5 things to know about PTSD CNN got wrong

Sniper killing aftermath: 5 things to know about PTSD
By Ashley Fantz
CNN
February 5, 2013

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
PTSD is marked by hyper-vigilance, a fear that a trauma will occur again
Rates of PTSD among the general population are low
Virtual reality is being used to treat PTSD sufferers

(CNN) -- When police caught up with alleged killer Eddie Ray Routh last weekend, the 25-year-old ex-Marine was crying, shirtless, shoeless and smelling of alcohol.

"I'm hurting," he told them.

Not long before, at a Texas shooting range, police say, Routh had gunned down Chris Kyle, the Navy SEAL who called himself America's deadliest military sniper.

As he sits in a Texas jail cell, details about Routh's psychological make-up have surfaced, including claims that he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition that affects a number of current and former members of the U.S. military.

Of course, combat duty doesn't automatically lead to PTSD. And it's not even clear that Routh served in a combat zone during his four years in the Marines.
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While there are good parts to this report, there are many wrong ones. Like this.

"We need to remember that while substantial numbers of vets have mental health conditions," Cozza said, the majority do not.

Because it does not mention the fact less than half of the veterans needing help for PTSD seek in early because of the stigma attached to it coupled with the notion they will just "get over it" with time. Take a look at the number of Vietnam veterans in their 60's seeking help for the first time because they have retired and were no longer able to focus on jobs after a life changing event.

Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who struggle with anger are twice as likely as other vets to be arrested for crimes, according to the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, which published a study last year.

Missing the fact that many veterans are arrested for domestic violence that happened when they were having a nightmare or flashback and their spouse unknowingly tried to shake them awake or yell at them. They ended up with broken noses and black eyes because they didn't know enough to get up out of bed and their husband landed in jail on a domestic violence charge. Missing the fact that arrests for alcohol and bar fights are included too. Then missing the medication aspect that in many cases has fueled violent reactions.

Exposure therapy often helps the person with PTSD revisit or re-experience their trauma as a means of lessening the effect the memory has on them, said Rizzo, who is with the Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California.

Missing the point that this kind of therapy only works when they get the veteran to see the whole event and not just part of it so they can make peace with what happened.

But this may have done more damage to PTSD veterans.

"What happened this weekend with the death of former Navy Seal sniper Chris Kyle at a gun range is exactly the opposite of the evidence-based approach to treating PTSD," termed 'prolonged exposure' or 'virtual reality exposure' therapy, he said. "Chris Kyle, while well trained in his field, had no clinical training in conducting therapeutic exposure."

There would be no "evidence-based" approach if people didn't try different things. There would be no training if Vietnam veterans didn't push it to begin over 40 years ago and families like mine living through all of it discovering on our own how to help because there were only a few experts on this back then.

This is also missing the point that none of this is new even though it is "news" to them!

American Idol contestant exposed for fabricating horror Iraq war injuries

We all remember Tim Poe America's Got Talent wounded veteran faker and it looks like American Idol has one too now.

American Idol contestant exposed for fabricating horror Iraq war injuries
The Sun
By JO SAYER
Published: 6 hrs ago

A SHAMELESS American Idol contestant has been forced to make a grovelling apology after falsely claiming he was injured in a bomb blast while serving in Iraq.

At his audition Matt Farmer described how he was seriously injured by an explosion while on patrol in the city of Ramadi.

He told how after waking up in hospital he was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury. He went on to say how he was told the medication he was prescribed could make him sterile.

As he held his daughter in his arms, the tearful 26-year-old told host Ryan Seacrest her birth was a miracle.

But his lies were soon exposed by his former colleagues in the military.

On a website used by servicemen and women they told how he had never even been deployed to Iraq. One commentator described him as a “pathological liar that has used the blood, sweat and tears of real, hard working, tough, brave and honorable Infantry soldiers to paint himself as somone he most certainly is not."

Farmer initially tried to justify himself by claiming Idol producers had taken his words out of context.
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Veteran suicides comes from limited data

Latest VA estimate of veteran suicides comes from limited data
By MEGAN MCCLOSKEY
Stars and Stripes
Published: February 5, 2013

WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs is making strides in tracking veteran suicide, but figuring out how many former servicemembers take their own lives is still largely a guessing game. The latest analysis points to an average of 22 veteran suicides per day in 2010, according to a recently released VA study. That’s up from an estimated 18 each day in 2007.

But the stats are based on an incomplete collection of national data. The VA used death certificates from only 21 states – not including California or Texas, home to the largest population of veterans. Women, as well as young, single veterans, are often missing from the data.

Extrapolating a national average from that limited data is premature, said Rajeev Ramchand, a behavioral scientist at the Rand Corporation, a think tank in Washington.

“It’s too much to make that leap,” said Ramchand, who studies military suicide.

Researchers with the VA study acknowledge the shortcomings and warn that the estimates should be “interpreted with caution.” The conclusions derived from the 21 states “may not be [able to generalize] to the larger veteran population,” the researchers wrote.

This is despite the most comprehensive effort ever undertaken to review veteran suicides.
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NBC feeding the myth of PTSD veterans being dangerous

Hundreds of thousands of veterans are treated at the VA for PTSD. That should have been the lead in this story. It wasn't and we should be asking why not. Veterans are more likely to hurt or kill themselves than someone else. This is a fact and is supported by the high number of suicides along with attempted suicides (another subject not discussed) which is what the accused shooter of Chris Kyle had sought help for.

Suffering military and veteran is not something they are interested in. They get a lot more attention out of covering the gun murder of a decorated sniper as if it was the Wild West and this was a shootout with the fastest gun.

Will slaying of ex-SEAL Chris Kyle mar veteran job market?
By Bill Briggs
NBC News contributor

The weekend homicides of ex-Navy SEAL and “American Sniper” author Chris Kyle and a friend in Texas have stoked fresh concerns among mental-health experts and veteran advocates that the crime’s PTSD theme will further stigmatize and dampen an already-soggy job market for men and women home from war.

“What worries me about this story is it will frighten potential employers away from hiring veterans who have been in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Dr. Harry Croft, a San Antonio-based psychiatrist who has talked with more than 7,000 veterans diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

“The myth is all of them have PTSD — not true, only 20 percent. Another myth is that all of them who have a severe case of it — not true; it goes from very mild to severe. The third myth is that everybody with PTSD is aggressive, unreliable, or trouble in the workplace, and none of that is (true) either. It scares me,” Croft said.
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Military veteran reportedly killed by son

Military veteran reportedly killed by son outside of Massachusetts home
Published February 05, 2013
FoxNews.com

A military veteran was reportedly killed by his own son in front of their Massachusetts home, MyFoxBoston.com reports.

Michael Beaudry, 20, allegedly struck his father, 58-year-old Ronald Beaudry, multiple times with an unknown blunt object, the station reports.

The elder Beaudry was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at the hospital.

Witnesses told the station that the younger Beaudry attended to his father after striking him, cradling his father's head and apologizing.
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Chris Kyle murder causes PTSD sufferers to fear backlash

PTSD sufferers fear backlash in wake of SEAL murdered
Feb 04, 2013
By Greg Groogan
Special Projects Reporter
HOUSTON (FOX 26)

It is fact for which there is rock solid confirmation - during his four combat tours Navy Seal sniper Chris Kyle saved scores of Marines from insurgent bullets.

That a deeply disturbed former Marine would senselessly take the life of a comrade who was so clearly trying to help him speaks to the real and present danger of battle related post-traumatic stress.

"That should be a wake-up call to everybody that these guys continually need help, these guys and girls that come back from combat," said Paul De La Cerda, an Iraq War veteran.

With his band "Warrior Spirit" De La Cerda deploys music as a force of healing for both his own PTSD as well as that suffered by the military comrades with which he regularly comes in contact.

"We are just trying our best to bring these guys back to who they were," said De La Cerda.

De La Cerda genuinely fears the killing of Chris Kyle will result in the kind of negative "blowblack" against veterans that the Seal sniper was fighting to end.

"You already know the backlash from it is going to be guys with PTSD will automatically be labeled as killers or guys that are about to snap," said De La Cerda.
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MOH Dakota Meyer asked Ron Paul if he lost his mind

MOH Recipient Slams Ron Paul Over Kyle Tweet
Feb 05, 2013
Military.com
by Michael Hoffman

Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer criticized former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul on Twitter Monday night after Paul posted a controversial tweet about former Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle, who was killed Saturday at a Texas gun range.

Meyer sent his tweet in response to one by Paul that read: “Chris Kyle's death seems to confirm that "he who lives by the sword dies by the sword." Treating PTSD at a firing range doesn't make sense.”

Meyer tweeted: “Hey @ronpaul have you lost you mind? That sword protected your freedom. Guess since I live by it I deserve to get murdered as well? #wow.”

Meyer, a former Marine sergeant, is one of three living recipients of the Medal of Honor for service in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is credited with saving 13 American and 23 Afghan soldiers’ lives in a firefight in Afghanistan in 2009.

Kyle, a former SEAL and author of “American Sniper,” left the Navy in 2009 after 10 years of service. He completed four deployments to Iraq and is credited with killing 160 enemy combatants. He received two Silver Stars, five Bronze Stars for valor and two Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals.
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WTF is Secretary of the Army John McHugh thinking?

WTF is Secretary of the Army John McHugh thinking?
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
February 5, 2013

The book I thought I'd have done last month keeps writing itself because of what is going on and the rise in military suicides. When will it ever be enough for someone to finally be held accountable for all of this? I am tired of asking that question but as tired as I am of that, I am heartbroken of family after family blaming themselves when there are so many others to blame first.

I screamed when I ran into this "report" thinking it would have something to offer.

A War on Two Fronts: Army Orders Plan to Combat PTSD
Feb 5, 2013
By News 92 FM

Army Secretary John McHugh signed an order Monday for all Army commanders to come up with a plan to better handle post-traumatic stress disorder. McHugh admitted its going to take a culture shift in the Army to face mental health issues at home and on the battlefield.

This is coming from a "news" station as if it was some major story to cover but that is all there is on the post. Nothing more. No questions? No data? No evidence? Not even one single WTF moment of accountability?

They have been "doing" that since the reports first started to come out over ten years ago! Well, now they are to begin to spread the pain even further using a failed program that is the major one problem in the military.

Army secretary calls for mental health 'resilience' training
By Kim Murphy
February 4, 2013

JOINT BASE LEWIS McCHORD, Wash. — With suicides in the Army reaching another record in 2012, Army Secretary John McHugh said Monday he is reviewing recommendations from a study of soldier behavioral health evaluations and intends to adopt mental health “resilience” training for all soldiers.

McHugh said he was not ready to announce the results of the behavioral health review — launched after several troubled soldiers at the Madigan Army Medical Center here complained that their post-traumatic stress disorder diagnoses were downgraded by a forensic psychiatric team. The Army continues to hold close to the vest what it found when it looked across the country at how soldiers with mental health problems were being diagnosed.

“A few things are already clear,” McHugh said at a briefing to announce the “completion” of the report.

“Our commanders are working very, very hard. They’re trying to do everything they possibly can to provide to our soldiers the right programs, the right care.” But the “abundance” of programs made available over the past decade has led in some cases to “confusion” about what services are available, especially when good programs are “stovepiped” in individual locales and not telegraphed to all bases and commands, he said.

“Often commanders and those charged with delivering care are unaware of certain benefits and opportunities that are are available. Other times, they are aware of them but not sure how to apply them … interventions are often not coming as early as we would like to see them,” the secretary said.

As a first step, McHugh said he has ordered his top staff to develop a Ready and Resilient campaign to integrate and synchronize programs aimed at combat readiness and resilience for active duty soldiers and reserve and National Guard forces, as well as civilian employees and family members.
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Is McHugh new to this job? No.

Secretary John McHugh became the 21st Secretary of the U.S. Army on September 21, 2009.
Education:
State University of New York's Nelson A. Rockefeller Graduate School of Public Affairs Utica College of Syracuse University
Most Recent Assignment:
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, represented northern and central New York from January 1993 to September 2009

Trainers in this program tell the soldiers they can "train their brains" to be resilient. What the soldiers hear is if they end up with PTSD, it is their fault because they didn't train right and have weaker minds than the others they are with. Do they really think a soldier will admit they need help after their buddies think the same way? Do they think soldiers will be honest about what is going on with them when their buddies aren't admitting they need help either?

This is just too ridiculous to keep going on without one single reporter asking what has failed already!

They keep pushing this crap no matter who is paying the price. Is there any wonder why they feel they cannot ask for help after all these years?

Thoughts while working out in the gym
Maj. Gen. Dana J. H. Pittard 1st AD and Fort Bliss Commanding General
1st AD and Fort Bliss Commanding General
No More Preventable Soldier Deaths

On Monday, following Super Bowl Sunday, most Soldiers at Fort Bliss will have the day off because we, as a post, went more than 100 days without a preventable Soldier death from September 2012 to January 2013. Unfortunately, we had one of our Soldiers die this month. His death was preventable. I wish someone could have successfully intervened to help our fellow Soldier in need. We all need help at times. Seeking help is strength, not weakness. I ask all Soldiers and family members to look out for each other. If you need help or someone you know needs help, call your chain on command or duty chaplain at 637-4265, or Military One Source at 800-273-TALK. Help us ensure there are no preventable deaths at Fort Bliss.

Yes, the same general who called military suicides "selfish acts" while working out in the gym. Now he's saying instead of "Army Strong" it is "Iron Strong" but again reporters just decided to report on the reduction of suicides at Fort Bliss and not asking any questions as to why that happened. How about asking how many were discharged and then committed suicide? How about how many were transferred to other bases and then committed suicide? Anyone have a single clue other than the people in charge?

Has anyone asked McHugh about all of this? Has anyone asked him why they kept redeploying soldiers over and over again even though their own research showed it would increase the risk of PTSD? Anyone ask him why they did not deploy trauma specialists right away when they discovered this? Anyone ask him why some of the chaplains in the military are still trying to get soldiers to convert to their faith at the same time they tell troubled soldiers they are going to hell if they do not covert and accept Christ as members of their denomination?

Has anyone asked any of the people in charge who is responsible for this? Who is being held accountable? Who has been fired or who has been discharged for dereliction of duty?

They keep surviving combat but can't seem to survive being back home. Anyone even wondering why this keeps happening or why families leave the graves filled after suicide, blame themselves for it and then they discover what they should have been told all along?

While I read way too much, I hear even more. I hear because I listen and ask questions. The problem is, I hear all too often from families when it is too late to save a life and they need comfort because they can't stop blaming themselves for what the military didn't do and reporters didn't report on.

Mainstream media accountable to no one

Mainstream media accountable to no one
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
February 5, 2013

The only time mainstream media mentions PTSD or our veterans, it follows a terrible story like what happened to Chris Kyle. Where were they all these years? They have been too busy reporting on President Obama skeet shooting and Beyonce.

In 2008 I was about as angry as I thought I could be. I was wrong. Five years later as military and veteran suicides have gone up, I sit here everyday, post their stories and wonder why people pay good money to support mainstream media.

Mainstream media
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mainstream media (MSM) are those media disseminated via the largest distribution channels, which therefore represent what the majority of media consumers are likely to encounter. The term also denotes those media generally reflective of the prevailing currents of thought, influence, or activity.

Large news conglomerates, including newspapers and broadcast media, which underwent successive mergers in the U.S. and elsewhere at an increasing rate beginning in the 1990s, are often referenced by the term. This concentration of media ownership has raised concerns of a homogenization of viewpoints presented to news consumers. Consequently, the term mainstream media has been widely used in conversation and the blogosphere, often in oppositional, pejorative, or dismissive senses, in discussion of the mass media and media bias.

Media organizations such as CBS and the New York Times set the tone for other smaller news organizations by creating conversations which cascade down to the smaller news organizations lacking the resources to do more individual research and coverage, that primary method being through the Associated Press where many news organizations get their news. This results in a recycling effect wherein organic thought is left to the mainstream that choose the conversation and smaller organizations recite absent of a variance in perspective.

In 2001 when I finished my book For the Love of Jack, I was stupid enough to think that if people knew what I knew, then they would demand change for the sake of the men and women serving in Afghanistan. The troops were not in Iraq yet. If they got their act together they would have trauma specialists deployed with the troops to address what they went through and prevent the majority of PTSD cases, thereby preventing many of the suicides connected to PTSD.

Civilians had been doing that across the country when major traumatic events happen including the attacks of September 11 when specialists rushed into New York and Washington DC.

When I watch TV news, I am stunned by how little the "reporters" actually know about PTSD. They don't seem to understand there is a huge difference between the type of PTSD civilians get and the type of PTSD members of the military suffer from anymore than they seem to understand that just because the term is new to them, it has been studied for over 40 years and reported under different titles since wars began. Hell, it is even in the Bible!

So I sit here this morning while thinking about last night and how the coverage suddenly spread over all the mainstream media outlets since Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield were murdered at a gun range while trying to help a PTSD veteran.

Veteran in sniper killing talked of having PTSD
By Angela K. Brown and Jamie Stengle
The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Feb 4, 2013

FORT WORTH, Texas — The Iraq war veteran and Marine reservist charged with killing a former Navy SEAL sniper and his friend on a Texas shooting range had been taken to a mental hospital twice in the past five months and told authorities he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, police records show.

Cpl. Eddie Ray Routh, 25, also told his sister and brother-in-law after the shootings that he “traded his soul for a new truck,” according to an Erath County arrest warrant affidavit obtained by WFAA-TV. Police said Routh was driving the truck of victim and ex-Navy SEAL Chris Kyle at the time of his arrest.

Routh is charged with one count of capital murder and two counts of murder in the shooting deaths of Kyle, author of the best-selling book “American Sniper,” and his friend Chad Littlefield at a shooting range Saturday in Glen Rose. He is on suicide watch in the Erath County Jail, where he’s being held on $3 million bail, Sheriff Tommy Bryant said.

Routh, a member of the Individual Ready Reserve, was first taken to a mental hospital Sept. 2 after he threatened to kill his family and himself, according to police records in Lancaster, where Routh lives. Authorities found Routh walking nearby with no shirt and no shoes, and smelling of alcohol. Routh told authorities he was a Marine veteran who was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Routh was a "danger to himself and others" but as we've seen, he did not get the help he needed. Yet none of this has caused mainstream reporters to learn enough to ask how this is still happening. Still? Yes, it has been happening for far too long when they are left off the "to do" list of the military. Congress gets away without asking anyone to be held accountable because the mainstream media is no longer interested in informing the public. Read this from 2009 and know that for all of these years of hearing speech after speech given to reporters, it has all left us with veterans being shafted to the point where almost one every hour takes their own lives. How many times does this have to happen before the media decides it is their job to keep the public informed?

"He went to Fort Lewis to kill himself to prove a point,"
January 12, 2009


" 'Here I am. I was a soldier. You guys didn't help me.' "

Those were the words Josh Barber's widow told a reporter in the article below. That's the real issue here. For all the talk about what's being done, no one is talking about what does not work and may in fact cause more harm than good. What good does it do to tell wounded veterans we're doing this and we're doing that but they still don't get the help they need? As for the "programs" they have in place, some are good but some are bad but they still use them. We don't know why they do and the widows, well they only know they sent their husbands into combat expecting they would be taken care of if they were wounded but they end up with a stranger needing help that never seems to come in time.

If anyone other than the government said they had a program that would cut down the number of PTSD cases, attempted suicide and successful ones, would you really believe them without proof? Wouldn't there have to be years of clinical trails and scrutiny from psychologist and psychiatrists from around the world before they even began to offer the program?

Had they paid attention to all of this all along, when Routh came home, he would have been helped the way he needed to be and two others would probably still be alive.

Spotlight on veteran hunting and shooting clubs

There is no easy answer and it is high time reporters understood this. Hunting, fishing, shooting, Yoga, Martial Arts, you name it, some are helped by each one but no one is helped by all of them. There needs to be real talk on this issue and for a change, reporters asking real questions but that won't happen until they know what they are talking about first. That's the only way they will know what questions to ask.

Murder of former Navy SEAL turns spotlight on veteran hunting and shooting clubs
By Bill Briggs
NBC News contributor

Firing bullets at a gun range — as a Marine reservist was doing Saturday when he allegedly killed ex-Navy SEAL and "American Sniper" author Chris Kyle — can ignite combat flashbacks, a leading expert on post-traumatic stress disorder said Monday, adding, however, that hunting and target practice can be therapeutic for veterans if their shooting buddies intimately know war.

“The question being asked is: Wouldn’t the shooting of a weapon out in the open trigger feelings, nightmares, flashbacks? The answer is, yes, it can,” said Dr. Harry Croft, a San Antonio-based psychiatrist who has talked with more than 7,000 veterans diagnosed with PTSD. “But the hope would be that those would be triggered in a situation that’s safe, where other people are there who understand PTSD and could help the person cope with the thoughts that may come back to them.

“In situations like a shooting range, the sounds may set off a hyper-vigilant response, maybe flashbacks and nightmares at night. But it doesn’t make you violent, like you’re going to kill the person around you. And if the person around you is a Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL who knows and can support you, then that experience can have a more positive effect,” Croft said.
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