Col. Theodore Westhusing, suicide and Petraeus

New Military Report Acknowledges Signs of Police State in Baghdad
Huffington Post
Tom Hayden
September 18, 2007

Virtually ignored in last week's national debate on the US military surge was a report by military experts recommending that the Iraqi police service be scrapped because of its brutal sectarian character.

The scathing report stopped short of acknowledging that continuing US support for the Iraqi Security Forces is in violation of the 1997 Leahy Amendment barring assistance to known human rights violators.

So far representatives Maxine Waters, Lynn Woolsey and Barbara Lee have raised the issue with their HR 3134, which would end funding for the repressive Iraqi security forces. The Center for American Progress [CAP], headed by former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta, takes the same view in its July document, "Strategic Reset." Perhaps the most important sign of rising awareness is the new willingness of Senate leader Harry Reid to remove the provision for funding American trainers in the timetable legislation he is co-sponsoring with Sen. Russell Feingold.

The little-noticed new report exposes the lethal nature of the counterinsurgency doctrines promoted by Gen. David Petraeus and the official warfighting manual developed in collaboration between the Army, the Marines and Harvard's Carr Center.

In comparison with past public outcries about "tiger cages" and Operation Phoenix in Vietnam, death squads in El Salvador and Honduras, or ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, there is little or no attention today to the issues raised in the new report. All the major Democratic presidential candidates support maintaining thousands of American trainers embedded with what the new report calls "dysfunctional and sectarian" forces. In short, whether intentional or not, all the major proposals on Iraq are based on a lower-visibility, lower-casualty dirty war reminiscent of Algeria, Central America, South Vietnam and, today, Afghanistan.

Gen. Petraeus was the commander of US transitional forces [MNSTC-I] in 2004-2005, in charge of training, arming and organizing Iraq's military and police forces. A scandal involving tens of thousands of missing weapons on Petraeus' watch has been pursued by the American Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction since that time.

A Petraeus subordinate, Col. Theodore Westhusing, committed apparent suicide on June 5, 2005, leaving a note which said,
"I cannot support a [mission] that leads to corruption, human rights abuses, and liars...I don't know who to trust anymore." [Newsweek, Aug. 20-27]
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From Queens to Kuwait, Where a Life Was Ended

Sgt. Denise A. Lannaman fatally shot herself in Kuwait last year.
From Queens to Kuwait, Where a Life Was Ended

In the space of three months last year, three members of the U.S. Army who had been part of a logistics group in Kuwait committed suicide. Two of them — a colonel and a major — had power over contract awards and had been accused of taking bribes just before they killed themselves.

The third was Sgt. Denise A. Lannaman of Queens. In a war that has cost the lives of more than 3,700 Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis, the death of one woman by her own hand has attracted little attention beyond the circle of shattered family and friends.

Yet those who know her say that questions about Sergeant Lannaman’s death remain unsettled, and go well beyond psychic agonies that she struggled with her entire life. “From the day she was born, she was different,” Barbara Lannaman, her mother, said. “Life was just not satisfactory to her.”

Gifted as a mechanic, fastidious as an administrator, brave in a combat zone, Sergeant Lannaman at the end of her life had landed in a spot where, investigators say, officers were able to scoop up millions of dollars in bribes from merchants who wanted the contracts the Army awarded for everything from water to laundry.

Far as it was from the bombs that she drove past in Iraq, the logistics operation in Kuwait would lead to its own peculiar casualties.

That Sergeant Lannaman was in the Army at all — whether in Iraq or behind a desk — could be seen as a testament to her own shrewdness, or to the Army’s hunger for recruits in a grindingly long war.

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, she spent nine years in the Navy, then bounced from job to job. By the time she was 42, in the spring of 2003, Denise Lannaman had been a firefighter, a sailor, a filmmaker, a scuba diver, a paramedic and an auto mechanic.

She also had been a frequent psychiatric patient, her family says, an iron-willed perfectionist who had dealt with life’s ragged edges by making four suicide attempts.
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Womack Army Medical Center braces for wounded

Womack prepares for returning boom
By Gregory Phillips
Staff writer
As head of Womack Army Medical Center, Col. Terry Walters is preparing for what she calls the coming storm of soldiers returning to Fort Bragg in the next year.

“There’s going to be huge medical fallout from this war,” said Walters, who has directed Womack since July 2006.

The conflict in the Middle East has led to the Army’s lowest fatality rate in the history of warfare, Walters said, but the Army’s medical system is a victim of that success.

More soldiers than ever are surviving serious injuries and needing medical care when they get home. The injured soldiers have overwhelmed some Army hospitals, including Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where neglect of patients was exposed earlier this year.
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PTSD veterans face combat and Katrina

PTSD has strong presence on Coast
Veterans face both combat and Katrina
By MEGHA SATYANARAYANASUN HERALD
BILOXI --The number of Gulf Coast veterans seeking treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder rivals that of major cities such as San Antonio, Minneapolis and Salt Lake City, according to an internal document obtained by McClatchy Newspapers through the Freedom of Information Act.

With the New Orleans and Gulfport facilities destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, the stress of nearly 1,400 veterans with PTSD and their 10,700 outpatient visits during 2006 fell on remaining facilities of the VA Gulf Coast Veterans Health Care System in Biloxi, Mobile, Pensacola and Panama City. The workload is intense, said Kelly Woods, assistant chief of psychology services in the Gulf Coast system. They see at least 20 people each month in a residential program and do at least 100 new and followup appointments each month in Biloxi and at other sites.

Many PTSD vets are from the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, and the numbers needing treatment are expected to grow as more come home.

Several will have to deal with both combat stress and losses suffered from the hurricane, he said. PTSD symptoms, from the vague, "My wife says I'm different," to things like nightmares, violent outbursts and substance abuse, take months to years to surface. The combination of war and Katrina has pushed some to exhibit symptoms earlier. "Katrina was a trigger - I need help," Woods said. "Lots of guys lost their home while in an active war zone."
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http://www.sunherald.com/278/story/143265.html

Suicides in Military view from veteran

Suicides in Military at an All Time High

By John Waltz Published Sep 17, 2007
Click to contact me
Near the end of a long deployment, the thoughts of coming home fill your mind and your heart yearns for the familiarity of loved ones. Once getting home it all seems great until you wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and realizing, you had the most horrific nightmare of your life. A nightmare so vivid you thought you were back on a patrol in a foreign country. The smells, the sights and the tastes are all there just like the day it happened. The days keep passing by and you start to isolate yourself, withdrawing from those around you. Every time you go out in public, you are on guard watching everything around you. The slightest sounds startles you and you have that feeling you are coming under fire. Your old friends call and ask if you want to go fishing but you tell them that you are just not feeling it. This soldier has no clue what is going on to him but can tell something is not right. What he is suffering from is a posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) a recognized disorder by the American Psychological Association using the DSM IV.
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PTSD have you feeling like you can't live with it? Call for help that is waiting for you

VA Suicide Prevention Hotline Flooded with Calls

Joyce Kryszak

BUFFALO, NY (2007-09-17) Thousands of distressed veterans have flooded the the Veterans Affairs new suicide prevention hotline.

The VA opened the new national call center about a month ago to respond to the growing number of returning troops experiencing mental health problems. The 24 hour call center is located in Canandagua, New York but takes calls from veterans anywhere in the country.

About 4,500 people, including some non-veterans, have called the hotline for help. Of those, 100 were admitted to VA hospitals for treatment. Three of those cases were referred to Buffalo's VA Medical Center.

Michael Finegan is Director of the Center. He says they have long provided emergency mental health care at the facility. But he says the hotline adds another level of critical response.

It's estimated that roughly 50,000 returning veterans suffer from some type of combat related mental health stress.

The hotline number is 1-800-273-TALK.
Click the "listen" icon above to hear Joyce Kryszak's story now or use your podcasting software to download it to your computer or iPod.
© Copyright 2007, WBFO

http://publicbroadcasting.net/wbfo/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1149028&sectionID=1

This is wonderful! Think of the lives being saved because there is someone there for them! Veterans risk their lives for us, for a nation sending them into combat. It's our turn to fight for them. It shouldn't be this way. They should all have whatever they need waiting for them to help them heal their wounds, but until that day comes, we have to make sure the same government sending them, takes care of them.

Combat PTSD From violence back to society

From violence back to society
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder conference to be held next week at Eden Resort Inn.

By ANYA LITVAK, Staff
Lancaster New Era

Published: Sep 18, 2007 11:12 AM EST

LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. - Jan Yupcavage, a Vietnam War veteran and a readjustment counselor at the Harrisbug-based Vet Center, recently met with a young veteran of the Iraq War who was traumatized while watching "Monday Night Football."

The former soldier was stunned watching his friends cheer and yell at professional football players, as he had once done.

To muster such emotion for something so meaningless, he thought — comparing the experience to his time in battle — seemed, for the first time, ridiculous.

Now, Yupcavage said, the veteran dreads Monday nights.

That's just one way Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder can hinder a soldier's readjustment into civil society, he said.

Yupcavage is scheduled to speak on the issue at a conference sponsored by the YWCA of Lancaster and Samaritan Counseling Center called "The Many Faces of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder."

The two-day event, focusing on soldiers and others with PTSD, will be held Thursday and Friday, Sept. 27-28 at Eden Resort Inn.

A keynote speech given by Dr. Sandra Bloom of Community Works will kick off the event at 6:30 p.m on Sept. 27. The following day, lectures and workshops will run from 7:15 a.m. to 3:45 p.m.

Registration is open until Monday, Sept. 24, at $65 per person, or $75 for those obtaining continuing graduation credits at the event.

Yupcavage's presentation — "When the Soldier Comes Home: The Impact of PTSD on Relationships" — is scheduled for 10:20 a.m. on Sept. 28.

"The experience of war is so intense that you come back altered," Yupcavage said.
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http://local.lancasteronline.com/4/209625

PTSD proof is not just in your head, it's in your brain

Mental Wounds: The world after Lister
9/17/2007 - VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --
One hundred and thirty years ago, almost 50 percent of the patients undergoing major surgery died from infection. Dr. Joseph Lister was the first to treat wounds with dressings soaked in carbolic acid. Dr. Lister and Dr. Louis Pasteur suggested surgeons wash their hands and sterilize their instruments before operating. The medical community in Britain and the United States initially shunned them. Drs. Lister and Pasteur were personal friends. When his medical peers publicly honored Dr. Pasteur at age 70, he turned and bowed his head towards Dr. Lister, saying: "The future belongs to him who has done the most for suffering humanity."

Sufferers of mental wounds
Today we all understand the importance of keeping wounds clean. Unfortunately our views on "mental illness" are much like those of the peers of Drs. Lister and Pasteur 130 years ago. Recently, startling advances have been made in understanding "mental disease."

J. Douglas Bremner, M.D. of Yale University School of Medicine, Departments of Diagnostic Radiology and Psychiatry was commissioned by a number of organizations including the National Institute of Health to study the long-term effect of trauma on the brain. Dr. Bremner concluded, "Individuals with a history of exposure to childhood abuse or combat had a reduction in volume of a brain area involved in learning and memory called the hippocampus, which is felt to be related to stress, with associated deficits in hippocampal-based learning and memory." In plain English, extreme stressors can have lasting effects on the areas of the brain that are used for memory and emotional control.

These are not chemical changes, but actual reductions the in size of the brain. Dr. Bremner used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, on combat veterans diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and found them to have an 8-percent reduction in right hippocampal volume and a 12-percent reduction in left hippocampal volume. Two subsequent studies confirmed Dr. Bremner's original findings.

In other studies, patients were provided a stimulus or cue that provoked traumatic memories. Using positron emission tomography, or PET, these studies revealed dysfunction of the medial prefrontal cortex and hippocampus portions of the brain when traumatic memories were evoked.

Sympathy for those in pain
Forty million women and about one-third that number of men in the United States report rape, attempted rape, or molestation prior to their 18th birthday. Add a myriad of other traumas and it is no wonder we are experiencing an avalanche of problem in today's society, and our military services.

Much of what in the past has been attributed to the lack of ability to "suck it up" is in fact caused by a physical alteration of the brain. Telling a person who has experienced repeated trauma to "get over it" is the equivalent of telling a blind person you could see if you just really tried.

It is time for 21st century people to begin to understand that what has been labeled "mental illness" is in fact often a physical illness, just like diabetes, cancer, or pneumonia.

I posted all of this, which I do not do often, but there was too much that needed to be posted.

Red Lake Indian Reservation shows high suicide rate

Beltrami suicide rate triggers Health Department investigation
by Lorna Benson, Minnesota Public Radio
September 17, 2007
The Minnesota Department of Health has opened an investigation into the causes behind Beltrami County's high suicide rate. New analysis from the department shows that the rate is nearly double the statewide average. Beltrami County is located in north central Minnesota. Its largest city is Bemidji and it's home to the Red Lake Indian Reservation. The new analysis found high numbers of suicides among Indians and white people.

St. Paul, Minn. — Officials in Beltrami County suspected they had a high suicide mortality rate.

They just didn't have the proof. So they asked the Minnesota Department of Health to look into the numbers. The department poured over death certificates from public records and injury details from hospital discharge data.

Epidemiologist Jon Roesler was surprised by what he found.

"Not only does Beltrami County have a problem with suicide, but they have probably one of the worst problems of suicide in the whole state of any of the counties," he says.

When adjusted for age and population, Beltrami County had an average of 19 suicides per year per 100,000 people from 1996 to 2005. That compares to a statewide rate of 10 suicides per 100,000, Roesler says.

"Not only are the rates higher for the county overall, but in particular the rates are higher for the youth ages 15 to 24. That really seemed to be where the problem of suicide was the greatest."

The suicide rate among youth reached 21 in Beltrami County - that's two additional suicides per 100,000 people. For the same age group, the statewide average is 9.
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Just one more example that this country and the world have a very serious problem with sucides. People don't commit suicide for no reason at all. There are problems all over the world and the numbers seem to be growing.

It's premature to blame FDA for suicide rise
By Scott Allen, Globe Staff September 17, 2007

The front page headline in the Washington Post was alarming: "Youth suicides increased as antidepressant use fell." A new study argued that a record increase in youth suicides in 2004 may have been the unintended consequence of federal warnings that antidepressants such as Prozac can trigger suicidal thoughts in children. Media outlets across the country reported the painful irony that the Food and Drug Administration's attempt to prevent suicides seemed to have increased them by discouraging doctors from properly treating depressed young people.

"We may have inadvertently created a problem," lamented Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, to the Post earlier this month.

But a closer look at the numbers suggests that the suicide fears are at least premature, if not baseless, say people who specialize in health statistics.

Suicide is so rare among young people that even the record increase reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - based on 2004 statistics - represents just 248 extra deaths among 61.5 million youths in the United States ages 5 to 19. And almost half the extra deaths involved 18- and 19-year-olds who were not included in the antidepressant warning. As a result, the suicide rise is so small that statisticians will not be able to say whether it's a real trend or just bad luck - at least until 2005 totals are available later this year.
go here for the rest of this

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_
science/articles/2007/09/17/its_premature_to_blame_fda_for_suicide_rise/

Suicide overwhelmingly remains Oregon's number one violent cause ...By mrollins Of 748 Oregonians who died violently in 2005, suicide accounted for 555, or 74 percent of them, according to a study released this morning by the Oregon Department of Human Services. Far back as a cause of death was homicide,...OregonLive.com: Breaking News Updates - http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/

Wall Walk to aid Guards' children

Sgt Christian Hickey

Wall Walk to aid Guards' children


By Andrew Robinson
A CHARITY set up in memory of a Yorkshire Coldstream Guard killed in Iraq is hoping to raise £20,000 to help the children of needy serving and former Guardsmen.


Twenty supporters of Coldstream Kids, set up following the deaths of two Guardsmen, including Sergeant Christian Hickey, from East Bierley in Bradford, will set off on Thursday to walk the length of Hadrian's Wall.Former Guardsman Franco Gasparotti, 42, has organised the walk but a spinal injury will prevent him from walking more than a few miles of the 84-mile route. He suffered the injury when he was attacked during a riot in Belfast in 1989. His injuries meant he had to retire from the Army and is on a war pension.

Mr Gasparotti, originally from Thornbury in Bradford, spent two years in rehabilitation, learned to walk again and now runs a business offering personalised fitness training.Based in Epsom, Surrey, he works to improve the fitness of clients and draws on his Army experience when he was a keen boxer, runner, swimmer and footballer.Setting up the charity and org-anising the walk was his way of "putting something back", he says."The incident in Belfast ended my career and I spent two years in rehabilitation.

Two vertebrae in my back were crushed and this triggered rheumatic disease of the spine."I felt forgotten about when I came out of rehabilitation and it was a big wrench. I missed out on a career that I really enjoyed."The Ministry of Defence and the way it works didn't do enough for me. I am still being treated for post traumatic stress disorder and am a 50 per cent disabled war pensioner. I wanted to try and put something back.
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Delays, Lost Paperwork Persist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center

Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report
Kaiser Health Disparities Report: A Weekly Look At Race, Ethnicity And Health Coverage and Access
Delays, Lost Paperwork Persist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center,
Washington Post Reports
[Sep 17, 2007]
Patients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center are continuing to encounter problems with lost paperwork and delays in appointments, months after President Bush and Department of Defense Secretary Robert Gates promised to make "swift changes" to improve the care that soldiers were receiving at the military facility, the Washington Post reports (Priest/Hull, Washington Post, 9/15). Earlier this year, a Post series detailed poor conditions for people receiving outpatient care at Walter Reed (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 5/3). After the series was published, the Army "moved swiftly" to fix the outpatient system and established three panels to examine the "entire overburdened military medical care system" for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Post. Despite these efforts, patients and family members continue to complain about the obstacles facing veterans, including a lack of information and explanation of options given with discharge papers, the long disability process, excessive bureaucracy and rotating staff, all resulting in inadequate care, the Post reports.
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934,925 Veterans being treated by VA for PTSD

VA studies: PTSD care inconsistent
By Chris Adams McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Sunday, September 16, 2007

WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs, which touts its special programs to treat post-traumatic stress disorder in returning soldiers, spends little on those programs in some parts of the country, and some of its efforts fail to meet some of the VA's own goals, according to internal reports obtained by McClatchy Newspapers.

In fiscal year 2006, the reports show, some of the VA's specialized PTSD units spent a fraction of what the average unit did. Five medical centers — in California, Iowa, Louisiana, Tennessee and Wisconsin — spent about $100,000 on their PTSD clinical teams, less than one-fifth the national average.

The documents also show that while the VA's treatment for PTSD is generally effective, nearly a third of the agency's inpatient and other intensive PTSD units failed to meet at least one of the quality goals monitored by a VA health-research organization. The VA medical center in Lexington, Ky., failed to meet four of six quality goals, according to the internal reports.
A top VA mental-health official dismissed the reports' significance, saying veterans receive adequate care, either in specialized PTSD units or from general mental-health providers. In addition, he said, some of the spending differences aren't as extreme as the documents indicate, and the department is working to increase its resources for mental health treatment.
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Do you still think we don't have a serious problem in this country? Not even close. Think of how many are not even counted. Until a claim is approved, they do not count it. Then you also have to consider too many are still not even sure what PTSD and have not gone for help of any sort. Then you have to also add in those who have PTSD but mild right now and do not see it as a problem but they will when the secondary stressor hits them later in life.

The older veterans are going from seeing their doctors once a month to once every three months, if they're lucky. Is any of this serving the veterans who would not need their wounds taken care of if they did not serve?

Forgive me but I'm posting this on the other blog too.

When the trauma gets stuck like a tape

Post-traumatic stress disorder - special report
When 'the trauma gets stuck like a tape'
BY TAMMIE SMITH
The symptoms may show up years after a woman is sexually abused. Or months, even decades, after a soldier has left the battlefield. Exposed to life-threatening trauma, they suffer flashbacks, insomnia and fear so overwhelming at times that each day is a struggle. Mental-health experts call this chronic, sometimes delayed, response to traumatic experiences PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Some trauma seems to overwhelm the ability of the nervous system to undergo the natural healing process," said Deni Horton, a licensed clinical psychologist in Charlottesville who treats PTSD patients. "The trauma gets stuck like a tape, over and over." As thousands of men and women return from Iraq and Afghanistan, there has been increased attention to PTSD. Surveys suggest as many as a third or more of service members returning from the conflicts show signs of psychological problems. Often it is PTSD.

"We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg right now," said Dr. Antony Fernandez, acting chief of mental-health services at McGuire Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Richmond. Questions have been raised about whether the government is doing enough to help. But while PTSD is most often associated with military service, anyone who faces a life-threatening event can experience it. The disorder is widespread enough that millions in research dollars are going to government centers and universities to study treatment and prevention. New treatment options are being explored, including some at McGuire. And a report by the Institute of Medicine, due out this fall, is expected to shed more light on ways to treat the disorder.
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Native American veterans seen at greater risk for PTSD

Native American veterans seen at risk
Region lags in efforts to help stress-afflicted
By Anna Badkhen, Globe Correspondent September 17, 2007
Mental health workers are looking for new ways to help Native American service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. In some parts of the United States, specialists are combining modern treatments with traditional healing methods, employing medicine men, participating in sweat lodges, and asking tribal elders to encourage veterans to seek professional medical help.

But in New England, the effort to reach out to Native American veterans is lagging, mental health specialists and some Native Americans say. At risk, they say, are thousands of Native American veterans, who historically are more susceptible to combat trauma than other troops, but who also are less likely to seek, and receive, mental health help from government-operated agencies as their non-Indian comrades.

Studies of Native American veterans who fought in Vietnam showed that they were twice as likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder as other veterans. Although no one has studied the prevalence of trauma among Native American veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, mental health workers anticipate that those troops may suffer from similarly high levels of trauma.

At least 18,000 of the 22,000 Native Americans currently in uniform had been deployed at least once to Iraq or Afghanistan as of July, according to the US Department of Defense. Recent Army studies have found that up to 30 percent of soldiers coming home from Iraq suffer from depression, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder. The studies did not include other branches of the military.
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Liberty Spirits Farm accused of fraud in donations for veterans

Web Site That Solicited Donations For Returning War Veterans Home In Phelps County A Fraud, Missouri AG Says
Mon, 09/17/2007 - 12:41 — newsdesk

September 14, 2007 -- Jefferson City, Mo. — The owner of a Web site that solicits donations purportedly for military and veterans related causes - including a supposed rural retreat in Phelps County for war veterans recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder - has been defrauding donors, Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon says. Nixon obtained a temporary restraining order today against James Barbee of Carpinteria, Calif., and Liberty Spirit Farm Foundation, who solicit donations for Liberty Spirits Farm and Liberty Spirit Ranch on the Web site. The Attorney General is also seeking injunctions, restitution and civil penalties.

Nixon says that Barbee, who operates www.libertyspiritsfarm.org, began soliciting for charitable contributions on the site for the Liberty Spirits Farm near Lake Spring in April. The Web site describes the location as a rural retreat for military veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and states that donations would help pay for the costs associated with operating the farm. At one time the site also featured pictures of the farm, including specific rooms and the 840 acres surrounding it.
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