Cilla McCain has written a new article: Raising Awareness for Brain Injured Veterans, Our Forgotten Warriors Are Marching to Obama
Click on the title to read the article.
Showing posts with label Disabled Veterans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Disabled Veterans. Show all posts
Monday, November 08, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
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.”
Friday, December 07, 2007
The Case of Lt. Whiteside
The Washington Post:
When it comes to the psychological wounds a war inflicts, the Army still doesn't get it.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
ARMY OFFICIALS are distressed that personal details about the health of 1st Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside have been made public. We bet: They look ridiculous in their cruel pursuit of legal charges against a woman injured in service to her country. This is not an isolated case of insensitivity. The abuse of Lt. Whiteside raises questions about how far the military has really come in its treatment of mental health problems.
Lt. Whiteside faces a possible court-martial on charges that she attempted suicide in Iraq. As reported by The Post's Dana Priest and Anne Hull, the 25-year-old Army reservist had a stellar record of service but had a breakdown, possibly caused by her service in war-torn Baghdad.
After a series of stressful incidents, she shot herself in the stomach. Despite the unequivocal judgment of psychiatrists that she suffers from significant mental illness, her commanders pressed criminal charges against her, and she's now waiting to hear whether the Army will court-martial her.
The Army contends that it couldn't look the other way, because serious allegations of kidnapping and aggravated assault are also involved. Yet, for all its sanctimonious talk, the Army was prepared to do just that -- as long as Lt. Whiteside was willing to quietly leave the service in a deal her lawyer says would have deprived her of benefits, including all-important health care. No final decision has been made on whether she will face a court-martial, which could lead to a possible life sentence. Maj. Gen. Richard J. Rowe Jr. will soon receive the results of an investigation. We hope he'll bring common sense and decency to bear on this sad tale and allow Lt. Whiteside to continue her recovery. That the case got as far as it did is a troubling indication of a culture in the military that gives little credence to psychiatric ills. How else to explain the fact that the relatives of a service member who loses a leg are provided free lodging and a per diem to help in the recovery while relatives of a service member receiving outpatient psychiatric care have to fend for themselves? There is no question that the Army has launched a number of worthy initiatives to help veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental ailments. Still, the trend of disparate treatment continues; as Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) observed, too many soldiers believe they are better off losing a limb than suffering a mental disorder.
It was reassuring to hear retired Lt. Gen. James B. Peake, President Bush's nominee to be secretary of veterans affairs, tell the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs at his confirmation hearing yesterday that treating veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder is "a very high priority." As the country grapples with how to treat its "invisible wounded," it is important that there be a command structure that actually listens to doctors and that doesn't send the message that those in need of help will be punished.
When it comes to the psychological wounds a war inflicts, the Army still doesn't get it.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
ARMY OFFICIALS are distressed that personal details about the health of 1st Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside have been made public. We bet: They look ridiculous in their cruel pursuit of legal charges against a woman injured in service to her country. This is not an isolated case of insensitivity. The abuse of Lt. Whiteside raises questions about how far the military has really come in its treatment of mental health problems.
Lt. Whiteside faces a possible court-martial on charges that she attempted suicide in Iraq. As reported by The Post's Dana Priest and Anne Hull, the 25-year-old Army reservist had a stellar record of service but had a breakdown, possibly caused by her service in war-torn Baghdad.
After a series of stressful incidents, she shot herself in the stomach. Despite the unequivocal judgment of psychiatrists that she suffers from significant mental illness, her commanders pressed criminal charges against her, and she's now waiting to hear whether the Army will court-martial her.
The Army contends that it couldn't look the other way, because serious allegations of kidnapping and aggravated assault are also involved. Yet, for all its sanctimonious talk, the Army was prepared to do just that -- as long as Lt. Whiteside was willing to quietly leave the service in a deal her lawyer says would have deprived her of benefits, including all-important health care. No final decision has been made on whether she will face a court-martial, which could lead to a possible life sentence. Maj. Gen. Richard J. Rowe Jr. will soon receive the results of an investigation. We hope he'll bring common sense and decency to bear on this sad tale and allow Lt. Whiteside to continue her recovery. That the case got as far as it did is a troubling indication of a culture in the military that gives little credence to psychiatric ills. How else to explain the fact that the relatives of a service member who loses a leg are provided free lodging and a per diem to help in the recovery while relatives of a service member receiving outpatient psychiatric care have to fend for themselves? There is no question that the Army has launched a number of worthy initiatives to help veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental ailments. Still, the trend of disparate treatment continues; as Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) observed, too many soldiers believe they are better off losing a limb than suffering a mental disorder.
It was reassuring to hear retired Lt. Gen. James B. Peake, President Bush's nominee to be secretary of veterans affairs, tell the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs at his confirmation hearing yesterday that treating veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder is "a very high priority." As the country grapples with how to treat its "invisible wounded," it is important that there be a command structure that actually listens to doctors and that doesn't send the message that those in need of help will be punished.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Iraq, Afghan Vets at Risk for Suicides
By Kimberly Hefling
The Associated Press
Wednesday 31 October 2007
Washington - Mary Gallagher did not get a knock at the door from a military chaplain with news of her Marine husband's death in a faraway place. Instead, the Iraq war veteran committed suicide eight months after returning home.
She is left wondering why.
It's a question shared by hundreds of families of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who have taken their own lives in a homecoming suicide pattern of a magnitude that is just starting to emerge.
Preliminary Veterans Affairs Department research obtained by The Associated Press reveals for the first time that there were at least 283 suicides among veterans who left the military between the start of the war in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001 and the end of 2005.
The numbers, while not dramatically different from society as a whole, provide the first quantitative look at the toll on today's combat veterans and are reminiscent of the increased suicide risk among returning soldiers in the Vietnam era.
Today's homefront suicide tally is running at least double the number of troop suicides in the war zones as thousands of men and women return with disabling injuries and mental health disorders that put them at higher risk.
A total of 147 troops have killed themselves in Iraq and Afghanistan since the start of the wars, according to the Defense Manpower Data Center, which tracks casualties for the Pentagon.
Add the number of returning veterans and the finding is that at least 430 of the 1.5 million troops who have fought in the two wars have killed themselves over the past six years. And that doesn't include people like Gallagher's husband who committed suicide after their combat tours and while still in the military - a number the Pentagon says it doesn't track.
That compares with at least 4,227 U.S. military deaths overall since the wars started - 3,840 in Iraq and 387 in and around Afghanistan.
In response, the VA is ramping up suicide prevention programs.
Research suggests that combat trauma increases the risk of suicide, according to the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Difficulty dealing with failed relationships, financial and legal troubles, and substance abuse also are risk factors among troops, said Cynthia O. Smith, a Pentagon spokeswoman.
Families see the effects first hand.
"None of them come back without being touched a little," said Gallagher, a mother of three whose husband, Marine Gunnery Sgt. James Gallagher, took his own life in 2006 inside their home at Camp Pendleton, Calif.
He was proud of his Iraq service, but she wonders whether he was bothered by the death of his captain in Iraq or an incident in which he helped rescue a soldier who was in a fire and later died. Shortly before his death, her husband was distraught over an assignment change he saw as an insult, she said.
"His death contradicts the very person he was. It's very confusing and difficult to understand," said Gallagher of Lynbrook, N.Y.
The family of another Iraq veteran who committed suicide, Jeffrey Lucey, 23, of Belchertown, Mass., filed suit against the former VA secretary, alleging that bad care at the VA was to blame.
And the family of Joshua Omvig, a 22-year-old Iraq war veteran from Davenport, Iowa, who also committed suicide, successfully pushed Congress to pass a bill that President Bush is expected to sign that requires the VA to improve suicide prevention care.
Suicides in Iraq have occurred since the early days of the war, but awareness was heightened when the Army said its suicide rate in 2006 rose to 17.3 per 100,000 troops - the highest in 26 years of record-keeping.
That compares with 9.3 per 100,000 for all military services combined in 2006 and 11.1 per 100,000 for the general U.S. population in 2004, the latest year statistics were available. The Army has said the civilian rate for the same age and gender mix as in the Army is 19 to 20 per 100,000 people.
Just looking at the VA's early numbers, Dr. Ira Katz, the VA's deputy chief patient care service officer for mental health, said there does not appear to be an epidemic of suicides among those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan who left the military.
Katz said post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and problem drinking increase a person's suicide risk by two or three times, but the rate of suicide among those with those conditions "is still very, very low."
Katz acknowledged, however, that it is too early to know the long-term ramifications for those who served in the wars and said the VA "is very intensely involved in increasing suicide prevention."
"We're not doing it because there's an epidemic in returning veterans, though each death of a returning veteran is a tragedy and it's important to prevent it," Katz said.
The VA and Defense Department have hired more counselors and made other improvements in mental health care, including creation of a veterans suicide prevention hotline.
At the VA's national suicide hotline center based in Canandaigua, N.Y., counselors have taken more than 9,000 calls since July. Some callers are just looking for someone to talk to. Others are concerned family members. Callers who choose to give their names can opt to be met at a local VA center by a suicide prevention counselor; more than 120 callers have been rescued by emergency personnel - some after swallowing pills or with a gun nearby, according to the center.
"It's sad, but I think in the other way it's very exciting because already we've seen really sort of people being able to change their lives around because of the access to resources they've been able to get," said Jan Kemp, who oversees the call center.
Penny Coleman, whose ex-husband committed suicide after returning from Vietnam, said she doesn't buy what she calls the "we didn't expect this" mentality about suicide.
"If you'd chosen to pay attention after Vietnam you would have and should have anticipated it would happen again," said Coleman, who published a book on the subject last year.
One government study of Army veterans from Vietnam found they were more likely to die from suicide than other veterans in the first five years after leaving the military, although the study found that the likelihood dissipated over time. There is still heated debate, however, over the total number of suicides by Vietnam veterans; the extent to which it continues even today is unknown.
One major hurdle in stopping suicide is getting people to ask for help. From 20 percent to 50 percent of active duty troops and reservists who returned from war reported psychological problems, relationship problems, depression and symptoms of stress reactions, but most report that they have not sought help, according to a report from a military mental health task force.
"It's only when it becomes painful will someone seek counseling," said Chris Ayres, manager of the combat stress recovery program at the Wounded Warrior Project, a private veterans' assistance group based in Jacksonville, Fla. "That's usually how it happens. Nobody just walks in, because it's the hardest thing for a male, a Marine, a type-A personality figure to just go in there and say, 'Hey, I need some help.'"
While not suicidal, Ayres, 37, a former Marine captain from the Houston area who had the back of his right leg blown off in Iraq, has experienced episodes related to his post-traumatic stress disorder and said he worried about being stigmatized if he got help.
He's since learned to manage through counseling, and he's encouraging other veterans to get help.
Ayres is among 28,000 Americans injured in the war, more than 3,000 seriously.
In a study published earlier this year, researchers at Portland State University found that veterans were twice as likely to commit suicide as male nonveterans. High gun ownership rates, along with debilitating injuries and mental health disorders, were all risk factors that seemed to put the veterans at greater risk, said Mark Kaplan, one of the researchers.
While veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan were not included in the study, Kaplan said that given the nature of the injuries of the recent wars and the strain of long and repeated deployments, the newer generation of veterans could be at risk for suicide.
Kaplan said primary care physicians should ask patients whether they are veterans, and if the answer is yes, inquire about their mental health.
"This is war unlike other wars and we don't know the long-term implications and the hidden injuries of war," Kaplan said.
Dr. Dan Blazer, a professor of psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center who served this year on the military's mental health task force, said improvements in care will likely help some veterans, but he's concerned about this generation. He said he treats World War II veterans still struggling mentally with their military experience.
"There's still going to be individuals that just totally slip through all of these safety nets that we construct to try to help things in the aftermath," Blazer said.
Suicide, Blazer said, "is a cost of war. It's a big one."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the Net: Veterans Affairs Department: http://www.va.gov/
Suicide Prevention Network USA: http://www.spanusa.org/
Wounded Warrior Project: http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/
The toll free Veterans Affairs Department suicide hotline number is 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
--submitted by Patti Woodard
The Associated Press
Wednesday 31 October 2007
Washington - Mary Gallagher did not get a knock at the door from a military chaplain with news of her Marine husband's death in a faraway place. Instead, the Iraq war veteran committed suicide eight months after returning home.
She is left wondering why.
It's a question shared by hundreds of families of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who have taken their own lives in a homecoming suicide pattern of a magnitude that is just starting to emerge.
Preliminary Veterans Affairs Department research obtained by The Associated Press reveals for the first time that there were at least 283 suicides among veterans who left the military between the start of the war in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001 and the end of 2005.
The numbers, while not dramatically different from society as a whole, provide the first quantitative look at the toll on today's combat veterans and are reminiscent of the increased suicide risk among returning soldiers in the Vietnam era.
Today's homefront suicide tally is running at least double the number of troop suicides in the war zones as thousands of men and women return with disabling injuries and mental health disorders that put them at higher risk.
A total of 147 troops have killed themselves in Iraq and Afghanistan since the start of the wars, according to the Defense Manpower Data Center, which tracks casualties for the Pentagon.
Add the number of returning veterans and the finding is that at least 430 of the 1.5 million troops who have fought in the two wars have killed themselves over the past six years. And that doesn't include people like Gallagher's husband who committed suicide after their combat tours and while still in the military - a number the Pentagon says it doesn't track.
That compares with at least 4,227 U.S. military deaths overall since the wars started - 3,840 in Iraq and 387 in and around Afghanistan.
In response, the VA is ramping up suicide prevention programs.
Research suggests that combat trauma increases the risk of suicide, according to the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Difficulty dealing with failed relationships, financial and legal troubles, and substance abuse also are risk factors among troops, said Cynthia O. Smith, a Pentagon spokeswoman.
Families see the effects first hand.
"None of them come back without being touched a little," said Gallagher, a mother of three whose husband, Marine Gunnery Sgt. James Gallagher, took his own life in 2006 inside their home at Camp Pendleton, Calif.
He was proud of his Iraq service, but she wonders whether he was bothered by the death of his captain in Iraq or an incident in which he helped rescue a soldier who was in a fire and later died. Shortly before his death, her husband was distraught over an assignment change he saw as an insult, she said.
"His death contradicts the very person he was. It's very confusing and difficult to understand," said Gallagher of Lynbrook, N.Y.
The family of another Iraq veteran who committed suicide, Jeffrey Lucey, 23, of Belchertown, Mass., filed suit against the former VA secretary, alleging that bad care at the VA was to blame.
And the family of Joshua Omvig, a 22-year-old Iraq war veteran from Davenport, Iowa, who also committed suicide, successfully pushed Congress to pass a bill that President Bush is expected to sign that requires the VA to improve suicide prevention care.
Suicides in Iraq have occurred since the early days of the war, but awareness was heightened when the Army said its suicide rate in 2006 rose to 17.3 per 100,000 troops - the highest in 26 years of record-keeping.
That compares with 9.3 per 100,000 for all military services combined in 2006 and 11.1 per 100,000 for the general U.S. population in 2004, the latest year statistics were available. The Army has said the civilian rate for the same age and gender mix as in the Army is 19 to 20 per 100,000 people.
Just looking at the VA's early numbers, Dr. Ira Katz, the VA's deputy chief patient care service officer for mental health, said there does not appear to be an epidemic of suicides among those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan who left the military.
Katz said post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and problem drinking increase a person's suicide risk by two or three times, but the rate of suicide among those with those conditions "is still very, very low."
Katz acknowledged, however, that it is too early to know the long-term ramifications for those who served in the wars and said the VA "is very intensely involved in increasing suicide prevention."
"We're not doing it because there's an epidemic in returning veterans, though each death of a returning veteran is a tragedy and it's important to prevent it," Katz said.
The VA and Defense Department have hired more counselors and made other improvements in mental health care, including creation of a veterans suicide prevention hotline.
At the VA's national suicide hotline center based in Canandaigua, N.Y., counselors have taken more than 9,000 calls since July. Some callers are just looking for someone to talk to. Others are concerned family members. Callers who choose to give their names can opt to be met at a local VA center by a suicide prevention counselor; more than 120 callers have been rescued by emergency personnel - some after swallowing pills or with a gun nearby, according to the center.
"It's sad, but I think in the other way it's very exciting because already we've seen really sort of people being able to change their lives around because of the access to resources they've been able to get," said Jan Kemp, who oversees the call center.
Penny Coleman, whose ex-husband committed suicide after returning from Vietnam, said she doesn't buy what she calls the "we didn't expect this" mentality about suicide.
"If you'd chosen to pay attention after Vietnam you would have and should have anticipated it would happen again," said Coleman, who published a book on the subject last year.
One government study of Army veterans from Vietnam found they were more likely to die from suicide than other veterans in the first five years after leaving the military, although the study found that the likelihood dissipated over time. There is still heated debate, however, over the total number of suicides by Vietnam veterans; the extent to which it continues even today is unknown.
One major hurdle in stopping suicide is getting people to ask for help. From 20 percent to 50 percent of active duty troops and reservists who returned from war reported psychological problems, relationship problems, depression and symptoms of stress reactions, but most report that they have not sought help, according to a report from a military mental health task force.
"It's only when it becomes painful will someone seek counseling," said Chris Ayres, manager of the combat stress recovery program at the Wounded Warrior Project, a private veterans' assistance group based in Jacksonville, Fla. "That's usually how it happens. Nobody just walks in, because it's the hardest thing for a male, a Marine, a type-A personality figure to just go in there and say, 'Hey, I need some help.'"
While not suicidal, Ayres, 37, a former Marine captain from the Houston area who had the back of his right leg blown off in Iraq, has experienced episodes related to his post-traumatic stress disorder and said he worried about being stigmatized if he got help.
He's since learned to manage through counseling, and he's encouraging other veterans to get help.
Ayres is among 28,000 Americans injured in the war, more than 3,000 seriously.
In a study published earlier this year, researchers at Portland State University found that veterans were twice as likely to commit suicide as male nonveterans. High gun ownership rates, along with debilitating injuries and mental health disorders, were all risk factors that seemed to put the veterans at greater risk, said Mark Kaplan, one of the researchers.
While veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan were not included in the study, Kaplan said that given the nature of the injuries of the recent wars and the strain of long and repeated deployments, the newer generation of veterans could be at risk for suicide.
Kaplan said primary care physicians should ask patients whether they are veterans, and if the answer is yes, inquire about their mental health.
"This is war unlike other wars and we don't know the long-term implications and the hidden injuries of war," Kaplan said.
Dr. Dan Blazer, a professor of psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center who served this year on the military's mental health task force, said improvements in care will likely help some veterans, but he's concerned about this generation. He said he treats World War II veterans still struggling mentally with their military experience.
"There's still going to be individuals that just totally slip through all of these safety nets that we construct to try to help things in the aftermath," Blazer said.
Suicide, Blazer said, "is a cost of war. It's a big one."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the Net: Veterans Affairs Department: http://www.va.gov/
Suicide Prevention Network USA: http://www.spanusa.org/
Wounded Warrior Project: http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/
The toll free Veterans Affairs Department suicide hotline number is 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
--submitted by Patti Woodard
Friday, March 09, 2007
Independent Review Group Announces Public Meeting
March 09, 2007
Independent Review Group Announces Public Meeting
The Independent Review Group (IRG) recently established by the Secretary of Defense to identify shortfalls in rehabilitative care and administrative processes at Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) and the National Naval Medical Center (NNMC), will sponsor public meetings next week at WRAMC on March 13, and at NNMC on March 14. Locations for these meetings are the Joel Auditorium in building 2 at WRAMC and the Clark Auditorium, building 10 at NNMC; both meetings will begin at 1:30 p.m. and end at 3:00 p.m. Members of the IRG will be available to speak with the media at the conclusion of meetings both days.
Details regarding how patients and family members may offer comments appear on the IRG website, www.ha.osd.mil/dhb/irg. Patients and family members may provide their experiences and insights via the Internet and may do so anonymously if they choose.
The IRG has arranged an IRG Hotline that can be accessed by dialing, 1-866-268-2285. Comments submitted via telephone also may be anonymous. IRG members or staff will not be on the line when patients provide comments, however, comments will be recorded and reviewed by the IRG staff throughout the day. These two sources for providing information to the IRG will continue in operation for the duration of the IRG, April 16, 2007.
Media interested in attending the public meetings at WRAMC should email, http://www.defenselink.mil/advisories/mailto:WRAMCpublicaffairs@amedd.army.mil, and phone, (202) 782-8474. Media interested in attending the public meeting at NNMC should phone, (301) 295-5727. There will be a media opportunity following the public meetings. Vehicle make and model, license plate number, and photo identification will be required when entering the installation.
Independent Review Group Announces Public Meeting
The Independent Review Group (IRG) recently established by the Secretary of Defense to identify shortfalls in rehabilitative care and administrative processes at Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) and the National Naval Medical Center (NNMC), will sponsor public meetings next week at WRAMC on March 13, and at NNMC on March 14. Locations for these meetings are the Joel Auditorium in building 2 at WRAMC and the Clark Auditorium, building 10 at NNMC; both meetings will begin at 1:30 p.m. and end at 3:00 p.m. Members of the IRG will be available to speak with the media at the conclusion of meetings both days.
Details regarding how patients and family members may offer comments appear on the IRG website, www.ha.osd.mil/dhb/irg. Patients and family members may provide their experiences and insights via the Internet and may do so anonymously if they choose.
The IRG has arranged an IRG Hotline that can be accessed by dialing, 1-866-268-2285. Comments submitted via telephone also may be anonymous. IRG members or staff will not be on the line when patients provide comments, however, comments will be recorded and reviewed by the IRG staff throughout the day. These two sources for providing information to the IRG will continue in operation for the duration of the IRG, April 16, 2007.
Media interested in attending the public meetings at WRAMC should email, http://www.defenselink.mil/advisories/mailto:WRAMCpublicaffairs@amedd.army.mil, and phone, (202) 782-8474. Media interested in attending the public meeting at NNMC should phone, (301) 295-5727. There will be a media opportunity following the public meetings. Vehicle make and model, license plate number, and photo identification will be required when entering the installation.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Walter Reed Debacle
The "outrage" over conditions at Walter Reed isn't ringing true for me. Of course, Army officials knew about the way veterans are being treated within the system. Salon published an article a year ago, but it didn't have the visibility of the most recent series. So, heads are rolling, numerous articles and interviews are being aired, but we all know that the attention span of the American public, and especially our politicians, is short. They'll get as much mileage out of their "outrage" as possible and then move on to other things.
The next perceived crisis or event or whatever will turn the public's attention elsewhere and the injustice will continue.
This is clear to all the families of victims of uninvestigated non-combat deaths. We get the limited attention of politicians, but nothing is ever done to right the wrongs. Even major articles about the problem of uninvestigated non-combat deaths, as poignant and fact-filled as they are, have had only limited effect on reform of the military.
Military personnel are used, abused, and thrown to the side of the street in America. Like trash. Once they are no longer useful, they are forgotten.
Paul Krugman, in today's New York Times, wrote an editorial called, "Valor and Squalor" about the Walter Reed debacle. It is a "Times Select" article, so I will not paste it in its entirety. Here is an excerpt:
The redoubtable Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight
and Government Reform, points out that IAP Worldwide Services, a company run by
two former Halliburton executives, received a large contract to run Walter Reed
under suspicious circumstances: the Army reversed the results of an audit
concluding that government employees could do the job more cheaply.
And Mr. Waxman, who will be holding a hearing on the issue today, appears to have solid
evidence, including an internal Walter Reed memo from last year, that the
prospect of privatization led to a FEMA-type exodus of skilled personnel.
The next perceived crisis or event or whatever will turn the public's attention elsewhere and the injustice will continue.
This is clear to all the families of victims of uninvestigated non-combat deaths. We get the limited attention of politicians, but nothing is ever done to right the wrongs. Even major articles about the problem of uninvestigated non-combat deaths, as poignant and fact-filled as they are, have had only limited effect on reform of the military.
Military personnel are used, abused, and thrown to the side of the street in America. Like trash. Once they are no longer useful, they are forgotten.
Paul Krugman, in today's New York Times, wrote an editorial called, "Valor and Squalor" about the Walter Reed debacle. It is a "Times Select" article, so I will not paste it in its entirety. Here is an excerpt:
The redoubtable Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight
and Government Reform, points out that IAP Worldwide Services, a company run by
two former Halliburton executives, received a large contract to run Walter Reed
under suspicious circumstances: the Army reversed the results of an audit
concluding that government employees could do the job more cheaply.
And Mr. Waxman, who will be holding a hearing on the issue today, appears to have solid
evidence, including an internal Walter Reed memo from last year, that the
prospect of privatization led to a FEMA-type exodus of skilled personnel.
You may be able to pick up a paper copy of the NY Times if you don't subscribe online. I am planning to listen as much as I can to today's hearings.
--submitted by Braveheart
Thursday, March 01, 2007
More on Walter Reed from The Army Times
Walter Reed patients told to keep quiet
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Feb 28, 2007 20:26:13 EST
Soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Medical Hold Unit say they have been told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 a.m., and that they must not speak to the media.
“Some soldiers believe this is a form of punishment for the trouble soldiers caused by talking to the media,” one Medical Hold Unit soldier said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
It is unusual for soldiers to have daily inspections after Basic Training.
Soldiers say their sergeant major gathered troops at 6 p.m. Monday to tell them they must follow their chain of command when asking for help with their medical evaluation paperwork, or when they spot mold, mice or other problems in their quarters.
They were also told they would be moving out of Building 18 to Building 14 within the next couple of weeks. Building 14 is a barracks that houses the administrative offices for the Medical Hold Unit and was renovated in 2006. It’s also located on the Walter Reed Campus, where reporters must be escorted by public affairs personnel. Building 18 is located just off campus and is easy to access.
The soldiers said they were also told their first sergeant has been relieved of duty, and that all of their platoon sergeants have been moved to other positions at Walter Reed. And 120 permanent-duty soldiers are expected to arrive by mid-March to take control of the Medical Hold Unit, the soldiers said.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Army public affairs did not respond to a request sent Sunday evening to verify the personnel changes.
The Pentagon also clamped down on media coverage of any and all Defense Department medical facilities, to include suspending planned projects by CNN and the Discovery Channel, saying in an e-mail to spokespeople: “It will be in most cases not appropriate to engage the media while this review takes place,” referring to an investigation of the problems at Walter Reed.
-- submitted by Patti Woodard
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Feb 28, 2007 20:26:13 EST
Soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Medical Hold Unit say they have been told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 a.m., and that they must not speak to the media.
“Some soldiers believe this is a form of punishment for the trouble soldiers caused by talking to the media,” one Medical Hold Unit soldier said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
It is unusual for soldiers to have daily inspections after Basic Training.
Soldiers say their sergeant major gathered troops at 6 p.m. Monday to tell them they must follow their chain of command when asking for help with their medical evaluation paperwork, or when they spot mold, mice or other problems in their quarters.
They were also told they would be moving out of Building 18 to Building 14 within the next couple of weeks. Building 14 is a barracks that houses the administrative offices for the Medical Hold Unit and was renovated in 2006. It’s also located on the Walter Reed Campus, where reporters must be escorted by public affairs personnel. Building 18 is located just off campus and is easy to access.
The soldiers said they were also told their first sergeant has been relieved of duty, and that all of their platoon sergeants have been moved to other positions at Walter Reed. And 120 permanent-duty soldiers are expected to arrive by mid-March to take control of the Medical Hold Unit, the soldiers said.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Army public affairs did not respond to a request sent Sunday evening to verify the personnel changes.
The Pentagon also clamped down on media coverage of any and all Defense Department medical facilities, to include suspending planned projects by CNN and the Discovery Channel, saying in an e-mail to spokespeople: “It will be in most cases not appropriate to engage the media while this review takes place,” referring to an investigation of the problems at Walter Reed.
-- submitted by Patti Woodard
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Links to More on Mistreatment of US Soldiers
http://www.attytood.com/2007/02/its_not_just_walter_reed_what.html
http://www.courant.com/news/specials/hc-mental1a.artmay14,0,3927998,print.story
http://www.courant.com/news/specials/hc-mental1a.artmay14,0,3927998,print.story
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-factorvii,0,1209631.storygallery
--Submitted by Patti Woodard
http://www.courant.com/news/specials/hc-mental1a.artmay14,0,3927998,print.story
http://www.courant.com/news/specials/hc-mental1a.artmay14,0,3927998,print.story
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-factorvii,0,1209631.storygallery
--Submitted by Patti Woodard
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
DOD Announcement, February 20, 2007
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
No. 198-07February 20, 2007
Department to Review Military Medical Rehabilitative and Administrative Care
The Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of the Navy have begun a review of the medical care provided at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Naval Medical Center to those wounded in service to their country. To complement these efforts an independent review group will be formed to look into outpatient care and administrative processes at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Naval Medical Center.
The group shall promptly conduct its work and report its findings and provide recommendations to the Secretaries of the Army and Navy and the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs.
"The quality of medical and rehabilitative care for all service members at our DoD facilities is second to none," said Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. "We are committed to improving the clinical and administrative processes, including improving temporary living conditions for our service members and their families."
The group will have unrestricted access to all facilities and personnel and will be provided appropriate assistance and administrative support to conduct this review.
The group shall also have a special advisor not serving as a member of the group, who can provide special advice and expertise in the area of social work, rehabilitation, psychological counseling and family support issues.
No. 198-07February 20, 2007
Department to Review Military Medical Rehabilitative and Administrative Care
The Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of the Navy have begun a review of the medical care provided at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Naval Medical Center to those wounded in service to their country. To complement these efforts an independent review group will be formed to look into outpatient care and administrative processes at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Naval Medical Center.
The group shall promptly conduct its work and report its findings and provide recommendations to the Secretaries of the Army and Navy and the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs.
"The quality of medical and rehabilitative care for all service members at our DoD facilities is second to none," said Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. "We are committed to improving the clinical and administrative processes, including improving temporary living conditions for our service members and their families."
The group will have unrestricted access to all facilities and personnel and will be provided appropriate assistance and administrative support to conduct this review.
The group shall also have a special advisor not serving as a member of the group, who can provide special advice and expertise in the area of social work, rehabilitation, psychological counseling and family support issues.
Monday, February 19, 2007
The Other Walter Reed
Click on the title above to read this heartbreaking article in the Washington Post.
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