessing again, " 'I have the devil and hate in my heart. I stabbed her and then I cut my wrists,' " Cheshier recalled.
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Is TBI research good for troops or researchers?

I have huge issues with what has been going on with PTSD and military suicides. It had bothered me so much that I wrote a book about it. Disgusted with the lack of interest from journalists, it only got worse when I was putting together the research. If I was able to figure out back in 2009 that Comprehensive Soldier Fitness would increase military suicides the geniuses getting paid to research it should have managed to figure it out as well but they didn't. There is a chapter in The WARRIOR SAW, SUICIDES AFTER WAR dedicated to shining a light on the massive amounts of money being spent yet producing higher suicides. If you liked that book, then you'll love this investigation on the Examiner. I focused on PTSD but this focuses on TBI.

The truth is while money keeps being spent, the results are more deaths and suffering. They suffer while others fill their bank accounts pretending to be looking for treatments. Very little has been learned in the last 10years on TBI. As for PTSD, they have been researching it for over 40 years.

TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY RESEARCH, GOOD FOR THE TROOPS OR THE JUST THE PhDs?
Examiner
BY: BILL WILLIAMS
TOP NEWS
JULY 31, 2013

Tens of thousands of Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have returned home with traumatic brain injuries (TBI). Many TBI injuries are caused by blasts from those nasty improvised explosive devices, but they can also be caused by any jolt to the head that rattles a soldier’s brain inside his helmet.

There are numerous research centers across the country conducting research on TBI. It is difficult to determine how many because some don’t advertise and some don’t reveal if they are funded by government or private sources, or a combination of both.

The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has spent tens of millions of dollars researching TBI since the two Middle East wars and it still has no cure. It does have individualized treatment plans, according to VA spokesperson Ndidi Mojay. “Veterans with a positive TBI screen are evaluated by a TBI specialist to provide a definitive diagnosis and develop an individualized rehabilitation plan of care,” she said.

“According to the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, 266,810 soldiers were diagnosed with PTSD from 2000-12.

But after ten years of studies, all America has is publications by TBI researchers who tour the world on the taxpayer’s buck. There is a basic treatment protocol, but there is no cure.

In 2011, the taxpayers paid for a play at a Berkshire’s resort in Massachusetts – a skit about soldiers with TBI. Can you say “IRS employees dancing on stage YouTube video?”

This summer the federal government closed a center in Charlottesville that provided treatment for military members and veterans with traumatic brain injuries because the facility had a low patient volume and high costs compared to other facilities.

From soccer to football to our wounded war Veterans, there is a lot of research being conducted on traumatic brain injuries. But this article questions its relevance or cost-effectiveness. For instance, Ralph DePalma MD and his team from the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, DC. Are preparing another journal article for publication, but look how the first sentence of the article begins: Blast-related TBI was first noted with the use of trinitrotoluene during World War 1, while PTSD appears to have affected combatants as long as the history of war.”

Really? So the question of what research has been doing goes further back than Houston’s five million dollar grants?

One of DePalma’s few insights in the article was that 52-percent of returning warriors has one or more of the following: Pain, TBI and PTSD; 9.6% of them have TBI; 29.4% has PTSD, and 40% have pain, while 6% have all three. read more here