Showing posts with label Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Show all posts
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
Soldier Suicides And The Dumbing Down Of Military Mental Health Care
by Scott Mendelson, M.D.
Another sad story in the press. There have been four more suicides at Fort Hood, Texas. Military suicide numbers keep climbing. The rates of depression, PTSD and suicide are reaching startling proportions among soldiers and veterans. New programs begun by the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration are said to be designed to expand mental health care, and to make it more effective, palatable, and accessible to soldiers and veterans. They don't. As a psychiatrist employed by the VA who sees these broken soldiers on a daily basis, I find it infuriating and heartbreaking.
The new Mental Health programs, referred to by the Department of Defense as the acronym RESPECT-mil, and by the Veterans Administration as TIDES, are based on the Hamburger Helper model of health care. That is, if real care is too expensive, then dilute it with cheap care, fluff it up, advertise it well and make it look there is more there than there actually is. This brilliant new idea of the Veterans Administration and Department of Defense is intended to direct the psychiatric care of patients away from the people actually trained to provide this care, i.e., psychiatrists, psychologists, psychotherapists, and psychiatric nurse practitioners, and to place their care in the hands of less expensive people with weeks rather than years of training in mental health. This perspective includes the notion that mental health care is best provided away from stigma in the primary care setting, and that soldiers can be managed by primary care doctors helped by nurses with eight weekends of training to become what are called, "Champions."
To read the rest of the story, click here.
Source: The Huffington Post
Another sad story in the press. There have been four more suicides at Fort Hood, Texas. Military suicide numbers keep climbing. The rates of depression, PTSD and suicide are reaching startling proportions among soldiers and veterans. New programs begun by the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration are said to be designed to expand mental health care, and to make it more effective, palatable, and accessible to soldiers and veterans. They don't. As a psychiatrist employed by the VA who sees these broken soldiers on a daily basis, I find it infuriating and heartbreaking.
The new Mental Health programs, referred to by the Department of Defense as the acronym RESPECT-mil, and by the Veterans Administration as TIDES, are based on the Hamburger Helper model of health care. That is, if real care is too expensive, then dilute it with cheap care, fluff it up, advertise it well and make it look there is more there than there actually is. This brilliant new idea of the Veterans Administration and Department of Defense is intended to direct the psychiatric care of patients away from the people actually trained to provide this care, i.e., psychiatrists, psychologists, psychotherapists, and psychiatric nurse practitioners, and to place their care in the hands of less expensive people with weeks rather than years of training in mental health. This perspective includes the notion that mental health care is best provided away from stigma in the primary care setting, and that soldiers can be managed by primary care doctors helped by nurses with eight weekends of training to become what are called, "Champions."
To read the rest of the story, click here.
Source: The Huffington Post
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Discharges for adjustment disorder soar
Source: Stars and Stripes
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Aug 14, 2010 12:34:17 EDT
Two years ago, under congressional pressure, the military changed its policy on separating troops dealing with combat stress for pre-existing personality disorders — an administrative discharge that left those veterans without medical care or other benefits.
Now, veterans advocates say, the personality-disorder discharges have been replaced with similar discharges for “adjustment disorder.” And once again, Congress seems poised to jump in.
Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond, R-Mo., plans to send a letter to President Obama asking that the military provide detailed data showing how many people have been discharged for adjustment disorders. In the meantime, Bond’s staff has been gathering more general data that shows discharges for “other designated physical or mental conditions not amounting to disability” — a broad category that includes adjustment disorder — have increased from 1,453 in 2006 to 3,844 last year, an increase of 165 percent.
Over the same time, discharges for personality disorder dropped from 1,072 in 2006 to 260 last year.
“We request your assistance to ensure that a new loophole has not been created that abuses the administrative discharge system by erroneously discharging members of the armed forces who are experiencing symptoms of PTSD and/or TBI, rather than providing them with compassionate medical care worthy of their service and sacrifice,” states a draft copy of Bond’s letter.
The letter asks that the military provide the number of adjustment disorder discharges, by rank, with deployment information.
Shana Marchio, Bond’s spokesperson, said the issue initially was brought to the senator’s attention by Steve Robinson, a former Army ranger who has been active in veterans issues and now works as a veterans advocate.
“We’re hoping to create another good, bipartisan coalition to address this issue,” Marchio said. “The good news is that the Pentagon has moved away from personality disorders, but we feel this could be another piece of the same problem.”
Marchio expects the letter to go out after Labor Day.
She said the biggest issue is that these troops don’t get the treatment they need for post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury.
According to the psychiatric manual used to diagnose mental health issues, the DSM-IV, adjustment disorder occurs when someone has difficulty dealing with a life event, such as a new job or a divorce, or after someone has been exposed to a traumatic event. The symptoms can be the same as for post-traumatic stress disorder: flashbacks, nightmares, sleeplessness, irritability, anger and avoidance.
According to military and Veterans Affairs Department policy, if those symptoms last longer than six months, the diagnosis should be changed to PTSD. With a PTSD diagnosis, a person may be medically retired with an honorable discharge, a disability rating of at least 50 percent, and medical care.
“This is a case of inappropriate discharges,” Robinson said. “There are no medical benefits for these guys, and there are hundreds of cases.”
Pentagon officials did not respond to requests for comment for this story, but Marchio said Army representatives talked to congressional staff members about the issue last week.
“While this was a positive step, our office didn’t hear the answers we needed to hear about the rise of the discharges and has asked for additional information,” she said. “The Army has since assured Senator Bond’s office that they will provide, no later than the day after Labor Day, our office the data needed to evaluate the rapid rise in the use of these discharges.”
‘Tools to self-destruct’
During his 2008 deployment to Iraq, Army Pfc. Michael Nahas, 22, said he lived through two roadside bomb explosions and one rocket-propelled grenade attack, and watched people die in another explosion in Mosul, where he served with the 4th Infantry Division.
Two months after he returned home to Fort Carson, Colo., he said he began feeling anxious and guilty about people who he believed had died needlessly.
He went to the post mental health clinic for help. Over the course of three weeks, he had three appointments — and a lot of medication, including 14 milligrams of Xanax a day, he said.
“I was drooling on myself,” he said. “I could barely function.”
His mother and veterans’ advocates verified his doses.
After enlisted supervisors in his chain of command found out he was going to behavioral health, Nahas said they made fun of him, including calling him “crazy” and telling him daily to kill himself so he’d no longer be a problem to the unit.
A division spokesman declined to address Nahas’s account in detail.
“The allegations made by Mr. Nahas were thoroughly investigated,” said Army Lt. Col. Steve Wollman. “Some of the allegations were unsubstantiated and some of them were substantiated. Appropriate corrective actions were made and the investigation is closed. Due to the nature of individual cases we do not talk specifics out of respect for the privacy of the soldier.”
Nahas said the stress and a subsequent reaction to his medication led him to attempt suicide in February by jabbing IV needles into his arms to bleed out.
“I tried to kill myself,” he said. “I was so out of it I was drawing pictures on the wall with my own blood.”
In a photo of the aftermath provided by his family, blood fills a bathtub and a red smiley face gazes down from the tile.
His wife found him curled up on the floor and called for help, and Nahas survived.
After his suicide attempt, he spent time in an inpatient clinic where he was diagnosed with PTSD, and then went back to his unit. But rather than beginning the medical evaluation and retirement process for PTSD, his battalion chain of command gave him an administrative discharge for adjustment disorder at the end of April, and sent him back to civilian life.
“I don’t understand it,” Nahas said. “I was told I had PTSD, and then I was told I didn’t. I always tried — I was a good soldier. I mean, they told me that.”
His mother, Mary Nahas, said her son is now being treated at a VA center, and will undergo testing for traumatic brain injury in August.
“They give them the tools to self destruct,” she said of the Army. “He’s broken. He joined to become something.”
Retired Army Lt. Col. Mike Parker, a veterans’ advocate who specializes in the military disability process, said he has seen several cases of PTSD being called “adjustment disorder” or “chronic adjustment disorder.”
“The problem is when you see people having adjustment disorders because they’re adjusting after combat,” Parker said. “That should be called PTSD.”
Geor-Andreas Pogany, a former soldier who was medically discharged for a brain injury, said he is working with five service members with combat experience who are in the process of being discharged for adjustment disorders.
One of them is Spc. Daniel Upshaw, who served in Rustimiya, Iraq with the 1st Battalion, 66th Armor Regiment as a Bradley mechanic in 2008.
Upshaw said that for about a month after he came home to Fort Carson, everything seemed fine.
“Then it started,” he said. He had nightmares and problems sleeping, and he started drinking a bottle of booze every night. “I’d drink until I knocked myself out. One night, I finished a bottle and then went to sleep with a loaded gun in my hand, hoping I’d shoot myself in my sleep.”
He sought help, and his chain of command sent him to behavioral health. At an inpatient clinic, he was diagnosed with PTSD by a psychiatrist. Then, he said, a counselor at behavioral health changed his diagnosis to adjustment disorder and recommended an administrative discharge.
His case manager and Pogany fought that decision, and Upshaw is now waiting for a medical discharge at Fort Carson’s Warrior Transition Unit, and a 90-day treatment program through VA.
“The whole thing was extremely stressful,” he said. “They want to know why the suicide rate is so high. I can tell them.”
Jason Perry, a former Army JAG who helps people with their medical retirement cases, said he has seen “dozens” of similar cases.
“It’s very common,” he said, “and it’s completely illegal.”
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Aug 14, 2010 12:34:17 EDT
Two years ago, under congressional pressure, the military changed its policy on separating troops dealing with combat stress for pre-existing personality disorders — an administrative discharge that left those veterans without medical care or other benefits.
Now, veterans advocates say, the personality-disorder discharges have been replaced with similar discharges for “adjustment disorder.” And once again, Congress seems poised to jump in.
Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond, R-Mo., plans to send a letter to President Obama asking that the military provide detailed data showing how many people have been discharged for adjustment disorders. In the meantime, Bond’s staff has been gathering more general data that shows discharges for “other designated physical or mental conditions not amounting to disability” — a broad category that includes adjustment disorder — have increased from 1,453 in 2006 to 3,844 last year, an increase of 165 percent.
Over the same time, discharges for personality disorder dropped from 1,072 in 2006 to 260 last year.
“We request your assistance to ensure that a new loophole has not been created that abuses the administrative discharge system by erroneously discharging members of the armed forces who are experiencing symptoms of PTSD and/or TBI, rather than providing them with compassionate medical care worthy of their service and sacrifice,” states a draft copy of Bond’s letter.
The letter asks that the military provide the number of adjustment disorder discharges, by rank, with deployment information.
Shana Marchio, Bond’s spokesperson, said the issue initially was brought to the senator’s attention by Steve Robinson, a former Army ranger who has been active in veterans issues and now works as a veterans advocate.
“We’re hoping to create another good, bipartisan coalition to address this issue,” Marchio said. “The good news is that the Pentagon has moved away from personality disorders, but we feel this could be another piece of the same problem.”
Marchio expects the letter to go out after Labor Day.
She said the biggest issue is that these troops don’t get the treatment they need for post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury.
According to the psychiatric manual used to diagnose mental health issues, the DSM-IV, adjustment disorder occurs when someone has difficulty dealing with a life event, such as a new job or a divorce, or after someone has been exposed to a traumatic event. The symptoms can be the same as for post-traumatic stress disorder: flashbacks, nightmares, sleeplessness, irritability, anger and avoidance.
According to military and Veterans Affairs Department policy, if those symptoms last longer than six months, the diagnosis should be changed to PTSD. With a PTSD diagnosis, a person may be medically retired with an honorable discharge, a disability rating of at least 50 percent, and medical care.
“This is a case of inappropriate discharges,” Robinson said. “There are no medical benefits for these guys, and there are hundreds of cases.”
Pentagon officials did not respond to requests for comment for this story, but Marchio said Army representatives talked to congressional staff members about the issue last week.
“While this was a positive step, our office didn’t hear the answers we needed to hear about the rise of the discharges and has asked for additional information,” she said. “The Army has since assured Senator Bond’s office that they will provide, no later than the day after Labor Day, our office the data needed to evaluate the rapid rise in the use of these discharges.”
‘Tools to self-destruct’
During his 2008 deployment to Iraq, Army Pfc. Michael Nahas, 22, said he lived through two roadside bomb explosions and one rocket-propelled grenade attack, and watched people die in another explosion in Mosul, where he served with the 4th Infantry Division.
Two months after he returned home to Fort Carson, Colo., he said he began feeling anxious and guilty about people who he believed had died needlessly.
He went to the post mental health clinic for help. Over the course of three weeks, he had three appointments — and a lot of medication, including 14 milligrams of Xanax a day, he said.
“I was drooling on myself,” he said. “I could barely function.”
His mother and veterans’ advocates verified his doses.
After enlisted supervisors in his chain of command found out he was going to behavioral health, Nahas said they made fun of him, including calling him “crazy” and telling him daily to kill himself so he’d no longer be a problem to the unit.
A division spokesman declined to address Nahas’s account in detail.
“The allegations made by Mr. Nahas were thoroughly investigated,” said Army Lt. Col. Steve Wollman. “Some of the allegations were unsubstantiated and some of them were substantiated. Appropriate corrective actions were made and the investigation is closed. Due to the nature of individual cases we do not talk specifics out of respect for the privacy of the soldier.”
Nahas said the stress and a subsequent reaction to his medication led him to attempt suicide in February by jabbing IV needles into his arms to bleed out.
“I tried to kill myself,” he said. “I was so out of it I was drawing pictures on the wall with my own blood.”
In a photo of the aftermath provided by his family, blood fills a bathtub and a red smiley face gazes down from the tile.
His wife found him curled up on the floor and called for help, and Nahas survived.
After his suicide attempt, he spent time in an inpatient clinic where he was diagnosed with PTSD, and then went back to his unit. But rather than beginning the medical evaluation and retirement process for PTSD, his battalion chain of command gave him an administrative discharge for adjustment disorder at the end of April, and sent him back to civilian life.
“I don’t understand it,” Nahas said. “I was told I had PTSD, and then I was told I didn’t. I always tried — I was a good soldier. I mean, they told me that.”
His mother, Mary Nahas, said her son is now being treated at a VA center, and will undergo testing for traumatic brain injury in August.
“They give them the tools to self destruct,” she said of the Army. “He’s broken. He joined to become something.”
Retired Army Lt. Col. Mike Parker, a veterans’ advocate who specializes in the military disability process, said he has seen several cases of PTSD being called “adjustment disorder” or “chronic adjustment disorder.”
“The problem is when you see people having adjustment disorders because they’re adjusting after combat,” Parker said. “That should be called PTSD.”
Geor-Andreas Pogany, a former soldier who was medically discharged for a brain injury, said he is working with five service members with combat experience who are in the process of being discharged for adjustment disorders.
One of them is Spc. Daniel Upshaw, who served in Rustimiya, Iraq with the 1st Battalion, 66th Armor Regiment as a Bradley mechanic in 2008.
Upshaw said that for about a month after he came home to Fort Carson, everything seemed fine.
“Then it started,” he said. He had nightmares and problems sleeping, and he started drinking a bottle of booze every night. “I’d drink until I knocked myself out. One night, I finished a bottle and then went to sleep with a loaded gun in my hand, hoping I’d shoot myself in my sleep.”
He sought help, and his chain of command sent him to behavioral health. At an inpatient clinic, he was diagnosed with PTSD by a psychiatrist. Then, he said, a counselor at behavioral health changed his diagnosis to adjustment disorder and recommended an administrative discharge.
His case manager and Pogany fought that decision, and Upshaw is now waiting for a medical discharge at Fort Carson’s Warrior Transition Unit, and a 90-day treatment program through VA.
“The whole thing was extremely stressful,” he said. “They want to know why the suicide rate is so high. I can tell them.”
Jason Perry, a former Army JAG who helps people with their medical retirement cases, said he has seen “dozens” of similar cases.
“It’s very common,” he said, “and it’s completely illegal.”
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Dying in Their Sleep
Cilla McCain has written a blog post about Andrew White and polypharmacy at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cilla-mccain/dying-in-their-sleep-the_b_618429.html
More on the topic of VA healthcare:
"Disposable Soldiers"
http://www.thenation.com/article/disposable-soldiers
"How Specialist Town Lost His Benefits"
http://www.thenation.com/article/how-specialist-town-lost-his-benefits
"How the VA Abandons Our Vets"
http://www.thenation.com/article/how-va-abandons-our-vets
More on the topic of VA healthcare:
"Disposable Soldiers"
http://www.thenation.com/article/disposable-soldiers
"How Specialist Town Lost His Benefits"
http://www.thenation.com/article/how-specialist-town-lost-his-benefits
"How the VA Abandons Our Vets"
http://www.thenation.com/article/how-va-abandons-our-vets
Saturday, April 24, 2010
G.I.'s Describe Despair and Isolation in Trauma Units
COLORADO SPRINGS — A year ago, Specialist Michael Crawford wanted nothing more than to get into Fort Carson’s Warrior Transition Battalion, a special unit created to provide closely managed care for soldiers with physical wounds and severe psychological trauma.
A strapping Army sniper who once brimmed with confidence, he had returned emotionally broken from Iraq, where he suffered two concussions from roadside bombs and watched several platoon mates burn to death. The transition unit at Fort Carson, outside Colorado Springs, seemed the surest way to keep suicidal thoughts at bay, his mother thought.
Click here to read the rest of the story in the New York Times.
A strapping Army sniper who once brimmed with confidence, he had returned emotionally broken from Iraq, where he suffered two concussions from roadside bombs and watched several platoon mates burn to death. The transition unit at Fort Carson, outside Colorado Springs, seemed the surest way to keep suicidal thoughts at bay, his mother thought.
Click here to read the rest of the story in the New York Times.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Once Branded a Coward, He Fights for PTSD Victims
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) ??? They call him the angry guy now. Even his friends. And at this moment, on a snowy evening when he should be home, putting his son to bed, Andrew Pogany is, in fact...
To read the entire story, http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/04/19/branded-coward-fights-ptsd-victims/
--submitted by Lois Vanderbur
To read the entire story, http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/04/19/branded-coward-fights-ptsd-victims/
--submitted by Lois Vanderbur
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Medicating the military
Use of psychiatric drugs has spiked; concerns surface about suicide, other dangers
By Andrew Tilghman and Brendan McGarry - Staff writers
Posted : Wednesday Mar 17, 2010 12:18:59 EDT
At least one in six service members is on some form of psychiatric drug.
And many troops are taking more than one kind, mixing several pills in daily “cocktails” — for example, an antidepressant with an antipsychotic to prevent nightmares, plus an anti-epileptic to reduce headaches — despite minimal clinical research testing such combinations.
The drugs come with serious side effects: They can impair motor skills, reduce reaction times and generally make a war fighter less effective. Some double the risk for suicide, prompting doctors — and Congress — to question whether these drugs are connected to the rising rate of military suicides.
Read the rest of the story by clicking here.
--submitted by Lois Vanderbur
By Andrew Tilghman and Brendan McGarry - Staff writers
Posted : Wednesday Mar 17, 2010 12:18:59 EDT
At least one in six service members is on some form of psychiatric drug.
And many troops are taking more than one kind, mixing several pills in daily “cocktails” — for example, an antidepressant with an antipsychotic to prevent nightmares, plus an anti-epileptic to reduce headaches — despite minimal clinical research testing such combinations.
The drugs come with serious side effects: They can impair motor skills, reduce reaction times and generally make a war fighter less effective. Some double the risk for suicide, prompting doctors — and Congress — to question whether these drugs are connected to the rising rate of military suicides.
Read the rest of the story by clicking here.
--submitted by Lois Vanderbur
Monday, March 08, 2010
Are Veterans Being Given Deadly Cocktails to Treat PTSD?
A potentially deadly drug manufactured by pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has been linked to the deaths of soldiers returning from war. Yet the FDA continues to approve it.
March 6, 2010
Sgt. Eric Layne's death was not pretty.
A few months after starting a drug regimen combining the antidepressant Paxil, the mood stabilizer Klonopin and a controversial anti-psychotic drug manufactured by pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, Seroquel, the Iraq war veteran was "suffering from incontinence, severe depression [and] continuous headaches," according to his widow, Janette Layne.
Read the rest of this article by clicking here.
--------------------------
Hearing on Exploring the Relationship Between Medication and Veteran Suicide.
March 6, 2010
Sgt. Eric Layne's death was not pretty.
A few months after starting a drug regimen combining the antidepressant Paxil, the mood stabilizer Klonopin and a controversial anti-psychotic drug manufactured by pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, Seroquel, the Iraq war veteran was "suffering from incontinence, severe depression [and] continuous headaches," according to his widow, Janette Layne.
Read the rest of this article by clicking here.
--------------------------
Hearing on Exploring the Relationship Between Medication and Veteran Suicide.
Monday, February 08, 2010
Marine's suicide shines light on depression, disorder
http://www.thestate.com/local/story/1138263.html
Tuesday, Feb. 02, 2010, The State, Columbia, SC
By CHUCK CRUMBO - ccrumbo@thestate.com
Mills Bigham was a 19-year-old Marine in Iraq when he made his first kill.
While on a foot patrol, someone hurled a grenade at Bigham's squad. Bigham, who was at the point, turned and fired.
"I pulled the trigger quickly, twice. Pop ... pop," the Columbia Marine wrote in his journal.
Two bullets hit the attacker's chest, knocking him to the ground. Within minutes, he was dead.
The grenade was a dud. Bigham checked the attacker's identification. He was 12.
Less than four years later on Oct. 19, Lance Cpl. Mills Palmer Bigham sat in his red Chevy Tahoe, put a .410-gauge shotgun to his forehead and pulled the trigger one last time.
He was 23.
Family said Bigham, a graduate of A.C. Flora High School , suffered from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
In hopes they can prevent another veteran's suicide, Bigham's family recently founded Hidden Wounds, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Columbia .
"My brother fell through the cracks," said Anna Bigham, the Marine's sister.
About one out of every five veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq have some form of PTSD and depression, according to a federal study.
Last month, the Department of Veterans Affairs said the suicide rate among veterans between 18 and 29 years old climbed 26 percent from 2005 to 2007.
The VA also said 20 percent of the 30,000 suicides reported in the U.S. are committed by veterans. The suicide rate among veterans is nearly twice the rate for civilians, according to reports.
Through Hidden Wounds, the Bighams aim to provide temporary counseling and support to sufferers of PTSD, depression and traumatic brain injury until they can enter the Veterans Affairs health care system.
Temporary help is needed because the VA reports it has a six-month backlog in processing claims, the Bighams said.
Some veterans need help sooner, Anna Bigham said. That's why the family founded Hidden Wounds.
A spokeswoman for the Dorn VA Medical Center said the hospital supports the Bighams' efforts.
Like so many service members coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan , Mills Bigham found it difficult to cope with the demons of war that haunted his memories.
Anna Bigham said her brother seemed to feel like he was out of place after completing his enlistment in October 2008.
In the Marines, her brother had a built-in support group of buddies, many of whom were dealing with similar issues.
But once PTSD sufferers return to the civilian world, many feel like they're "a fish out of water," according to a VA study.
This sense of isolation can deepen feelings of depression and suicidal tendencies, the report added.
Anna Bigham said her brother seemed to be overwhelmed with guilt.
"In his last three or four months he didn't go out in the daytime," Anna Bigham said. "He told me, 'I feel like everyone can see what I've done. I can't go on this way.'"
Hidden Wounds also hopes to help the veterans' families learn tell the signs of PTSD and depression and help their loved ones seek care.
John Bigham said he knew his son suffered from nightmares, ringing in the ears and had "sparks of anger," all signs of PTSD.
"But I didn't put it 100 percent together until he died," John Bigham said.
Mills Bigham wrote about his first kill in his journal on Oct. 3, just 16 days before he took his own life.
Bigham said he wanted to tell the story "so you can understand the way death may or may not affect the living party."
As he approached the fallen attacker, Bigham said he could see "it is abruptly clear he is leaving his world, and soon."
"He is suffocating in his own blood. He is blowing blood bubbles through his red teeth. He is crying.
"There are bubbles coming from the two holes in his chest. One to the left of his heart, and the other to the right.
"Death took him and there were no new bubbles.
"He cried no more. I checked his ID. He is 12.
"I wept that night."
Those interested in finding out more about Hidden Wounds can check its Web site at hiddenwounds.org
--submitted by Laura Kent
Tuesday, Feb. 02, 2010, The State, Columbia, SC
By CHUCK CRUMBO - ccrumbo@thestate.com
Mills Bigham was a 19-year-old Marine in Iraq when he made his first kill.
While on a foot patrol, someone hurled a grenade at Bigham's squad. Bigham, who was at the point, turned and fired.
"I pulled the trigger quickly, twice. Pop ... pop," the Columbia Marine wrote in his journal.
Two bullets hit the attacker's chest, knocking him to the ground. Within minutes, he was dead.
The grenade was a dud. Bigham checked the attacker's identification. He was 12.
Less than four years later on Oct. 19, Lance Cpl. Mills Palmer Bigham sat in his red Chevy Tahoe, put a .410-gauge shotgun to his forehead and pulled the trigger one last time.
He was 23.
Family said Bigham, a graduate of A.C. Flora High School , suffered from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
In hopes they can prevent another veteran's suicide, Bigham's family recently founded Hidden Wounds, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Columbia .
"My brother fell through the cracks," said Anna Bigham, the Marine's sister.
About one out of every five veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq have some form of PTSD and depression, according to a federal study.
Last month, the Department of Veterans Affairs said the suicide rate among veterans between 18 and 29 years old climbed 26 percent from 2005 to 2007.
The VA also said 20 percent of the 30,000 suicides reported in the U.S. are committed by veterans. The suicide rate among veterans is nearly twice the rate for civilians, according to reports.
Through Hidden Wounds, the Bighams aim to provide temporary counseling and support to sufferers of PTSD, depression and traumatic brain injury until they can enter the Veterans Affairs health care system.
Temporary help is needed because the VA reports it has a six-month backlog in processing claims, the Bighams said.
Some veterans need help sooner, Anna Bigham said. That's why the family founded Hidden Wounds.
A spokeswoman for the Dorn VA Medical Center said the hospital supports the Bighams' efforts.
Like so many service members coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan , Mills Bigham found it difficult to cope with the demons of war that haunted his memories.
Anna Bigham said her brother seemed to feel like he was out of place after completing his enlistment in October 2008.
In the Marines, her brother had a built-in support group of buddies, many of whom were dealing with similar issues.
But once PTSD sufferers return to the civilian world, many feel like they're "a fish out of water," according to a VA study.
This sense of isolation can deepen feelings of depression and suicidal tendencies, the report added.
Anna Bigham said her brother seemed to be overwhelmed with guilt.
"In his last three or four months he didn't go out in the daytime," Anna Bigham said. "He told me, 'I feel like everyone can see what I've done. I can't go on this way.'"
Hidden Wounds also hopes to help the veterans' families learn tell the signs of PTSD and depression and help their loved ones seek care.
John Bigham said he knew his son suffered from nightmares, ringing in the ears and had "sparks of anger," all signs of PTSD.
"But I didn't put it 100 percent together until he died," John Bigham said.
Mills Bigham wrote about his first kill in his journal on Oct. 3, just 16 days before he took his own life.
Bigham said he wanted to tell the story "so you can understand the way death may or may not affect the living party."
As he approached the fallen attacker, Bigham said he could see "it is abruptly clear he is leaving his world, and soon."
"He is suffocating in his own blood. He is blowing blood bubbles through his red teeth. He is crying.
"There are bubbles coming from the two holes in his chest. One to the left of his heart, and the other to the right.
"Death took him and there were no new bubbles.
"He cried no more. I checked his ID. He is 12.
"I wept that night."
Those interested in finding out more about Hidden Wounds can check its Web site at hiddenwounds.org
--submitted by Laura Kent
Friday, November 06, 2009
Dr. Baughman's Letter to the Editor
FRED A. BAUGHMAN, JR. M.D.*
NEUROLOGY AND CHILD NEUROLOGY (Board Certified)
FELLOW, AMERICAN ACADEMY OF NEUROLOGY
fredbaughmanmd@cox.net
Tim Lemmer, Editor, Letters
Wall Street Journal
To the Editor:
Re: Suicide Toll Fuels Worry That Army is Strained, by Yochi J. Dreazen, WSJ, November 3, 2009
There are frequent, sudden deaths occurring in the military due to its policy of reckless, anti-scientific, psychiatric drug, polypharmacy. I say "anti-scientific" because, in psychiatry, there are no actual physical abnormalities/diseases to make normal (e.g., insulin in diabetes, chemotherapy in cancer, antibiotics for infections)--only diabolically crafted, ‘big lie’ illusions of diseases. Although antipsychotics (Ray, et al, 2009), antidepressants (Whang, et al, 2009) and psychostimulants/amphetamines (Gould, et al, 2009).) have been proved to increase the risk of sudden cardiac death, they are routinely prescribed together, as if no such risk was known.
While Surgeon General of the Army Eric B. Schoomaker acknowledged a "series, a sequence" of deaths, in a February 7, 2008, Chicago Tribune interview, there has been no explanation of these deaths--only continued references to "suicides" and "accidental drug overdoses" --always adding that illegal drugs and substances were also involved.
Stan White (father of deceased veteran Andrew White) and I have "Googled" over a hundred such military deaths. Young men in their twenties do not suddenly die for no reason at all, to be "found" "in their barracks," “at their workstations," or “in their beds," but never, beforehand, seen semi-comatose, comatose, and never resuscitated, never making it to a hospital or ICU, and never surviving--all of which are common with the more usual central nervous system depressant drug overdose. In Atypical antyipsychotic drugs and the risk of Sudden Cardiac Death, Ray et al, NEJM 2009;360:225-35, wrote: “The study end point was SCD (sudden cardiac death) occurring in the community. SCD was defined as a sudden pulseless condition that was fatal, that was consistent with a ventricular tachyarrhythmia, and that occurred in the absence of a known noncardiac condition as the proximate cause of death. The end point excluded deaths of patients who had been admitted to the hospital, deaths that were not sudden, and deaths for which there was evidence of an extrinsic cause (e.g., drug overdose), a non-cardiac cause (e.g., pneumonia), or a cardiac cause that was not consistent with a ventricular tachyarrhythmia (e.g., heart failure).”
It is time for the truth about these deaths from the Surgeon General of the Army and from the House and Senate Veterans Affairs Committees.
It is time for an end to the for-profit, anti-scientific, psychiatric drugging, not just of the US military, but of the US public-at-large—the greatest health care fraud in history. Either the House, the Senate and White House find the will to say "no" to Big Pharma or we will all become, drugged, dependent, zombies.
-- re-printed with the permission of the author
NEUROLOGY AND CHILD NEUROLOGY (Board Certified)
FELLOW, AMERICAN ACADEMY OF NEUROLOGY
fredbaughmanmd@cox.net
Tim Lemmer, Editor, Letters
Wall Street Journal
To the Editor:
Re: Suicide Toll Fuels Worry That Army is Strained, by Yochi J. Dreazen, WSJ, November 3, 2009
There are frequent, sudden deaths occurring in the military due to its policy of reckless, anti-scientific, psychiatric drug, polypharmacy. I say "anti-scientific" because, in psychiatry, there are no actual physical abnormalities/diseases to make normal (e.g., insulin in diabetes, chemotherapy in cancer, antibiotics for infections)--only diabolically crafted, ‘big lie’ illusions of diseases. Although antipsychotics (Ray, et al, 2009), antidepressants (Whang, et al, 2009) and psychostimulants/amphetamines (Gould, et al, 2009).) have been proved to increase the risk of sudden cardiac death, they are routinely prescribed together, as if no such risk was known.
While Surgeon General of the Army Eric B. Schoomaker acknowledged a "series, a sequence" of deaths, in a February 7, 2008, Chicago Tribune interview, there has been no explanation of these deaths--only continued references to "suicides" and "accidental drug overdoses" --always adding that illegal drugs and substances were also involved.
Stan White (father of deceased veteran Andrew White) and I have "Googled" over a hundred such military deaths. Young men in their twenties do not suddenly die for no reason at all, to be "found" "in their barracks," “at their workstations," or “in their beds," but never, beforehand, seen semi-comatose, comatose, and never resuscitated, never making it to a hospital or ICU, and never surviving--all of which are common with the more usual central nervous system depressant drug overdose. In Atypical antyipsychotic drugs and the risk of Sudden Cardiac Death, Ray et al, NEJM 2009;360:225-35, wrote: “The study end point was SCD (sudden cardiac death) occurring in the community. SCD was defined as a sudden pulseless condition that was fatal, that was consistent with a ventricular tachyarrhythmia, and that occurred in the absence of a known noncardiac condition as the proximate cause of death. The end point excluded deaths of patients who had been admitted to the hospital, deaths that were not sudden, and deaths for which there was evidence of an extrinsic cause (e.g., drug overdose), a non-cardiac cause (e.g., pneumonia), or a cardiac cause that was not consistent with a ventricular tachyarrhythmia (e.g., heart failure).”
It is time for the truth about these deaths from the Surgeon General of the Army and from the House and Senate Veterans Affairs Committees.
It is time for an end to the for-profit, anti-scientific, psychiatric drugging, not just of the US military, but of the US public-at-large—the greatest health care fraud in history. Either the House, the Senate and White House find the will to say "no" to Big Pharma or we will all become, drugged, dependent, zombies.
-- re-printed with the permission of the author
Thursday, April 23, 2009
US Soldiers Being Killed by Psychiatric Drugs
“I believe there are many more soldiers and Marines who have died in their sleep just like the four in West Virginia,” said Mr. White, a retired high school principal. “I think what we have found is just the tip of the iceberg, but we need more national publicity to help us find others who have lost loved ones and are looking for answers.”
Washington Times
EXCLUSIVE: After death of son, dad takes cases to Capitol Hill
HURRICANE, W.Va.
Andrea Billups and Audrey HudsonThursday, November 13, 2008
A West Virginia man whose son survived the battlefields of Iraq only to die in his sleep at home is crusading to find other military families whose loved ones also have died after taking drugs prescribed for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Read the entire story by clicking here.
Washington Times
EXCLUSIVE: After death of son, dad takes cases to Capitol Hill
HURRICANE, W.Va.
Andrea Billups and Audrey HudsonThursday, November 13, 2008
A West Virginia man whose son survived the battlefields of Iraq only to die in his sleep at home is crusading to find other military families whose loved ones also have died after taking drugs prescribed for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Read the entire story by clicking here.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
"I am under a lot of pressure to not diagnose PTSD"
A secret recording reveals the Army may be pushing its medical staff not to diagnose post-traumatic stress disorder. The Army and Senate have ignored the implications.
Editor's note: Last June, during a medical appointment, a patient named "Sgt. X" recorded an Army psychologist at Fort Carson, Colo., saying that he was under pressure not to diagnose combat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. Listen to a segment of the tape here.
By Michael de Yoanna and Mark Benjamin
To read the entire article in Salon, click here.
Editor's note: Last June, during a medical appointment, a patient named "Sgt. X" recorded an Army psychologist at Fort Carson, Colo., saying that he was under pressure not to diagnose combat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. Listen to a segment of the tape here.
By Michael de Yoanna and Mark Benjamin
To read the entire article in Salon, click here.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Military Families: Military Suicides Are Casualties of War
Nationwide - November 13 -
Members of Military Families Speak Out are condemning comments by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs suggesting that the dramatic increase in the suicide rate among young veterans is not connected to the war in Iraq. The suicide rate among male veterans under the age of 29 is now twice that of the general population.
In an interview aired Monday November 10th on PBS's NewsHour, Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake said that Veterans' suicides are the result of:
"the same kinds of issues that have to do with suicide in the general population. It is issues of failed relationships, senses of hopelessness, transitions in life, that are at the root cause . . . we're not making a direct correlation with combat."
Specialist Scott Eiswert committed suicide in May after being told by a friend that his unit of the Tennessee National Guard would be returning to Iraq. His widow, Tracy Eiswert, a member of Military Families Speak Out, expressed outrage at Secretary Peake's comments:
"I am not a statistic. We are a military family. We are real people with real experiences as a result of my husband's PTSD and his suicide. He wasn't that way before he went to Iraq, he came back changed."
After returning from a tour of duty in Iraq, Spc. Eiswert had been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder by civilian doctors, but the Veterans Administration denied that his condition was the result of his experiences in Iraq. The Veterans Administration reversed that ruling in August. Tracy Eiswert said:
"It took him having to put a gun in his mouth for the military to admit that the changes in my husband were a result of the war. If they had admitted that earlier he might still be alive."
Kevin and Joyce Lucey are members of Military Families Speak Out and the parents of Corporal Jeffrey Lucey, a Marine Corps Reservist who suffered severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of his service in Iraq in 2003. Shortly after being turned away from a Veterans Administration hospital, Corporal Lucey killed himself on June 22, 2004. Kevin Lucey said:
"Secretary Peake's words are the kind of self serving comments that this nation does not need to hear from the Veterans Administration and its leadership. This is why many regard this VA administration to be steeped in disgrace and dishonor when it comes to our loved ones. They feel that they need to explain away, rationalize, justify or minimize - instead of committing their resources, time and efforts to create the best healthcare system on God's earth."
Joyce Lucey also had strong words for Secretary Peake:
"This is dishonorable, disgraceful and shameful behavior from someone who is charged with giving the best of care to our warriors. With this type of message and thinking, Is it any wonder that many of our troops and veterans don't seek help from those who are so callous and uncaring?"
Specialist Joe Hafley, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and Military Families Speak Out who has had to fight to get treatment for his own Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, agreed. Hafley served in Iraq with the U.S. Army Reserves from 2004-2005, and his brother, a Major with the U.S. Army Reserves is scheduled to deploy to Iraq early next year.
When Hafley returned from Iraq, the Veterans Administration diagnosed him with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, and severe depression -- but ruled that none of those conditions were the result of his service in Iraq. He said:
"My treatment at the VA was belittling and frustrating. To have them diagnose me with PTSD and not attribute it to my service in Iraq is a slap in the face. To have them tell me the problems could be the result of failed relationships rather than the result of my experiences in combat makes me feel that as a veteran I have no place at the VA.
"The thing that is most baffling to me is this 800 pound gorilla in the room not being addressed. Why are we feeling hopeless? Why do we have failed relationships? The common denominator is we all served in Iraq. Maybe my feeling of hopelessness is that I served my country with honor and I am still trying to figure out for what reason? For what just cause?
"Secretary Peake, it doesn't matter how many additional mental health workers you hire if you as the person at the top still feel we are just losers that failed to adjust or that we entered our military service unfit. No amount of false support will help us."
Members of Military Families Speak Out are condemning comments by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs suggesting that the dramatic increase in the suicide rate among young veterans is not connected to the war in Iraq. The suicide rate among male veterans under the age of 29 is now twice that of the general population.
In an interview aired Monday November 10th on PBS's NewsHour, Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake said that Veterans' suicides are the result of:
"the same kinds of issues that have to do with suicide in the general population. It is issues of failed relationships, senses of hopelessness, transitions in life, that are at the root cause . . . we're not making a direct correlation with combat."
Specialist Scott Eiswert committed suicide in May after being told by a friend that his unit of the Tennessee National Guard would be returning to Iraq. His widow, Tracy Eiswert, a member of Military Families Speak Out, expressed outrage at Secretary Peake's comments:
"I am not a statistic. We are a military family. We are real people with real experiences as a result of my husband's PTSD and his suicide. He wasn't that way before he went to Iraq, he came back changed."
After returning from a tour of duty in Iraq, Spc. Eiswert had been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder by civilian doctors, but the Veterans Administration denied that his condition was the result of his experiences in Iraq. The Veterans Administration reversed that ruling in August. Tracy Eiswert said:
"It took him having to put a gun in his mouth for the military to admit that the changes in my husband were a result of the war. If they had admitted that earlier he might still be alive."
Kevin and Joyce Lucey are members of Military Families Speak Out and the parents of Corporal Jeffrey Lucey, a Marine Corps Reservist who suffered severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of his service in Iraq in 2003. Shortly after being turned away from a Veterans Administration hospital, Corporal Lucey killed himself on June 22, 2004. Kevin Lucey said:
"Secretary Peake's words are the kind of self serving comments that this nation does not need to hear from the Veterans Administration and its leadership. This is why many regard this VA administration to be steeped in disgrace and dishonor when it comes to our loved ones. They feel that they need to explain away, rationalize, justify or minimize - instead of committing their resources, time and efforts to create the best healthcare system on God's earth."
Joyce Lucey also had strong words for Secretary Peake:
"This is dishonorable, disgraceful and shameful behavior from someone who is charged with giving the best of care to our warriors. With this type of message and thinking, Is it any wonder that many of our troops and veterans don't seek help from those who are so callous and uncaring?"
Specialist Joe Hafley, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and Military Families Speak Out who has had to fight to get treatment for his own Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, agreed. Hafley served in Iraq with the U.S. Army Reserves from 2004-2005, and his brother, a Major with the U.S. Army Reserves is scheduled to deploy to Iraq early next year.
When Hafley returned from Iraq, the Veterans Administration diagnosed him with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, and severe depression -- but ruled that none of those conditions were the result of his service in Iraq. He said:
"My treatment at the VA was belittling and frustrating. To have them diagnose me with PTSD and not attribute it to my service in Iraq is a slap in the face. To have them tell me the problems could be the result of failed relationships rather than the result of my experiences in combat makes me feel that as a veteran I have no place at the VA.
"The thing that is most baffling to me is this 800 pound gorilla in the room not being addressed. Why are we feeling hopeless? Why do we have failed relationships? The common denominator is we all served in Iraq. Maybe my feeling of hopelessness is that I served my country with honor and I am still trying to figure out for what reason? For what just cause?
"Secretary Peake, it doesn't matter how many additional mental health workers you hire if you as the person at the top still feel we are just losers that failed to adjust or that we entered our military service unfit. No amount of false support will help us."
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Military Women Get Ready to Rock the Boat
By Jennifer Hogg, Women's Media Center. Posted July 25, 2008
Female service members often remain silent about the dangers they face. Now is the time to break the culture of fear that keeps them quiet.
For women in the military, this election season has the potential either to focus a spotlight on long-neglected needs or to continue rendering us invisible. Due to our military training, we often struggle to exercise our right to speak out, but now we need systemic and systematic change, both to do justice to service members and to create healthier communities for everyone.
I was still in high school in 2000 when I joined up, looking for a fuller life than I saw available to me in blue-collar Buffalo, N.Y. But would I have ever joined the military if higher education were not so hard to fund? Would the young, the poor, the single mothers feel their only option was to enlist if adequate housing, jobs and health care were more readily available?
These are fundamental social inequalities that funnel people into the military. We hope to escape the injustice of racism, sexism and homophobia by proving ourselves -- by being able to say, "I served. I earned my place here." And service does earn us praise, but only as long as we don't rock that boat.
For the military, this election has heavy stakes, with two occupations taking place simultaneously, in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and a third waiting in the wings. Such high stakes tend to push aside other issues, and we risk being forced into silence for fear that the boat may capsize. But if it's that close to going under, isn't it time for a better boat?
Female veterans know this feeling all too well. All service members are taught to never question a mission. For female service members, this silence can have particularly dangerous consequences. When I began basic training, I never expected the culture of fear that service women take pride in living through. From a young woman ready to stand for what was right, I was being turned into a person who shrugged off injustice. When I helped another female recruit report a physical assault, I saw her become the target of widespread verbal harassment. The lesson? Bearing indignity silently in private is far better than risking public ridicule from those who choose to make you a target.
Imagine if those flashy recruiting commercials showed the real dangers a woman can face while serving in the military, living her formative years in a hazardous work environment where racism and homophobia are tolerated for the sake of "getting by" and sexual harassment goes unreported so you don't "ruin his career." All this while women work twice as hard to prove themselves as soldiers -- more than just a "bitch," "dyke," "whore."
I recently read a news story that highlighted service women who spoke of working twice as hard as the men in order to be seen as equal. That only made them appreciate the military, they said. These stories make me cringe because I remember very keenly boasting about unnecessary hardship -- we thought it made us tough. But now such pride seems more like a coping method, one that allows negligent and sometimes criminal behavior to go unpunished. It pits women against one another, with those who are sexually assaulted seen as weak -- as if strength alone and not luck allows one to avoid rape or assault.
Buried within this news story was an unfortunate example, a soldier named Spc. Kamisha Block, reported dead in Iraq of a "non-combat related injury." This injury turned out to be gunshot wounds inflicted by a male soldier who had a record of three previous assaults against her. It is obvious Block was not silent, yet her reports only resulted in her harasser being moved five minutes away from her in Iraq, allowing him the access to murder her before turning the gun on himself. When political candidates this season talk of foreign aggressors, they miss the largest threat military women face. By May 2004 there were already 112 reports of sexual assault and rape in Iraq and Afghanistan. New Department of Defense policies make reporting easier, but what does it matter if complaints fall on deaf ears?
Sadly, these are only secondary concerns in politics, at the VA and the Pentagon, or even in the anti-war movement -- if they are issues at all. The current occupation of Iraq has left 97 women dead, the most so far of any American military intervention. Forty percent -- 39 -- of those are attributed to non-combat related injuries. Still uncounted in these numbers are suicides and murders that happen in the United States or on military bases post-deployment. Block was reported to have died of friendly fire, so it is hard to extrapolate how many such deaths were actually murders. We need to know more about Pfc. Tina Priest, whose apparent suicide followed a rape allegation that was dropped after her death, and about Pfc. Lavena Johnson, who was beaten, set on fire and doused with acid; her death was somehow ruled a suicide. Their families are still trying to find answers.
One begins to understand why some women in Iraq -- marked as targets by both their uniform and their womanhood -- carry weapons for protection against fellow service members. We need to make these stories public, so that female service members find communities to amplify their voices when they speak out against these injustices. The Pentagon must be convinced that cover-ups will be uncovered with due haste. We need to ask other women, those who may feel like just one unworthy case, if they have stories to tell.
And we must look at the way post-traumatic stress disorder affects men if we really want to address the role of women in the military, both as service members and partners of male soldiers. It's easy to vilify men who turn on women with violence to escape their own powerlessness. Yet once again we don't have a flashy military recruitment video that shows the real effects of war, seeing your friends blown up, being forced to kill. A whole generation of young service men is becoming emotionally shut off -- for fear of seeming "weak" if they show signs of cracking under the enormous pressure of bloody combat.
The PTSD women experience in association with military sexual trauma (MST) must also be treated seriously. The title itself, post-traumatic stress disorder, suggests an abnormal reaction to combat or sexual assault. We continue to reinforce the idea that one is a broken person when experiencing PTSD -- something wrong with the individual rather than with what happened to them. Women also lose out because current combat PTSD care is often geared toward men since women are officially barred from the combat zone, as though the military could sustain the occupation without women playing combat roles. If a woman is experiencing both combat and MST-related PTSD, she may be directed to male-filled PTSD groups or MST groups with no combat support. She has nowhere within the VA to find the care she needs.
If we are going to create any meaningful change for service women, it will require that as a country we begin to truthfully recognize our military. As it stands, the occupation of Iraq has become more of a far-away sound bite than a tangible situation that real people face every day. Our media must do its job. Sen. Barack Obama's trip to Iraq should afford a valuable glimpse into the reality of the occupation for our female service members. Listen to their firsthand accounts. It's a real opportunity to highlight the dangers they face.
This is no time to relegate these concerns to the status of "women's issues" in election campaigns. When any candidate is questioned on the gaps in VA health care, they cannot be allowed a free pass to render MST and female service members invisible. The candidates vying for commander in chief must be held accountable by the media for a full understanding of that job in the 21st century, when women in the military are a reality.
Female veterans and service members are bravely bringing these issues to light, breaking the code of silence. Their acts of courage mean there is no longer an excuse for inaction at any level of our media or government. I have found a voice in SWAN, the Service Women's Action Network, which allows me to share my story and help other women share theirs. The healing and subsequent strength gained from this regained visibility needs to happen for our country as well. Too often I am asked if my military battle dress is a boyfriend's, as if it were not possible that the uniform was once my work clothing. Instead of asking such questions, it's time to listen.
See more stories tagged with: women, military, sexual harassment, discrimination
Jennifer Hogg is a co-founding member of SWAN, the Service Women's Action Network, and a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.
Female service members often remain silent about the dangers they face. Now is the time to break the culture of fear that keeps them quiet.
For women in the military, this election season has the potential either to focus a spotlight on long-neglected needs or to continue rendering us invisible. Due to our military training, we often struggle to exercise our right to speak out, but now we need systemic and systematic change, both to do justice to service members and to create healthier communities for everyone.
I was still in high school in 2000 when I joined up, looking for a fuller life than I saw available to me in blue-collar Buffalo, N.Y. But would I have ever joined the military if higher education were not so hard to fund? Would the young, the poor, the single mothers feel their only option was to enlist if adequate housing, jobs and health care were more readily available?
These are fundamental social inequalities that funnel people into the military. We hope to escape the injustice of racism, sexism and homophobia by proving ourselves -- by being able to say, "I served. I earned my place here." And service does earn us praise, but only as long as we don't rock that boat.
For the military, this election has heavy stakes, with two occupations taking place simultaneously, in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and a third waiting in the wings. Such high stakes tend to push aside other issues, and we risk being forced into silence for fear that the boat may capsize. But if it's that close to going under, isn't it time for a better boat?
Female veterans know this feeling all too well. All service members are taught to never question a mission. For female service members, this silence can have particularly dangerous consequences. When I began basic training, I never expected the culture of fear that service women take pride in living through. From a young woman ready to stand for what was right, I was being turned into a person who shrugged off injustice. When I helped another female recruit report a physical assault, I saw her become the target of widespread verbal harassment. The lesson? Bearing indignity silently in private is far better than risking public ridicule from those who choose to make you a target.
Imagine if those flashy recruiting commercials showed the real dangers a woman can face while serving in the military, living her formative years in a hazardous work environment where racism and homophobia are tolerated for the sake of "getting by" and sexual harassment goes unreported so you don't "ruin his career." All this while women work twice as hard to prove themselves as soldiers -- more than just a "bitch," "dyke," "whore."
I recently read a news story that highlighted service women who spoke of working twice as hard as the men in order to be seen as equal. That only made them appreciate the military, they said. These stories make me cringe because I remember very keenly boasting about unnecessary hardship -- we thought it made us tough. But now such pride seems more like a coping method, one that allows negligent and sometimes criminal behavior to go unpunished. It pits women against one another, with those who are sexually assaulted seen as weak -- as if strength alone and not luck allows one to avoid rape or assault.
Buried within this news story was an unfortunate example, a soldier named Spc. Kamisha Block, reported dead in Iraq of a "non-combat related injury." This injury turned out to be gunshot wounds inflicted by a male soldier who had a record of three previous assaults against her. It is obvious Block was not silent, yet her reports only resulted in her harasser being moved five minutes away from her in Iraq, allowing him the access to murder her before turning the gun on himself. When political candidates this season talk of foreign aggressors, they miss the largest threat military women face. By May 2004 there were already 112 reports of sexual assault and rape in Iraq and Afghanistan. New Department of Defense policies make reporting easier, but what does it matter if complaints fall on deaf ears?
Sadly, these are only secondary concerns in politics, at the VA and the Pentagon, or even in the anti-war movement -- if they are issues at all. The current occupation of Iraq has left 97 women dead, the most so far of any American military intervention. Forty percent -- 39 -- of those are attributed to non-combat related injuries. Still uncounted in these numbers are suicides and murders that happen in the United States or on military bases post-deployment. Block was reported to have died of friendly fire, so it is hard to extrapolate how many such deaths were actually murders. We need to know more about Pfc. Tina Priest, whose apparent suicide followed a rape allegation that was dropped after her death, and about Pfc. Lavena Johnson, who was beaten, set on fire and doused with acid; her death was somehow ruled a suicide. Their families are still trying to find answers.
One begins to understand why some women in Iraq -- marked as targets by both their uniform and their womanhood -- carry weapons for protection against fellow service members. We need to make these stories public, so that female service members find communities to amplify their voices when they speak out against these injustices. The Pentagon must be convinced that cover-ups will be uncovered with due haste. We need to ask other women, those who may feel like just one unworthy case, if they have stories to tell.
And we must look at the way post-traumatic stress disorder affects men if we really want to address the role of women in the military, both as service members and partners of male soldiers. It's easy to vilify men who turn on women with violence to escape their own powerlessness. Yet once again we don't have a flashy military recruitment video that shows the real effects of war, seeing your friends blown up, being forced to kill. A whole generation of young service men is becoming emotionally shut off -- for fear of seeming "weak" if they show signs of cracking under the enormous pressure of bloody combat.
The PTSD women experience in association with military sexual trauma (MST) must also be treated seriously. The title itself, post-traumatic stress disorder, suggests an abnormal reaction to combat or sexual assault. We continue to reinforce the idea that one is a broken person when experiencing PTSD -- something wrong with the individual rather than with what happened to them. Women also lose out because current combat PTSD care is often geared toward men since women are officially barred from the combat zone, as though the military could sustain the occupation without women playing combat roles. If a woman is experiencing both combat and MST-related PTSD, she may be directed to male-filled PTSD groups or MST groups with no combat support. She has nowhere within the VA to find the care she needs.
If we are going to create any meaningful change for service women, it will require that as a country we begin to truthfully recognize our military. As it stands, the occupation of Iraq has become more of a far-away sound bite than a tangible situation that real people face every day. Our media must do its job. Sen. Barack Obama's trip to Iraq should afford a valuable glimpse into the reality of the occupation for our female service members. Listen to their firsthand accounts. It's a real opportunity to highlight the dangers they face.
This is no time to relegate these concerns to the status of "women's issues" in election campaigns. When any candidate is questioned on the gaps in VA health care, they cannot be allowed a free pass to render MST and female service members invisible. The candidates vying for commander in chief must be held accountable by the media for a full understanding of that job in the 21st century, when women in the military are a reality.
Female veterans and service members are bravely bringing these issues to light, breaking the code of silence. Their acts of courage mean there is no longer an excuse for inaction at any level of our media or government. I have found a voice in SWAN, the Service Women's Action Network, which allows me to share my story and help other women share theirs. The healing and subsequent strength gained from this regained visibility needs to happen for our country as well. Too often I am asked if my military battle dress is a boyfriend's, as if it were not possible that the uniform was once my work clothing. Instead of asking such questions, it's time to listen.
See more stories tagged with: women, military, sexual harassment, discrimination
Jennifer Hogg is a co-founding member of SWAN, the Service Women's Action Network, and a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.
Friday, May 30, 2008
For Palisades native, war trauma ends in suicide
By Hannan Adely
• The Journal News • March 1, 2008 PALISADES
After two tours in Iraq with the Marine Corps Reserve, Steven Vickerman tried to resume a normal life at home with his wife, but he could not shake a feeling of despair.
His parents, Richard and Carole Vickerman of Palisades, went to visit him at a veterans hospital after he suffered a mental breakdown; they were in disbelief. The funny and adventurous baby brother had become sullen, withdrawn and full of anxiety.
Vickerman, who was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, killed himself Feb. 19.
"We're still in shock. Our son was a proud Marine. He served his country honorably, and we don't know what happened to him," said Carole Vickerman, who buried her son Tuesday at Rockland Cemetery in Sparkill.
As soldiers return from service in Iraq and Afghanistan, many are unprepared to deal with the anxiety and depression stemming from their experiences in war. Some seek help from the Veterans Health Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, but become frustrated by paperwork and long waits for counseling and care. Others feel too proud or embarrassed to seek help at all, or believe they can tough it out with time. Despair drives many to take their own lives, according to reports and experts.
The Veterans Health Administration estimated in a May 2007 report that 1,000 suicides occurred per year among veterans who received care within the VHA and as many as 5,000 per year among all veterans.
At the same time, the number of returning veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder is surging, according to studies and veterans advocacy groups.
Families like the Vickermans often feel overwhelmed by the guilt and helplessness that surrounds post-traumatic stress disorder. The Vickermans wanted to help their son but did not know where to look for support services or how to deal with the effects of the illness.
The VA, they believed, had failed their son. The services available, they said, were insufficient, and the government should do more to address the issue for returning war vets.
"There should be something that can be done, not only for the proud soldiers but also for their families," Carole Vickerman said. "When you hear the word 'stress,' it sounds so innocuous. It's not stress; it's a killer."
Steven Vickerman, a Tappan Zee High School graduate, enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve in 1998. A whiz at technical jobs and an electrician by trade, the staff sergeant served as a small arms technician with Marine Aircraft Group 49, Detachment B, at Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh.
His first tour in Iraq was interrupted when he returned home to be with his older brother, who was dying of a brain tumor. Robert died at age 35. Vickerman served a second tour and was honorably discharged in 2005.
About two weeks ago, Vickerman's wife went on a business trip in New York City and could not reach her husband by phone. The Vickermans also could not reach him. They called his therapist, who was scheduled to see him on a Wednesday, but Vickerman missed his appointment.
The therapist called police, who found Vickerman dead at his home, where he had hanged himself. http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008803010370
Staff Sgt. Steven Vickerman died of a combat wound. Yet his death will not be counted as a price paid by those we send. None of the thousands of others wounded will be counted when this nation let them down and they lost their battle with the enemy that followed them home.
While they are deployed with the rest of their unit, they have the men and women they serve with watching their backs. If they are wounded by a bullet, the others try to rescue them. If they are blown up, the rest of their unit using everything they have to save their lives.
Yet when they are wounded by PTSD, all the rules are broken, the sense of urgency to act to save their lives is ignored and some are even attacked for being wounded in this way.
When they come home, their military family is no where to be found as they return to their families back home. They try to cope, adjust, get on with their lives, but for some it is impossible when they try to seek help with the DOD or the VA.
They feel they are battling this enemy alone.Vickerman will be added as a number but not part of the honorably deceased names when monuments of the sacrifice are built.
His wound did not come with a Purple Heart. Vickerman is just one more of the thousands of others who died because they were wounded.There is a great debate going on that you do not hear about within the units of those who commit suicide while deployed.
Some feel as if the suicide is nothing to honor while others see it as a true wound and the death should be just as honored as the life lived. Those who want to honor it as equally as a bullet or bomb death, see PTSD as another wound. Why can't the rest of them?
What will it take for this nation to add these names, these lives, these stories into the history books of war? What will it take this nation to stop separating PTSD wounds from the rest of the wounds the men and women serving this nation suffer from?
If they really wanted to end the stigma of PTSD the best place to start is to fully acknowledge PTSD for what it is and that's a combat wound. My husband will be wounded for the rest of his life and his service, his acknowledged risk of life ended in 1971, but the real risk to his life is an ongoing battle. He fights to stay alive everyday by taking his medication and going for therapy. It all works to keep him stabilized. He is not alone. There are hundreds of thousands of other Vietnam veterans like him, Korean veterans, Gulf War veterans and now this new generation of Afghanistan and Iraq veterans. Our family is not alone and neither are the rest of the families like Vickerman's family. We all care for the wounded as if their lives depended on it because they do. To us, they are wounded by combat, wounded by their service to this nation and they should be regarded as what they are. The time to stop separating this wound from all the other wounds should have ended as soon as we understood what PTSD was. A wounded caused by trauma.
There is nothing more traumatic than combat or the events involved with combat operations. They would not have been wounded if they did not go. They would not have nightmares and flashbacks of the horror if they were not sent. We need to acknowledge this and honor it.
Kathie Costos
• The Journal News • March 1, 2008 PALISADES
After two tours in Iraq with the Marine Corps Reserve, Steven Vickerman tried to resume a normal life at home with his wife, but he could not shake a feeling of despair.
His parents, Richard and Carole Vickerman of Palisades, went to visit him at a veterans hospital after he suffered a mental breakdown; they were in disbelief. The funny and adventurous baby brother had become sullen, withdrawn and full of anxiety.
Vickerman, who was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, killed himself Feb. 19.
"We're still in shock. Our son was a proud Marine. He served his country honorably, and we don't know what happened to him," said Carole Vickerman, who buried her son Tuesday at Rockland Cemetery in Sparkill.
As soldiers return from service in Iraq and Afghanistan, many are unprepared to deal with the anxiety and depression stemming from their experiences in war. Some seek help from the Veterans Health Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, but become frustrated by paperwork and long waits for counseling and care. Others feel too proud or embarrassed to seek help at all, or believe they can tough it out with time. Despair drives many to take their own lives, according to reports and experts.
The Veterans Health Administration estimated in a May 2007 report that 1,000 suicides occurred per year among veterans who received care within the VHA and as many as 5,000 per year among all veterans.
At the same time, the number of returning veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder is surging, according to studies and veterans advocacy groups.
Families like the Vickermans often feel overwhelmed by the guilt and helplessness that surrounds post-traumatic stress disorder. The Vickermans wanted to help their son but did not know where to look for support services or how to deal with the effects of the illness.
The VA, they believed, had failed their son. The services available, they said, were insufficient, and the government should do more to address the issue for returning war vets.
"There should be something that can be done, not only for the proud soldiers but also for their families," Carole Vickerman said. "When you hear the word 'stress,' it sounds so innocuous. It's not stress; it's a killer."
Steven Vickerman, a Tappan Zee High School graduate, enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve in 1998. A whiz at technical jobs and an electrician by trade, the staff sergeant served as a small arms technician with Marine Aircraft Group 49, Detachment B, at Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh.
His first tour in Iraq was interrupted when he returned home to be with his older brother, who was dying of a brain tumor. Robert died at age 35. Vickerman served a second tour and was honorably discharged in 2005.
About two weeks ago, Vickerman's wife went on a business trip in New York City and could not reach her husband by phone. The Vickermans also could not reach him. They called his therapist, who was scheduled to see him on a Wednesday, but Vickerman missed his appointment.
The therapist called police, who found Vickerman dead at his home, where he had hanged himself. http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008803010370
Staff Sgt. Steven Vickerman died of a combat wound. Yet his death will not be counted as a price paid by those we send. None of the thousands of others wounded will be counted when this nation let them down and they lost their battle with the enemy that followed them home.
While they are deployed with the rest of their unit, they have the men and women they serve with watching their backs. If they are wounded by a bullet, the others try to rescue them. If they are blown up, the rest of their unit using everything they have to save their lives.
Yet when they are wounded by PTSD, all the rules are broken, the sense of urgency to act to save their lives is ignored and some are even attacked for being wounded in this way.
When they come home, their military family is no where to be found as they return to their families back home. They try to cope, adjust, get on with their lives, but for some it is impossible when they try to seek help with the DOD or the VA.
They feel they are battling this enemy alone.Vickerman will be added as a number but not part of the honorably deceased names when monuments of the sacrifice are built.
His wound did not come with a Purple Heart. Vickerman is just one more of the thousands of others who died because they were wounded.There is a great debate going on that you do not hear about within the units of those who commit suicide while deployed.
Some feel as if the suicide is nothing to honor while others see it as a true wound and the death should be just as honored as the life lived. Those who want to honor it as equally as a bullet or bomb death, see PTSD as another wound. Why can't the rest of them?
What will it take for this nation to add these names, these lives, these stories into the history books of war? What will it take this nation to stop separating PTSD wounds from the rest of the wounds the men and women serving this nation suffer from?
If they really wanted to end the stigma of PTSD the best place to start is to fully acknowledge PTSD for what it is and that's a combat wound. My husband will be wounded for the rest of his life and his service, his acknowledged risk of life ended in 1971, but the real risk to his life is an ongoing battle. He fights to stay alive everyday by taking his medication and going for therapy. It all works to keep him stabilized. He is not alone. There are hundreds of thousands of other Vietnam veterans like him, Korean veterans, Gulf War veterans and now this new generation of Afghanistan and Iraq veterans. Our family is not alone and neither are the rest of the families like Vickerman's family. We all care for the wounded as if their lives depended on it because they do. To us, they are wounded by combat, wounded by their service to this nation and they should be regarded as what they are. The time to stop separating this wound from all the other wounds should have ended as soon as we understood what PTSD was. A wounded caused by trauma.
There is nothing more traumatic than combat or the events involved with combat operations. They would not have been wounded if they did not go. They would not have nightmares and flashbacks of the horror if they were not sent. We need to acknowledge this and honor it.
Kathie Costos
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Vets taking PTSD drugs die in sleep
Hurricane man's death the 4th in West Virginia
A Putnam County veteran who was taking medication prescribed for post-traumatic stress disorder died in his sleep earlier this month, in circumstances similar to the deaths of three other area veterans earlier this year.
By Julie Robinson
Staff writer
A Putnam County veteran who was taking medication prescribed for post-traumatic stress disorder died in his sleep earlier this month, in circumstances similar to the deaths of three other area veterans earlier this year.
Derek Johnson, 22, of Hurricane, served in the infantry in the Middle East in 2005, where he was wounded in combat and diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder while hospitalized.
Military doctors prescribed Paxil, Klonopin and Seroquel for Johnson,the same combination taken by veterans Andrew White, 23, of CrossLanes; Eric Layne, 29, of Kanawha City; and Nicholas Endicott of LoganCounty. All were in apparently good physical health when they died in their sleep.
Johnson was taking Klonopin and Seroquel, as prescribed, at the timeof his death, said his grandmother, Georgeann Underwood of Hurricane.
Both drugs are frequently used in combination to treat post-traumaticstress disorder. Klonopin causes excessive drowsiness in some patients.
He also was taking a painkiller for a back injury he sustained in a car accident about a week before his death, but was no longer taking Paxil.
On May 1, the night before he died, Johnson called his grandfather, Duck Underwood, and asked if he could pick up his 5-year-old son and take him to school the next day. Johnson and his wife, Stacie, have three children, all under 6 years old. Their car had been totaled in the accident the previous week.
When Underwood arrived to pick up the boy the next morning, his knocks were not answered at first. He heard Stacie Johnson screaming. She opened the door and told him she couldn't wake her husband. They called paramedics, who could not revive him. Doctors did not declare an immediate cause of death.
Toxicology and autopsy results could take as long as 60 days, authorities told the family.
"I want to know the cause of death," said Ray Johnson, Derek's father." Stacie said he was fine that night. Everything was normal. He kissed her goodnight and went to sleep."
Stan White, father of soldier Andrew White, has become an advocate for families of returning veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.
During his son's struggle with the disorder and since his death, White has tracked similar cases. He knows of about eight in the tri-state area of Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia.
He and his wife, Shirley, introduced themselves to the Johnsons and Underwoods at Derek's funeral and offered their help. He is in contact with the office of Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., who is a member ofthe Veterans' Affairs Committee.
Rockefeller requested an investigation into these deaths, which is ongoing, said Steven Broderick, the senator's press secretary.
"When I talked to his family about Derek, I realized it was the same old story," said White. "It was all too familiar. He was taking those same drugs as the others, and, yes, I believe they are still prescribing that combination."
After speaking with family members, White wonders if the patients are taking the medicine as prescribed. He said PTSD patients suffer short-term memory loss and shouldn't be relied upon to track their medications.
Georgeann Underwood agrees."You shouldn't put vulnerable, mentally unstable people on drugs like that," she said.
An outgoing, personable young man who worked at several jobs to support his young family, Johnson frequently was offered other jobs by customers in the stores where he worked, Underwood said.
In 2006, he returned from the Middle East depressed and short-tempered. Johnson had operated an M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, or rapid-fire machine gun, and rarely spoke about his experiences there.
After his military prescriptions ran out, Johnson's medications were prescribed by private physicians because he refused to go the VA hospitals where he said he was required to wait long periods of time for appointments. His grandparents paid for his medications.
"He had a very short fuse," Ray Johnson said. "That was the biggest difference in his personality after he came back."
Until his death, he worked 12 or 16 hours a day. He was an electrical apprentice at the John Amos Power Plant until he was let go when his work hours approached the union limit for apprentices. He was on his way to apply for another job when the car he drove was rear-ended on April 24. Johnson died May 2.
To contact staff writer Julie Robinson, use e-mail or call 348-1230.
--submitted by Patti Woodard
A Putnam County veteran who was taking medication prescribed for post-traumatic stress disorder died in his sleep earlier this month, in circumstances similar to the deaths of three other area veterans earlier this year.
By Julie Robinson
Staff writer
A Putnam County veteran who was taking medication prescribed for post-traumatic stress disorder died in his sleep earlier this month, in circumstances similar to the deaths of three other area veterans earlier this year.
Derek Johnson, 22, of Hurricane, served in the infantry in the Middle East in 2005, where he was wounded in combat and diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder while hospitalized.
Military doctors prescribed Paxil, Klonopin and Seroquel for Johnson,the same combination taken by veterans Andrew White, 23, of CrossLanes; Eric Layne, 29, of Kanawha City; and Nicholas Endicott of LoganCounty. All were in apparently good physical health when they died in their sleep.
Johnson was taking Klonopin and Seroquel, as prescribed, at the timeof his death, said his grandmother, Georgeann Underwood of Hurricane.
Both drugs are frequently used in combination to treat post-traumaticstress disorder. Klonopin causes excessive drowsiness in some patients.
He also was taking a painkiller for a back injury he sustained in a car accident about a week before his death, but was no longer taking Paxil.
On May 1, the night before he died, Johnson called his grandfather, Duck Underwood, and asked if he could pick up his 5-year-old son and take him to school the next day. Johnson and his wife, Stacie, have three children, all under 6 years old. Their car had been totaled in the accident the previous week.
When Underwood arrived to pick up the boy the next morning, his knocks were not answered at first. He heard Stacie Johnson screaming. She opened the door and told him she couldn't wake her husband. They called paramedics, who could not revive him. Doctors did not declare an immediate cause of death.
Toxicology and autopsy results could take as long as 60 days, authorities told the family.
"I want to know the cause of death," said Ray Johnson, Derek's father." Stacie said he was fine that night. Everything was normal. He kissed her goodnight and went to sleep."
Stan White, father of soldier Andrew White, has become an advocate for families of returning veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.
During his son's struggle with the disorder and since his death, White has tracked similar cases. He knows of about eight in the tri-state area of Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia.
He and his wife, Shirley, introduced themselves to the Johnsons and Underwoods at Derek's funeral and offered their help. He is in contact with the office of Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., who is a member ofthe Veterans' Affairs Committee.
Rockefeller requested an investigation into these deaths, which is ongoing, said Steven Broderick, the senator's press secretary.
"When I talked to his family about Derek, I realized it was the same old story," said White. "It was all too familiar. He was taking those same drugs as the others, and, yes, I believe they are still prescribing that combination."
After speaking with family members, White wonders if the patients are taking the medicine as prescribed. He said PTSD patients suffer short-term memory loss and shouldn't be relied upon to track their medications.
Georgeann Underwood agrees."You shouldn't put vulnerable, mentally unstable people on drugs like that," she said.
An outgoing, personable young man who worked at several jobs to support his young family, Johnson frequently was offered other jobs by customers in the stores where he worked, Underwood said.
In 2006, he returned from the Middle East depressed and short-tempered. Johnson had operated an M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, or rapid-fire machine gun, and rarely spoke about his experiences there.
After his military prescriptions ran out, Johnson's medications were prescribed by private physicians because he refused to go the VA hospitals where he said he was required to wait long periods of time for appointments. His grandparents paid for his medications.
"He had a very short fuse," Ray Johnson said. "That was the biggest difference in his personality after he came back."
Until his death, he worked 12 or 16 hours a day. He was an electrical apprentice at the John Amos Power Plant until he was let go when his work hours approached the union limit for apprentices. He was on his way to apply for another job when the car he drove was rear-ended on April 24. Johnson died May 2.
To contact staff writer Julie Robinson, use e-mail or call 348-1230.
--submitted by Patti Woodard
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Alabama Paper Reports Yet Another Iraq Vet Suicide -- With Mother Watching
By Greg Mitchell Published: May 06, 2008 9:30 PM ET updated Tuesday
NEW YORK As the scandal of suicide attempts by Iraq veterans expands -- in the face of Veterans Administration denials -- another horrific case has emerged, once again only gaining attention because of a local newspaper.
E&P has been tracking these accounts for almost five years and only recently has the problem, with an estimated 1,000 attempts a month now reported, gained wide media, and official, attention.
The latest story came Saturday in a story by Patrick McCreless in The Cullman Times of Cullman, Ala.
The headline is similar to so many others lately: "Family pushing for changes after soldier's suicide."
It tells how one Dorothy Screws "witnessed her only son, U.S. Army Pvt. Tommie Edward Jones, commit suicide right before her eyes six weeks ago in Colorado.
She says the Army, which promised to be there for Screws and her family to deal with the loss, has yet to provide assistance.
"Now Screws can hardly do her job without breaking down. Just the simple act of living is a challenge."
Only the memory of her son keeps Screws going as she fights to ensure another parent does not have to live through the same tragedy. 'I can’t save my son now ... I want to save somebody,' Screws said with tears in her eyes.
'If I can save one soldier, it will be worth it.'"
Screws plans to petition the government for as long as it takes until a law is passed requiring soldiers to undergo some type of psychological therapy after they return from intense combat."
Her son was 27 when he died.
An excerpt follows.
The whole article is still posted at http://www.cullmantimes.com/.*
One thing Screws and her family did not know until after her son’s death — which occurred March 25 at Fort Carson, Colo. — was that Jones, 27, had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from when he fought in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2007.
Jones mentioned a few of the traumatic events he experienced in Iraq to his mother shortly before his death.
“He said, ‘I wake up every morning angry,’” Screws said. “He said, ‘My body is here but my mind is in Iraq.’”
Screws said she wants therapy to be mandatory for soldiers because many, like her son, do not seek help out of fear of being stigmatized. She said Jones told her he did not want to talk to a therapist because he thought such action would prevent him from rising in rank.
...Jones’ sister, Amanda Wimberly, said her family was assigned an assistance officer. But Wimberly said the officer has been anything but helpful.
“I called her a few weeks ago and she was with her family ... but she could come by later if we wanted,” Wimberly said.
“We needed her then. I asked to speak to her boss. ... She fumbled with the phone and eventually hung up. I haven’t spoken to her since.”
Screws said she has already expressed her feelings about the Army and her petition for mandatory therapy to the local Democratic Party. She plans to attend an upcoming Republican Party meeting to do the same.
“I don’t care if I get in trouble,” Screws said. “Until somebody can answer some questions and make it right, oh yeah, I’ll keep talking.”
____E&P Editor Greg Mitchell's new book includes several chapters on this issue. It is titled, "So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq."
--submitted by Patti Woodard
NEW YORK As the scandal of suicide attempts by Iraq veterans expands -- in the face of Veterans Administration denials -- another horrific case has emerged, once again only gaining attention because of a local newspaper.
E&P has been tracking these accounts for almost five years and only recently has the problem, with an estimated 1,000 attempts a month now reported, gained wide media, and official, attention.
The latest story came Saturday in a story by Patrick McCreless in The Cullman Times of Cullman, Ala.
The headline is similar to so many others lately: "Family pushing for changes after soldier's suicide."
It tells how one Dorothy Screws "witnessed her only son, U.S. Army Pvt. Tommie Edward Jones, commit suicide right before her eyes six weeks ago in Colorado.
She says the Army, which promised to be there for Screws and her family to deal with the loss, has yet to provide assistance.
"Now Screws can hardly do her job without breaking down. Just the simple act of living is a challenge."
Only the memory of her son keeps Screws going as she fights to ensure another parent does not have to live through the same tragedy. 'I can’t save my son now ... I want to save somebody,' Screws said with tears in her eyes.
'If I can save one soldier, it will be worth it.'"
Screws plans to petition the government for as long as it takes until a law is passed requiring soldiers to undergo some type of psychological therapy after they return from intense combat."
Her son was 27 when he died.
An excerpt follows.
The whole article is still posted at http://www.cullmantimes.com/.*
One thing Screws and her family did not know until after her son’s death — which occurred March 25 at Fort Carson, Colo. — was that Jones, 27, had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from when he fought in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2007.
Jones mentioned a few of the traumatic events he experienced in Iraq to his mother shortly before his death.
“He said, ‘I wake up every morning angry,’” Screws said. “He said, ‘My body is here but my mind is in Iraq.’”
Screws said she wants therapy to be mandatory for soldiers because many, like her son, do not seek help out of fear of being stigmatized. She said Jones told her he did not want to talk to a therapist because he thought such action would prevent him from rising in rank.
...Jones’ sister, Amanda Wimberly, said her family was assigned an assistance officer. But Wimberly said the officer has been anything but helpful.
“I called her a few weeks ago and she was with her family ... but she could come by later if we wanted,” Wimberly said.
“We needed her then. I asked to speak to her boss. ... She fumbled with the phone and eventually hung up. I haven’t spoken to her since.”
Screws said she has already expressed her feelings about the Army and her petition for mandatory therapy to the local Democratic Party. She plans to attend an upcoming Republican Party meeting to do the same.
“I don’t care if I get in trouble,” Screws said. “Until somebody can answer some questions and make it right, oh yeah, I’ll keep talking.”
____E&P Editor Greg Mitchell's new book includes several chapters on this issue. It is titled, "So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq."
--submitted by Patti Woodard
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
VA Tried to Conceal Extent of Attempted Veteran Suicides, Email Shows
By Jason Leopold
(The Intelligence Daily) -- Top officials at the Veterans Administration tried to conceal information from the public about the sudden increase of attempted suicides among veterans that were treated or sought help at VA hospitals around the country, a previously undisclosed internal VA email indicates.
The email was disclosed Tuesday in a federal trial at a courthouse in Northern California where two veterans advocacy groups filed a class-action lawsuit against the VA alleging that a systematic breakdown at the VA has led to an epidemic of suicides among war veterans. These groups claim the VA has turned away veterans who have sought help for posttraumatic stress disorder and were suicidal. Some of the veterans, the lawsuit claims, later took their own lives.
The organizations who filed the lawsuit, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth, want a federal judge to issue a preliminary injunction to force the VA to immediately treat veterans who show signs of PTSD and are at risk of suicide and overhaul internal system that handles benefits claims. PTSD is said to be the most prevalent mental disorder arising from combat.
The Feb. 13., 2008, email, disclosed in federal court Tuesday, was sent to Ira Katz, the VA’s mental health director by Ev Chasen, the agency’s chief communications director.
Chasen sought guidance from Katz about interview queries from CBS News, which reported extensively on veterans suicides last year.
“Is the fact that we’re stopping [suicides] good news, or is the sheer number bad news? And is this more than we’ve ever seen before? It might be something we drop into a general release about our suicide prevention efforts, which (as you know far better than I) prominently include training employees to recognize the warning signs of suicide,” Chasen wrote Katz in an email titled "Not for CBS News Interview Request."
Katz’s response is startling. He said the VA has identified nearly 1,000 suicide attempts per month among war veterans treated by the VA. His response to Chasen indicates that he did not want the VA to immediately release any statistical data confirming that number, but rather suggested that the agency quietly slip the information into a news release.
“Shh!” Katz wrote in his response to Chasen. “Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1000 suicide attempts per month among the veterans we see in our medical facilities. Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?”
The February email was sent shortly after the VA gave CBS News data that showed only a total of 790 attempted suicides in 2007 among veterans treated by the VA. In an email sent to the network Monday after Katz's email was disclosed in court, he denied a "cover-up" and said he did not disclose the true figures of attempted suicides because he was unsure if it was accurate.
In a December email Katz sent to Brig. Gen. Michael J. Kussman, the undersecretary for health at the Veterans Health Administration within the VA, that roughly 126 veterans of all wars commit suicide per week. He added that data the agency obtained from the Center for Disease Control showed that 20 percent of the suicides in the country are identified as war veterans.
The “VA’s own data demonstrate 4-5 suicides per day among those who receive care from us,” Katz said in the email he sent to Kussman.
Pehaps underscoring just how underprepared the VA was for the number of PTSD cases to emerge from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, documents released to support the plaintiffs’ allegations show that prior to the U.S. Invasion of Iraq the VA believed it would likely see a maximum of 8,000 cases where veterans showed signs of PTSD.
Last week, the RAND Corporation released a study that said about 300,000 U.S. troops sent to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering from major depression or PTSD, and 320,000 received traumatic brain injuries. Since October 2001, about 1.6 million U.S. troops have deployed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many soldiers have completed more than two tours of duty meaning they are exposed to prolonged periods of combat-related stress or traumatic events.
“There is a major health crisis facing those men and women who have served our nation in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Terri Tanielian, a researcher at RAND who worked on the study. “Unless they receive appropriate and effective care for these mental health conditions, there will be long-term consequences for them and for the nation. Unfortunately, we found there are many barriers preventing them from getting the high-quality treatment they need.”
Those are statistics Paul Sullivan, the executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, has been warning lawmakers about for several years.
“The scope of PTSD in the long term is enormous and must be taken seriously. When all of our 1.6 million service members eventually return home from Iraq and Afghanistan, based on the current rate of 20 percent, VA may face up 320,000 total new veterans diagnosed with PTSD,” Sullivan told a Congressional committee in July 2007. If America fails to act now and overhaul the broken DoD and VA disability systems, there may a social catastrophe among many of our returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. That is why VCS reluctantly filed suit against VA in Federal Court...Time is running out”
Sullivan has urged Congress to enact legislation to immediately overhaul the VA.
“Congress should legislate a presumption of service connection for veterans diagnosed [with] PTSD who deployed to a war zone after 9/11,” Sullivan told lawmakers last year. “A presumption makes it easier for dedicated and hard-working VA employees to process veterans’ claims. This results in faster medical treatment and benefits for our veterans.”
Yet despite Sullivan’s dire predictions and calls for legislative action the issue has not been given priority treatment by lawmakers. Instead, Congress continued to fund the war in Iraq to the tune of about $200 billion and will likely pour another $108 billion into Iraq later next month.
Meanwhile, a backlog of veterans’ benefits claims continue to pile up at the VA.
The VA said it has hired more than 3,000 mental healthcare professionals over the past two years to deal with the increasing number of PTSD cases, but the problems persist.
VA Says Vets Not ‘Entitled’ to Healthcare
In opening statements Monday, Richard Lepley, a Justice Department attorney, said the VA runs a "world-class health care system."
But Gordon Erspamer, the lead attorney representing the two veterans groups, said the VA has arbitrarily denied coverage to thousands of vets, that it takes nearly a year to decide whether it will provide coverage to veterans suffering from PTSD, and takes as long as four years for the VA to address veterans appeals cases.
“Seeking help from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs... involves a two-track system,” says a copy of the plaintiff’s trial brief filed in federal court last week.“A veteran will go to the Veterans’ Health Administration for diagnosis and medical care; and a veteran goes to the Veterans’ Benefits Administration to apply for service-connection and disability compensation...
“VA is failing these veterans as they move along both of these parallel tracks. They are not receiving the healthcare to which they are entitled (and where they do receive it, it is unreasonably delayed) and they are not able to get timely compensation for their disabilities, which means that they have no safety net. These two problems combine to create a perfect storm for PTSD veterans: they receive no treatment, so their symptoms get worse; and they receive no compensation, so they cannot go elsewhere for treatment. The failings of these two separate but interrelated systems are what this action seeks to address.”
The lawsuit the groups filed alleges that numerous VA practices stemming from a 1998 law violate the constitutional and statutory rights of veterans suffering from PTSD by denying veterans mandated medical care.
Justice Department attorneys had argued in court papers filed last month that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans were not "entitled" to the five-years of free healthcare upon their return from combat as mandated by Congress in the "Dignity for Wounded Warriors Act." Rather, the VA argued, medical treatment for the war veterans was discretionary based on the level of funding available in the VA's budget.
But during a court hearing hearing last month before U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Conti, Dr. Gerald Cross, the Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Health, Veterans Health Administration, said that veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan were not only entitled to free healthcare, but he said "there is no co-pay."
Soldier’s Suicide Warnings Ignored
Chris Scheuerman, a retired Special Forces masters sergeant, testified before a Congressional committee last month that there is an urgent need for mental healthreform in the military.
Scheuerman said his son, Pfc. Jason Scheuerman, went to see an Army psychologist because he had been suicidal.
The Army psychologist wrote up a report saying Jason Scheuerman “was capable of (faking) mental illness in order to manipulate his command,” according to documents the soldiers father turned over to Congress.
“Jason desperately needed a second opinion after his encounter with the Army psychologist,” Chris Scheuerman testified in mid-March before the Armed Services Committee’s Military Personnel Subcommittee.
“The Army did offer him that option, but at his own expense. How is a PFC (private first class) in the middle of Iraq supposed to get to a civilian mental health care provider at his own expense?” he said. “I believe a soldier should be afforded the opportunity to a second opinion via teleconference with a civilian mental health care provider of their own choice.”
Jason Scheuerman shot himself with a rifle on July 30, 2005. The 20-year-old’s suicide note was nailed to the close in his barracks. It said, “Maybe now I can get some peace.”
Investigative journalist Jason Leopold is the author of the bestselling memoir, News Junkie. Visit http://www.newsjunkiebook.com/ for a preview.
--submitted by Lois Vanderbur
(The Intelligence Daily) -- Top officials at the Veterans Administration tried to conceal information from the public about the sudden increase of attempted suicides among veterans that were treated or sought help at VA hospitals around the country, a previously undisclosed internal VA email indicates.
The email was disclosed Tuesday in a federal trial at a courthouse in Northern California where two veterans advocacy groups filed a class-action lawsuit against the VA alleging that a systematic breakdown at the VA has led to an epidemic of suicides among war veterans. These groups claim the VA has turned away veterans who have sought help for posttraumatic stress disorder and were suicidal. Some of the veterans, the lawsuit claims, later took their own lives.
The organizations who filed the lawsuit, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth, want a federal judge to issue a preliminary injunction to force the VA to immediately treat veterans who show signs of PTSD and are at risk of suicide and overhaul internal system that handles benefits claims. PTSD is said to be the most prevalent mental disorder arising from combat.
The Feb. 13., 2008, email, disclosed in federal court Tuesday, was sent to Ira Katz, the VA’s mental health director by Ev Chasen, the agency’s chief communications director.
Chasen sought guidance from Katz about interview queries from CBS News, which reported extensively on veterans suicides last year.
“Is the fact that we’re stopping [suicides] good news, or is the sheer number bad news? And is this more than we’ve ever seen before? It might be something we drop into a general release about our suicide prevention efforts, which (as you know far better than I) prominently include training employees to recognize the warning signs of suicide,” Chasen wrote Katz in an email titled "Not for CBS News Interview Request."
Katz’s response is startling. He said the VA has identified nearly 1,000 suicide attempts per month among war veterans treated by the VA. His response to Chasen indicates that he did not want the VA to immediately release any statistical data confirming that number, but rather suggested that the agency quietly slip the information into a news release.
“Shh!” Katz wrote in his response to Chasen. “Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1000 suicide attempts per month among the veterans we see in our medical facilities. Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?”
The February email was sent shortly after the VA gave CBS News data that showed only a total of 790 attempted suicides in 2007 among veterans treated by the VA. In an email sent to the network Monday after Katz's email was disclosed in court, he denied a "cover-up" and said he did not disclose the true figures of attempted suicides because he was unsure if it was accurate.
In a December email Katz sent to Brig. Gen. Michael J. Kussman, the undersecretary for health at the Veterans Health Administration within the VA, that roughly 126 veterans of all wars commit suicide per week. He added that data the agency obtained from the Center for Disease Control showed that 20 percent of the suicides in the country are identified as war veterans.
The “VA’s own data demonstrate 4-5 suicides per day among those who receive care from us,” Katz said in the email he sent to Kussman.
Pehaps underscoring just how underprepared the VA was for the number of PTSD cases to emerge from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, documents released to support the plaintiffs’ allegations show that prior to the U.S. Invasion of Iraq the VA believed it would likely see a maximum of 8,000 cases where veterans showed signs of PTSD.
Last week, the RAND Corporation released a study that said about 300,000 U.S. troops sent to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering from major depression or PTSD, and 320,000 received traumatic brain injuries. Since October 2001, about 1.6 million U.S. troops have deployed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many soldiers have completed more than two tours of duty meaning they are exposed to prolonged periods of combat-related stress or traumatic events.
“There is a major health crisis facing those men and women who have served our nation in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Terri Tanielian, a researcher at RAND who worked on the study. “Unless they receive appropriate and effective care for these mental health conditions, there will be long-term consequences for them and for the nation. Unfortunately, we found there are many barriers preventing them from getting the high-quality treatment they need.”
Those are statistics Paul Sullivan, the executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, has been warning lawmakers about for several years.
“The scope of PTSD in the long term is enormous and must be taken seriously. When all of our 1.6 million service members eventually return home from Iraq and Afghanistan, based on the current rate of 20 percent, VA may face up 320,000 total new veterans diagnosed with PTSD,” Sullivan told a Congressional committee in July 2007. If America fails to act now and overhaul the broken DoD and VA disability systems, there may a social catastrophe among many of our returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. That is why VCS reluctantly filed suit against VA in Federal Court...Time is running out”
Sullivan has urged Congress to enact legislation to immediately overhaul the VA.
“Congress should legislate a presumption of service connection for veterans diagnosed [with] PTSD who deployed to a war zone after 9/11,” Sullivan told lawmakers last year. “A presumption makes it easier for dedicated and hard-working VA employees to process veterans’ claims. This results in faster medical treatment and benefits for our veterans.”
Yet despite Sullivan’s dire predictions and calls for legislative action the issue has not been given priority treatment by lawmakers. Instead, Congress continued to fund the war in Iraq to the tune of about $200 billion and will likely pour another $108 billion into Iraq later next month.
Meanwhile, a backlog of veterans’ benefits claims continue to pile up at the VA.
The VA said it has hired more than 3,000 mental healthcare professionals over the past two years to deal with the increasing number of PTSD cases, but the problems persist.
VA Says Vets Not ‘Entitled’ to Healthcare
In opening statements Monday, Richard Lepley, a Justice Department attorney, said the VA runs a "world-class health care system."
But Gordon Erspamer, the lead attorney representing the two veterans groups, said the VA has arbitrarily denied coverage to thousands of vets, that it takes nearly a year to decide whether it will provide coverage to veterans suffering from PTSD, and takes as long as four years for the VA to address veterans appeals cases.
“Seeking help from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs... involves a two-track system,” says a copy of the plaintiff’s trial brief filed in federal court last week.“A veteran will go to the Veterans’ Health Administration for diagnosis and medical care; and a veteran goes to the Veterans’ Benefits Administration to apply for service-connection and disability compensation...
“VA is failing these veterans as they move along both of these parallel tracks. They are not receiving the healthcare to which they are entitled (and where they do receive it, it is unreasonably delayed) and they are not able to get timely compensation for their disabilities, which means that they have no safety net. These two problems combine to create a perfect storm for PTSD veterans: they receive no treatment, so their symptoms get worse; and they receive no compensation, so they cannot go elsewhere for treatment. The failings of these two separate but interrelated systems are what this action seeks to address.”
The lawsuit the groups filed alleges that numerous VA practices stemming from a 1998 law violate the constitutional and statutory rights of veterans suffering from PTSD by denying veterans mandated medical care.
Justice Department attorneys had argued in court papers filed last month that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans were not "entitled" to the five-years of free healthcare upon their return from combat as mandated by Congress in the "Dignity for Wounded Warriors Act." Rather, the VA argued, medical treatment for the war veterans was discretionary based on the level of funding available in the VA's budget.
But during a court hearing hearing last month before U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Conti, Dr. Gerald Cross, the Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Health, Veterans Health Administration, said that veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan were not only entitled to free healthcare, but he said "there is no co-pay."
Soldier’s Suicide Warnings Ignored
Chris Scheuerman, a retired Special Forces masters sergeant, testified before a Congressional committee last month that there is an urgent need for mental healthreform in the military.
Scheuerman said his son, Pfc. Jason Scheuerman, went to see an Army psychologist because he had been suicidal.
The Army psychologist wrote up a report saying Jason Scheuerman “was capable of (faking) mental illness in order to manipulate his command,” according to documents the soldiers father turned over to Congress.
“Jason desperately needed a second opinion after his encounter with the Army psychologist,” Chris Scheuerman testified in mid-March before the Armed Services Committee’s Military Personnel Subcommittee.
“The Army did offer him that option, but at his own expense. How is a PFC (private first class) in the middle of Iraq supposed to get to a civilian mental health care provider at his own expense?” he said. “I believe a soldier should be afforded the opportunity to a second opinion via teleconference with a civilian mental health care provider of their own choice.”
Jason Scheuerman shot himself with a rifle on July 30, 2005. The 20-year-old’s suicide note was nailed to the close in his barracks. It said, “Maybe now I can get some peace.”
Investigative journalist Jason Leopold is the author of the bestselling memoir, News Junkie. Visit http://www.newsjunkiebook.com/ for a preview.
--submitted by Lois Vanderbur
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