One reason suicides may be going up in Army

If I walked into a training session and heard any plans for starting crisis intervention in the middle of a tornado or hurricane, I would walk out the door. It seems they are doing this type of thing in Afghanistan. Good intentions? Absolutely. I've been complaining there isn't enough crisis intervention in the military and they have not responded the way civilians do when crisis teams hit it head on as soon as the event itself is over. Having them respond in combat areas is not that bad of an idea but when they are doing it to a soldier who already has PTSD, that idea is deadly. You cannot treat them for PTSD caused by traumatic events in combat while they are still in combat! You can't medicate it out of them either.

The other part to this story is for 5,000 soldiers there are two social workers, one psychiatrists and one psychologist! What good do they think this will do with so many men and women begin exposed to combat trauma on top of the stress of being redeployed over and over again? They are being medicated, probably with very little attention from the psychiatrist, and more than likely, no real therapy. All the ingredients necessary to help a soldier heal are spread out too far to do any good at all. Sending them back to help them is like sticking a tornado survivor into a wind tunnel and telling them it's for their own good.

Military keeps distressed soldiers at combat site

By HEIDI VOGT
The Associated Press
Saturday, July 31, 2010; 12:00 PM

The 5,000 troops that make up Task Force Mountain Warrior - which includes the Fort Carson soldiers - are served by a psychologist, a psychiatrist and two social workers. Collectively known to soldiers as "Combat Stress" - as in, "I had to go see Combat Stress" - this four-person team makes the rounds to about 30 bases. They arrive after any potential trauma: the death of a soldier, an arduous battle or a large roadside bombing.

FORWARD OPERATING BASE BOSTICK, Afghanistan -- Sgt. Thomas Riordan didn't want to return to Afghanistan after home leave. He had just fought through a battle that killed eight soldiers, and when he arrived home his wife said she was leaving. He almost killed himself that night.


When his psychologist asked what he thought he should do, Riordan said: Stay in Colorado.

Instead, the military brought Riordan back to this base in the eastern Afghan mountains, where mortar rounds sound regularly and soldiers have to wear flack jackets if they step outside their barracks before 8 a.m., even to go to the bathroom.

Increasingly, the army is trying to treat traumatized soldiers "in theater" - where they're stationed. The idea is that soldiers will heal best if kept with those who understand what they've been through, rather than being dumped into a treatment center back in the States where they'll be surrounded by unfamiliar people and untethered from their work and routine.

However, the policy may serve the military at least as much as the soldiers. Treating soldiers on site makes it easier to send them back into battle - key for a stretched military fighting two wars. It also brings up a host of challenges: Ensuring soldiers get the treatment they need in the middle of war, monitoring those on antidepressants and sleeping pills, and deciding who can be kept in a war zone and who might snap.

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Military keeps distressed soldiers at combat site

Wars take a heavy toll on one California school

Wars take a heavy toll on one California school
Buchanan High School in the Central Valley community of Clovis has lost seven troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the most of any school in the state.
By Diana Marcum, Los Angeles Times

July 31, 2010
Reporting from Clovis, Calif. — The seventh funeral was Friday. The church was full, even strangers lined the streets and everyone in sight stopped what they were doing and bowed their heads as Brian Piercy's body moved from church to cemetery — the same as they had done for six others.

Seven boys from Clovis' Buchanan High Shool have been killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Wars take a heavy toll on one California school
linked from
http://icasualties.org/OEF/index.aspx

TAPS volunteers help grieving children

Wrangler Bde volunteers help grieving children
By Pfc. Amy M. Lane, 4th Sust. Bde. Public Affairs
July 29, 2010 News

One of the Army values is selfless service, and volunteers from the 4th Sustainment Brigade, 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), along with other III Corps Soldiers, were a living example of this value during last weekend’s two-day Good Grief Camp at Fort Hood.

The Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, known as TAPS, organized the annual event, which pairs children who have lost a loved one in the military with a Soldier-mentor for two days of activities aimed at dealing with grief. Mentors received training before the event.

The Wrangler Brigade sent 15 volunteers to the event. Each had various reasons for offering their time. Some said they were doing it to honor a loved one they had lost, to honor those lost in the Nov. 5 shooting or simply to help children.
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Wrangler Bde volunteers help grieving children

Spike in domestic violence at Fort Hood

Remember that Fort Hood had their sense of safety shattered when Maj. Hasan opened fire last year. Aside from the deployments over and over again into two combat zones, this very well could have a lot to do with the spike at Fort Hood.

Stop family violence - Love should never hurt
By Maj. Gen. William Grimsley, Fort Hood Acting Senior Commander

Combat is a necessary part of our lives in the Army. Few of Fort Hood’s Soldiers have not been affected by it during eight years of combat deployments. We’re trained to inflict harm and do violence on the enemy in defense of our country. However, we’re also taught restraint and how to properly apply controlled measures of violence only when necessary.

In our line of work, it’s crucial that we know where that violence ends. One thing we must always remember is that we can never bring violence into our homes. In April, I signed the Month of the Military Child Proclamation, recognizing the importance of our children and bringing awareness to the problem of child abuse. Fortunately, that has not been a significant problem in our Fort Hood community.

Lately, however, we have been seeing a spike in the number of reported cases of spousal abuse. In some of these cases the female, both Soldier and spouse, has been determined to be the aggressor. A few other cases are a result of mutual combat. Regardless of the circumstance, victim or perpetrator, if you find yourself in a situation that might escalate to violence you must choose to walk away and remove yourself from the scenario.
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Stop family violence

More vets getting mental health care, more need care

July 30, 2010
More vets getting mental health care, more need care
Posted by Meredith Cohn

As the wars continue in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Department of Veterans Affairs can be sure of something: more people will leave the military in need of long-term medical care – and long-term mental health care.

Robert A. Petzel, undersecretary for health at the VA, was in Baltimore for a meeting of mental health professionals trying to get up to speed on the latest treatments and services, and I was able to quiz him on the latest efforts to care for former service members. Joining in the discussion was Sonja V. Batten, Assistant Deputy Chief Patient Care Services Officer for Mental Health.

They told me that the agency has been working to bolster its staff of mental health professionals – adding 6,000 staffers from the field in the last four years, bringing the total to 20,673.

The VA has also added a suicide prevention hotline, which has taken 293,000 calls in the last two years, referred 35,000 callers to a suicide prevention coordinator and rescued 9,700 of those in immediate crisis.

But the number of those on active duty taking their own lives is, not surprisingly, rising. And many more are coming home from combat distressed.

For post traumatic stress disorders, almost 366,000 vets were treated in fiscal 2009. That number is also rising. There were almost 255,000 treated in fiscal 2006. Of course, during conflicts, there will be more PTSD – as estimated 30 percent of those who served in Vietnam, for example, experienced PTSD and 10 percent of those in the Gulf War did. (About 6.8 percent of Americans will experience PTSD at some time in their lives.)

Officials say a main reason the numbers are going up now is because screening has gotten better. But certainly more vets need care.

In fiscal 2009, more than 1.4 million vets received care from the VA for a mental health problem, up from close to 1.2 million in fiscal 2006.
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More vets getting mental health care, more need care

Feds need help diagnosing stress in combat veterans

POWERS: Who's malingering?
Feds need help diagnosing stress in combat veterans
By Neal Powers
The Washington Times


In 1944, when an uninjured private, Charles H. Kuhl, said he couldn't "take it anymore," Gen. George S. Patton called him a "yellow coward," slapped him and threw him out of the hospital tent. The U.S. military has always had difficulty discriminating between malingering and disability caused by mental health issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Many in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) would have us believe PTSD is unique to military personnel, but that is not true. Law enforcement officers, firefighters and even missionaries and relief workers in Haiti can suffer. So can many victims of rape, abuse or other violent crime. Anyone witnessing death or dismemberment is a potential candidate. The critical difference is whether they get the chance to talk about it and work through it. That's where the military culture becomes a barrier.

In the modern military mindset, only the lowest of the low would let his buddies down, fail to do the job or abandon the mission. As a result, it is often only after family lives are destroyed by night terrors, panic attacks, violent outbursts, emotional numbness and substance abuse that many combat veterans seek help. Today, the VA feels like an adversary to many veterans.
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Feds need help diagnosing stress in combat veterans

Bus filled with children bursts into flames on I-95 in Brevard

This is just the start of this story. You have to read the rest to know there are good people in this world.

Bus filled with children bursts into flames on I-95 in Brevard
The Associated Press

4:09 p.m. EDT, July 30, 2010
ROCKLEDGE — A bus carrying school-age children from Fort Lauderdale to a track meet in Virginia burst into flames Friday along Florida's Space Coast, but nobody was hurt.

The bus was heading north on Interstate 95 in Brevard County when it burst into flames. All 42 people aboard managed to get off the bus safely. A cause hasn't been determined.

The children still hope to make the track meet in Virginia.
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Bus filled with children bursts into flames

Florida's new multi-millionaire was out of work and hit Powerball on a quick pick

This is post 10,000 on this blog and it's a wonderful thing to be able to share with readers of a trauma blog. It's a story of yes good things can happen to you too!

This new multi-millionaire was out of work, just like a lot of people in Florida. This is the kind of story I love to post because no matter how bad things look, there is always a chance for things to get better even more than we are able to imagine.

Florida’s second Powerball winner claims prize
Uncategorized — posted by gary taylor on July, 30 2010 10:46 PM Florida’s second Powerball jackpot winner has stepped forward to claim her $73.8 million prize.

Elizabeth Choras-Hanna, 35, of Hollywood, opted to receive a one-time, lump-sum payment of $38,929,055.11 for the July 10 jackpot.

Florida Lottery officials said Elizabeth is an out-of-work medical assistant. She was accompanied to Lottery headquarters by her twin sister, Alexandra, a firefighter and paramedic, and Alexandra’s husband, a retired firefighter. The three said they plan to share the money.

“We always go grocery shopping at Publix together and before we leave we buy one Florida Lotto and one Powerball Quick Pick ticket,” Elizabeth told Lottery officials.
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Florida second Powerball winner claims prize

US embassy vehicles torched in Afghan capital

US embassy vehicles torched in Afghan capital


By Agence France-Presse
Friday, July 30th, 2010 -- 11:24 am

Rioting erupted in Kabul Friday when scores of Afghan men set fire to two US embassy vehicles after one collided with a civilian car killing a number of occupants, officials and witnesses said.

Television pictures showed the vehicles in flames and young Afghan men throwing stones at them.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said it had despatched a quick reaction force to the area, outside the American embassy and near US and Afghan army bases in the centre of the city.

An ISAF official said the vehicles involved belonged to the US embassy.

"We don't know yet how many people were killed in the accident," interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashery said.
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US embassy vehicles torched in Afghan capital

Tornado survivors PTSD needs to be studied by military

While I refuse to call anyone a victim of a traumatic event instead of survivor, this study needs to be read over and over again by the military.

The rate for developing PTSD is “well over 50 percent for the victims,” Casey said. “For the workers, it will be somewhere between 10 and 30 percent.”

A tornado may only hit a town once but after that, the fear of another one coming can cause them to live in fear for the rest of their lives. For responders, they were not in there when the tornado hit but came after the damage was already done. Yet for them, the damage penetrates their minds as well.

Responders are trained to help survivors and other responders. Chaplains (like me) go through all kinds of different programs to be able to train ourselves to think beyond "self" so that we can take are of other people. It's just what we do. The problem comes when we've just seen too much to be able to just move onto the next crisis. While I believe our training helps us to recover a bit better than others, this does not stop us from experiencing what every other human does.

Two things stand out in this report. One traumatic event like a tornado can change lives forever, yet with the military, more often than not, they face one traumatic event after another and another. That fear of death, wounding or losing someone else they care about hangs on them. The other factor is that civilians have someone showing up after one event to help them put their lives back together but for the military, there is little done to help them recover from all they experience.

You'd think with all the exposures to combat situations, they would have developed a way to have someone there to debrief them all the time, but due to a shortage of mental health professionals and Chaplains, this isn't happening enough to get ahead of any of what we're seeing coming out of repeated deployments into Iraq and Afghansitan.

More than half of tornado victims may have PTSD
Two groups of people are likely to develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder from the June 17 tornado: directly affected Wadena area residents and the indirectly affected volunteers and workers helping them, according to Jim Kraemer of the Neighborhood Counseling Center and Dr. Dan Casey of Green Cross Academy of Traumatology.
By: Rachelle Klemme , Wadena (Minn.) Pioneer Journal
WADENA, Minn. — Two groups of people are likely to develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder from the June 17 tornado: directly affected Wadena area residents and the indirectly affected volunteers and workers helping them, according to Jim Kraemer of the Neighborhood Counseling Center and Dr. Dan Casey of Green Cross Academy of Traumatology.

“(PTSD) can be caused by anything that would be traumatic in a person’s life,” said Kraemer.

Casey and Kraemer said symptoms of PTSD include difficulty sleeping, changes in appetite (hardly eating, not eating at all or overeating), anxiety and flashbacks replaying the traumatic event in one’s mind.

The multiple July storms have not helped.

Casey also said people living with or without PTSD may overreact to severe weather — for example, taking shelter in the basement without an actual tornado warning.

Acute Distress Response occurs immediately after an event. After 30 days, it can be diagnosed as PTSD, Casey said.

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More than half of tornado victims may have PTSD