Stop blaming CBS for military suicides report

CBS Veteran Suicide Numbers Bogus?
By Warner Todd Huston November 27, 2007 - 07:44 ET
On the CBS "Early Show" on Nov. 13th, co-host Julie Chen claimed that there was "an alarming suicide rate among veterans" of the Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts. CBS then aired a report that went on to claim that the suicide rate for our troops had wildly climbed. Fellow NewsBuster Kyle Drennen had his doubts about the report when the show originally aired and now comes an editorial by oftentime military reporter Michael Fumento further casting large amounts of skepticism on the CBS report.

The CBS show specifically wanted to make it seem like Iraq war vets are the ones that have seen these outrageously rising suicide rates. Reporter Armen Keteyian included in his report this opener:

Staff Sergeant Justin Reyes spent a violent year serving in Iraq...Medical records show Justin suffered severe psychological trauma after witnessing "multiple dead" and having to "sort through badly mutilated bodies." Earlier this year, one month after separating from the Army, Justin hanged himself with a cord in his apartment, at just 26...families recently sat down to talk about losing loved ones, all veterans of Iraq, to suicide...Mia Sagahon's boyfriend, Walter, shot himself at age 27 about a year and a half after he came back from Iraq.


Clearly CBS is pinning these so-called high numbers on the war on terror.
go here if you feel you really need to

http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/warner-todd-
huston/2007/11/27/cbs-veteran-suicide-numbers-bogus

Every morning and throughout the day I catch up on the links I'm sent. I buzz through everything, keeping what I need to go back to in order to read thoroughly. I'm not even a quarter of the way through them but my blood pressure is at a boiling point already!

Ever since CBS did the report on military suicides, they have been attacked for reporting it. Enough already. It was supported by the VA!

VHA population specific epidemiologic factors, it is estimated that there are up to 1,000 suicides per year among veterans receiving care within VHA and as many as 5,000 per year among all living veterans.
STATEMENT OF
JAN KEMP, RN, PHD
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR EDUCATION, VISN 19
MENTAL ILLNESS RESEARCH EDUCATION AND CLINICAL
CENTER
DEPT
OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

What fails to cause the same kind of anger is that the CBS report, although much needed, is in fact underestimating the numbers. They did not take into account the DOD figures are different.

The report, obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its scheduled release Thursday, found there were 99 confirmed suicides among active duty soldiers during 2006, up from 88 the previous year and the highest number since the 102 suicides in 1991 at the time of the Persian Gulf War.
Washington Post
August 16, 2007

There were also 948 of what the report terms "serious attempts at suicide"

While the vast majority of the "completed suicides" in 2006 involved males, 10 of the victims were females, the report said. Seventy percent of the Soldiers were under 25, 98 percent were enlisted and 91 percent were from the regular Army. And while the suicide methods included drug overdoses, strangulation and poisoning, the vast majority - 71 percent - involved firearms.
Army Military News
August 16, 2007

These anti-facts bloggers would know all of this if they ever bothered to take any of this seriously! I've been tracking it since the beginning! I used to post on the AOL message boards until I knew I was just wasting my time. There were too many on their who lacked the capacity to open their minds. I was operating a blog on AOL at the same time. I abandoned that blog and started with Blog Spot two years ago. If you want to learn more you are welcome to do searches. There are almost 9,000 posts over at Screaming In An Empty Room. Click the link to the right side of this blog.

The point is that while CBS brought attention to this, they did not create the facts! This escapes the deniers so hell bent on shooting down the report they will post all across the country attacking it instead of trying to be part of the solution.

I get emails from families who have lost someone because of suicide and because of this wound. I get emails from veterans wondering what's wrong with this country and pleading with me to offer them some hope. I've plastered videos all over Google and YouTube. Everything taken from news reports and actual, factual studies on PTSD. I'm so fed up with some people in this country that their agenda is a declaration of war against our veterans. That's right! War on our veterans because as they seek to minimize the outcome of two occupations, instead of finding the same kind of outrage they are suffering, they in effect have declared veterans as the enemy!

To these bloggers I have only one thing to say, use the same energy to solve problems or get the hell out of the way and find something else to attack. Stop attacking them!

For the last 25 years, this has been my life. For the last three years, it has consumed my days because there are too many veterans in the same place my husband was and still is in and too many families just like mine. Now, finally the media has taken this seriously, which will end up working to end the stigma of this wound, end the silence of those suffering and get them into the healing help they would not need if we did not send them to risk their lives. It will bring information to the families of the troops coming home so they know what to look for to know if their soldier needs help or just time to recover from what they went through.

If the deniers want to see the numbers of the suicides rise the way they did after Vietnam, then have fun attacking truth. You can answer to God when you get there and He asks you why you were part of the reason so many took their own lives. You can answer to Him as to why you didn't help when you had the opportunity.

P.S. Send your hate mail as always to the below link unless you've already been blocked because you've been too nasty in the past.

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

Canada sees rise in PTSD soldiers

Post-traumatic stress disorder
Last Updated July 2006
CBC News
MEDIA
Audio: The Best of the Current: Post-traumatic stress disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder has made headlines in recent years, but is not new. The disorder has been known to exist as far back as ancient Greece, but has had different names throughout history. In the American Civil War, it was called soldier's heart. In the First World War it was called shell shock and in the Second World War it was known as war neurosis. In the Vietnam War, the symptoms were described as combat stress reaction.

Now, more Canadian soldiers than ever are coming forward to make claims for psychiatric disabilities, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. More than 8,500 pensions have been awarded, a 2,100 jump since 2001. Veterans Affairs says 30 per cent of these go to veterans from World War II and the Korean War. But, Canada's mission in Afghanistan is also boosting the numbers. The rate of post-traumatic stress among Canada's peacekeepers is as high as 20 per cent, according to the military ombudsman's office in Canada.
go here for the rest
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/health/posttraumaticstress.html

Iraq and Afghanistan wounded getting special help from Social Security

More help for wounded war veterans

Thursday, November 22, 2007

The Social Security Administration is working to improve its service to veterans wounded on or after Oct. 1, 2001.


The SSA will expedite the processing of disability claims for service members who became disabled while on active duty. As long as the veteran alerts Social Security that he or she was wounded on active duty, it will flag the case to make sure it is handled as quickly as possible.The administration's new Web site gives information about disability benefits and how to apply for them, and provides a link to an application for disability benefits. If you do not have a computer, you can go to your local library and use one for free.

click post title for the rest

This is great that they are doing it but why don't they do it for all wounded veterans? Don't they understand there are a lot of Gulf War vets and Vietnam vets who need their help too? Gulf War veterans are still seeking help for their illnesses and yes, even PTSD. Vietnam veterans, at the end of their careers in their 50's and older, have a unique problem. Faced with coming to terms with PTSD and all the illnesses associated with Agent Orange, many of them cannot work. Who is pushing them to the top of the pile or flagging their claims? Why do older wounded veterans have to get out of the way for the newer ones? Can't we take care of all our wounded veterans? They are being pushed back and face longer waits with the VA on their cliams as well as treatment. We should be able to take care of all of them in this emergency! kc

If you repaid "bonus" money DOD needs to give it back

Great news for the wounded who already had to pay back their money! Thousands of them should not have had to pay one dime back but they all got letters just like Fox did.

DoD: No repaying bonuses for wounded
Staff and wire reportsPosted : Tuesday Nov 27, 2007 12:53:38 EST

If you are wounded in combat and discharged as a result, you will not have to pay back your enlistment bonus, Defense Department officials said Monday.

“Bonuses are not recouped simply for one’s inability to complete an enlistment or re-enlistment agreement through no fault of the military member,” according to a policy statement cited in an American Forces Press Service story.

The policy statement was issued one day after Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., held a press conference criticizing the Pentagon for dunning wounded troops to pay back their bonuses, a practice the senator said affected hundreds.

He said that when the case of Pfc. Jordan Fox, an Army sniper partially blinded by a roadside bomb in Iraq, was called to the Pentagon’s attention, officials replied that the demand for him to repay $2,800 was a “clerical error” and canceled the debt. But what about the others, he asked, standing in front of a World War I memorial.

“When you talk to the Pentagon, you get different answers from different people,” he said.
Schumer called on the Defense Department to conduct an internal investigation and audit to identify recently wounded personnel who received the dunning letters and assure them that repayments were not necessary.

He also said he would support proposed legislation, to be called the Veterans Guaranteed Bonus Act, to require full payment of bonuses to enlistees within 30 days of discharge from the service due to combat-related injuries.

The statement came after Fox appeared on local and national TV and radio shows to talk about the letter.

Fox, 21, from Mount Lebanon, Pa., was partially blinded in his right eye and sustained a back injury in a roadside bomb explosion in Baqubah in May. He returned to the U.S. two months later and received a discharge.

In late October, Fox got a letter from the Army seeking repayment of part of his enlistment bonus because he had only completed about a year of his three-year service.

Another letter arrived a week later warning he could be charged interest if he didn’t make a payment within 30 days.

“I was just completely shocked,” Fox said. “I couldn’t believe I’d gotten a bill in the mail from the Army.”

“Department policy prohibits recoupment when it would be contrary to equity and good conscience, or would be contrary to the nation’s interests,” according to the Defense Department policy statement. “Those circumstances include, for example, an inability to complete a service agreement because of illness, injury, disability or other impairment that did not clearly result from misconduct.”

According to the DoD story, Army officials said Fox will not be required to pay back any enlistment money he received.

Anyone who does have an issue can call the Wounded Soldier and Family Hotline at (800) 984-8523.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/11/military_payback_bonus_071127w/

Now if they will do something about the wounded who had to pay for their meals and lost equipment, they will be on the right track of doing the right thing.

Combat veteran tries to find and help those who also fought

Combat veteran tries to find and help those who also fought
By CHRIS VAUGHN
Star-Telegram staff writer

STAR-TELEGRAM/ JEFFERY WASHINGTON

Nearly 400 veterans are receiving help from the center. FORT WORTH -- Joel Chaverri has seen combat, having participated in the 2004 attack on Fallujah, Iraq, the scene of some of the most bitter street fighting involving U.S. forces since Hue in Vietnam.

He knows the readjustment that a young man must go through when he leaves behind that kind of carnage.

So when Chaverri left the Marines and returned to North Texas, he accepted a job with the Department of Veterans Affairs. His mission: to go out and tell young combat veterans that it's OK to ask for counseling.

"I tell guys, 'You don't have to have a PTSD diagnosis or have a disability rating,'" Chaverri, 25, said. "'You don't have to have a disorder.' Our brochures never use the word PTSD. We offer readjustment counseling."
go here for the rest
http://www.star-telegram.com/metro_news/story/326068.html

Coping when loved ones have dangerous jobs

• Coping when loved ones have dangerous jobs
  Story Highlights
  Families of soldiers, police, firefighters live with anxiety
  
  Expert: Family stress symptoms similar to those of post-traumatic stress
  
  Eating and sleeping problems, headaches, irritability and withdrawal
  
  Widow: Make the most of time together because it is not unlimited

(LifeWire) -- RoseEllen Dowdell wakes up in the middle of the night, thinking about her sons, one in the military and one a firefighter. Kristina Zimmerman changes the channel when she hears of another soldier killed -- not wanting to worry about her husband, a military policeman.

For them, and for other families of firefighters, soldiers, police officers, miners or anyone else who risks death to do their jobs, anxiety is a part of life.

"It is a constant state of worry and this feeling like your stomach is in your throat," says Zimmerman, 23, a stay-at-home mother of three whose husband, Michael, searches for drugs and bombs with an Army K-9 unit. The military will be sending him to Kosovo for a year in early 2008.

"I get frustrated because, yes, I know he is just doing his job and that he is doing it for us," says Zimmerman, who lives in Miesau, Germany -- where her husband is stationed. "But at the same time I don't understand how he can put himself at risk, and our kids and me at risk of losing him as a father and husband."

Dowdell, 51, who lives in the New York City borough of Queens, knows that kind of risk intimately. Her husband, Kevin, a 20-year veteran New York City firefighter and a member of an elite rescue unit, died in the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

Dowdell and her sons waited many anxious months for Kevin's body to be recovered
It was not until April 2002, when the majority of debris had been cleared from ground zero, that the Dowdell family was able to hold a memorial service and experience some kind of closure. Kevin Dowdell's body was never found.

go here for the rest

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/personal/11/27/uncertainty/

Overwhelming Response to Vets Helping Vets

Overwhelming Response to Vets Helping Vets
By: Steve Nicoles, Reporter
By Steve Nicoles
Story Created: Nov 26, 2007
Story Updated: Nov 26, 2007
IOWA CITY - Friday KCRG-TV 9 News reported on a group of veterans trying to raise money to help other veterans. The group hit a bit of a snag Monday. But the initial response has been overwhelming. The employees at Wells Fargo Bank say thy have received a lot of calls from people wanting to help. One man from Dubuque is even donating a three-bedroom apartment.Some people might think this group came together following the death of Sonny Iovino a couple of weeks ago. Iovino was a homeless veteran.

But the idea for “Vets Helping Vets” came weeks before Iovino's death under an Iowa City bridge. The group wants to be able to help veterans with their needs. They are asking for donations. They need money, coats, shoes, hats and blankets. “Vets Helping Vets” met with Wells Fargo Bank Monday to work on becoming a non-profit organization. But the members say they found a problem. They want to help now and the process can take a few weeks. Len McClellan said, “People have responded and we need to get our stuff in order so they can help. All we want to do is help our fellow vets." The group is trying to speed through the process. And anyone wanting to donate should contact the downtown Iowa City Wells Fargo. For more information call Michelle Reuss at (319) 887-7461.
Email Steve Nicoles at Steve.Nicoles@kcrg.com
http://www.kcrg.com/news/local/11838971.html

70 to 80 percent of deployed civilians to Iraq have trauma related wounds

Statement of Laurence G. Brown, M.D. Director, Office of Medical Services, U.S. Department Of State

Although many employees working in Iraq are direct hire Foreign Service employees others are permanent civil service employees, while still others are civil service working under limited, non career appointments, the so-called 3161s. I want you to know that all of these employees come under the department's medical program in Iraq. They are all eligible for preassignment training, for medical and mental health services while in Iraq and for post assignment out briefings.

Although the medical services for the 3161s end when their employment is terminated, they are covered by worker's compensation for injuries or occupational health conditions that developed in Iraq. Other contractor personnel in Iraq are covered by their individual companies who hve full responsibility for medical and mental health care and follow up.

The DOD cannot take care of the soldiers who have been wounded by trauma but they are treating non-combatants? The soldiers cannot simply collect workman's comp, have to wait for months just to file a claim and be evaluated, then wait over a year more to have a claim approved? Our tax dollars are funding the contractors and they cannot take care of their own employees? Our tax dollars are supposed to be taking care of our troops and all of their medical care. What is going on here? This also explains why the State Department employees were so upset about going to Iraq. The hearing happened June 19, 2007. They would have all known about this report and knew the dangers of being sent to Iraq.

Later in the testimony

Some contractor personnel in Iraq are personal services contractors (PSC) that have the same medical support a do direct hire employees. Other contact personnel are either non-personal services or professional services contacts. While all the large contact companies have full responsibility for medical and mental health care and follow-up for their employees, there are several smaller contact companies who are authorized to use Government furnished medical support in Baghdad.

In a question and answer session

Dr. Brown
I think it is fair to say based on anecdotal reports and from our survey that again is not totally complete but it appears that most people--let us say 70 or 80 percent of those who leave Iraq--have some sort of an emotional problem at least temporarily when they return to the United States. As I said, most of them

go here for the whole report
http://www.internationalrelations.house.gov/110/36206.pdf

They are not participants in combat but they are in combat zones. So why do we doubt the soldiers, Marines and all other military personnel exposed to the traumatic events of combat on a daily basis would develop PTSD? Dr. Brown also said they did not anticipate these findings. Neither did the DOD or the VA and no one has taken this all seriously enough to being emergency response to it. Our soldiers are dying after they come home. They are dying a slow, painful death. Their families are falling apart and trying to deal with all of this. Financial problems caused by PTSD and the inability to work crush what little strength they have to deal with any of this. What is congress and the President doing about any of this? The Democrats have been trying but even they do not fully appreciate how serious all of this is.kc

Neglect? The VA's current backlog is 800,000 cases

Neglect? The VA's current backlog is 800,000 cases. Aside from the appalling conditions in many VA hospitals, in 2004, the last year for which statistics are available, almost 6 million veterans and their families were without any healthcare at all. Most of them are working people -- too poor to afford private coverage, but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid or means-tested VA care. Soldiers and veterans need help now, the help isn't there, and the conversations about what needs to be done are only just now beginning.

120 War Vets Commit Suicide Each Week
By Penny Coleman, AlterNet.

Posted November 26, 2007.

The military refuses to come clean, insisting the high rates are due to "personal problems," not experience in combat.

Earlier this year, using the clout that only major broadcast networks seem capable of mustering, CBS News contacted the governments of all 50 states requesting their official records of death by suicide going back 12 years. They heard back from 45 of the 50. From the mountains of gathered information, they sifted out the suicides of those Americans who had served in the armed forces. What they discovered is that in 2005 alone -- and remember, this is just in 45 states -- there were at least 6,256 veteran suicides, 120 every week for a year and an average of 17 every day.

As the widow of a Vietnam vet who killed himself after coming home, and as the author of a book for which I interviewed dozens of other women who had also lost husbands (or sons or fathers) to PTSD and suicide in the aftermath of the war in Vietnam, I am deeply grateful to CBS for undertaking this long overdue investigation. I am also heartbroken that the numbers are so astonishingly high and tentatively optimistic that perhaps now that there are hard numbers to attest to the magnitude of the problem, it will finally be taken seriously. I say tentatively because this is an administration that melts hard numbers on their tongues like communion wafers.

go here for the rest

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/68713/

Local Paper Uncovers Another Apparent Soldier Suicide in Iraq

This is what it takes to end "under investigation" and get real figures of the price of war!

Local Paper Uncovers Another Apparent Soldier Suicide in Iraq
From Editor & Publisher, November 24, 2007
By Greg Mitchell

Hundreds of U.S. troops in Iraq have committed suicide since the war began in 2003, though this subject is kept quiet by the military. As E&P has documented in recent months, the deaths are announced as “noncombat” with the only details that they are “under investigation.” But local newspapers often find out the true cause from surviving family or friends, and occasionally from nearby military bases.

Some 130 are now officially listed as suicides in Iraq but dozens more being probed, and then there are the suicides in Afghanistan, and hundreds or thousands more back in the U.S., as CBS News recently revealed. Now there is probably one more.

Spc. Melvin Henley was on his second tour of duty in Iraq family members say when he died Wednesday at Camp Striker in Iraq from injuries suffered from a noncombat-related incident, the Associated Press reports.

The U.S. Department of Defense announced Henley’s death on Friday.

The cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the head, Jim Jeffcoat, a spokesman for Fort Stewart in Georgia, where Henley was assigned, told The Clarion-Ledger newspaper in Jackson, Miss. “It is under investigation,” Jeffcoat said.

Henley, 26, from Jackson, was a helicopter mechanic. He was assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart in March 2007. He served one tour of duty in Iraq from November 2003 to November 2004.
go here for the rest
http://www.freepress.net/news/28402