New old reports of women at war

Women at War

editor's note
Looking over the archives of my older blog, I came across several stories reported before 2007 when I started this blog. This blog is here because a Marine sent me an email about my older blog asking me to stop putting political views on it. At first, I defended my right to post what I wanted and I sent him back a long email ranting about my right. What he sent in return, was a simple question. "Are you doing this for us or yourself?" When I read it, I cried. I knew he was right and I had fallen into the same trap I complained the most about. Politics was getting in the way of everything in this country.

I made him a promise that from that point on, I would do this blog and only put in political views when it was about them. If a politician was doing something for them, they would be praised for it and if they did something against them, they would be nailed over it.

I kept my promise all these years later.

The government has a huge problem when it comes to taking their own work seriously and reporters have a hard time knowing the facts on what they report on. It makes me wonder if any of them bother to read their own archives. The government funds programs they have already figured out failed before but with new congressional members come new people without a clue and without wanting to learn what happened before by having staffers find out. So we get repeated failures and the same devastating results. Reporters tend to do the same. They publish reports as if it is all a new issue without referring back to older reports addressing the same thing.

Today I'll be posting new reports along with what has been known for a long time.

New Report

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

More women in combat means more mothers with PTSD
By Kyra Phillips and Michael Cary, CNN
Tue December 13, 2011

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Staff Sgt. June Moss was diagnosed with PTSD after serving in the Iraq war
As more women see combat, more female vets are suffering from PTSD
Treatment helps, but Moss worries about slipping back into depression
Today, Moss has gotten over her fear of crowds

Palo Alto, California (CNN) -- It wasn't until five months after Army Staff Sgt. June Moss returned from the Iraq war in 2003 that her real battle began. The horrors of the war -- witnessing decapitated and burned bodies amid mass destruction -- led to post-traumatic stress disorder.

"I do notice when I'm stressing out that I start having dreams about what I saw and how I felt," says Moss, now 40 and retired from the Army. "It does come back as if to haunt you."

The percentage of women in the military has doubled in the last 30 years, with more than 350,000 serving as of 2009, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs' latest figures. With more female troops in combat, there has been an increase in PTSD diagnoses: One in five female veterans suffer from PTSD, according to the VA.

As a light-vehicle mechanic, Moss drove across Baghdad and provided security at checkpoints during her combat tour in Iraq. When she returned home, she became overly protective of her two children, fearing that someone was going to kidnap or harm them.

At the same time, she hunkered down inside her home, staying in bed, because she says it was too hard to face the most mundane tasks such as shopping.

"It was crazy. I couldn't even do crowds. It reminded me when we were in a marketplace (in Iraq), and we didn't know if somebody was out there to kill us," Moss explains. "I'm back home, and I didn't have to worry about a suicide bomber, but I still felt as if there was one lurking in the mall or the grocery store."
read more here

Old Report

Female GIs hard hit by war syndrome
KIRSTEN SCHARNBERG


Chicago Tribune

Mar 25, 2005

NEW YORK - (KRT) - On a mission just south of Baghdad over the winter, a young soldier jumped into the gunner's turret of an armored Humvee and took control of the menacing .50-caliber machine gun. She was 19 years old, weighed barely 100 pounds and had a blond ponytail hanging out from under her Kevlar helmet.

"This is what is different about this war," Lt. Col. Richard Rael, commander of the 515th Corps Support Battalion, said of the scene at the time. "Women are fighting it. Women under my command have confirmed kills. These little wisps of things are stronger than anyone could ever imagine and taking on more than most Americans could ever know."

But today, two years after the start of an Iraq war in which traditional front lines were virtually obliterated and women were tasked to fill lethal combat roles more routinely than in any conflict in U.S. history, the nation may be just beginning to see and feel the effects of such service.

Thousands of women, like the male veterans of so many wars before, are returning home emotionally damaged by what they have seen and done. These female troops appear more prone to post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, than their male counterparts.

And studies indicate that many of these women suffer from more pronounced and debilitating forms of PTSD than men, a worrisome finding in a nation that remembers how many traumatized troops got back from Vietnam and turned to drugs and violence, alcohol and suicide.

One children's book increasingly popular among military families illustrates what the effects of this most recent war might mean for society in the years and even decades to come: "Why Is Mommy Like She Is? A Book for Kids About PTSD."

In the wake of such concerns, the Veterans Affairs Department has launched a pioneering $6 million study of PTSD among female veterans. It is the first VA study to focus exclusively on female veterans; 8 percent to 10 percent of active-duty and retired military women suffer from PTSD, a rate nearly twice as high as that among men.

"PTSD is a very real problem for women who serve in the military," said Paula Schnurr, one of the study's lead researchers and the deputy executive director of the VA's National Center for PTSD in White River Junction, Vt. "This study is specifically addressing that, and we hope it will not only help us treat women coming home from Iraq, but all those who have ever served and struggled with PTSD in any conflict before."

The study's findings are not due until the end of the year, but researchers already have made some startling discoveries that are illustrative of the nature of PTSD among female veterans and of the U.S. military.

According to Schnurr, data indicate that female military personnel are far more likely than their male counterparts to have been exposed to some kind of trauma or multiple traumas before joining the military or being deployed in combat. That may include physical assault, sexual abuse or rape.

"The speculation is that many of them are joining the military to get away from adverse environments," said Schnurr, also a professor of psychiatry at Dartmouth College, speaking of the nearly 216,000 U.S. women on active duty and the nearly 151,000 who are part of the reserves and National Guard.

The implication of such a finding on PTSD research is considered significant. Because most research indicates that a person is at greater risk of developing PTSD - or developing more severe PTSD - when he or she has had past traumas, many female troops are deploying to war zones already heavily predisposed to react adversely to the intense fear, killing and loss routinely encountered there.

"The evidence is conclusive," said Rachel MacNair, an expert in the psychological effects of violence and PTSD. "The greater the trauma in your life, the greater the symptoms of PTSD."

MacNair, however, focuses on another factor that she believes more acutely affects the rate of PTSD among veterans of Iraq: whether they have killed during their deployment.

In 1999, MacNair earned her doctorate at the University of Missouri-Kansas City with a study that analyzed the data from the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study, a landmark congressionally funded project that studied nearly 1,700 veterans.

Her findings were stark: Troops who had killed - or believed they had killed - suffered significantly higher rates of PTSD than those who had not.

"It is very clear that being shot at is traumatic, or losing your buddy is traumatic, but the act of shooting and killing another human being, something that goes against every instinct we have, is the biggest trauma of all," said MacNair, who calls this kind of PTSD "perpetration-induced traumatic stress."

That hypothesis by MacNair, who is strongly critical of the military, is supported by history and by military experts.

S.L.A. Marshall, one of the earlier official Army historians, estimated after studying World War II veterans that only 15 percent had fired their weapons during battle. He asserted from his interviews with soldiers that their failure in battle was because they were more afraid of killing than of being killed. Other studies show that even the most poorly treated prisoners of war had lower rates of PTSD than front-line soldiers because the prisoners no longer were in a position where they had to kill.

How such findings translate to the Iraq war is clear. Unlike previous conflicts, where women rarely were pulling the triggers or running the weaponry that left enemies dead on the battlefield, they routinely are doing so in Iraq, as Lt. Col. Rael pointed out on that cold December day on the outskirts of Baghdad.

On top of that they are being taken prisoner, as was Pvt. Jessica Lynch during the initial invasion; they, like their male counterparts, are being constantly mortared and ambushed by a guerrilla insurgency; and they are watching fellow troops go home grievously wounded or dead in numbers not seen since the war in Vietnam.

"It all adds up," said MacNair, "but the act of having killed does seem to be the factor that tips the scales in favor of PTSD."

Of the nearly 245,000 veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, almost 12,500 have been to VA counseling centers for readjustment problems and symptoms of PTSD. In addition, a study in The New England Journal of Medicine found that up to 17 percent of troops returning from Iraq were suffering from PTSD or other readjustment problems.

So far no statistics have been released detailing how many of these patients are women, but numerous support groups have sprung up specifically for women with PTSD. In one Internet chat group, Sisters Bound by Honor, women struggling with PTSD talk with one another about their experiences.

Yet the women who most need counseling to help them deal with what they witnessed in Iraq and Afghanistan - like their male counterparts - are the most unlikely to seek it.

A Defense Department study of combat troops returning from Iraq found that soldiers and Marines deeply suffering from PTSD and readjustment problems were not likely to seek help because of the stigma such an act might carry. In the study, 1 in 6 veterans acknowledged symptoms of severe depression and PTSD, but 6 in 10 of those same veterans feared their commanders and fellow troops would treat them differently and lose confidence in them if they sought treatment for their problems.

That seems especially true of women, who have fought for years to be assigned positions in the Army that once were off-limits to them. A number of female Iraq war veterans suffering from PTSD declined to be interviewed for this article.

Still, former Army Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, who taught psychology at West Point and wrote the book "On Killing," which closely documented the link between killing and PTSD, believes the treatment of PTSD among the veterans of Iraq could be the most effective in combat history. Using an analogy to obesity, he said that after past wars, only those traumatized soldiers "who were 400 pounds overweight got attention or treatment."

"But, now," Grossman said, "we are so sensitive to PTSD and its effects that we can notice the person who is the equivalent of just 20 or so pounds overweight, and we can help them then, long before they have the psychiatric equivalent of high blood pressure and heart attack."

The study of female veterans suffering from PTSD may be just such a start. The study includes hundreds of women and aims, among other things, to discover which clinical treatments are most effective for women with the disorder.

Half of the women will be treated through prolonged exposure therapy, in which each woman will be guided for 10 weeks through vivid remembering of the traumatic event or events until her emotional response decreases through "habituation." Schnurr, one of the study's directors, compares habituation to the way city dwellers grow immune over time to loud noises such as police sirens or car alarms.

"The goal is that the memory of the traumatic event is no longer as startling, as terrifying, when it comes," she said.

The other half of the women will be treated with what is known as "present-centered therapy," a treatment that focuses on helping a patient deal with her current life challenges rather than the memory of past traumas.

"Both therapies are appropriate and helpful to some degree," Schnurr said, "but we expect that the prolonged exposure will be the most effective. If that is the case, I think we will begin using that treatment much more - and more effectively - in the years to come."

Although the goal of the study is to determine which therapies work best for women suffering from PTSD, experts agree that if the study is conclusive it eventually may be applied to tens of thousands of Iraq war veterans, male and female alike.

"It is our hope that we can find ways to help these women," Schnurr said. "But, more than that, we are hoping to draw some conclusions that can help us in the treatment of PTSD across the board. That means men and women, soldiers and Marines, those who are suffering for reasons having nothing to do with combat at all."

© 2005, Chicago Tribune.

They are having the problems they are today because what was known back in 2005 was not enough to put what was needed in place for them when they came home.

What are common problems in relationships with PTSD-diagnosed veterans?

Our problems are not new or news. We've stood by their sides for over thirty years. In my case, it's been 26 years since the day I met my husband. The years, well they haven't been easy. Seeing him change as mild PTSD carried him away, helpless to stop any of it from getting worse, took me down many paths. As I was reaching out to his friends to get help, he wouldn't listen. PTSD got worse and our marriage suffered more and more. What I knew about PTSD helped me to cope but did not end the heartache. It just helped me find hope that one day he would go for help. He finally did and then the knowledge I had was supported by a renewed hope that our marriage could survive. 24 years later, we're still married, in a crazy marriage without a boring moment.

Wives of veterans have a job on our hands. Too bad they don't have uniforms for us so that people would know we serve the military as well because we are the ones who take care of the veterans after the military is finished with them. We make sure they find reasons to get up every morning and keep trying. When they can't find it in themselves to fight, we fight for them. We take on the government to make sure their wounds are taken care of and they are compensated for the incomes their wounds prevent them from earning, but we also have to fight them. They want to give up. Too many times they win on this one and take their own lives, walk out of marriages or simply wait to die. They turn to drugs and alcohol instead of the love we feel for them because they can no longer believe in it. They wonder how we could possibly love them when they are such a mess inside. They have forgotten who they still are and all that we see in them becomes invisible.

The wives of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have a lot more than we did when they came back from Vietnam. There are support groups all over the country and that is a good thing. One thing that support groups are doing is opening up their arms to us so that they can learn from what we know works and avoid making the same mistakes we did. There is hope in our experiences and marriages that have stood beyond where anyone ever thought their marriage would be tested by.

Emails come in from wives across the US and many other nations because of the book I wrote, For the Love of Jack, and the videos I've done. Their stories, oh so very familiar, and they wonder how their life could be the same as mine. Soon they discover that while the wars may be different, our husband's hair grayer and our children have grown, there is really no difference between us. War is still war and wives, well, were still picking up the pieces of what war did to them.

Here is one more way to get there from here. kc

Partners of Veterans with PTSD: Caregiver Burden and Related Problems
Jennifer L. Price, Ph.D. & Susan P. Stevens, Psy.D.
Introduction
A number of studies have found that veterans' PTSD symptoms can negatively impact family relationships and that family relationships may exacerbate or ameliorate a veteran's PTSD and comorbid conditions. This fact sheet provides information about the common problems experienced in relationships in which one (or both) of the partners has PTSD. This sheet also provides recommendations for how one can cope with these difficulties. The majority of this research involved female partners (typically wives) of male veterans; however, there is much clinical and anecdotal evidence to suggest that these problems also exist for couples where the identified PTSD patient is female.

What are common problems in relationships with PTSD-diagnosed veterans?
Research that has examined the effect of PTSD on intimate relationships reveals severe and pervasive negative effects on marital adjustment, general family functioning, and the mental health of partners. These negative effects result in such problems as compromised parenting, family violence, divorce, sexual problems, aggression, and caregiver burden. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Marital adjustment and divorce rates
Male veterans with PTSD are more likely to report marital or relationship problems, higher levels of parenting problems, and generally poorer family adjustment than veterans without PTSD. 2, 6, 7 Research has shown that veterans with PTSD are less self-disclosing and expressive with their partners than veterans without PTSD. 8 PTSD veterans and their wives have also reported a greater sense of anxiety around intimacy. 7 Sexual dysfunction also tends to be higher in combat veterans with PTSD than in veterans without PTSD. 9 It has been posited that diminished sexual interest contributes to decreased couple satisfaction and adjustment. 10

Related to impaired relationship functioning, a high rate of separation and divorce exists in the veteran population (those with PTSD and those without PTSD). Approximately 38% of Vietnam veteran marriages failed within six months of the veteran's return from Southeast Asia. 11 The overall divorce rate among Vietnam veterans is significantly higher than for the general population, and rates of divorce are even higher for veterans with PTSD. The National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS) found that both male and female veterans without PTSD tended to have longer-lasting relationships with their partners than their counterparts with PTSD. 3 Rates of divorce for veterans with PTSD were two times greater than for veterans without PTSD. Moreover, veterans with PTSD were three times more likely than veterans without PTSD to divorce two or more times.

Interpersonal violence
Studies have found that, in addition to more general relationship problems, families of veterans with PTSD have more family violence, more physical and verbal aggression, and more instances of violence against a partner. 12, 2, 3 In these studies, female partners of veterans with PTSD also self-reported higher rates of perpetrating family violence than did the partners of veterans without PTSD. In fact, these female partners of veterans with PTSD reported perpetrating more acts of family violence during the previous year than did their partner veteran with PTSD. 2

Similarly, Byrne and Riggs 12 found that 42% of the 50 Vietnam veterans in their study had engaged in at least one act of violence against their partner during the preceding year, and 92% had committed at least one act of verbal aggression in the preceding year. The severity of the veteran's PTSD symptoms was directly related to the severity of relationship problems and physical and verbal aggression against the partner.

Mental health of partners
PTSD can also affect the mental health and life satisfaction of a veteran's partner. Numerous studies have found that partners of veterans with PTSD or other combat stress reactions have a greater likelihood of developing their own mental health problems compared to partners of veterans without these stress reactions. 10 For example, wives of Israeli veterans with PTSD have been found to report more mental health symptoms and more impaired and unsatisfying social relations compared to wives of veterans without PTSD. 5 In at least two studies, including the NVVRS study noted above, partners of Vietnam veterans with PTSD reported lower levels of happiness, markedly reduced satisfaction in their lives, and more demoralization compared to partners of Vietnam veterans not diagnosed with PTSD. 2 About half of the partners of veterans with PTSD indicated that they had felt "on the verge of a nervous breakdown". In addition, male partners of female Vietnam veterans with PTSD reported poorer subjective well being and more social isolation than partners of female veterans without PTSD.

Nelson and Wright 13 indicate that partners of PTSD-diagnosed veterans often describe difficulty coping with their partner's PTSD symptoms, describe stress because their needs are unmet, and describe experiences of physical and emotional violence. These difficulties may be explained as secondary traumatization, which is the indirect impact of trauma on those in close contact with victims. Alternatively, the partner's mental health symptoms may be a result of his or her own experiences of trauma, related to living with a veteran with PTSD (e.g., increased risk of domestic violence) or related to a prior trauma.

Caregiver burden
Limited empirical research exists that details the specific relationship challenges that couples must face when one of the partners has PTSD. However, clinical reports indicate that significant others are presented with a wide variety of challenges related to their veteran partner's PTSD. Wives of PTSD-diagnosed veterans tend to assume greater responsibility for household tasks (e.g., finances, time management, house up-keep) and the maintenance of relationships (e.g., children, extended family). 13, 14 Partners feel compelled to care for the veteran and to attend closely to the veteran's problems. Partners are keenly aware of cues that precipitate symptoms of PTSD, and partners take an active role in managing and minimizing the effects of these precipitants. Caregiver burden is one construct used to categorize the types of difficulties associated with caring for someone with a chronic illness, such as PTSD. Caregiver burden includes the objective difficulties of this work (e.g., financial strain) as well as the subjective problems associated with caregiver demands (e.g., emotional strain).

Beckham, Lytle, and Feldman 15 examined the relationship between PTSD severity and the experience of caregiver burden in female partners of Vietnam veterans with PTSD. As expected, high levels of caregiver burden included psychological distress, dysphoria, and anxiety. More recently, Calhoun, Beckham, and Bosworth 1 expanded this understanding of caregiver burden among partners of veterans with PTSD by including a comparison group of partners of help-seeking veterans who do not have PTSD. They reported that partners of veterans with PTSD experienced greater burden and had poorer psychological adjustment than partners of veterans without PTSD. Across both studies, caregiver burden increased with PTSD symptom severity. That is, the worse the veteran's PTSD symptoms, the more severe the caregiver burden.

Why are these problems so common?
Because of the dearth of research that examines the connection between PTSD symptoms and intimate-relationship problems, it is difficult to discern the exact correspondence between them. 7, 16 Some symptoms, like anger, irritability, and emotional numbing, may be direct pathways to relationship dissatisfaction. For example, a veteran who cannot feel love or happiness (emotional numbing) may have difficulty feeling lovingly toward a spouse. Alternatively, the relationship discord itself may facilitate the development or exacerbate the course of PTSD. Perhaps the lack of communication, or combative communication, in discordant relationships impedes self-disclosure and the emotional processing of traumatic material, which leads to the onset or maintenance of PTSD.

Riggs, Byrne, Weathers, and Litz 7 did examine the connection between PTSD symptom clusters and the relationship condition. The study examined the connection between the cluster of avoidance symptoms and the decreased ability of the person diagnosed with PTSD to express emotion in the relationship. The results of the study suggest that avoidance symptoms, specifically emotional numbing, interfere with intimacy (for which the expression of emotions is required) and contribute to problems in building and maintaining positive intimate relationships.
go here for more
http://www.ncptsd.va.gov/ncmain/ncdocs/fact_shts/fs_partners_veterans.html

PTSD mind, body and spirit connection

PTSD and Older VeteransFrom the time of Homer's ancient story of the battle between the Trojans and the Greeks, and the times of the Bible and Shakespeare, military personnel have been confronted by the trauma of war. Recent books and movies have highlighted the impact of war trauma on veterans of the Vietnam War and the Persian Gulf War. However, the traumas faced by veterans of World War II and the Korean conflict have been publicly acknowledged in the media less often and less clearly. The recent movie, "Saving Private Ryan," showed the reality of war trauma during World War II. World War II was terrifying and shocking for hundreds of thousands of American military personnel. For most World War II veterans, memories of the war can still be upsetting more than 50 years later, even if the memories arise only occasionally and for brief periods. For a smaller number of World War II veterans, the war trauma memories still cause severe problems, in the form of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD.

(UPDATE, the link was updated January 2020)


Each of them go into combat with their past life in their minds. They know the mistakes they've made, sins committed, people they've hurt, words they said and regret. In other words like the rest of us, they have baggage. They may have joined from the most noblest of reasons, defending the nation, or for a combination of that along with selfish reasons of paying for college. Each one enters in with their own purpose and at different levels. I happen to think they were born heroes and would have done something for society no matter what they chose to do with their lives.

They train to kill and in the back of their minds they think it's wrong to kill. This quiet voice is hushed in training and focusing on moment. It reawakens when they are putting their training to use and have to kill someone or come into contact after or even when they see one of their friends killed.

Trauma strikes people. For victims the wound does not cut as deep it seems. For emergency responders, it cuts a bit deeper because they come into contact with traumatic situations often. For police officers, it cuts even deeper because they are participants in it doing their job and are often in a situation where they have to kill someone. For the combat forces, it cuts even deeper than all the others because they participate in it more often.

When a bomb blows up and they survive, they either survive thinking God spared their lives or God judged them for their lives and this was punishment. They may believe that God abandoned them because of what they had done in their lives or judged them because they just killed someone.

Depending on the relationship the warrior has with God and the knowledge of how He forgives, this will predict if the baggage they carry will awaken or remain asleep. What most people do not understand is that war and the traumas of war were in the Bible and throughout recorded history. War is not murder and God did not condemn the warrior. Neither did Christ. When the Roman Centurion went to Christ seeking to have his slave cured, a slave he loved, the Roman was filled with so much faith that Christ could do it, he told Christ he didn't have to go to his house in order to heal his slave. Christ, knowing the Romans were responsible for the hardships on the Hebrews and knowing they would nail Him to the Cross, healed the slave and blessed the Centurion for his faith in Him. Those who know they are forgiven for all they have done wrong, will usually leave the trauma behind them in enough of an amount they do not feel as if it has penetrated their soul. They thank God for watching over them.

For those who do not understand, most of the time they feel God either hates them and they are paying the price with the ravages of what they lived through taking over their mind or God abandoned them and they are on their own.

This is one of the biggest reasons why the healing is so much stronger when the connection between mind/body/spirit are all treated at the same time. Mind is helped by talk therapy and medication. Body is helped with exercises that do not require aggression for most, but for some they find it helps to do something like weight training. Spirit is helped when they speak to others of their faith or a spiritual counselor. Usually with a member of the clergy or a Chaplain with a strong understanding of the spiritual needs of all people. They must be non-judgmental, which is hard for a lot of members of the clergy. Chaplains get into this because they are under no church authority and are allowed to take care of the spiritual needs of all people no matter what faith they have or if they have no faith at all. Most of the time it is the act of human kindness that goes a long way in healing the spirit.

If they feel they have been abandoned by God and then by their country, this cuts the wound even deeper. Not having someone to help them as they see their lives fall apart, cuts even deeper. By they time this happens, they are seeking someone to show some compassion for them and find it very hard to receive. Now think of what it would have been like for them to go through trauma in combat and then have the ability to debrief like police and first responders do with Chaplains. How deep do you think the wound would cut if this happened?

Read the rest from the center.

Chaplain 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

How does war affect "normal," "healthy" military personnel?
War is a life threatening experience that involves witnessing and engaging in terrifying and gruesome acts of violence. Most military personnel also feel that participating in war is their patriotic duty, and they do so to protect and defend their country, their loved ones, their values, and their way of life. The trauma of war is the shocking confrontation with death, devastation, and violence. It is normal for human beings to react to war's psychic trauma with feelings of fear, anger, grief, and horror, as well as with emotional numbness and disbelief.

Many studies have shown that the more prolonged, extensive, and horrifying a soldier's or sailor's exposure to war trauma, the more likely it is that she or he will become emotionally worn down and exhausted. This happens to even the strongest and healthiest of individuals, and often it is precisely these soldiers who are the most psychologically disturbed by war because they endure so much of the trauma. Most war heroes don't feel brave or heroic at the time, but they do their duty, despite often feeling overwhelmed and horrified, in order to protect others.

It is, therefore, no surprise that when military personnel have had severe difficulty recovering from the trauma of war, their psychological difficulties have been described as "soldier's heart" (in the Civil War), "shell shock" (in World War I), or "combat fatigue" (in World War II). After World War II, psychiatrists realized that these problems usually were not an inborn mental illness like schizophrenia or manic depressive illness but were a different form of psychological dis-ease that resulted from too much exposure to war trauma. This form of psychological dis-ease is known as "traumatic war neurosis" or Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Although most war veterans are troubled by war memories, many were fortunate enough either to have not experienced an overwhelming amount of trauma exposure or to have immediate and lasting help from family, friends, and spiritual and psychological counselors so that the memories have become manageable. A smaller number, probably about one in twenty World War II veterans, had so much war trauma and so many readjustment difficulties that they now suffer from PTSD.

How is it possible to have PTSD 50 years after a war?Because most World War II veterans received a hero's welcome and a booming peacetime economy when they returned to the states, many were able to make a successful readjustment to civilian life. They coped, more or less successfully, with their memories of traumatic events. Many had disturbing memories or nightmares, difficulty with work pressure or close relationships, and problems with anger or nervousness, but few sought treatment for their symptoms or discussed the emotional effects of their wartime experiences. Society expected them to put it all behind them, forget the war, and get on with their lives. But as they grew older and went through changes in the patterns of their lives-retirement, the death of spouse and friends, deteriorating health, and declining physical vigor-many experienced more difficulty with war memories or stress reactions. Some had enough trouble to be diagnosed with a delayed onset of PTSD symptoms, sometimes with other disorders like depression and alcohol abuse. Such PTSD often occurs in subtle ways. For example, a World War II veteran who had a long successful career as an attorney and judge and a loving relationship with his wife and family might find upon retiring and having a heart attack that he suddenly felt panicky and trapped when going out in public. Upon closer examination, with a sensitive helpful counselor, he might find that the fear is worst when riding in his car, and this may relate to trauma memories of deaths among his unit when he was a tank commander in World War II.

How can I help an older military veteran who may have PTSD?First, if one feels emotional about past memories or experiences some of the normal changes associated with growing older (such as sleep disturbances, concentration problems, or memory impairment), it does not necessarily mean that person has PTSD. If a World War II or Korean conflict veteran finds it important, but emotionally difficult, to remember and talk about war memories, help him or her by being a good listener, or help find a friend or counselor who can be a good listener.

Second, get information about war trauma and PTSD. The Department of Veterans Affairs' Vet Centers and Medical Center PTSD Teams offer education for veterans and families, and they can provide an in-depth psychological assessment and specialized therapy if a veteran has PTSD. Books such as Aphrodite Matsakis' I Can't Get Over It (Oakland: New Harbinger, 1992) and Patience Mason's Home from the War (High Springs, Florida: Patience Press, 1998) describe PTSD for veterans of all ages and other trauma survivors and PTSD's effect on the family.

Third, learn about the specialized therapies available at Vet Centers and VA Medical Centers. These include medications to help with sleep, bad memories, anxiety, and depression; stress and anger management classes; counseling groups for PTSD and grief (some particularly designed to bring together older war veterans to support one another in healing from war trauma or prisoner of war experiences); and individual counseling. It is important that family members be involved in the veteran's care and in their own individual care.

This fact sheet was based on:
Bonwick, R.J., & Morris, P.L.P. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in elderly war veterans. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 11, 1071-1076.

Hyer, L., Summers, M.N., Braswell, L., & Boyd, S. (1995). Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Silent problem among older combat veterans. Psychotherapy 32(2), 348-364.

Schnurr, P.P. (1991).PTSD and Combat-Related Psychiatric Symptoms in Older Veterans. PTSD Research Quarterly 2(1), 1-6.

Snell, F.I. & Padin-Rivera, E. (1997). Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the elderly combat veteran. Journal of Gerontological Nursing 23(10), 13-19.
http://www.ncptsd.va.gov/ncmain/ncdocs/fact_shts/fs_older_veterans.html

Baylor researchers collaborate with rats for PTSD study

I found the following from Baylor Proud blog. Nice blog. Check it out when you get a chance here.

Baylor researchers working to treat PTSD
Researchers from Baylor, Texas A&M and the US Department of Veteran Affairs are working together to treat and possibly prevent post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and the collaborators recently received $2.7 million from the federal

I keep hoping to read something inventive, something promising, something that gives one single indication the "researchers" have a clue what PTSD is. Every time it turns out to be a waste of time to read it. They keep going over things that have been done over to death for over 30 years! When will they really start to take a look at the people who have PTSD and take it from there?

Endeavors

Searching For The Source

Baylor researchers collaborate to treat-and possibly prevent-post-traumatic stress disorder.

By Franci Rogers


As an intern at a Veterans Affairs hospital seven years ago, Matthew Schobert encountered post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for the first time.

A Vietnam veteran had been admitted to the hospital for a routine medication adjustment. Schobert recalls that the man exhibited some of the classic symptoms of the disorder: he was distant and reserved, and he chose to remain silent most of the time, especially about his time in combat. His case made an impression on Schobert, who was then a graduate student at Baylor University's School of Social Work, and sparked an interest in the mental health issues of those who have served in the military.

Schobert earned his Master of Social Work degree in 2002, in addition to his Master of Divinity degree from Truett Seminary (1999), and now works at the Waco Veterans Affairs Medical Center as a licensed clinical social worker in the acute psychiatric unit. He continues to see PTSD patients, including a new influx from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While Schobert sees veterans and active duty personnel with a variety of mental health issues, he often wonders about the causes of PTSD.

"I have some friends who have had three deployments, and they talk about the graphic and difficult things they've seen, but they are just fine," Schobert says. "And there are others who have been deployed once, but when they come back I see symptoms of PTSD and encourage them to talk to someone. It makes you wonder why."

Researchers at Baylor are hoping to help find that answer.


Investigating PTSD


Last fall, Baylor, Texas A&M University and the VA received a $2.8 million grant from the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materials Command to study PTSD. A portion of the three-year grant will fund research in neuroscience and computer science at Baylor.


PTSD is an anxiety disorder that can occur after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event. Although many people associate PTSD with military combat, any kind of life-threatening event can create the trauma. Survivors of natural disasters (such as Hurricane Katrina), terrorist attacks (such as 9/11), and physical or sexual assaults can experience PTSD. Even witnesses to such events, such as first responders or military personnel, can develop PTSD. While it is natural to be stressed and anxious after a traumatic event, people who develop PTSD exhibit chronic symptoms which don't subside and begin to interfere with day-to-day life.


Those suffering from the disorder can exhibit a variety of symptoms. They may have flashbacks of the incident, become hyper-vigilant, suffer from social anxiety, be prone to impulsive behavior, avoid normal activities, be unable to sleep or eat, and/or suffer from depression. They are more likely to abuse alcohol or drugs, become unemployed and have marital problems.


The treatment for the disorder, according to the National Center for PTSD, can include psychotherapy (or talk therapy), medication or both. But it can be difficult to treat.


That's why Baylor researchers are excited about their work. Not only could their research help those already living with PTSD, but it could also help prevent it.

go here for the rest
http://www.baylormag.com/dept.php?id=000686

The rates of PTSD have always been one out of three. At least that was the rate from the last thirty years. Doesn't matter the source of the trauma but one thing that comes out more often is that people who are exposed to it more get hit harder by it.

Combat is number one. That's because they not only participate in it, they are exposed to it over and over again. It's not just once during a deployment, but many times. Redeployments increase the risk by 50%. This is why we have such high numbers in combat veterans, plus you also have the survival rate keeping more severely wounded alive.

Down the list you find police, firefighters and other emergency responders. Think of the traumatic events they are exposed to, again more than once. Some have their entire careers with one traumatic event after another.

Researchers have to be serious about all of this. Rats do not try to save lives. Rats do not bond to others, yet rats and animals they have been studying for years show trauma symptoms. That does not mean it's PTSD but it does mean it's animal instinct. Remember the Christmas tsunami and the reports of animals heading up to higher ground before it hit? They had elephants picking people up with their trunks and taking them to safer ground. Dogs have saved people. They use dogs to sense when a seizure is coming in epileptic people. Animals experience trauma but trauma does not hit all animals turning them into timid creatures. It makes some of them angry enough to kill. The day they can study a rat having a flashback is the day I give them credit for trying.

I've talked to these guys for 25 years. It comes down to this. There are three types of basic personalities. Selfish, sensitive and a mix of both. As with anything it depends on the degrees of the personality. The selfish will survive trauma, feel lucky like they deserved to live because they were born untouchable mattering more in the grand program than others. The mixed ones feel that way too but see a purpose in their survival and they go off to help the others. That is their focus, not themselves as much as what they can do.

The really sensitive people take it all in. They don't feel lucky to be alive as much as they are sickened by what happened. They want to help and usually do, but they feel it all in the walls of their soul. They take in the sites, sounds, smells and all are born within them. You don't want this kind of "birth pang" that's for sure.

They say that no one comes back from combat the same way and everyone is changed. That's true but no on comes out of any kind of trauma the same way. Life changes people. The next time "researchers" try to tell you that they found the answer to PTSD in rats, then they can figure out how to send them into combat and let them prove it.


Here is a case to point to.

A Mother's Mission

While serving in Iraq, Noah Pierce survived the bombs, the snipers, and countless encounters with the enemy.

But his family and friends say it was the guilt that finally overcame him.

"The demons and the pain...he's too sensitive," said his mother, Cheryl Softich. "He couldn't handle the innocents that were killed, the kids he got attached to. He was a good boy, he had a heart."

When Noah came home from Iraq in April of 2006, he was 22. He had served two tours of duty there; two years of his young life. He tried to readjust to life back in Eveleth. He went hunting with his step-dad, and partied with friends.

But it was difficult. Noah was depressed, he suffered from nightmares, and drank to get through the days. Doctors diagnosed him with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. They recommended he get counseling. But he didn't go, instead spending much of his time convincing himself and others that he was getting better.

go here for the rest

http://www.wdio.com/article/stories/S302385.shtml?cat=10349

You can say that being sensitive makes them weak but it doesn't. It just makes them feel it all. They are not cowards or they wouldn't have joined. They are the kind of people who think they can make a difference and that's why they join. Talk about bravery! Wanting to change something like they are willing to go into takes either the most brave or the most foolish. The men and women who develop PTSD have it hit them because of what happened to them as well as what happened to others. Flashbacks when it is caused by combat trauma comes with the harm being done to others more often than the harm done to them.

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

What motive does the Army have to misdiagnose PTSD?

What motive does the Army have to misdiagnose PTSD?
A reluctance to diagnose post-traumatic stress disorder could be about the money, and about the need for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Editor's note: Read the story of Matthew Marino, who was diagnosed with anxiety disorder instead of PTSD and sent back into combat in Afghanistan, here. Read about "Sgt. X" and his secret tape of an Army psychologist (and listen to the recording) here; read about the Army's investigation of that tape -- and the Senate's failure to act -- here.

By Mark Benjamin and Michael de Yoanna
April 10, 2009 In two stories published this week, Salon has described how a soldier secretly taped a psychologist saying that the Army was exerting pressure not to diagnose soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder. Psychologist Douglas McNinch of Fort Carson, Colo., twice states on the recording that the Army discourages PTSD diagnoses.

If what McNinch says on the tape is true, why is it happening? Why would the Army purposely diagnose soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder with something other than PTSD? Combat stress is as real as your big toe. Why would the Army want to deny, or at least minimize, a known consequence of combat? The truth might rest in math.

Soldiers with PTSD present the Army with two problems, both involving scary numbers. First, soldiers suffering serious combat stress should not be returned to combat, and if they cannot fight they represent a significant manpower loss for an already stretched military. A recent Rand Corp. study estimates that nearly 20 percent of those Army troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan might suffer from PTSD or major depression. If they were all barred from the battlefield, the Army could lose as many as one out of every five combat troops while trying to fight two wars.


Second, if soldiers are identified as suffering from PTSD and thus disabled, the Army may have to separate those soldiers from the military and pay benefits -- benefits that are extensive and can last a lifetime. The direct costs to the Army for treating soldiers with PTSD are potentially astronomical.

If you are a soldier who is officially disabled, you are entitled to collect a percentage of your base pay each month. The percentage depends upon your level of disability. Though this doesn't happen in every case, the proper disability rating for PTSD is 50 percent, according to an Army memo that is now part of a class-action lawsuit by the National Veterans Legal Services Program. So let's say, for example, that a 25-year-old private first class was discharged from the Army because of combat-induced PTSD and lived to be 75 years old while collecting benefits at the proper rate of 50 percent. The PFC would receive $784 a month, or half of $1,568 base pay (based on 2009 pay levels) for 50 years. That's $470,400.

go here for the rest of this

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/04/10/ptsd/

Focus on this part of the story for now and think about it.

Last month, the Army announced that the trend continues. Forty-eight soldiers have already killed themselves this year. If that pace is not slowed, at least 225 soldiers will be dead by their own hands by the end of 2009.

It is more than "they are expendable" when they are useful to fulfill the needs in a time of war. Should they perish by the hands of an enemy bullet or bomb, they are laid to rest and the duty of the nation ends with the widows and orphans. If they should die because of the wound they carry within their body, the wound of PTSD, then there are all kinds of steps they take to avoid taking responsibility for being the cause of this wound. When we are talking about soldiers willing to lay down their lives for the sake of this nation, it should never be translated into the minds of the brass they are willing to die because of what this nation fails to do.

When they end up suffering because of this wound, they are betrayed by the same nation that sent them into combat. This betrayal compounds the residue of war because had they not served the nation, they would not have been wounded by PTSD. PTSD is the result of an outside force and does not begin with the mind. It is called an anxiety disorder because mental health professionals have yet to fully grasp the heart and soul of the soldier. PTSD attacks all that makes us human. The military however uses them like machines.

If they lose a limb, then they manufacture one to replace it. The soldier is still useful to them because the mind is intact, able to function like a machine programmed to react. Should they decide to return to civilian employment, then the military does not have to pay for a full disability claim. They only have to pay for the body part lost. How do they pay for a life for the rest of their lives? They don't have to if they claim it was not because of the service given to the nation.

This betrayal is as bad as when the seven deadly sins listed sloth among them. The ancient Greeks knew this was not a sin but more a part of illness.

Sloth (Latin, acedia)
Main article: Sloth (deadly sin)
More than other sins, the definition of sloth has changed considerably since its original inclusion among the seven deadly sins. In fact it was first called the sin of sadness or despair. It had been in the early years of Christianity characterized by what modern writers would now describe as melancholy: apathy, depression, and joylessness — the last being viewed as being a refusal to enjoy the goodness of God and the world God created. Originally, its place was fulfilled by two other aspects, acedia and sadness. The former described a spiritual apathy that affected the faithful by discouraging them from their religious work. Sadness (tristitia in Latin) described a feeling of dissatisfaction or discontent, which caused unhappiness with one's current situation. When Thomas Aquinas selected acedia for his list, he described it as an "uneasiness of the mind", being a progenitor for lesser sins such as restlessness and instability. Dante refined this definition further, describing sloth as being the "failure to love God with all one's heart, all one's mind and all one's soul." He also described it as the middle sin, and as such was the only sin characterised by an absence or insufficiency of love. In his "Purgatorio", the slothful penitents were made to run continuously at top speed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins

All this week, the History Channel has been focused on the Seven Deadly Sins. Last night it was sloth. There was a time when mental illness was considered a "sin" and even today, there are "healers" treating it as a demonic possession. In a way, it was easy to jump to this conclusion because when someone has PTSD, it is like living in hell. What makes all of this worse is when another sin by the government, bearing false witness, is their answer to this wound. That is exactly what they are doing when they know the truth, know the full extent of what suffering the veteran of combat is carrying within them and what caused it but deny any responsibility for it.

The loss of hope is what kills the PTSD wounded. Take away hope of healing and hope of being able to provide for themselves and their families while they know exactly what the truth is and this betrayal is causing the suicides and attempted suicides of ten thousand veterans per year. Ever wonder what would cause a combat veteran to take their own lives? Think about the fact they were in danger during their deployment and fought to stay alive as well as protect the lives of the men they served next to. Out of danger, out of harms way supposedly, they end their own life. The DOD has removed hope, dishonored their service and devalued their lives. The VA has been doing the same thing when claims are denied that should have been honored. When does this suffering end for them? How many more will feel so hopeless, so betrayed, they take their own lives?

HBO Wartorn documetary on PTSD from 1861 to 2010

HBO DOCUMENTARY WARTORN: 1861-2010, EXPLORING COMBAT AND POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS, DEBUTS ON VETERANS DAY, NOV. 11

James Gandolfini Executive Produces



Civil War doctors called it hysteria, melancholia and insanity. During the First World War it was known as shell-shock. By World War II, it became combat fatigue. Today, it is clinically known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a crippling anxiety that results from exposure to life-threatening situations such as combat.

With suicide rates among active military servicemen and veterans currently on the rise, the HBO special WARTORN 1861-2010 brings urgent attention to the invisible wounds of war. Drawing on personal stories of American soldiers whose lives and psyches were torn asunder by the horrors of battle and PTSD, the documentary chronicles the lingering effects of combat stress and post-traumatic stress on military personnel and their families throughout American history, from the Civil War through today's conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The HBO Documentary Films presentation debuts on Veterans Day, THURSDAY, NOV. 11 (9:00-10:15 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HBO.

Other HBO playdates: Nov. 11 (3:25 a.m.), 14 (3:30 p.m.), 18 (10:30 a.m., 12:10 a.m.), 22 (noon, 7:30 p.m.), 27 (noon ET/12:30 p.m. PT) and 29 (4:45 a.m.), and Dec. 7 (10:00 p.m.)

HBO2 playdates: Nov. 13 (7:45 a.m.) and 24 (8:00 p.m.)

Executive produced by James Gandolfini (HBO's "Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq"), WARTORN 1861-2010 is directed by Jon Alpert and Ellen Goosenberg Kent and produced by Alpert, Goosenberg Kent and Matthew O'Neill, the award-winning producers behind the HBO documentary "Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq." Alpert and O'Neill also produced and directed the HBO documentaries "Section 60: Arlington National Cemetery" and the Emmy(R)-winning "Baghdad ER." The documentary is co-produced by Lori Shinseki.


Bookended by haunting montages of emotionally battered American soldiers through the years, WARTORN 1861-2010 explores the very real wounds that occur as a result of combat stress, or PTSD. Among the segments of the film are:

Angelo Crapsey: In 1861, 18-year-old Angelo Crapsey enlisted in the Union Army. His commanding officer called him the "ideal of a youthful patriot." In letters sent over the course of two years, Crapsey's attitude toward the Civil War darkened after he experienced combat and witnessed the deaths of countless soldiers, including several by suicide. By 1863, Crapsey, was hospitalized, feverish and delirious; eventually he was sent home to Roulette, Pa. Becoming paranoid and violent, he killed himself in 1864 at age 21. His father John wrote, "If ever a man's mental disorder was caused by hardships endured in the service of his country, this was the case with my son." A postscript reveals, "After the Civil War, over half of the patients in mental institutions were veterans."

Noah Pierce: More than a century after Crapsey's suicide, 23-year-old Noah Pierce got in his truck, put a handgun to his head, placed his dog tag next to his temple and shot himself. Pierce's mother Cheryl recalls how her son changed following two tours of Iraq, showing a photo of him "filled with hate and disillusionment." Cheryl Pierce says, "The United States Army turned my son into a killer," adding, "They forgot to un-train him." In a letter he left in the truck, Pierce wrote, "I'm freeing myself from the desert once and for all I have taken lives, now it's time to take mine."

Gen. Ray Odierno: In Baghdad, James Gandolfini meets with Gen. Ray Odierno, Commander of Allied Forces in Iraq, who says that 30% of service men and women report symptoms of PTSD and explains how Vietnam helped inform today's understanding of combat trauma. "Nobody is immune," says Odierno, relating how his own enlisted son lost his left arm when a rocket-propelled grenade ripped through his vehicle, killing the driver. Later, at nearby Camp Slater, Gandolfini visits with U.S. Army Sgt. John Wesley Matthews, who speaks candidly about his bouts of depression, reliance on sleeping pills and contemplation of suicide.

Read more: Breaking News - HBO Documentary "Wartorn: 1861-2010," Exploring Combat and Post-Traumatic Stress, Debuts on Veterans Day, Nov. 11 | TheFutonCritic.com HBO DOCUMENTARY WARTORN

"Must you carry the bloody horror of combat in your heart forever?" - Homer, "The Odyssey"

William Fraas Jr.: Two years after his return from the current Iraq conflict, Billy Fraas is trapped by memories, transfixed by computerized photos taken over 29 months and three tours of duty. The leader of a reconnaissance team, he was sent home after PTSD symptoms surfaced, and his leg still shakes uncontrollably when he sits at the computer. Fraas' wife Marie is frustrated by what's become of her husband. "Even though he wasn't shot," she says, "he still died over there." Adds Fraas, "I've seen humanity at its worst. And I struggle with that on a daily basis."

Herbert B. Hayden: In 1921, Col. Herbert Hayden's Atlantic Monthly story "Shell-Shocked and After" described the "perfect hell" of being sent to the front in WWI. His nightmare continued even after he returned home six months later "back and yet not back at all." Suicidal, Hayden checked into Walter Reed Hospital, "searching for a spark in the emptiness," but found only newspaper clippings of tormented ex-soldiers who were not being cared for. "What was wrong with my country?" he asked.

Nathan Damigo: In San Jose, Marine Lance Cpl. Nathan Damigo got a hero's welcome when he returned home from Iraq. A month later, he was arrested for attacking a Middle Eastern taxi driver at gunpoint. As his mother Charilyn explains, Damigo was drunk and confused, and went into "combat mode" as he assaulted the cabbie. After a final night of freedom, Damigo makes a court appearance where he is sentenced to six years in jail. "They took him when he was 18 and put him through a paper shredder," says his heartbroken mother. "We get to try to put all the pieces back together. Sometimes they don't go back together."

Jason Scheuerman: A member of the 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq, Scheuerman grew up in a family of soldiers. His father Chris recalls how Jason went to see an Army psychiatrist, and filled out a questionnaire admitting that he had thought about killing himself. After a ten-minute evaluation, he was told to "man up" and was ordered back to his barracks to clean his weapon. Instead, he shot himself. "It's not just the soldier that's in combat that comes down with PTSD," says Chris Jr., who served in Afghanistan. "It's the entire family."

Akinsanya Kambon: Marine combat illustrator Kambon served as a corporal in Vietnam for nine months. "The Marine Corps teaches you to be like an animal," he says, adding he turned into "a mad dog." One of his nightmarish drawings is of a soldier, eyes still flickering, whose lower torso is blown away. "It's one of the images that I wake up screaming about," he says, "but it won't go away."

Bond – Boxer – Lieberman Bill will Improve Treatment of Troops, Military Families

When President Obama was a Senator and running for the office, he made a promise to the family of Spc. Chris Dana and the Montana National Guard. He said if he ended up elected, he would take their PTSD program nationally. It looks like this is the start of honoring that promise. Read about Chris Dana below.

United States Senate

WASHINGTON, DC



For Immediate Release Shana Marchio - Bond: (202) 224-0309

WEDNESDAY, April 1, 2009 David Frey - Boxer: (202)224- 8120

Erika Masonhall - Lieberman: (202) 224-4041



Bond – Boxer – Lieberman Bill will Improve Treatment of Troops, Military Families





WASHINGTON, D.C. –U.S. Senators Kit Bond (R-MO), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) along with a bipartisan coalition of Senators, introduced the Honoring Our Nation’s Obligations to Returning Warriors Act (HONOR) to improve treatment for our service members and veterans suffering with invisible injuries like PTSD and TBI and increase care for military families. Additional original co-sponsors of the bill include Sam Brownback (R-KS), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Arlen Specter (R-PA).



Senator Bond said, “The government pledged to provide care for our troops and veterans who served America honorably in combat and their families but to date the Pentagon’s response to the suffering of our troops returning home with ‘invisible injuries’ has been deeply disappointing. We can’t continue to wait for the Pentagon to do the right thing, Congress must act now and this bipartisan bill is a critical first step.”



Senator Boxer said, “This bipartisan bill will help ensure the best possible care for those brave individuals who incurred traumatic brain and mental injuries while serving their country. We also help provide for the loved ones of those lost to suicide. I look forward to working with Senator Bond, Senator Lieberman and my other colleagues to see this bill become law.”



Senator Lieberman said, "We have no greater obligation than to care for our wounded service members. Our troops put their lives on the line for our nation – we must fulfill our duty to provide them with the support they need to recover from mental health problems and resume normal lives. If we provide the right care at the right time, we will not only be protecting them, but making our military stronger and more effective.”


As the Senate’s leading advocates for improving the mental health care our troops receive, Bond, Boxer, and Lieberman reintroduced the HONOR Act to address the immediate needs of those suffering with invisible injuries and to make a long-term fix to the military’s mental health care system. The Senators are hopeful for swift passage and Administration support since President Obama was one of the HONOR Act’s strongest supporters in the Senate last year.



According to the RAND Institute an estimated 620,000 returning service members suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, (PTSD) Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), or both. Despite this figure, which represents about 30 percent of those who have served in combat, the Pentagon’s response to the suffering of these troops and their families has been inadequate. The Senators stressed that the current military mental health system is underfunded, understaffed, and extremely difficult to navigate. Compounding this problem, there is a silent stigma on these “invisible injuries” that prevents many service members from seeking mental health treatment.

Provisions in the Bond-Boxer-Lieberman bill will:



Give active duty service members access to Vet Centers – the community-based counseling centers veterans use for mental health care services;


Extend survivor benefits to families of military personnel who commit suicide and have service-related mental health conditions, including PTSD and TBI;


Establish a scholarship for service members who have served in a combat zone to seek professional degrees in behavioral sciences to provide assistance to active and former service members afflicted with psychological mental health conditions connected with traumatic events during combat;


Create a program to employ and train combat veterans as psychiatric technicians and nurses to provide counseling for active duty service members in immediate need of treatment;


Establish an annual joint review and report on the effectiveness of re-integration programs from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense.


The HONOR Act also has support from our veterans and military groups. Wayne Frost, the Acting Chief Executive Officer of Military Spouses of America said the HONOR Act is “one of the necessary steps that our nation must take in order to provide for the adequate and deserved care of our active duty military personnel and veterans who have become post traumatic stress, or traumatic brain injury war casualties.”



Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said “Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America is pleased to offer our support for the ‘HONOR Act’. This legislation provides incentives for retiring or separating military personnel and combat veterans to pursue an advanced degree in the behavioral health field, alleviating the shortage of mental health specialists serving our active service members and veterans.”

The Importance of the HONOR Act: Chris Dana’s Story
At 23 years old, Chris Dana returned home with the 163rd Infantry Battalion, Montana National Guard. With an Iraq combat deployment and a world of experiences behind him, Dana was ready to transition from warrior to civilian. In November 2005, he came home to the peaceful town of Helena, Montana to rejoin his family, his friends, and his old job.
Like many before him, Dana honorably served his country and returned full of pride. Nevertheless, he began to struggle with the world around him, grappling with the inescapable memories of war. Chris'
loved ones began to notice his distant behavior, a striking departure from his usual outgoing demeanor. Although Chris was never physically injured in combat and his uniform was adorned with multiple stacks of ribbons, his psychological injuries festered under the surface. One of his brothers, Matt Kuntz, said Chris seemed to be melting from the inside. His father noticed that his eyes had lost their shine, reflecting the slow withdrawal from the joys of living.
Too many of our returning warriors come home with the same obstacles and face large uphill battles. These invisible injuries manifest themselves from numerous traumatic events which are often exacerbated by the lack of effective treatment at home. Chris was no different. Struggling with Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder (PTSD), he distanced himself from those closest to him, and his unit failed to reach out to him.
Today, many returning war fighters are unfamiliar with the mental and physical occupational hazards of war. In effect, military leaders struggle to grasp the toll that combat takes on the human body, and fail to reach out to their subordinates and those around them. All too often there exists an environment plagued by a stigma that punishes the returning service member for seeking help and rewarding those who "suck it up."
As a result, our Armed Forces continue to lose our most precious assets to suicide from PTSD and other psychological disorders. The spike in suicides is alarming, and the month of January 2009 solidified our worst fears. That month, suicide rates eclipsed combat fatalities from both Iraq and Afghanistan. The services have responded with audacious plans and resolute intensity to find a way to fix the suicide epidemic. A significant contributor to the inflated suicide rate is the inadequacy of mental health treatment for invisible injuries among service members, all too often compounded by a stigma that discourages seeking help. For example, in many units seeking mental health treatment is silently portrayed as a sign of weakness. One common phrase is that "our men and women knew what they were signing up for." Many cases of PTSD are never reported because service members are asphyxiated by the formidable impression of losing their job or more importantly, losing the respect of their colleagues.
Soon, Chris Dana drew further away from his family. He began screening his calls, he quit his job, and he stopped showing up at drill with the National Guard. Members of Chris' family felt that his unit failed to offer him an acceptable level of care, which ultimately pushed him further away. In the end, he was unable to be saved. Chris lost his battle to PTSD when he took his own life.
Chris' was buried with honors at a VA cemetery in his home state of Montana. The ceremony was filled with state officials, Montana National Guardsmen, and throngs of family. The National Guard honored Chris Dana's service by extending survivor benefits to his family. As a result, his brother was able to attend college and carry on the legacy his brother left behind.
Under current law, survivor benefits are not extended to former service members who commit suicide. The Honor Act introduced by Senators Bond, Boxer, Lieberman, Brownback, Grassley, McCaskill, Murkowski, Schumer, and Specter will extend survivor benefits to EVERY former service member who commits suicide and has a medical history of PTSD connected to combat. No military family should be left behind with nothing to honor and remember the legacy of their fallen loved one.

Combat Veterans with PTSD need to beware of a hack

It gives me no pleasure to read what Sue Frazier has to say about PTSD or veterans. It is because of the harm people like her cause, masquerading as advocates for veterans, that force me once again to address her rants.

From: Sue Frasier
Subject: Re:PTSD: REPLY

PTSD is a real and valid cause
but not the way many of you
are putting it out.

PTSD only effects a small and
teeny percentage of the population
some 17% and getting smaller,
and out of that number, many
are cured or recovered along
they way (the Veterans themselves
say so).

PTSD is not even the leading
psychiatric diagnoses in the
VA system --- schizophrenia
is and that does make a lot
more sense to me as I do
see more of that than any
real PTSD in my travels.
Schizophrenia is organic
and means they either had
it when they were drafted or
acquired it from long term
drug abuse. It's the doper
crowd who are clouding the issue.
take care everybody and
have a nice day.
Sue Frasier, albany ny

combatvetswithptsd : Message: Re: [Combat Vets with PTSD] Who is Susan Frasier ?

Frazier or Frasier, has attacked veterans on the Combat Vets with PTSD group. Think of what she said to them and then think about the truth. Below are the causes of both illnesses, which she has no idea about.

Schizophrenia
Introduction
Experts now agree that schizophrenia develops as a result of interplay between biological predisposition (for example, inheriting certain genes) and the kind of environment a person is exposed to.

These lines of research are converging: brain development disruption is now known to be the result of genetic predisposition and environmental stressors early in development (during pregnancy or early childhood), leading to subtle alterations in the brain that make a person susceptible to developing schizophrenia. Environmental factors later in life (during early childhood and adolescence) can either damage the brain further and thereby increase the risk of schizophrenia, or lessen the expression of genetic or neurodevelopmental defects and decrease the risk of schizophrenia.

The Path to Schizophrenia - The diagram above shows how genetic and prenatal factors are believed to create a vulnerability to schizophrenia. Additional envronmental exposures (for example, frequent or ongoing social stress and/or isolation during childhood, drug abuse, etc.) then further increase the risk or trigger the onset of psychosis and schizophrenia. Early signs of schizophrenia risk include neurocognitive impairments, social anxiety (shyness) and isolation and "odd ideas". (note: "abuse of DA drugs" referes to dopamine affecting (DA) drugs). Source: Presentation by Dr. Ira Glick,"New Schizophrenia Treatments" Read below for an indepth explanation of the genetic and environmental factors linked to schizophrenia.
Neither of these two categories is completely determinant, and there is no specified amount of genetic or environmental input that will ensure someone will or will not develop schizophrenia. Moreover, risk factors may be different for different individuals - while one person may develop schizophrenia due largely to a strong family history of mental illness (i.e. a high level of genetic risk), someone else with much less genetic vulnerability may also develop the disease due to a more significant combination of prepregnancy factors, pregnancy stress, other prenatal factors, social stress, family stress or environmental factors that they experience during their childhood, teen or early adult years.
http://www.schizophrenia.com/hypo.php

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
What is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, is an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened. Traumatic events that may trigger PTSD include violent personal assaults, natural or human-caused disasters, accidents, or military combat. More about PTSD »
Signs & Symptoms
People with PTSD have persistent frightening thoughts and memories of their ordeal and feel emotionally numb, especially with people they were once close to. They may experience sleep problems, feel detached or numb, or be easily startled. More about Signs & Symptoms »
Treatment
Effective treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder are available, and research is yielding new, improved therapies that can help most people with PTSD and other anxiety disorders lead productive, fulfilling lives. More about Treatment »
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/index.shtml

What she fails to understand is that PTSD is caused by trauma. That is why it's called Post-traumatic-stress-disorder. Obvious to anyone paying even minimal attention to this. It is not caused by the person. I have my suspicions about people like this "advocate" and put her in line with fellow dispensers of bitchery like Sally Satel, who have done more harm to the already wounded than should be forgiven.

When you are attacked by people, telling you that PTSD is not such a big problem, turn to the experts and find the tools you need to help you recover. Hacks will only make it worse for you. Go to the Veteran's Administration for facts.
http://www.ncptsd.va.gov/ncmain/index.jsp

Do not turn to hacks pretending to give a crap when they end up attacking you.

PTSD is not cured. You can recover and heal your life, but you are never totally free of it.

At least 3.6 percent of U.S. adults (5.2 million Americans) have PTSD during the course of a year.

About 30 percent of the men and women who have spent time in war zones experience PTSD.

One million war veterans developed PTSD after serving in Vietnam.

PTSD has also been detected among veterans of the Persian Gulf War, with some estimates running as high as 8 percent.
http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/go/ptsd

As you can see the percentage is not tiny and not getting smaller. It is one out of three for combat veterans.

ASD
Acute Stress Disorder
If PTSD is the most severe form of deployment-related stress problem, then the closely related Acute Stress Disorder, ASD, is the second most severe form. Both involve exposure to a significant traumatic event and a response of intense emotions. Overall ASD looks and feels a lot like PTSD. There are, however, a few very important differences.

First, ASD does not last as long as PTSD. In most cases, ASD lasts less than 1 month. If symptoms last longer than that, then the person may have PTSD rather than ASD. Second, in addition to the re-experiencing, avoiding, and being "keyed-up" that is associated with PTSD, people who have ASD also experience "dissociation." Basically, dissociation occurs when the mind and the body part company for a while. Examples of dissociation are listed in the following table.
(click link for table)
http://chppm-www.apgea.army.mil/deployment/Guides/RedeploymentTri-Fold/Deployment_Related_Stress.pdf

What is also not addressed is that the Army released their own study about the redeployments and they increase the risk of PTSD by 50%.

There are too many people in this country putting out false information for their own reasons, but none of the reasons are good or for the sake of those who serve this country.

Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com

"60 Minutes" provided wrong information on Combat PTSD

"60 Minutes" provided wrong information on Combat PTSD
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
January 14, 2014

When we depend on reporters to get it right we assume they understand enough about the topic they are covering to be able to ask the proper questions. Unfortunately, most of the time they lack a basic understanding and have not taken the time to do any research. This happened again with a "60 Minutes" report from November.

I received a link to a video on exposure therapy for combat veterans. It is a powerful report but not because of the reporter. Pelley didn't know the basic questions to ask.

The power comes from these veterans talking about what they have been going through.

CBS 60 Minutes Nov 24, 2013

60 Minutes gets a rare look inside new therapy sessions that are changing the lives of vets who suffer from PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. Scott Pelley reports.

If Pelley understood anything on "Redeployment" at 30 seconds into the report he would have asked why the military continued to redeploy even after the Army acknowledge redeployments increase the risk of PTSD by 50% for each redeployment in 2006.

"U.S. soldiers serving repeated Iraq deployments are 50 percent more likely than those with one tour to suffer from acute combat stress, raising their risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the Army's first survey exploring how today's multiple war-zone rotations affect soldiers' mental health.

More than 650,000 soldiers have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2001 -- including more than 170,000 now in the Army who have served multiple tours -- so the survey's finding of increased risk from repeated exposure to combat has potentially widespread implications for the all-volunteer force. Earlier Army studies have shown that up to 30 percent of troops deployed to Iraq suffer from depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with the latter accounting for about 10 percent
(Repeat Iraq Tours Raise Risk of PTSD, Army Finds, Washington Post By Ann Scott Tyson December 20, 2006)

The claim of one out of five have PTSD is also wrong.

About 30 percent of the men and women who have spent time in war zones experience PTSD. An additional 20 to 25 percent have had partial PTSD at some point in their lives. More than half of all male Vietnam veterans and almost half of all female Vietnam veterans have experienced “clinically serious stress reaction symptoms.” PTSD has also been detected among veterans of other wars. Estimates of PTSD from the Gulf War are as high as 10%. Estimates from the war in Afghanistan are between 6 and 11%. Current estimates of PTSD in military personnel who served in Iraq range from 12% to 20%.
(Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Nebraska Department of Veterans Affairs)

New treatments designed for rape victims is not "new" for them either.

The British Journal of Psychiatry published this in 2000.

Exposure therapies can also be combined with cognitive processing interventions (e.g. Resick and Schnicke, 1993), stress inoculation and relaxation techniques, and anxiety management training (Rothbaum and Foa, 1996). Both exposure and cognitive restructuring techniques seem to be effective, and are more effective than relaxation alone (Marks et al, 1998). Another form of exposure therapy employs cognitive reprocessing combined with saccadic eye-movements (eye-movement desensitisation and reprocessing, EMDR). Recent studies suggest that this strategy can be effective with combat veterans, and survivors of child abuse and disasters. (Psychological therapies for post-traumatic stress disorder, GWEN ADSHEAD, MRCPsych)

Prolonged exposure, not new and does not work because they are forced to relive all of it over and over again but there is no closure. There is no peace. They are going after the symptoms but not the cause.

Do they really think rape is the same as combat?

There have been reports this "treatment" helps rape survivors and victims of abuse but the two traumas are not the same. Until they treat Combat PTSD differently, we will keep seeing the same results of higher suicides, more homelessness and more suffering when they could be healing.

Three types of trauma were classified: combat- related, rape or assault-related, and a category reflecting a mix of various trauma or another trauma. Across the 59 trials that reported trauma type, 51% involved combat-related trauma only, 19% rape or assault-related trauma only, and 30% a mix of trauma or other trauma. Within each treatment condition (for conditions with three or more trials), mean effect sizes did not significantly differ across trauma types, ps 4 0.1.

Until the cause of PTSD is treated differently, we will keep seeing the same deadly results. Until reporters learn enough to know what questions to ask, we will keep repeating the same mistakes.

DOD and VA "efforts" made having PTSD worse

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
June 21, 2014

Military/veteran families and civilian families live in a different worlds. They settle for what the press tells them but we walk around with our eyes bugging out and brows raised so high they almost hit our hair line. My forehead wrinkles get deeper every years but that is just the way it. While we know what we live with the rest of the population think they have just discovered our pain,,,,again. How could they keep forgetting what they read last year or the year before or the year before that? How could they keep forgetting being upset for us over and over again?

The DOD and the VA can't prove if their "efforts" to address PTSD work, but then again, they say they just don't even know. That is the problem. All these years the DOD has been pushing Comprehensive Soldier Fitness. Before that, it was Battlemind. These "efforts" actually make PTSD worse while preventing servicemen and women from seeking help. Why? Because when soldiers are told they can "train their brains to be mentally tough" that translates into "if I have PTSD then I am mentally weak."

It seems that everyone is shocked by the report from Institute of Medicine except veterans and families. None of us are shocked at all. What is shocking is it took them so long to report on what we've been living with all these years.

IOM REPORT: DEFENSE/VA HAVE NO CLUE IF $9.3 BILLION WORTH OF PTSD TREATMENT WORKS
Nextgov
Bob Brewin
June 20, 2014

The Defense and Veterans Affairs departments spent $9.3 billion to treat post-traumatic stress disorder from 2010 through 2012, but neither knows whether this staggering sum resulted in effective or adequate care, the Institute of Medicine reported today.

DOD spent $789.1 million on PTSD treatment from 2010 through 2012. During that same time period, VA spent $8.5 billion, with $1.7 billion treating 300,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

DOD lacks a mechanism for the systematic collection, analysis and dissemination of data for assessing the quality of PTSD care, and VA does not track the PTSD treatments a patient receives, other than medications, in its electronic health record, IOM said in the congressionally mandated 301-page report, “Treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Military and Veteran Populations: Final Assessment.”

IOM estimated 5 percent of all service members have PTSD. Eight percent of those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have been diagnosed with the condition. The number of veterans of all eras who sought care from VA more than doubled from 2003 to 2012 -- from approximately 190,000 veterans (4.3 percent of all VA users) in 2003 to more than a half million veterans (9.2 percent of all VA users) in 2012.

For those treated for PTSD in the VA system in 2012, 23.6 percent (119,500) were veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
read more here

BATTLEMIND-RESILIENCE-COMPREHENSIVE UNFITNESS
Kathie Costos, posted on Wounded Times and in the book, THE WARRIOR SAW, SUICIDES AFTER WAR

If the military had ordered weapons that turned out to be more dangerous for the troops than they were for the enemy, they would have canceled the contracts. In the case of contracts and programs to prevent Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and reduce military suicides, they did not come to the obvious conclusion these programs were more dangerous than doing nothing.

BATTLEMIND was the granddaddy. This program was later called Resilience Training and Comprehensive Soldier Fitness.

This was the claim made in 2009 about Battlemind

“The study found that in Soldiers who had seen extensive combat, Battlemind training resulted in a 14 percent reduction in severity of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms.

And while 60 percent of Soldiers without the training reported sleep problems, just 30 percent of those who'd had the Battlemind class said they were having trouble sleeping after returning home.

Validation claim
Adler said the study validates the efficacy of the training, which aims to prevent or reduce psychological problems by giving Soldiers detailed information about what to expect, how to deal with problems and assurance that their experiences are both shared and manageable.

"It's not just the events you might be exposed to," she said. "It's also the thoughts you might have, feelings you might have...it helps put the experience in perspective."

Adler did not say whether the study had determined the training's effects on other commonly reported difficulties, such as irritability or depression.

The Battlemind material was developed after years of gathering data about deployments and reintegration. More than 80,000 troops filled out surveys since at least 2003 providing data on the typical effects of combat and the typical problems after coming home.

"What's normal, what you can expect," Adler said.

Battlemind Training was devised by psychologist COL Carl Castro, along with a colleague. It is based on the psychological theory of expectation, said Castro, now director of Medical Research and Materiel Command's Military Operational Medicine Research Program.

"Everyone does better when they know what to expect," Castro said. "So we said, 'What would be useful to know, based on evidence we had already collected?'"

That the study of the training's effectiveness, conducted in 2005 and 2006 on some 2,000 Soldiers in combat brigade teams, showed modest mental-health gains was expected, Castro said.

"It opens up the door," he said, to more psychological-health training throughout an Army career and, eventually, larger mental-health gains.“ (Study Shows Battlemind Training Effective, Nancy Montgomery, Stars and Stripes)

“Every Soldier headed to Iraq and Afghanistan receives “Battlemind” training designed to help him deal with combat experiences, but few know the science behind the program. Dr. Amy Adler, a senior research psychologist with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research's U.S. Army Medical Research Unit Europe visited Patch Barracks here to explain the support and intervention program to an audience of medical, mental health and family support professionals.” (Battlemind Program seeks to help soldiers deal with combat experiences, Susan Huseman, US Army Garrison Stuttgart Public Affairs Office, January 4, 2008)

A year later, Gregg Zoroya of USA Today interviewed Josh Barber’s widow. Josh drove to Fort Lewis “to kill himself and prove a point.” Kelly Barber went on to say that, “The "smell of death" he experienced in Iraq continued to haunt him, his wife says. He was embittered about the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that crippled him, the Army's failure to treat it, and the strains the disorder put on his marriage.” Barber would have had Battlemind Training, but like most of the men and women committing suicide in the military or because of it, this program was the push into the abyss.

In 2007 Charles Figley, Ph.D, Florida State university professor, “College of Social Work and director of “Traumatology Institute and Psychosocial Stress Research Program” was talking about OEF and OIF troops under combat stress. He said "We need to move from an obsession with PTSD to focus on combat stress, injury prevention, and management."

After addressing his thoughts on changing the term from PTSD to “combat stress injury” Figley went on to add “However, prevention and management must begin early, he said. Troops should acknowledge the likelihood and fact of injury beginning in boot camp. Before they are wounded, troops believe they are invulnerable and even after physical injury, often deny they are hurt. To a soldier, injury, whether physical or psychological, is a source of embarrassment. They have to move from denial to needing to talk about their injuries.” (American Psychiatric News, May 4, 2007) Comprehensive Soldier Fitness has just about the same type of claims.

According to reporters at the time, CSF was $125 million dollar failure, however, that was just the original cost.

The $125-million Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program
requires soldiers to undergo the kind of mental pre-deployment tests and training that they have always had to undergo physically. Already, more than 1.1 million have had the mental assessments. (By Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times December 26, 2011)

From Amazon about Warrior MindSet by Dr. Michael Asken, Loren W. Christensen, Dave Grossman and Human Factor Research Group.
January 1, 2010

“Mental toughness is essential for elite human performance and especially in high stress situations. While mental toughness is a singular value in both military and law enforcement training and missions, too often, there is a disconnect between talking about and actually training it. Warrior MindSet defines mental toughness and describes its critical need and function in the face of the performance degrading effects of combat, mission or response stress. Warrior MindSet provides the psychological skills that comprise mental toughness to optimize performance, success, safety and survival in the field.”

Human Factor Research Group Leadership members are Bruce Siddel, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, Dr. Steven Stahle and Mark Glueck. According to their website these are among some of their clients.

United States Department of Army SOTF (Delta Force), Ft. Bragg, NC
United States Department of Army Ranger Training Battalion
United States Department of Army Military Disciplinary Barracks, Ft. Leavenworth, KS
United States Department of Army Survival, Escape, Evasion and Resistance School - John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School
United States Department of Army Ranger Training Battalion, Ft. Benning, GA
United States Department of Navy Redcell, Littlecreek, VA
United States Department of Defense Camp Peary, VA
22nd Regiment, SAS, Minister of Defense Hereford, England

In 2006, the Army documented 2,100 attempted suicides; an average of more than five per day. In comparison, there were 350 attempts in 2002, the year before the war in Iraq began.

The method of choice was a firearm. There is no firm data on Soldiers who had thoughts of suicide. (Suicide Gets Army’s Attention, Army, Debbie Sheehan, Fort Monmouth Public Affairs October 14, 2009)

In 2007, the Army experienced its highest desertion rate since 1980, an 80 percent increase since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. The warning signs of future retention problems are increasingly apparent: suicide, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance abuse, divorce, domestic violence, and murder within the force are on the rise. Recent attention has focused on the growing number of suicides, with the Marine Corps experiencing more suicides in 2008 than since the war began and the Army logging its highest monthly total in January 2009 since it began counting in 1980. Not surprisingly, PTSD rates are highest among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who saw extensive combat (28 percent). However, military health care officials are seeing a spectrum of psychological issues, even among those without much combat experience. Various surveys provide a range of estimates, with up to half of returning National Guard and Reservists, 38 percent of Soldiers, and 31 percent of Marines reporting mental health problems. (Mind Fitness, Improving Operational Effectiveness and Building Warrior Resilience, Elizabeth A. Stanley and Amishi P. Jha, Army, October 30, 2009)

Battlemind and Comprehensive Soldier Fitness failed. In 2009 I wrote that if they pushed this program suicides would go up.

In the article

In a speech before the international affairs organization the Atlantic Council on Thursday, U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey laid out the virtues of the newly formed initiative, which he called Comprehensive Soldier Fitness.

"We have been looking very hard at ways to develop coping skills and resilience in soldiers, and we will be coming out in July with a new program called Comprehensive Soldier Fitness," said Casey. "And what we will attempt to do is raise mental fitness to the same level that we now give to physical fitness. Because it is scientifically proven, you can build resilience."

If you need proof CSF failed, here it is.

2008 Army = 140; Air Force = 45; Navy = 41; Marine Corps = 42 total 268
2009 Army = 164; Air Force = 46; Navy = 47; Marine Corps = 52 total 309
2010 Army = 160; Air Force = 59; Navy = 39; Marine Corps = 37 total 295
2011 Army = 167; Air Force = 50; Navy = 52; Marine Corps = 32 total 301
A total of 915 Service Members attempted suicide in 2011 (Air Force = 241, Army = 432, Marine Corps = 156, Navy = 86). DoDSERs were submitted for 935 suicide attempts (Air Force = 251, Army = 440, Marine Corps = 157, Navy = 87). Of the 915 Service Members who attempted suicide, 896 had one attempt, 18 had two attempts, and 1 had three attempts.

2012: Army 185, 93 Army National Guard and 47 Army Reserve, but the reports left out the citizen soldiers when they included 48 Marines, 59 Air Force, 60 Navy, total 492

RAND Corp took a hard look at this program and found that resilience training did not even fit with military culture.

Medal of Honor heroes talked about having PTSD, after this training. Dakota Meyer tried to commit suicide. Special Forces veterans talked about having PTSD after this training and some of them committed suicide. Some were discharged like Sgt. Ben Driftmyer.

Those returning are facing serious combat related mental health issues. According to a study conducted by RAND Corp. last year, one in three combat veterans will return home with PTSD, traumatic brain injury or major depression requiring treatment.

"I had spent eight years serving the military. I never got in trouble. Never did anything bad. And I got treated like I was a piece of crap because of it," said Ben Driftmyer, discharged U.S. Army Sergeant and Cottage Grove resident.

Driftmyer was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder by Eugene doctors after he was chaptered out from the special forces unit in Baghdad. He suffered several mental breakdowns during his service, but his discharge was classified as "other than medical."

"Because the military didn't want to pay for me for the rest of my life," said Driftmyer.

The other factor in all of this are similar to what Driftmyer faced. Bad paper discharges. Here are the numbers from 2013.

Army

Data obtained by The Associated Press show that the number of officers who left the Army due to misconduct more than tripled in the past three years. The number of enlisted soldiers forced out for drugs, alcohol, crimes and other misconduct shot up from about 5,600 in 2007, as the Iraq war peaked, to more than 11,000 last year.

Navy

The Navy went through a similar process. When the decision was made to cut the size of the 370,000-strong naval force in 2004, the number of sailors who left due to misconduct and other behavior issues grew. In 2006, more than 8,400 sailors left due to conduct issues.

Air Force

The Air Force, which is smaller than the Navy and Army, reported far fewer cases of airmen leaving for misconduct, both for officers and enlisted service members. The number of officers separated from service since 2000 due to a court-martial ranged from a low of 20 in 2001 to a high of 68 in 2007. For enlisted airmen, the number ranged from a high of nearly 4,500 in 2002 to a low of almost 2,900 in 2013.

Marines

Data for the Marine Corps, the military’s smallest service, were not broken out by officers and enlisted personnel. Overall, it showed that Marines leaving the service due to misconduct was about 4,400 in 2007, but has declined to a bit more than 3,000 last year. Those forced to leave for commission “of a serious offense” has nearly doubled from about 260 to more than 500 in the past seven years. The number of Marines who left after court-martial has dropped from more than 1,300 in 2007 to about 250 last year. The Marine Corps also grew in size during the peak war years, and is reducing its ranks.

Yet in all of this every year the DOD says that most of the suicides were committed by servicemembers with no history of deployments.

This is the most important question of all. If Comprehensive Soldier Fitness didnt' work for the troops without being deployed, how did they expect it to work for the troops being sent into combat over and over again?

Simple question they don't seem to want to answer.

One of the latests Medal of Honor heroes from the Vietnam War is Melvin Morris. I met him last month at a fundraiser for a double amputee. We talked for a long time and while he and his wife have been married for 53 years, they told me that he not only has PTSD, but wants to talk to the younger soldiers and veterans to prove to them once and for all that PTSD is not the end of their story. It is just a part of it.

PTSD is caused by trauma and changes lives but the truth is, it doesn't mean they cannot change again. They can heal even though PTSD is a part of them for the rest of their lives, they can live better lives. Their marriages don't have to end. Heck, I've been married to my Vietnam veteran with PTSD for 30 years. Melvin is one example of how the military got it wrong on resilience training.

You can't get more "resilient" than doing what it takes to earn the Medal of Honor. You can't be more resilient than to not just be willing to die for others, but to push past the pain of PTSD until after your buddies are out of danger. Their lives are yet one more scandal but this one has claimed more lives than anything else the VA and the DOD have done. They tried to prevent something they never understood in the first place.

Dakota Meyer's story is yet one more example. Most know his story when he had the Medal of Honor placed on his neck but few knew what happened when he came home. He tried to kill himself.

Meyer got some post-traumatic stress counseling, and moved back in with his father, Mike, on the farm where he grew up in the Kentucky hills.

"You come home to this peaceful place in the country," said Martin. "About as far removed from war as you can get. What was it like coming home?"

"A shocker," Meyer said. "It's hard living here. It's easy fighting, you know, 'cause it's, it's simple. Like, war simplifies life in my mind."

Meyer was home, but his father could see the war was still with his son.

Meyer's father said Dakota asked for new locks on the doors. "Make sure the house was locked up every night. . . . He'd always want to have one or two guns in every vehicle."

"So he always wanted a weapon close," he said, noting that for three months Meyer slept with a weapon - a pistol on his chest.

"Did you try to talk to anybody about it?" Martin asked.

"What's there to talk about?" Dakota replied.

"Get it out of your own mind and into somebody else's?"

"You know, why bother somebody else with it?" Meyer said. "It's just part of it."

Believing he had become a burden to his family, Dakota turned to the bottle. One night driving home he stopped his truck and pulled out a gun.

So many Medal of Honor Heroes have come out about their own battles they should never have to fight that what you read about today is nowhere close to the way it actually is.