March 09, 2007
I am Sullied-No More
Faced with the Iraq war's corruption, Col. Ted Westhusing chose death before dishonor.
--submitted by Patti Woodard
Monday, March 26, 2007
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
The Army is Ordering Injured Troops to go to Iraq
This mostly talks about physical injuries, but we know (as one mentioned) there are many with psychiatric issues going back too. This is an investigative piece naming names.
The Army is ordering injured troops to go to Iraq
At Fort Benning, soldiers who were classified as medically unfit to fight are now being sent to war. Is this an isolated incident or a trend?
By Mark Benjamin
Mar. 11, 2007
"This is not right," said Master Sgt. Ronald Jenkins, who has been ordered to Iraq even though he has a spine problem that doctors say would be damaged further by heavy Army protective gear. "This whole thing is about taking care of soldiers," he said angrily. "If you are fit to fight you are fit to fight. If you are not fit to fight, then you are not fit to fight."
As the military scrambles to pour more soldiers into Iraq, a unit of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Ga., is deploying troops with serious injuries and other medical problems, including GIs who doctors have said are medically unfit for battle. Some are too injured to wear their body armor, according to medical records.
On Feb. 15, Master Sgt. Jenkins and 74 other soldiers with medical conditions from the 3rd Division's 3rd Brigade were summoned to a meeting with the division surgeon and brigade surgeon. These are the men responsible for handling each soldier's "physical profile," an Army document that lists for commanders an injured soldier's physical limitations because of medical problems -- from being unable to fire a weapon to the inability to move and dive in three-to-five-second increments to avoid enemy fire. Jenkins and other soldiers claim that the division and brigade surgeons summarily downgraded soldiers' profiles, without even a medical exam, in order to deploy them to Iraq. It is a claim division officials deny.
The 3,900-strong 3rd Brigade is now leaving for Iraq for a third time in a steady stream. In fact, some of the troops with medical conditions interviewed by Salon last week are already gone. Others are slated to fly out within a week, but are fighting against their chain of command, holding out hope that because of their ills they will ultimately not be forced to go. Jenkins, who is still in Georgia, thinks doctors are helping to send hurt soldiers like him to Iraq to make units going there appear to be at full strength. "This is about the numbers," he said flatly.
That is what worries Steve Robinson, director of veterans affairs at Veterans for America, who has long been concerned that the military was pressing injured troops into Iraq. "Did they send anybody down range that cannot wear a helmet, that cannot wear body armor?" Robinson asked rhetorically. "Well that is wrong. It is a war zone." Robinson thinks that the possibility that physical profiles may have been altered improperly has the makings of a scandal. "My concerns are that this needs serious investigation. You cannot just look at somebody and tell that they were fit," he said. "It smacks of an overstretched military that is in crisis mode to get people onto the battlefield."
Eight soldiers who were at the Feb. 15 meeting say they were summoned to the troop medical clinic at 6:30 in the morning and lined up to meet with division surgeon Lt. Col. George Appenzeller, who had arrived from Fort Stewart, Ga., and Capt. Aaron K. Starbuck, brigade surgeon at Fort Benning. The soldiers described having a cursory discussion of their profiles, with no physical exam or extensive review of medical files. They say Appenzeller and Starbuck seemed focused on downplaying their physical problems. "This guy was changing people's profiles left and right," said a captain who injured his back during his last tour in Iraq and was ordered to Iraq after the Feb. 15 review.
Appenzeller said the review of 75 soldiers with profiles was an effort to make sure they were as accurate as possible prior to deployment. "As the division surgeon and the senior medical officer in the division, I wanted to ensure that all the patients with profiles were fully evaluated with clear limitations that commanders could use to make the decision whether they could deploy, and if they did deploy, what their limitations would be while there," he said in a telephone interview from Fort Stewart. He said he changed less than one-third of those profiles -- even making some more restrictive -- in order to "bring them into accordance with regulations."
In direct contradiction to the account given by the soldiers, Appenzeller said physical examinations were conducted and that he had a robust medical team there working with him, which is how they managed to complete 75 reviews in one day. Appenzeller denied that the plan was to find more warm bodies for the surge into Baghdad, as did Col. Wayne W. Grigsby Jr., the brigade commander. Grigsby said he is under "no pressure" to find soldiers, regardless of health, to make his unit look fit. The health and welfare of his soldiers are a top priority, said Grigsby, because [the soldiers] are "our most important resource, perhaps the most important resource we have in this country."
Grigsby said he does not know how many injured soldiers are in his ranks. But he insisted that it is not unusual to deploy troops with physical limitations so long as he can place them in safe jobs when they get there. "They can be productive and safe in Iraq," Grigsby said.
The injured soldiers interviewed by Salon, however, expressed considerable worry about going to Iraq with physical deficits because it could endanger them or their fellow soldiers. Some were injured on previous combat tours. Some of their ills are painful conditions from training accidents or, among relatively older troops, degenerative problems like back injuries or blown-out knees. Some of the soldiers have been in the Army for decades.
And while Grigsby, the brigade commander, says he is under no pressure to find troops, it is hard to imagine there is not some desperation behind the decision to deploy some of the sick soldiers. Master Sgt. Jenkins, 42, has a degenerative spine problem and a long scar down the back of his neck where three of his vertebrae were fused during surgery. He takes a cornucopia of potent pain pills. His medical records say he is "at significantly increased risk of re-injury during deployment where he will be wearing Kevlar, body armor and traveling through rough terrain." Late last year, those medical records show, a doctor recommended that Jenkins be referred to an Army board that handles retirements when injuries are permanent and severe.
A copy of Jenkins' profile written after that Feb. 15 meeting and signed by Capt. Starbuck, the brigade surgeon, shows a healthier soldier than the profile of Jenkins written by another doctor just late last year, though Jenkins says his condition is unchanged. Other soldiers' documents show the same pattern.
One female soldier with psychiatric issues and a spine problem has been in the Army for nearly 20 years. "My [health] is deteriorating," she said over dinner at a restaurant near Fort Benning. "My spine is separating. I can't carry gear." Her medical records include the note "unable to deploy overseas." Her status was also reviewed on Feb. 15. And she has been ordered to Iraq this week.
The captain interviewed by Salon also requested anonymity because he fears retribution. He suffered a back injury during a previous deployment to Iraq as an infantry platoon leader. A Humvee accident "corkscrewed my spine," he explained. Like the female soldier, he is unable to wear his protective gear, and like her he too was ordered to Iraq after his meeting with the division surgeon and brigade surgeon on Feb. 15. He is still at Fort Benning and is fighting the decision to send him to Baghdad. "It is a numbers issue with this whole troop surge," he claimed. "They are just trying to get those numbers."
Another soldier contacted Salon by telephone last week expressed considerable anxiety, in a frightened tone, about deploying to Iraq in her current condition. (She also wanted to remain anonymous, fearing retribution.) An incident during training several years ago injured her back, forcing doctors to remove part of her fractured coccyx. She suffers from degenerative disk disease and has two ruptured disks and a bulging disk in her back. While she said she loves the Army and would like to deploy after back surgery, her current injuries would limit her ability to wear her full protective gear. She deployed to Iraq last week, the day after calling Salon.
Her husband, who has served three combat tours in the infantry in Afghanistan and Iraq, said he is worried sick because his wife's protective vest alone exceeds the maximum amount she is allowed to lift. "I have been over there three times. I know what it is like," he told me during lunch at a restaurant here. He predicted that by deploying people like his wife, the brigade leaders are "going to get somebody killed over there." He said there is "no way" Grigsby is going to keep all of the injured soldiers in safe jobs. "All of these people that deploy with these profiles, they are scared," he said. He railed at the command: "They are saying they don't care about your health. This is pathetic. It is bad."
His wife's physical profile was among those reevaluated on Feb. 15. A copy of her profile from late last year showed her health problems were so severe they "prevent deployment" and recommended she be medically retired from the Army. Her profile at that time showed she was unable to wear a protective mask and chemical defense equipment, and had limitations on doing pushups, walking, biking and swimming. It said she can only carry 15 pounds.
Though she says that her condition has not changed since then, almost all of those findings were reversed in a copy of her physical profile dated Feb. 15. The new profile says nothing about a medical retirement, but suggests that she limit wearing a helmet to "one hour at a time."
Spc. Lincoln Smith, meanwhile, developed sleep apnea after he returned from his first deployment to Iraq. The condition is so severe that he now suffers from narcolepsy because of a lack of sleep. He almost nodded off mid-conversation while talking to Salon as he sat in a T-shirt on a sofa in his girlfriend's apartment near Fort Benning.
Smith is trained by the Army to be a truck driver. But since he is in constant danger of falling asleep, military doctors have listed "No driving of military vehicles" on his physical profile. Smith was supposed to fly to Iraq March 9. But he told me on March 8 that he won't go. Nobody has retrained Smith to do anything else besides drive trucks. Plus, because of his condition he was unable to train properly with the unit when the brigade rehearsed for Iraq in January, so he does not feel ready.
Smith needs to sleep with a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine pumping air into his mouth and nose. "Otherwise," he says, "I could die." But based on his last tour, he is not convinced he will be able to be in places with constant electricity or will be able to fix or replace his CPAP machine should it fail.
He told me last week he would refuse to deploy to Iraq, unsure of what he will be asked to do there and afraid that he will not be taken care of. Since he won't be a truck driver, "I would be going basically as a number," says Smith, who is 32. "They don't have enough people," he says. But he is not going to be one of those numbers until they train him to do something else. "I'm going to go to the airport, and I'm going to tell them I'm not going to go. They are going to give me a weapon. I am going to say, 'It is not a good idea for you to give me a weapon right now.'"
The Pentagon was notified of the reclassification of the Fort Benning soldiers as soon as it happened, according to Master Sgt. Jenkins. He showed Salon an e-mail describing the situation that he says he sent to Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley. Jenkins agreed to speak to Salon because he hopes public attention will help other soldiers, particularly younger ones in a similar predicament. "I can't sit back and let this happen to me or other soldiers in my position." But he expects reprisals from the Army.
Other soldiers slated to leave for Iraq with injuries said they wonder whether the same thing is happening in other units in the Army. "You have to ask where else this might be happening and who is dictating it," one female soldier told me. "How high does it go?"
-- By Mark Benjamin
http://www.salon.com/news/2007/03/11/fort_benning/?source=rss
--Submitted by Kathie Costos
The Army is ordering injured troops to go to Iraq
At Fort Benning, soldiers who were classified as medically unfit to fight are now being sent to war. Is this an isolated incident or a trend?
By Mark Benjamin
Mar. 11, 2007
"This is not right," said Master Sgt. Ronald Jenkins, who has been ordered to Iraq even though he has a spine problem that doctors say would be damaged further by heavy Army protective gear. "This whole thing is about taking care of soldiers," he said angrily. "If you are fit to fight you are fit to fight. If you are not fit to fight, then you are not fit to fight."
As the military scrambles to pour more soldiers into Iraq, a unit of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Ga., is deploying troops with serious injuries and other medical problems, including GIs who doctors have said are medically unfit for battle. Some are too injured to wear their body armor, according to medical records.
On Feb. 15, Master Sgt. Jenkins and 74 other soldiers with medical conditions from the 3rd Division's 3rd Brigade were summoned to a meeting with the division surgeon and brigade surgeon. These are the men responsible for handling each soldier's "physical profile," an Army document that lists for commanders an injured soldier's physical limitations because of medical problems -- from being unable to fire a weapon to the inability to move and dive in three-to-five-second increments to avoid enemy fire. Jenkins and other soldiers claim that the division and brigade surgeons summarily downgraded soldiers' profiles, without even a medical exam, in order to deploy them to Iraq. It is a claim division officials deny.
The 3,900-strong 3rd Brigade is now leaving for Iraq for a third time in a steady stream. In fact, some of the troops with medical conditions interviewed by Salon last week are already gone. Others are slated to fly out within a week, but are fighting against their chain of command, holding out hope that because of their ills they will ultimately not be forced to go. Jenkins, who is still in Georgia, thinks doctors are helping to send hurt soldiers like him to Iraq to make units going there appear to be at full strength. "This is about the numbers," he said flatly.
That is what worries Steve Robinson, director of veterans affairs at Veterans for America, who has long been concerned that the military was pressing injured troops into Iraq. "Did they send anybody down range that cannot wear a helmet, that cannot wear body armor?" Robinson asked rhetorically. "Well that is wrong. It is a war zone." Robinson thinks that the possibility that physical profiles may have been altered improperly has the makings of a scandal. "My concerns are that this needs serious investigation. You cannot just look at somebody and tell that they were fit," he said. "It smacks of an overstretched military that is in crisis mode to get people onto the battlefield."
Eight soldiers who were at the Feb. 15 meeting say they were summoned to the troop medical clinic at 6:30 in the morning and lined up to meet with division surgeon Lt. Col. George Appenzeller, who had arrived from Fort Stewart, Ga., and Capt. Aaron K. Starbuck, brigade surgeon at Fort Benning. The soldiers described having a cursory discussion of their profiles, with no physical exam or extensive review of medical files. They say Appenzeller and Starbuck seemed focused on downplaying their physical problems. "This guy was changing people's profiles left and right," said a captain who injured his back during his last tour in Iraq and was ordered to Iraq after the Feb. 15 review.
Appenzeller said the review of 75 soldiers with profiles was an effort to make sure they were as accurate as possible prior to deployment. "As the division surgeon and the senior medical officer in the division, I wanted to ensure that all the patients with profiles were fully evaluated with clear limitations that commanders could use to make the decision whether they could deploy, and if they did deploy, what their limitations would be while there," he said in a telephone interview from Fort Stewart. He said he changed less than one-third of those profiles -- even making some more restrictive -- in order to "bring them into accordance with regulations."
In direct contradiction to the account given by the soldiers, Appenzeller said physical examinations were conducted and that he had a robust medical team there working with him, which is how they managed to complete 75 reviews in one day. Appenzeller denied that the plan was to find more warm bodies for the surge into Baghdad, as did Col. Wayne W. Grigsby Jr., the brigade commander. Grigsby said he is under "no pressure" to find soldiers, regardless of health, to make his unit look fit. The health and welfare of his soldiers are a top priority, said Grigsby, because [the soldiers] are "our most important resource, perhaps the most important resource we have in this country."
Grigsby said he does not know how many injured soldiers are in his ranks. But he insisted that it is not unusual to deploy troops with physical limitations so long as he can place them in safe jobs when they get there. "They can be productive and safe in Iraq," Grigsby said.
The injured soldiers interviewed by Salon, however, expressed considerable worry about going to Iraq with physical deficits because it could endanger them or their fellow soldiers. Some were injured on previous combat tours. Some of their ills are painful conditions from training accidents or, among relatively older troops, degenerative problems like back injuries or blown-out knees. Some of the soldiers have been in the Army for decades.
And while Grigsby, the brigade commander, says he is under no pressure to find troops, it is hard to imagine there is not some desperation behind the decision to deploy some of the sick soldiers. Master Sgt. Jenkins, 42, has a degenerative spine problem and a long scar down the back of his neck where three of his vertebrae were fused during surgery. He takes a cornucopia of potent pain pills. His medical records say he is "at significantly increased risk of re-injury during deployment where he will be wearing Kevlar, body armor and traveling through rough terrain." Late last year, those medical records show, a doctor recommended that Jenkins be referred to an Army board that handles retirements when injuries are permanent and severe.
A copy of Jenkins' profile written after that Feb. 15 meeting and signed by Capt. Starbuck, the brigade surgeon, shows a healthier soldier than the profile of Jenkins written by another doctor just late last year, though Jenkins says his condition is unchanged. Other soldiers' documents show the same pattern.
One female soldier with psychiatric issues and a spine problem has been in the Army for nearly 20 years. "My [health] is deteriorating," she said over dinner at a restaurant near Fort Benning. "My spine is separating. I can't carry gear." Her medical records include the note "unable to deploy overseas." Her status was also reviewed on Feb. 15. And she has been ordered to Iraq this week.
The captain interviewed by Salon also requested anonymity because he fears retribution. He suffered a back injury during a previous deployment to Iraq as an infantry platoon leader. A Humvee accident "corkscrewed my spine," he explained. Like the female soldier, he is unable to wear his protective gear, and like her he too was ordered to Iraq after his meeting with the division surgeon and brigade surgeon on Feb. 15. He is still at Fort Benning and is fighting the decision to send him to Baghdad. "It is a numbers issue with this whole troop surge," he claimed. "They are just trying to get those numbers."
Another soldier contacted Salon by telephone last week expressed considerable anxiety, in a frightened tone, about deploying to Iraq in her current condition. (She also wanted to remain anonymous, fearing retribution.) An incident during training several years ago injured her back, forcing doctors to remove part of her fractured coccyx. She suffers from degenerative disk disease and has two ruptured disks and a bulging disk in her back. While she said she loves the Army and would like to deploy after back surgery, her current injuries would limit her ability to wear her full protective gear. She deployed to Iraq last week, the day after calling Salon.
Her husband, who has served three combat tours in the infantry in Afghanistan and Iraq, said he is worried sick because his wife's protective vest alone exceeds the maximum amount she is allowed to lift. "I have been over there three times. I know what it is like," he told me during lunch at a restaurant here. He predicted that by deploying people like his wife, the brigade leaders are "going to get somebody killed over there." He said there is "no way" Grigsby is going to keep all of the injured soldiers in safe jobs. "All of these people that deploy with these profiles, they are scared," he said. He railed at the command: "They are saying they don't care about your health. This is pathetic. It is bad."
His wife's physical profile was among those reevaluated on Feb. 15. A copy of her profile from late last year showed her health problems were so severe they "prevent deployment" and recommended she be medically retired from the Army. Her profile at that time showed she was unable to wear a protective mask and chemical defense equipment, and had limitations on doing pushups, walking, biking and swimming. It said she can only carry 15 pounds.
Though she says that her condition has not changed since then, almost all of those findings were reversed in a copy of her physical profile dated Feb. 15. The new profile says nothing about a medical retirement, but suggests that she limit wearing a helmet to "one hour at a time."
Spc. Lincoln Smith, meanwhile, developed sleep apnea after he returned from his first deployment to Iraq. The condition is so severe that he now suffers from narcolepsy because of a lack of sleep. He almost nodded off mid-conversation while talking to Salon as he sat in a T-shirt on a sofa in his girlfriend's apartment near Fort Benning.
Smith is trained by the Army to be a truck driver. But since he is in constant danger of falling asleep, military doctors have listed "No driving of military vehicles" on his physical profile. Smith was supposed to fly to Iraq March 9. But he told me on March 8 that he won't go. Nobody has retrained Smith to do anything else besides drive trucks. Plus, because of his condition he was unable to train properly with the unit when the brigade rehearsed for Iraq in January, so he does not feel ready.
Smith needs to sleep with a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine pumping air into his mouth and nose. "Otherwise," he says, "I could die." But based on his last tour, he is not convinced he will be able to be in places with constant electricity or will be able to fix or replace his CPAP machine should it fail.
He told me last week he would refuse to deploy to Iraq, unsure of what he will be asked to do there and afraid that he will not be taken care of. Since he won't be a truck driver, "I would be going basically as a number," says Smith, who is 32. "They don't have enough people," he says. But he is not going to be one of those numbers until they train him to do something else. "I'm going to go to the airport, and I'm going to tell them I'm not going to go. They are going to give me a weapon. I am going to say, 'It is not a good idea for you to give me a weapon right now.'"
The Pentagon was notified of the reclassification of the Fort Benning soldiers as soon as it happened, according to Master Sgt. Jenkins. He showed Salon an e-mail describing the situation that he says he sent to Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley. Jenkins agreed to speak to Salon because he hopes public attention will help other soldiers, particularly younger ones in a similar predicament. "I can't sit back and let this happen to me or other soldiers in my position." But he expects reprisals from the Army.
Other soldiers slated to leave for Iraq with injuries said they wonder whether the same thing is happening in other units in the Army. "You have to ask where else this might be happening and who is dictating it," one female soldier told me. "How high does it go?"
-- By Mark Benjamin
http://www.salon.com/news/2007/03/11/fort_benning/?source=rss
--Submitted by Kathie Costos
From the New York Times
March 13, 2007
For U.S. Troops at War, Liquor Is Spur to Crime
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
In May 2004, Specialist Justin J. Lillis got drunk on what he called “hajji juice,” a clear Iraqi moonshine smuggled onto an Army base in Balad, Iraq, by civilian contractors, and began taking potshots with his M-16 service rifle.
“He shot up some contractor’s rental car,” said Phil Cave, a lawyer for Specialist Lillis, 24. “He hopped in a Humvee, drove around and shot up some more things. He shot into a housing area” and at soldiers guarding the base entrance.
Six months later, at an Army base near Baghdad, after a night of drinking an illegal stash of whiskey and gin, Specialist Chris Rolan of the Third Brigade, Third Infantry Division, pulled his 9mm service pistol on another soldier and shot him dead.
And in March 2006, in perhaps the most gruesome crime committed by American troops in Iraq, a group of 101st Airborne Division soldiers stationed in Mahmudiya raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and killed her and her family after drinking several cans of locally made whiskey supplied by Iraqi Army soldiers, military prosecutors said.
Alcohol, strictly forbidden by the American military in Iraq and Afghanistan, is involved in a growing number of crimes committed by troops deployed to those countries. Alcohol- and drug-related charges were involved in more than a third of all Army criminal prosecutions of soldiers in the two war zones — 240 of the 665 cases resulting in convictions, according to records obtained by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Seventy-three of those 240 cases involve some of the most serious crimes committed, including murder, rape, armed robbery and assault. Sex crimes accounted for 12 of the convictions.
The 240 cases involved a roughly equal number of drug and alcohol offenses, although alcohol-related crimes have increased each year since 2004.
Despite the military’s ban on all alcoholic beverages — and strict Islamic prohibitions against drinking and drug use — liquor is cheap and ever easier to find for soldiers looking to self-medicate the effects of combat stress, depression or the frustrations of extended deployments, said military defense lawyers, commanders and doctors who treat soldiers’ emotional problems.
“It’s clear that we’ve got a lot of significant alcohol problems that are pervasive across the military,” said Dr. Thomas R. Kosten, a psychiatrist at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Houston. He traces their drinking and drug use to the stress of working in a war zone. “The treatment that they take for it is the same treatment that they took after Vietnam,” Dr. Kosten said. “They turn to alcohol and drugs.”
The use of alcohol and drugs in war zones appears to reflect a broader trend toward heavier and more frequent drinking among all military personnel, but especially in the Army and Marine Corps, the two services doing most of the fighting, Pentagon officials and military health experts said.
A Pentagon health study released in January, for instance, found that the rate of binge drinking in the Army shot up by 30 percent from 2002 to 2005, and “may signal an increasing pattern of heavy alcohol use in the Army.”
While average rates of alcohol consumption in the Navy and Air Force have steadily declined since 1980, the year the military’s health survey began, they have significantly increased in the Army and Marine Corps and exceed civilian rates, the Pentagon study showed. For the first time since 1985, more than a quarter of all Army members surveyed said they regularly drink heavily, defined as having five or more drinks at one sitting.
The rate of illicit drug use also increased among military members in 2005, to an estimated 5 percent, nearly double the rate measured in 1998, a trend that the study called “cause for concern.”
The study also found other health problems in the military, from the growing popularity of chewing tobacco to a 20 percent increase during the past decade in service members who are considered overweight.
Lynn Pahland, a director in the Pentagon’s Health Affairs office, said the rising rates of heavy drinking and illegal drug use among active-duty military personnel are particularly troubling inside the Defense Department. “It is very serious,” Ms. Pahland said in an interview. “It is a huge concern.”
In the military, seeking help for psychological problems, including alcohol and drug abuse, is considered a taboo, especially among officers competing for promotions. Several officers interviewed for this article said the Pentagon was not doing enough to reduce that stigma.
Though the Pentagon has spent millions of dollars on several initiatives to reverse the trend, including a new Web site that deglamorizes drinking, financing to combat alcohol abuse has fallen over time, a Pentagon spokesman said. Spending on programs to reduce alcohol abuse, smoking and obesity dropped to $7.74 million in the current fiscal year from $12.6 million in fiscal year 2005 — a 39 percent decline.
Some military doctors and other mental health experts said the Army’s greater use of so-called moral waivers, which allow recruits with criminal records to enlist, may also be a factor in the increased drug and alcohol use.
Getting liquor or drugs in Iraq is not difficult. One of the most common ways to smuggle in brand name gin or clear rum is in bottles of mouthwash sent from friends back home, soldiers said. Blue or yellow food coloring makes the liquid look medicinal. Some Army medics have been known to fill intravenous fluid bags with vodka, Army officers said.
In Iraq, liquor of a distinctly more dubious quality can be purchased from Iraqi Army soldiers or civilian contractors working on American bases, and Iraqi soldiers have sold locally produced prescription drugs to American troops for a tidy profit.
Commanders have not always regarded drinking as a problem. The Army “was a culture in the 1970s that encouraged drinking,” said a retired Army colonel. “You’d go out drinking together and you’d find your buddy hugging the toilet at the officer’s club and think nothing of it.”
Command tolerance for such behavior began changing in the 1980s, and by the 1990s, “if you had more than a couple drinks at the club, people started looking at you strange,” the retired colonel said.
But at a time when the military is fighting two major ground wars, the often serious consequences of heavy drinking has emerged with increasing clarity as more troops return from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and other mental health problems, military officials and mental health experts said.
“I think the real story here is in the suicide and stress, and the drinking is just a symptom of it,” said Charles P. O’Brien, a psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine who served as a Navy doctor during the Vietnam War. There is a high incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder among Iraq veterans, he said, adding that “there’s been a lot of suicide in the active-duty servicemen.”
More than 90 percent of sex crimes prosecuted by the military involve alcohol abuse, defense lawyers and military doctors said. Roughly half of the marines charged with crimes in Iraq exhibit clear signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, a Marine defense lawyer said.
“They turn to alcohol and drugs for an escape,” he said.
The health study released in January was produced for the Pentagon by RTI International, a nonprofit research organization. Robert M. Bray, the group’s project director, first agreed to be interviewed for this article but later declined after a Defense Department spokesman said he was not available to comment.
In the past two years, though, top military officials have begun talking publicly about the danger that excessive drinking among the troops.
In 2005, the Army’s deputy chief of staff at the time, Lt. Gen. Franklin L. Hagenbeck, wrote in an editorial in a magazine for Army leaders that the rising rate of heavy drinking and drug use “seriously impacts mission readiness.”
General Hagenbeck, now the superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point, said more than half of soldiers discharged for misconduct had also been disciplined for drug or alcohol use within the previous year.
“When one soldier has an alcohol or other drug incident, it impacts the whole unit,” General Hagenbeck wrote.
That kind of ripple effect has played out repeatedly in Iraq, military defense lawyers said, as soldiers who drink or use drugs commit crimes and hinder their unit’s combat and support missions.
Specialist Lillis, for example, was given a bad conduct discharge and sentenced to 10 years in prison as punishment for his drunken shooting spree; he is in a military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kan. A military judge sentenced Specialist Rolan, who testified that he drank to relieve depression in Iraq, to 33 years in prison for killing a fellow soldier.
Two of the soldiers charged in the Mahmudiya case pleaded guilty to murder, and a former Army private described as the ringleader, Steven D. Green, is awaiting trial for rape and murder in a federal district court.
Last year, the Pentagon spent $2 million to initiate its “That Guy” campaign, (http://www.thatguy.com/), which recommends that service members “reject binge drinking because it detracts from the things they care about: family, friends, dating, sex, money and reputation.”
The Pentagon is poised to launch another Web-based antidrinking campaign this summer.
Capt. Robert DeMartino, a doctor with the United States Health Service who is coordinating the project, said the hope is that service members returning from Afghanistan and Iraq will use the site to find help coping with post-deployment problems, including alcohol dependency.
Andrew Lehren contributed reporting.
For U.S. Troops at War, Liquor Is Spur to Crime
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
In May 2004, Specialist Justin J. Lillis got drunk on what he called “hajji juice,” a clear Iraqi moonshine smuggled onto an Army base in Balad, Iraq, by civilian contractors, and began taking potshots with his M-16 service rifle.
“He shot up some contractor’s rental car,” said Phil Cave, a lawyer for Specialist Lillis, 24. “He hopped in a Humvee, drove around and shot up some more things. He shot into a housing area” and at soldiers guarding the base entrance.
Six months later, at an Army base near Baghdad, after a night of drinking an illegal stash of whiskey and gin, Specialist Chris Rolan of the Third Brigade, Third Infantry Division, pulled his 9mm service pistol on another soldier and shot him dead.
And in March 2006, in perhaps the most gruesome crime committed by American troops in Iraq, a group of 101st Airborne Division soldiers stationed in Mahmudiya raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and killed her and her family after drinking several cans of locally made whiskey supplied by Iraqi Army soldiers, military prosecutors said.
Alcohol, strictly forbidden by the American military in Iraq and Afghanistan, is involved in a growing number of crimes committed by troops deployed to those countries. Alcohol- and drug-related charges were involved in more than a third of all Army criminal prosecutions of soldiers in the two war zones — 240 of the 665 cases resulting in convictions, according to records obtained by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Seventy-three of those 240 cases involve some of the most serious crimes committed, including murder, rape, armed robbery and assault. Sex crimes accounted for 12 of the convictions.
The 240 cases involved a roughly equal number of drug and alcohol offenses, although alcohol-related crimes have increased each year since 2004.
Despite the military’s ban on all alcoholic beverages — and strict Islamic prohibitions against drinking and drug use — liquor is cheap and ever easier to find for soldiers looking to self-medicate the effects of combat stress, depression or the frustrations of extended deployments, said military defense lawyers, commanders and doctors who treat soldiers’ emotional problems.
“It’s clear that we’ve got a lot of significant alcohol problems that are pervasive across the military,” said Dr. Thomas R. Kosten, a psychiatrist at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Houston. He traces their drinking and drug use to the stress of working in a war zone. “The treatment that they take for it is the same treatment that they took after Vietnam,” Dr. Kosten said. “They turn to alcohol and drugs.”
The use of alcohol and drugs in war zones appears to reflect a broader trend toward heavier and more frequent drinking among all military personnel, but especially in the Army and Marine Corps, the two services doing most of the fighting, Pentagon officials and military health experts said.
A Pentagon health study released in January, for instance, found that the rate of binge drinking in the Army shot up by 30 percent from 2002 to 2005, and “may signal an increasing pattern of heavy alcohol use in the Army.”
While average rates of alcohol consumption in the Navy and Air Force have steadily declined since 1980, the year the military’s health survey began, they have significantly increased in the Army and Marine Corps and exceed civilian rates, the Pentagon study showed. For the first time since 1985, more than a quarter of all Army members surveyed said they regularly drink heavily, defined as having five or more drinks at one sitting.
The rate of illicit drug use also increased among military members in 2005, to an estimated 5 percent, nearly double the rate measured in 1998, a trend that the study called “cause for concern.”
The study also found other health problems in the military, from the growing popularity of chewing tobacco to a 20 percent increase during the past decade in service members who are considered overweight.
Lynn Pahland, a director in the Pentagon’s Health Affairs office, said the rising rates of heavy drinking and illegal drug use among active-duty military personnel are particularly troubling inside the Defense Department. “It is very serious,” Ms. Pahland said in an interview. “It is a huge concern.”
In the military, seeking help for psychological problems, including alcohol and drug abuse, is considered a taboo, especially among officers competing for promotions. Several officers interviewed for this article said the Pentagon was not doing enough to reduce that stigma.
Though the Pentagon has spent millions of dollars on several initiatives to reverse the trend, including a new Web site that deglamorizes drinking, financing to combat alcohol abuse has fallen over time, a Pentagon spokesman said. Spending on programs to reduce alcohol abuse, smoking and obesity dropped to $7.74 million in the current fiscal year from $12.6 million in fiscal year 2005 — a 39 percent decline.
Some military doctors and other mental health experts said the Army’s greater use of so-called moral waivers, which allow recruits with criminal records to enlist, may also be a factor in the increased drug and alcohol use.
Getting liquor or drugs in Iraq is not difficult. One of the most common ways to smuggle in brand name gin or clear rum is in bottles of mouthwash sent from friends back home, soldiers said. Blue or yellow food coloring makes the liquid look medicinal. Some Army medics have been known to fill intravenous fluid bags with vodka, Army officers said.
In Iraq, liquor of a distinctly more dubious quality can be purchased from Iraqi Army soldiers or civilian contractors working on American bases, and Iraqi soldiers have sold locally produced prescription drugs to American troops for a tidy profit.
Commanders have not always regarded drinking as a problem. The Army “was a culture in the 1970s that encouraged drinking,” said a retired Army colonel. “You’d go out drinking together and you’d find your buddy hugging the toilet at the officer’s club and think nothing of it.”
Command tolerance for such behavior began changing in the 1980s, and by the 1990s, “if you had more than a couple drinks at the club, people started looking at you strange,” the retired colonel said.
But at a time when the military is fighting two major ground wars, the often serious consequences of heavy drinking has emerged with increasing clarity as more troops return from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and other mental health problems, military officials and mental health experts said.
“I think the real story here is in the suicide and stress, and the drinking is just a symptom of it,” said Charles P. O’Brien, a psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine who served as a Navy doctor during the Vietnam War. There is a high incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder among Iraq veterans, he said, adding that “there’s been a lot of suicide in the active-duty servicemen.”
More than 90 percent of sex crimes prosecuted by the military involve alcohol abuse, defense lawyers and military doctors said. Roughly half of the marines charged with crimes in Iraq exhibit clear signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, a Marine defense lawyer said.
“They turn to alcohol and drugs for an escape,” he said.
The health study released in January was produced for the Pentagon by RTI International, a nonprofit research organization. Robert M. Bray, the group’s project director, first agreed to be interviewed for this article but later declined after a Defense Department spokesman said he was not available to comment.
In the past two years, though, top military officials have begun talking publicly about the danger that excessive drinking among the troops.
In 2005, the Army’s deputy chief of staff at the time, Lt. Gen. Franklin L. Hagenbeck, wrote in an editorial in a magazine for Army leaders that the rising rate of heavy drinking and drug use “seriously impacts mission readiness.”
General Hagenbeck, now the superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point, said more than half of soldiers discharged for misconduct had also been disciplined for drug or alcohol use within the previous year.
“When one soldier has an alcohol or other drug incident, it impacts the whole unit,” General Hagenbeck wrote.
That kind of ripple effect has played out repeatedly in Iraq, military defense lawyers said, as soldiers who drink or use drugs commit crimes and hinder their unit’s combat and support missions.
Specialist Lillis, for example, was given a bad conduct discharge and sentenced to 10 years in prison as punishment for his drunken shooting spree; he is in a military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kan. A military judge sentenced Specialist Rolan, who testified that he drank to relieve depression in Iraq, to 33 years in prison for killing a fellow soldier.
Two of the soldiers charged in the Mahmudiya case pleaded guilty to murder, and a former Army private described as the ringleader, Steven D. Green, is awaiting trial for rape and murder in a federal district court.
Last year, the Pentagon spent $2 million to initiate its “That Guy” campaign, (http://www.thatguy.com/), which recommends that service members “reject binge drinking because it detracts from the things they care about: family, friends, dating, sex, money and reputation.”
The Pentagon is poised to launch another Web-based antidrinking campaign this summer.
Capt. Robert DeMartino, a doctor with the United States Health Service who is coordinating the project, said the hope is that service members returning from Afghanistan and Iraq will use the site to find help coping with post-deployment problems, including alcohol dependency.
Andrew Lehren contributed reporting.
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
Murder Charge in Non-combat Death
Posted: Friday, February 23rd, 2007 5:14 AM HST
Hickam airman charged with fellow airman's shooting death
By Associated Press
HONOLULU (AP) _ A Hawaii-based airman has been charged with the shooting death of a fellow Hickam airman in Iraq last year.
A military charge sheet says Airman First Class Kyle Dalton shot Airman First Class Carl Ware Junior with a nine-millimeter pistol.
Military officials say Dalton will face a court-martial on April 23rd at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia.
Few details, including a motive, have been revealed about the shooting.
The military first reported the death as a non-combat related incident. Ware, who was 22 years old, was married to Senior Airman Christine Ware, also of Hickam Air Force Base. The couple have a one-year-old daughter, Caitlyn.
From the Air Force Times:
A1C accused of killing fellow airman in Iraq
By Erik Holmes - staff writerPosted : Saturday Feb 24, 2007 6:16:36 EST
Airman 1st Class Carl J. Ware Jr. was to return from his six-month deployment to Iraq in time — if barely — for the birth of their second daughter in January. Instead, Carl Ware came home months early in a flag-draped casket, the victim of an alleged fratricide July 1 at the hands of his roommate, friend and squadron-mate at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq.
Carl and Christine Ware were relative newlyweds, and they weren’t inclined to make plans beyond getting ready for the new baby.
After all, they were only 22 years old and assumed they had all the time in the world to think about the future.
“Our only plan was to get a new vacuum when he got home,” said Christine Ware, a former airman. “The only thing we knew was that we wanted to come home [to Delaware] on vacation to have the baby.”
Airman 1st Class Kyle J. Dalton, like Ware a member of the 15th Security Forces Squadron at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, faces court-martial on charges of murder, assault and wrongfully drawing or aiming a firearm after allegedly shooting and killing Ware with a 9mm handgun. The Air Force declined to release Dalton’s age and hometown, citing privacy concerns.
Dalton’s court-martial is scheduled to begin April 23 at Langley Air Force Base, Va.; if convicted, he will face life in prison, a dishonorable discharge and forfeiture of all pay and allowances.
Dalton, who has been in the Air Force since July 2003, is not in pretrial confinement, but he remains in Southwest Asia at an undisclosed base. A Central Command Air Forces spokesman declined to say where Dalton is stationed, citing “host nation sensitivities.”
His tour was extended so he could be closer to his defense counsel, Capt. Jason Robertson, who is at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar.
Dalton and Ware deployed in May with the 886th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron to Camp Bucca, an Army detention facility for captured enemy fighters.
The Air Force Safety Center originally said in July that Ware’s death was the result of an accidental discharge while another airman was cleaning a weapon.
Christine Ware, who now lives in Glassboro, N.J., said it didn’t become clear until months later that the incident was being treated as a murder. But she said she was suspicious from the beginning.
“I personally don’t believe it was an accident,” she said. “I never thought that’s what happened in the first place.”
Ware’s parents, Carl and Rosalie Ware of Dinuba, Calif., said the Air Force told them in November that it was time “to stop referring to Carl’s death as an accident.”
Charges were filed Nov. 30, and Dalton had an Article 32 hearing — roughly equivalent to a civilian grand jury proceeding — Dec. 20 at an undisclosed location in Southwest Asia. Neither Dalton’s attorney nor the prosecuting attorney responded to requests for comment.
The chain of events alleged by the Air Force is still unclear. CentAF has refused to release signed summaries of the statements made by witnesses at the Article 32 hearing, despite the fact that the hearing was open to the public. A CentAF spokesman said the summaries are not releasable because making them public could prejudice the court-martial.
Christine Ware, now 23, said even she does not have the full story of the allegations because the Air Force has not provided her with the investigation report. She filed a request for it under the Freedom of Information Act.
She declined to reveal all the details of what she has heard about the events.
“I don’t want to compromise anything that’s going to happen,” she said, referring to the trial.
Ware and Dalton met at Hickam in early 2006, Christine Ware said, but they were only acquaintances while in Hawaii.
Members of the 15th Security Forces Squadron form a tight-knit group and hang out together socially, but Dalton had been at Hickam only since January 2006 and the men were assigned to different flights, so they didn’t know each other well.
Christine Ware has met Dalton twice, both times at barbecues thrown at the Wares’ home in Hawaii. “He was nice,” she said. “He didn’t seem like he was capable of killing someone.”
Another member of their squadron who trained in Texas and then deployed with Ware and Dalton said the two seemed to get along well. The source asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to talk to reporters.
The men were friends and shared common interests such as video games, the source said.
“To my knowledge there was never any friction between Airman Ware and Airman Dalton,” the source said.
“They never expressed any displeasure toward each other. They were actually very good friends, from what I could see.”
How this friendship allegedly disintegrated into a shooting death and murder charge is unknown.
What is clear from documents released by the Air Force is that there were at least two, and possibly three, separate incidents during a one-month period in which Dalton allegedly brandished a firearm toward Ware.
The first and second, for which Dalton has been charged with assault, occurred around June 1 and June 30, according to Air Force documents.
Christine Ware, who said she just recently learned of those incidents, told Air Force Times that Dalton allegedly pointed a loaded firearm at the feet of Ware and another airman. The other airman, according to the documents, was Airman 1st Class Ryan J. Gasper, also of the 15th Security Forces Squadron. Gasper, who has returned to his unit in Hawaii, said he does not want to discuss the incidents until after Dalton’s trial.
About 3 p.m. July 1, Dalton shot Ware in the chest with a 9mm handgun while the men were in their shared dorm room, authorities said. It is unclear whether the murder charge and the second assault charge are related to the same incident, and a CentAF spokesman was unable to clarify.
The charge sheet released by the Air Force originally listed both incidents as occurring on July 1, but someone then crossed out that date regarding the second assault charge and changed it to June 30.
Ware’s father, Carl Ware Sr., said that medics on the scene did all they could to save his son.
“It appears that … the bullet wound caused such massive injury initially that there just wasn’t much they could do,” he said.
Christine Ware said she does not know what the motive for the alleged murder was, but she hopes to get more information when Air Force lawyers brief her in the coming weeks. She also hopes to learn more about a possible motive at the trial, which she plans to attend.
“I have, like, 18 different stories on how it happened,” Christine Ware said, “but not so much why it happened.”
Christine Ware is an amiable young mother of two who laughs easily and often, despite losing her husband eight months ago.
She and Carl had been together since they were 14 years old, and she was drawn to his ability to use humor to put others at ease.
“He always made a joke out of the situation, whatever it was,” she said. “No matter what was going on, he was always calm, and he was able to make a bad situation better.”
The couple married at Waikiki Beach, Hawaii, in January 2003 after Christine finished Air Force basic military training. Carl enlisted in the service about a year later.
Their first daughter, Caitlyn, was born in July 2005, and their second daughter, Carly, was born Jan. 5. Carl was scheduled to return from Iraq a couple weeks before Carly’s birth, and the Wares were planning a trip to Delaware and New Jersey to have the baby.
Carl’s relationship with his parents was strained, and Christine said the couple regarded David and Barbara Stutzbach of Glassboro, N.J., as their closest family.
Carl lived with the Stutzbachs, his legal guardians, after his family went to California when he was 14.
David Stutzbach served 20 years as an aircraft crew chief in the Air Force, retiring as a master sergeant in 2001. Christine said Carl joined the Air Force in part because he wanted to follow in his guardian’s footsteps and in part because he was interested in police work. “He’s always wanted to be a military police officer,” she said. “He was going to apply to K-9 after he got back from Iraq.”
One of Carl’s favorite hobbies, Christine said, was playing poker with friends. She said the same skills that made him a good poker player also made him a good cop.
“He knew how to read people really well,” she said. “I think it helped him out a lot, because he was able to tell who was lying and who was telling the truth when he interviewed them.”
Despite the seriousness of police work, Christine said, Carl was known in the squadron as something of a class clown.
“He was a jokester at work,” she said, “but he always did it so he could still get the job done and not get in trouble.”
Christine moved to New Jersey after Carl’s death and stayed with the Stutzbachs until September. She now lives just down the street from them and sees them every day.
“They’re like my mom and dad,” she said. “They’ve taken care of us when we’ve needed them.”
Christine is in school to become a kindergarten teacher, and she plans to start working part time after the trial.
She said she promised Carl that she would finish school, and she plans to keep that promise.
Hickam airman charged with fellow airman's shooting death
By Associated Press
HONOLULU (AP) _ A Hawaii-based airman has been charged with the shooting death of a fellow Hickam airman in Iraq last year.
A military charge sheet says Airman First Class Kyle Dalton shot Airman First Class Carl Ware Junior with a nine-millimeter pistol.
Military officials say Dalton will face a court-martial on April 23rd at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia.
Few details, including a motive, have been revealed about the shooting.
The military first reported the death as a non-combat related incident. Ware, who was 22 years old, was married to Senior Airman Christine Ware, also of Hickam Air Force Base. The couple have a one-year-old daughter, Caitlyn.
From the Air Force Times:
A1C accused of killing fellow airman in Iraq
By Erik Holmes - staff writerPosted : Saturday Feb 24, 2007 6:16:36 EST
Airman 1st Class Carl J. Ware Jr. was to return from his six-month deployment to Iraq in time — if barely — for the birth of their second daughter in January. Instead, Carl Ware came home months early in a flag-draped casket, the victim of an alleged fratricide July 1 at the hands of his roommate, friend and squadron-mate at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq.
Carl and Christine Ware were relative newlyweds, and they weren’t inclined to make plans beyond getting ready for the new baby.
After all, they were only 22 years old and assumed they had all the time in the world to think about the future.
“Our only plan was to get a new vacuum when he got home,” said Christine Ware, a former airman. “The only thing we knew was that we wanted to come home [to Delaware] on vacation to have the baby.”
Airman 1st Class Kyle J. Dalton, like Ware a member of the 15th Security Forces Squadron at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, faces court-martial on charges of murder, assault and wrongfully drawing or aiming a firearm after allegedly shooting and killing Ware with a 9mm handgun. The Air Force declined to release Dalton’s age and hometown, citing privacy concerns.
Dalton’s court-martial is scheduled to begin April 23 at Langley Air Force Base, Va.; if convicted, he will face life in prison, a dishonorable discharge and forfeiture of all pay and allowances.
Dalton, who has been in the Air Force since July 2003, is not in pretrial confinement, but he remains in Southwest Asia at an undisclosed base. A Central Command Air Forces spokesman declined to say where Dalton is stationed, citing “host nation sensitivities.”
His tour was extended so he could be closer to his defense counsel, Capt. Jason Robertson, who is at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar.
Dalton and Ware deployed in May with the 886th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron to Camp Bucca, an Army detention facility for captured enemy fighters.
The Air Force Safety Center originally said in July that Ware’s death was the result of an accidental discharge while another airman was cleaning a weapon.
Christine Ware, who now lives in Glassboro, N.J., said it didn’t become clear until months later that the incident was being treated as a murder. But she said she was suspicious from the beginning.
“I personally don’t believe it was an accident,” she said. “I never thought that’s what happened in the first place.”
Ware’s parents, Carl and Rosalie Ware of Dinuba, Calif., said the Air Force told them in November that it was time “to stop referring to Carl’s death as an accident.”
Charges were filed Nov. 30, and Dalton had an Article 32 hearing — roughly equivalent to a civilian grand jury proceeding — Dec. 20 at an undisclosed location in Southwest Asia. Neither Dalton’s attorney nor the prosecuting attorney responded to requests for comment.
The chain of events alleged by the Air Force is still unclear. CentAF has refused to release signed summaries of the statements made by witnesses at the Article 32 hearing, despite the fact that the hearing was open to the public. A CentAF spokesman said the summaries are not releasable because making them public could prejudice the court-martial.
Christine Ware, now 23, said even she does not have the full story of the allegations because the Air Force has not provided her with the investigation report. She filed a request for it under the Freedom of Information Act.
She declined to reveal all the details of what she has heard about the events.
“I don’t want to compromise anything that’s going to happen,” she said, referring to the trial.
Ware and Dalton met at Hickam in early 2006, Christine Ware said, but they were only acquaintances while in Hawaii.
Members of the 15th Security Forces Squadron form a tight-knit group and hang out together socially, but Dalton had been at Hickam only since January 2006 and the men were assigned to different flights, so they didn’t know each other well.
Christine Ware has met Dalton twice, both times at barbecues thrown at the Wares’ home in Hawaii. “He was nice,” she said. “He didn’t seem like he was capable of killing someone.”
Another member of their squadron who trained in Texas and then deployed with Ware and Dalton said the two seemed to get along well. The source asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to talk to reporters.
The men were friends and shared common interests such as video games, the source said.
“To my knowledge there was never any friction between Airman Ware and Airman Dalton,” the source said.
“They never expressed any displeasure toward each other. They were actually very good friends, from what I could see.”
How this friendship allegedly disintegrated into a shooting death and murder charge is unknown.
What is clear from documents released by the Air Force is that there were at least two, and possibly three, separate incidents during a one-month period in which Dalton allegedly brandished a firearm toward Ware.
The first and second, for which Dalton has been charged with assault, occurred around June 1 and June 30, according to Air Force documents.
Christine Ware, who said she just recently learned of those incidents, told Air Force Times that Dalton allegedly pointed a loaded firearm at the feet of Ware and another airman. The other airman, according to the documents, was Airman 1st Class Ryan J. Gasper, also of the 15th Security Forces Squadron. Gasper, who has returned to his unit in Hawaii, said he does not want to discuss the incidents until after Dalton’s trial.
About 3 p.m. July 1, Dalton shot Ware in the chest with a 9mm handgun while the men were in their shared dorm room, authorities said. It is unclear whether the murder charge and the second assault charge are related to the same incident, and a CentAF spokesman was unable to clarify.
The charge sheet released by the Air Force originally listed both incidents as occurring on July 1, but someone then crossed out that date regarding the second assault charge and changed it to June 30.
Ware’s father, Carl Ware Sr., said that medics on the scene did all they could to save his son.
“It appears that … the bullet wound caused such massive injury initially that there just wasn’t much they could do,” he said.
Christine Ware said she does not know what the motive for the alleged murder was, but she hopes to get more information when Air Force lawyers brief her in the coming weeks. She also hopes to learn more about a possible motive at the trial, which she plans to attend.
“I have, like, 18 different stories on how it happened,” Christine Ware said, “but not so much why it happened.”
Christine Ware is an amiable young mother of two who laughs easily and often, despite losing her husband eight months ago.
She and Carl had been together since they were 14 years old, and she was drawn to his ability to use humor to put others at ease.
“He always made a joke out of the situation, whatever it was,” she said. “No matter what was going on, he was always calm, and he was able to make a bad situation better.”
The couple married at Waikiki Beach, Hawaii, in January 2003 after Christine finished Air Force basic military training. Carl enlisted in the service about a year later.
Their first daughter, Caitlyn, was born in July 2005, and their second daughter, Carly, was born Jan. 5. Carl was scheduled to return from Iraq a couple weeks before Carly’s birth, and the Wares were planning a trip to Delaware and New Jersey to have the baby.
Carl’s relationship with his parents was strained, and Christine said the couple regarded David and Barbara Stutzbach of Glassboro, N.J., as their closest family.
Carl lived with the Stutzbachs, his legal guardians, after his family went to California when he was 14.
David Stutzbach served 20 years as an aircraft crew chief in the Air Force, retiring as a master sergeant in 2001. Christine said Carl joined the Air Force in part because he wanted to follow in his guardian’s footsteps and in part because he was interested in police work. “He’s always wanted to be a military police officer,” she said. “He was going to apply to K-9 after he got back from Iraq.”
One of Carl’s favorite hobbies, Christine said, was playing poker with friends. She said the same skills that made him a good poker player also made him a good cop.
“He knew how to read people really well,” she said. “I think it helped him out a lot, because he was able to tell who was lying and who was telling the truth when he interviewed them.”
Despite the seriousness of police work, Christine said, Carl was known in the squadron as something of a class clown.
“He was a jokester at work,” she said, “but he always did it so he could still get the job done and not get in trouble.”
Christine moved to New Jersey after Carl’s death and stayed with the Stutzbachs until September. She now lives just down the street from them and sees them every day.
“They’re like my mom and dad,” she said. “They’ve taken care of us when we’ve needed them.”
Christine is in school to become a kindergarten teacher, and she plans to start working part time after the trial.
She said she promised Carl that she would finish school, and she plans to keep that promise.
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.
Moral Waivers and the Military
--from the New York Times
Published: February 20, 2007
The Iraq war has plunged the Army into a vicious cycle of declining standards. Multiple, extended tours of duty have sapped morale and blighted recruiting. New plans for a larger overall force could reduce pressures but would also mean that recruiters would have to meet higher quotas.
To keep filling the ranks, the Army has had to keep lowering its expectations. Diluting educational, aptitude and medical standards has not been enough. Nor have larger enlistment bonuses plugged the gap. So the Army has found itself recklessly expanding the granting of “moral waivers,” which let people convicted of serious misdemeanors and even some felonies enlist in its ranks.
Last year, such waivers were granted to 8,129 men and women — or more than one out of every 10 new Army recruits. That number is up 65 percent since 2003, the year President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq. In the last three years, more than 125,000 moral waivers have been granted by America’s four military services.
Most of last year’s Army waivers were for serious misdemeanors, like aggravated assault, robbery, burglary and vehicular homicide. But around 900 — double the number in 2003 — were for felonies. Worse, the Army does no systematic tracking of recruits with waivers once it signs them up, and it does not always pay enough attention to any adjustment problems. Without adequate monitoring and counseling, handing out guns to people who have already committed crimes poses a danger to the other soldiers they serve with and to the innocent civilians they are supposed to protect.
There is a long and honorable history of young people who have had minor scrapes with the law joining the military and successfully turning their lives around. But those who have committed more serious crimes, especially those involving weapons, vehicular homicide or sexual abuse, should generally be denied moral waivers. And those who do qualify for waivers should be monitored, counseled and carefully supervised.
The fastest way to drop the rate of moral waivers would be for the Army to rebuild its recently tarnished reputation among less problematic young Americans. That will require an end to involuntarily extended tours of duty and accelerated, multiple redeployments into combat. The military is America’s face to much of the world. It ought to present the best face of American youth.
Published: February 20, 2007
The Iraq war has plunged the Army into a vicious cycle of declining standards. Multiple, extended tours of duty have sapped morale and blighted recruiting. New plans for a larger overall force could reduce pressures but would also mean that recruiters would have to meet higher quotas.
To keep filling the ranks, the Army has had to keep lowering its expectations. Diluting educational, aptitude and medical standards has not been enough. Nor have larger enlistment bonuses plugged the gap. So the Army has found itself recklessly expanding the granting of “moral waivers,” which let people convicted of serious misdemeanors and even some felonies enlist in its ranks.
Last year, such waivers were granted to 8,129 men and women — or more than one out of every 10 new Army recruits. That number is up 65 percent since 2003, the year President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq. In the last three years, more than 125,000 moral waivers have been granted by America’s four military services.
Most of last year’s Army waivers were for serious misdemeanors, like aggravated assault, robbery, burglary and vehicular homicide. But around 900 — double the number in 2003 — were for felonies. Worse, the Army does no systematic tracking of recruits with waivers once it signs them up, and it does not always pay enough attention to any adjustment problems. Without adequate monitoring and counseling, handing out guns to people who have already committed crimes poses a danger to the other soldiers they serve with and to the innocent civilians they are supposed to protect.
There is a long and honorable history of young people who have had minor scrapes with the law joining the military and successfully turning their lives around. But those who have committed more serious crimes, especially those involving weapons, vehicular homicide or sexual abuse, should generally be denied moral waivers. And those who do qualify for waivers should be monitored, counseled and carefully supervised.
The fastest way to drop the rate of moral waivers would be for the Army to rebuild its recently tarnished reputation among less problematic young Americans. That will require an end to involuntarily extended tours of duty and accelerated, multiple redeployments into combat. The military is America’s face to much of the world. It ought to present the best face of American youth.
Monday, February 19, 2007
The Other Walter Reed
Click on the title above to read this heartbreaking article in the Washington Post.
Experts say many suicidal war vets don't seek counseling
The Associated Press - Sunday, February 18, 2007
LITCHFIELD, Minn.
After David Fickel had been honorably discharged from the Marine Corps, friends and family members noticed he changed from a fun-loving guy to an anxious, angry man. They urged him to get help.
"We tried," said his stepfather, Mitch Aanden. "He said, 'No, I'm tough. I am a Marine.'"
Fickel, 25, took his own life with a shotgun last Memorial Day.
He is one of 13 active-duty or discharged servicemen under age 30 who committed suicide in Minnesota between Jan. 1, 2003, and last October, according to death records. Star Tribune interviews with relatives of 10 of those veterans said their loved ones hadn't sought counseling.
Experts say many suicide victims don't seek treatment, and surveys show six of 10 servicemen who need mental health counseling don't seek it.
Suicide by war veterans gained attention after Jonathan Schulze, a Marine veteran who fought in Iraq, took his life Jan. 16. His family says the St. Cloud VA Medical Center turned him away when he talked of suicide. Veterans Affairs officials won't comment and officials are investigating.
But his death raised concerns about the needs of 1.4 million troops whose duties in Iraq and Afghanistan can involve intense combat. Recent research found that nearly one in six recent combat veterans reported experiencing depression, general anxiety or post-traumatic stress.
In Iraq and Kuwait, 22 U.S. soldiers killed themselves in 2005, nearly double the national rate, an Army study found.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is nearly four times as common in veterans of Army or Marine ground units in Iraq and Afghanistan than in servicemen in other units, according to a 2005 study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
People who commit suicide often have depression, relationship problems or alcohol- and drug-abuse problems.
"All these things are warning signs, and the more you have, the more likely it is to happen," said Dr. Paula Clayton, retired head of the University of Minnesota psychiatry department and now medical director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in New York.
Dr. Martha Sajatovic, a psychiatry professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, said post-traumatic stress complicates treatment.
"If I have a problem already, and I toss another problem on top of that, the burden I have to struggle with is going to be greater," said Sajatovic.
The Department of Veterans Affairs says it's working to improve services for vets and it has programs.
"Everyone at the VA wants to reach these guys and get them in and support them when they come home," said Dr. Lawrence E. Adler, director of a VA mental health research center in Denver, which this month co-sponsored a conference on veteran suicide.
Robin Aanden said her son, David Fickel, was a level-headed, caring kid. He made people laugh and loved to play baseball and golf.
Fickel graduated from Litchfield High School in 1999 and hoped to be a teacher. His interest in the Marines surfaced in his junior year, surprising his family.
After boot camp, Fickel transferred to Camp Lejeune, N.C. His unit went to Korea and Japan. After Sept. 11, 2001, his unit went to Afghanistan and later to the Persian Gulf.
When he returned home after four years of Marine duty, he'd changed.
"He quieted down," said Grady Huggett, his best friend.
Fickel seemed anxious that he'd be called back, said his sister Haley. He spoke vaguely of war, offering hints of sniper duty in Afghanistan. He told Huggett that he had shot people.
Early last year, he quit eating right, lost weight, slept badly and stopped caring about his appearance, his mother said. He drank heavily and got arrested for drunken driving, she said.
"I told him his anger was getting out of control," she added. When she offered to make an appointment for help at a clinic, he wouldn't go.
The day before his death, Fickel talked to his sisters and best friend about killing himself. They said they got him away from his loaded shotgun, and spent the evening around a bonfire in his sisters' back yard. They thought he was better, but he took his life the next day.
Information from: Star Tribune, http://www.startribune.com
--submitted by Patti Woodard
LITCHFIELD, Minn.
After David Fickel had been honorably discharged from the Marine Corps, friends and family members noticed he changed from a fun-loving guy to an anxious, angry man. They urged him to get help.
"We tried," said his stepfather, Mitch Aanden. "He said, 'No, I'm tough. I am a Marine.'"
Fickel, 25, took his own life with a shotgun last Memorial Day.
He is one of 13 active-duty or discharged servicemen under age 30 who committed suicide in Minnesota between Jan. 1, 2003, and last October, according to death records. Star Tribune interviews with relatives of 10 of those veterans said their loved ones hadn't sought counseling.
Experts say many suicide victims don't seek treatment, and surveys show six of 10 servicemen who need mental health counseling don't seek it.
Suicide by war veterans gained attention after Jonathan Schulze, a Marine veteran who fought in Iraq, took his life Jan. 16. His family says the St. Cloud VA Medical Center turned him away when he talked of suicide. Veterans Affairs officials won't comment and officials are investigating.
But his death raised concerns about the needs of 1.4 million troops whose duties in Iraq and Afghanistan can involve intense combat. Recent research found that nearly one in six recent combat veterans reported experiencing depression, general anxiety or post-traumatic stress.
In Iraq and Kuwait, 22 U.S. soldiers killed themselves in 2005, nearly double the national rate, an Army study found.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is nearly four times as common in veterans of Army or Marine ground units in Iraq and Afghanistan than in servicemen in other units, according to a 2005 study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
People who commit suicide often have depression, relationship problems or alcohol- and drug-abuse problems.
"All these things are warning signs, and the more you have, the more likely it is to happen," said Dr. Paula Clayton, retired head of the University of Minnesota psychiatry department and now medical director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in New York.
Dr. Martha Sajatovic, a psychiatry professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, said post-traumatic stress complicates treatment.
"If I have a problem already, and I toss another problem on top of that, the burden I have to struggle with is going to be greater," said Sajatovic.
The Department of Veterans Affairs says it's working to improve services for vets and it has programs.
"Everyone at the VA wants to reach these guys and get them in and support them when they come home," said Dr. Lawrence E. Adler, director of a VA mental health research center in Denver, which this month co-sponsored a conference on veteran suicide.
Robin Aanden said her son, David Fickel, was a level-headed, caring kid. He made people laugh and loved to play baseball and golf.
Fickel graduated from Litchfield High School in 1999 and hoped to be a teacher. His interest in the Marines surfaced in his junior year, surprising his family.
After boot camp, Fickel transferred to Camp Lejeune, N.C. His unit went to Korea and Japan. After Sept. 11, 2001, his unit went to Afghanistan and later to the Persian Gulf.
When he returned home after four years of Marine duty, he'd changed.
"He quieted down," said Grady Huggett, his best friend.
Fickel seemed anxious that he'd be called back, said his sister Haley. He spoke vaguely of war, offering hints of sniper duty in Afghanistan. He told Huggett that he had shot people.
Early last year, he quit eating right, lost weight, slept badly and stopped caring about his appearance, his mother said. He drank heavily and got arrested for drunken driving, she said.
"I told him his anger was getting out of control," she added. When she offered to make an appointment for help at a clinic, he wouldn't go.
The day before his death, Fickel talked to his sisters and best friend about killing himself. They said they got him away from his loaded shotgun, and spent the evening around a bonfire in his sisters' back yard. They thought he was better, but he took his life the next day.
Information from: Star Tribune, http://www.startribune.com
--submitted by Patti Woodard
Thursday, February 15, 2007
House Subcommittee Asks Archive for FOIA Reform Advice
National Security Archive Update, February 14, 2007
House Subcommittee Asks Archive for FOIA Reform Advice
Archive General Counsel Testifies that Congress Should Mandate Solutions; Cites 17 Year Delays, Lost Requests, and Agency Obstruction of FOIA
For more information contact:Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
http://www.nsarchive.org
Washington, DC, February 14, 2007 - National Security Archive General Counsel Meredith Fuchs today told the Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that, "problems [with the Freedom of Information Act system] will not be solved unless Congress mandates solutions.
"Ms. Fuchs recommended that Congress reform the FOIA to require better annual reporting and tracking of FOIA requests, citing examples of processing delays as long as 17 years and agency mismanagement or obstruction of requests causing delay.
She also called on Congress to stop agencies from playing litigation games that cost requesters and taxpayers money and waste judicial resources. She referenced examples of agencies that fail to take responsible legal positions until after a requester has filed a lawsuit and then suddenly reverse course when it becomes clear that a court will likely rule against the agency.
She advocated revision of the FOIA's attorneys' fees provision as a solution.
Ms. Fuchs explained that, "Despite many outstanding people administering FOIA programs throughout the government - and they deserve praise for their work - there are far too many FOIA offices that fail to live up to the expectations of the law and the needs of the taxpaying public."
Ms. Fuchs testified on a panel that included Clark Hoyt, former Washington Editor for Knight Ridder, who testified on behalf of the Sunshine in Government Initiative, and Anthony Romero, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union. In addition, representatives of the General Accounting Office and the Department of Justice testified.
The Archive has been at the forefront of organizations using and assessing the Freedom of Information Act.
The Archive has completed five government-wide audits of FOIA administration (supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation). Recommendations from the Archive's reports on those audits have been adopted in President Bush's Executive Order 13,392 ("Improving Agency Disclosure of Information"), included in FOIA legislationintroduced in earlier Congresses by Senators Cornyn and Leahy, and Congressmen Smith and Waxman, and included as goals in many of the 91 agency FOIA Improvement Plans developed under the Executive Order.For more information, see today's posting at
http://www.nsarchive.org/ .
THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE is an independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The Archive collects and publishes declassified documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). A tax-exempt public charity, the Archive receives no U.S. government funding; its budget is supported by publication royalties and donations from foundations and individuals.
-- submitted by Patti Woodard
House Subcommittee Asks Archive for FOIA Reform Advice
Archive General Counsel Testifies that Congress Should Mandate Solutions; Cites 17 Year Delays, Lost Requests, and Agency Obstruction of FOIA
For more information contact:Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
http://www.nsarchive.org
Washington, DC, February 14, 2007 - National Security Archive General Counsel Meredith Fuchs today told the Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that, "problems [with the Freedom of Information Act system] will not be solved unless Congress mandates solutions.
"Ms. Fuchs recommended that Congress reform the FOIA to require better annual reporting and tracking of FOIA requests, citing examples of processing delays as long as 17 years and agency mismanagement or obstruction of requests causing delay.
She also called on Congress to stop agencies from playing litigation games that cost requesters and taxpayers money and waste judicial resources. She referenced examples of agencies that fail to take responsible legal positions until after a requester has filed a lawsuit and then suddenly reverse course when it becomes clear that a court will likely rule against the agency.
She advocated revision of the FOIA's attorneys' fees provision as a solution.
Ms. Fuchs explained that, "Despite many outstanding people administering FOIA programs throughout the government - and they deserve praise for their work - there are far too many FOIA offices that fail to live up to the expectations of the law and the needs of the taxpaying public."
Ms. Fuchs testified on a panel that included Clark Hoyt, former Washington Editor for Knight Ridder, who testified on behalf of the Sunshine in Government Initiative, and Anthony Romero, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union. In addition, representatives of the General Accounting Office and the Department of Justice testified.
The Archive has been at the forefront of organizations using and assessing the Freedom of Information Act.
The Archive has completed five government-wide audits of FOIA administration (supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation). Recommendations from the Archive's reports on those audits have been adopted in President Bush's Executive Order 13,392 ("Improving Agency Disclosure of Information"), included in FOIA legislationintroduced in earlier Congresses by Senators Cornyn and Leahy, and Congressmen Smith and Waxman, and included as goals in many of the 91 agency FOIA Improvement Plans developed under the Executive Order.For more information, see today's posting at
http://www.nsarchive.org/ .
THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE is an independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The Archive collects and publishes declassified documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). A tax-exempt public charity, the Archive receives no U.S. government funding; its budget is supported by publication royalties and donations from foundations and individuals.
-- submitted by Patti Woodard
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Death Tolls Manipulated
Fox News reports that non-combat deaths are not included in the statistics of military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. Click on the link above to go to the story.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Husband's death was murder, not suicide, widow says
by James Muñoz
The 2003 death of Col. Philip Shue was ruled a suicide by the justice of the peace.
His widow is fighting that ruling all the way to the Texas Supreme Court because she believes her husband was murdered.
Shue, 54, was found dead April 16, 2003, along Interstate 10 near Boerne.
Kendall County Justice of the Peace Nancy White didn't win re-election. She now lives in another city. Her attorneys say she shouldn't have to explain the "thought-processes" behind her ruling.
"Col. Shue's chest had been mutilated. His wrists and ankles were covered in duct tape," said attorney Jason Davis, who represents Mrs. Shue.
"[Mrs. Shue] and many others believe it was a murder, including experts who have analyzed the same evidence," Davis said.
The truth, in this story, may be stranger than fiction, because Shue's vehicle slammed into a tree, his chest was mutilated, a finger was cut off and there was duct tape around his wrists and ankles.
"And yet, Judge White came on to the scene and declared it in a matter of minutes an accident, and the question is, 'Why?', and now she's going to remarkable lengths to avoid for having to answer to that," Davis said.
White's attorneys say this isn't a cover up. If JPs always had to answer to subpoenas and depositions, there would be no end to the second-guessing and harassment of the judges, her attorneys said.
"No, we're not going to let litigants dissatisfied with a judge's ruling, go sue somebody else and use the civil discovery process, to harass and abuse these judges," White's attorney Patrick Ballantyne said.
Mrs. Shue's attorney sees it differently.
"It's a pretty simple case of a witness just refusing to answer," Davis said.
Shue's widow is suing the insurance company USAA, saying the agency failed to cancel life insurance policies that led to death threats against the Mr. Shue.
USAA said they cannot comment on pending litigation.
A Kendall County court-at-law judge ordered White to testify by deposition, but she refused. Last week, the 4th Court of Appeals upheld that decision, but White still refuses. The case is now being appealed to the Texas Supreme Court.
KENS video: Husband's death was murder, not suicide, widow says
----------------------------------------------
HIGH DOLLAR LEGAL “DREAM TEAM“
HIRED BY KENDALL COUNTY TEXAS
Former Kendall County JP Nancy White
Appeals Court Denial for Judicial Immunity in Shue Case
Ron Gordon
Kendall County News.com
What’s next in the Colonel Philip Shue death investigation, seemingly having more twists and turns than a Tom Clancy novel? The mysterious circumstances leading to death of Colonel Philip Shue and the many unanswered questions surrounding the death investigation, continues, almost four years later, with no end in sight.
On January 5, 2007, Tracy Shue filed, for a third time, a Motion to Compel former Kendall County Justice of the Peace Nancy White to answer the basic questions of why and with what evidence she concluded Colonel Philip Shue’s Manner of Death a “Suicide.” Over the past year, the Kendall County Court has repeatedly ruled to deny the former JP’s Motion to Quash and Request for Immunity in answering the why and with what evidence questions, citing the duties and mental processes of a Coroner would not be protected under the “Mental Processes Rule.” But, true to form in the Shue case, the fight is not over and former JP Nancy White, with her legal “Dream Team“, paid for by the taxpayers of Kendall County, have now filed to appeal the decision of Judge Bill Palmer.
Kendall County News has requested the Commissioner’s Court to provide an estimate of the current and projected legal costs pertaining to the actions of the former Kendall County Justice of the Peace. No response has been received to date.
-----------------
Former Kendall County Judge is Order to Answer Questions for The Third Time
Ron Gordon
Kendall County News.com
For those of you familiar or unfamiliar with the Tracy Shue case, here is a breakdown with the timeline of events, and where we stand as of today.
On December 28, 2005 Tracy Shue filed to have Judge Nancy White give a deposition on the cause of death on Colonel Philip Shue.
Judge White filed a motion to Quash on January 13, 2006, for Protective Order to avoid her deposition. She objected to being deposed in part on the basis of the “Mental Processes Rule”
Ten days later Judge Palmer overruled Judge White’s “Mental Processes Rule“ objection and ordered her to proceed with the deposition.
Judge White was not satisfied with the Judge’s ruling and yet filed another motion for clarification of the court’s January 23rd Order. Judge White again argued that her deposition be quashed on the basis of the “Mental Processes Rule”
Once again on February 23, 2006 the court denied Judge White’s motion for clarification and order that her deposition proceeds.
This brings us to the deposition on November 10, 2006. Judge White refused to answer some questions that her lawyers thought was abusive which violated the court’s order. Her answer to the questions being asked was part on the basis of the “Mental Processes Rule”
Judge White abused the discovery process and failed to comply with two previous orders from the court. Given these prior orders, there was no justifiable excuse for Judge White’s failure to answer questions posed to her during her deposition. Such conduct necessitated Tracy Shue’s filed motion to compel and motion for cost.
This brings us to January 5, 2007. Shue’s attorney opened up the argument about wasting the court’s time and money going over an issue that was already ruled on by Judge Palmer, twice. Judge White’s attorney followed by stating that she did not have to answer any questions based on her being, at that time, a Judge. Judge Palmer then asked Judge White’s attorney, (paraphrasing) “A Medical Examiner can give testimony on the ruling of death. In Kendall County, the Medical Examiner is also the Justice of the Peace; so in this case, she wears two hats acting as the Justice of the Peace as well as the Medical Examiner. In acting as the Medical Examiner, Judge White does not then qualify for the “Mental Processing Rule“, because in this capacity for this case, Judge White was also the Medical Examiner.” Judge White’s attorney then followed that comment by saying, “Well that’s different!” and in true Judge White fashion, no additional reasoning from Counsel was provided.
Shue’s attorney rebutted and went over how Judge White last year, had a news conference the day before depositions were to be heard. She released confidential information to the Media, which included Social Security numbers, phone numbers and addresses of Tracy and Col. Philip Shue. Then Judge Palmer asked where the original paperwork was located now and Shue’s attorney answered with, “All I have is copies.” Then Former Judge White, not her attorneys, blurted out stating where the original documents were located. After that, her attorney turned to her and stated quickly, “Do not say another word.”
After hearing about 45 minutes of both Counsels pleading their cases, Judge Palmer ordered that Judge Nancy White’s deposition be reset for 9:00am on January 26, 2007. The case will be heard at the Kendall County Courthouse. It was ordered that Judge White must answer all questions which she did not answer in her depositions urging the Mental Process Objection. Lastly, Judge White is to pay court costs and court reporter costs for continuation of deposition.
To add insult to injury, Judge White’s attorneys advised Judge Palmer that they are appealing his decision to the Circuit Court. Also, Judge White’s attorneys didn’t feel it was fair that she be responsible for the court, court reporter and deposition costs, in which then Judge Palmer summed up the sentiments felt in the court, by stating, “Well if she had answered the questions during the last depositions, we wouldn’t be here today!”
All Tracy Shue asked for was an inquest which has been denied to this day. The question that needs to be answered by Former Judge Nancy White is: How did she find that suicide was the cause of death for Col. Philip Shue???????????
--Submitted by Tracy Shue
The 2003 death of Col. Philip Shue was ruled a suicide by the justice of the peace.
His widow is fighting that ruling all the way to the Texas Supreme Court because she believes her husband was murdered.
Shue, 54, was found dead April 16, 2003, along Interstate 10 near Boerne.
Kendall County Justice of the Peace Nancy White didn't win re-election. She now lives in another city. Her attorneys say she shouldn't have to explain the "thought-processes" behind her ruling.
"Col. Shue's chest had been mutilated. His wrists and ankles were covered in duct tape," said attorney Jason Davis, who represents Mrs. Shue.
"[Mrs. Shue] and many others believe it was a murder, including experts who have analyzed the same evidence," Davis said.
The truth, in this story, may be stranger than fiction, because Shue's vehicle slammed into a tree, his chest was mutilated, a finger was cut off and there was duct tape around his wrists and ankles.
"And yet, Judge White came on to the scene and declared it in a matter of minutes an accident, and the question is, 'Why?', and now she's going to remarkable lengths to avoid for having to answer to that," Davis said.
White's attorneys say this isn't a cover up. If JPs always had to answer to subpoenas and depositions, there would be no end to the second-guessing and harassment of the judges, her attorneys said.
"No, we're not going to let litigants dissatisfied with a judge's ruling, go sue somebody else and use the civil discovery process, to harass and abuse these judges," White's attorney Patrick Ballantyne said.
Mrs. Shue's attorney sees it differently.
"It's a pretty simple case of a witness just refusing to answer," Davis said.
Shue's widow is suing the insurance company USAA, saying the agency failed to cancel life insurance policies that led to death threats against the Mr. Shue.
USAA said they cannot comment on pending litigation.
A Kendall County court-at-law judge ordered White to testify by deposition, but she refused. Last week, the 4th Court of Appeals upheld that decision, but White still refuses. The case is now being appealed to the Texas Supreme Court.
KENS video: Husband's death was murder, not suicide, widow says
----------------------------------------------
HIGH DOLLAR LEGAL “DREAM TEAM“
HIRED BY KENDALL COUNTY TEXAS
Former Kendall County JP Nancy White
Appeals Court Denial for Judicial Immunity in Shue Case
Ron Gordon
Kendall County News.com
What’s next in the Colonel Philip Shue death investigation, seemingly having more twists and turns than a Tom Clancy novel? The mysterious circumstances leading to death of Colonel Philip Shue and the many unanswered questions surrounding the death investigation, continues, almost four years later, with no end in sight.
On January 5, 2007, Tracy Shue filed, for a third time, a Motion to Compel former Kendall County Justice of the Peace Nancy White to answer the basic questions of why and with what evidence she concluded Colonel Philip Shue’s Manner of Death a “Suicide.” Over the past year, the Kendall County Court has repeatedly ruled to deny the former JP’s Motion to Quash and Request for Immunity in answering the why and with what evidence questions, citing the duties and mental processes of a Coroner would not be protected under the “Mental Processes Rule.” But, true to form in the Shue case, the fight is not over and former JP Nancy White, with her legal “Dream Team“, paid for by the taxpayers of Kendall County, have now filed to appeal the decision of Judge Bill Palmer.
Kendall County News has requested the Commissioner’s Court to provide an estimate of the current and projected legal costs pertaining to the actions of the former Kendall County Justice of the Peace. No response has been received to date.
-----------------
Former Kendall County Judge is Order to Answer Questions for The Third Time
Ron Gordon
Kendall County News.com
For those of you familiar or unfamiliar with the Tracy Shue case, here is a breakdown with the timeline of events, and where we stand as of today.
On December 28, 2005 Tracy Shue filed to have Judge Nancy White give a deposition on the cause of death on Colonel Philip Shue.
Judge White filed a motion to Quash on January 13, 2006, for Protective Order to avoid her deposition. She objected to being deposed in part on the basis of the “Mental Processes Rule”
Ten days later Judge Palmer overruled Judge White’s “Mental Processes Rule“ objection and ordered her to proceed with the deposition.
Judge White was not satisfied with the Judge’s ruling and yet filed another motion for clarification of the court’s January 23rd Order. Judge White again argued that her deposition be quashed on the basis of the “Mental Processes Rule”
Once again on February 23, 2006 the court denied Judge White’s motion for clarification and order that her deposition proceeds.
This brings us to the deposition on November 10, 2006. Judge White refused to answer some questions that her lawyers thought was abusive which violated the court’s order. Her answer to the questions being asked was part on the basis of the “Mental Processes Rule”
Judge White abused the discovery process and failed to comply with two previous orders from the court. Given these prior orders, there was no justifiable excuse for Judge White’s failure to answer questions posed to her during her deposition. Such conduct necessitated Tracy Shue’s filed motion to compel and motion for cost.
This brings us to January 5, 2007. Shue’s attorney opened up the argument about wasting the court’s time and money going over an issue that was already ruled on by Judge Palmer, twice. Judge White’s attorney followed by stating that she did not have to answer any questions based on her being, at that time, a Judge. Judge Palmer then asked Judge White’s attorney, (paraphrasing) “A Medical Examiner can give testimony on the ruling of death. In Kendall County, the Medical Examiner is also the Justice of the Peace; so in this case, she wears two hats acting as the Justice of the Peace as well as the Medical Examiner. In acting as the Medical Examiner, Judge White does not then qualify for the “Mental Processing Rule“, because in this capacity for this case, Judge White was also the Medical Examiner.” Judge White’s attorney then followed that comment by saying, “Well that’s different!” and in true Judge White fashion, no additional reasoning from Counsel was provided.
Shue’s attorney rebutted and went over how Judge White last year, had a news conference the day before depositions were to be heard. She released confidential information to the Media, which included Social Security numbers, phone numbers and addresses of Tracy and Col. Philip Shue. Then Judge Palmer asked where the original paperwork was located now and Shue’s attorney answered with, “All I have is copies.” Then Former Judge White, not her attorneys, blurted out stating where the original documents were located. After that, her attorney turned to her and stated quickly, “Do not say another word.”
After hearing about 45 minutes of both Counsels pleading their cases, Judge Palmer ordered that Judge Nancy White’s deposition be reset for 9:00am on January 26, 2007. The case will be heard at the Kendall County Courthouse. It was ordered that Judge White must answer all questions which she did not answer in her depositions urging the Mental Process Objection. Lastly, Judge White is to pay court costs and court reporter costs for continuation of deposition.
To add insult to injury, Judge White’s attorneys advised Judge Palmer that they are appealing his decision to the Circuit Court. Also, Judge White’s attorneys didn’t feel it was fair that she be responsible for the court, court reporter and deposition costs, in which then Judge Palmer summed up the sentiments felt in the court, by stating, “Well if she had answered the questions during the last depositions, we wouldn’t be here today!”
All Tracy Shue asked for was an inquest which has been denied to this day. The question that needs to be answered by Former Judge Nancy White is: How did she find that suicide was the cause of death for Col. Philip Shue???????????
--Submitted by Tracy Shue
Friday, February 02, 2007
Sen. Akaka Wants Explanation About Events Before Iraq War Veteran's Suicide
Sen. Akaka Wants Explanation About Events Before Iraq War Veteran's Suicide
Thursday , February 01, 2007
A U.S. senator from Hawaii has asked the federal Department of Veterans Affairs to explain what happened before the suicide of an Iraq war veteran who, according to his family, had sought help at two VA hospitals in Minnesota.
In his Jan. 29 letter, Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii and chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, asked for an expedited analysis of the events preceding the Marine's death, as well as a description of actions the VA is taking to prevent similar tragedies.
According to previous news reports, Jonathan Schulze, 25, of New Prague, told a staff member at the VA hospital in St. Cloud two weeks ago that he was thinking of killing himself and he asked to be admitted. His father and stepmother, who accompanied him to the hospital, said he was told he couldn't be admitted that day. The next day, a counselor told him by phone that he was No. 26 on a waiting list, his parents said.
Four days later, Schulze committed suicide.
A team of federal investigators was due to arrive at the VA medical centers in Minneapolis and St. Cloud on Thursday to look into the family's claims.
Rep. John Kline , R-Minn., said VA officials in Minneapolis, St. Cloud and Washington told him they dispute that Schulze presented himself to hospital staff as suicidal. Kline said it should be clearer next week, after the investigation ends, just what happened in the exchange between Schulze and VA staff.
"It's just unconscionable that you have a man that's identified by the system, yet he gets to the point where he commits suicide," said Kline, a retired Marine who represents Schulze's district.
Akaka said the issues go beyond just Schulze's case.
"I am concerned that reports of VA's failure to respond to Mr. Schulze's request for help may indicate systemic problems in VA's capacity to identify, monitor, and treat veterans who are suicidal," Akaka wrote in his letter to Dr. Michael J. Kussman, the acting undersecretary for health with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
A phone message left Wednesday with Schulze's father and stepmother was not immediately returned to The Associated Press.
Joan Vincent, public affairs officer at the St. Cloud VA Medical Center, said she couldn't comment on Akaka's letter, and that privacy laws prevented her from confirming whether Schulze had been at the facility.
She said internal reviews are ongoing and the VA is "very, very good about trying to learn what happened when an adverse event occurs."
"Our biggest concern is this is a really tragic incident and of course we express our deepest sympathy to the family and friends of this young man," Vincent said. "We also want to encourage anyone with suicidal thoughts to seek help."
Steve Moynihan, public affairs officer for the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis, also could not get into specifics of Schulze's case.
One unresolved question is how full the hospitals were.
Ten of 25 beds in the Minneapolis VA's locked psychiatric unit are occupied this week, Moynihan said Wednesday. He said the unit doesn't have a waiting list.
The St. Cloud VA has no waiting list for its locked psychiatric unit — and never has, Vincent said. However, a separate residential mental health unit with beds had a waiting list of 21 veterans on Monday, she said. That unit is more for ongoing cases involving mental health and substance abuse, she said.
"We've never had a wait list for our beds in the acute psychiatric unit, where we would likely take people if we were thought they were suicidal," Vincent said.
In an earlier media report, Schulze's father, Jim Schulze, and his stepmother, Marianne Schulze, said their son would still be alive if the VA acted on his pleas for admittance. His parents said he unsuccessfully sought help at the facility in Minneapolis before going to St. Cloud.
On Jan. 16, Schulze called family and friends to tell them he was preparing to kill himself. They called the New Prague police, who found him hanging from an electrical cord.
Schulze's family doctor said he was convinced Schulze suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
"For a veteran at risk of suicide, contact with VA must trigger a response that will prevent suicide and provide ongoing monitoring and care," wrote Akaka.
He said that in 2004, a series of initiatives were developed to improve VA's ability to prevent suicide, and he believes all those initiatives have not been implemented. He asked the VA for information on efforts to continue to prevent suicide among vets.
Separately, the Minnesota Senate on Wednesday issued a statement also asking for information on prevention efforts, and urging the VA to find out what led to the tragedy.
--Submitted by Patti Woodard
Thursday , February 01, 2007
A U.S. senator from Hawaii has asked the federal Department of Veterans Affairs to explain what happened before the suicide of an Iraq war veteran who, according to his family, had sought help at two VA hospitals in Minnesota.
In his Jan. 29 letter, Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii and chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, asked for an expedited analysis of the events preceding the Marine's death, as well as a description of actions the VA is taking to prevent similar tragedies.
According to previous news reports, Jonathan Schulze, 25, of New Prague, told a staff member at the VA hospital in St. Cloud two weeks ago that he was thinking of killing himself and he asked to be admitted. His father and stepmother, who accompanied him to the hospital, said he was told he couldn't be admitted that day. The next day, a counselor told him by phone that he was No. 26 on a waiting list, his parents said.
Four days later, Schulze committed suicide.
A team of federal investigators was due to arrive at the VA medical centers in Minneapolis and St. Cloud on Thursday to look into the family's claims.
Rep. John Kline , R-Minn., said VA officials in Minneapolis, St. Cloud and Washington told him they dispute that Schulze presented himself to hospital staff as suicidal. Kline said it should be clearer next week, after the investigation ends, just what happened in the exchange between Schulze and VA staff.
"It's just unconscionable that you have a man that's identified by the system, yet he gets to the point where he commits suicide," said Kline, a retired Marine who represents Schulze's district.
Akaka said the issues go beyond just Schulze's case.
"I am concerned that reports of VA's failure to respond to Mr. Schulze's request for help may indicate systemic problems in VA's capacity to identify, monitor, and treat veterans who are suicidal," Akaka wrote in his letter to Dr. Michael J. Kussman, the acting undersecretary for health with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
A phone message left Wednesday with Schulze's father and stepmother was not immediately returned to The Associated Press.
Joan Vincent, public affairs officer at the St. Cloud VA Medical Center, said she couldn't comment on Akaka's letter, and that privacy laws prevented her from confirming whether Schulze had been at the facility.
She said internal reviews are ongoing and the VA is "very, very good about trying to learn what happened when an adverse event occurs."
"Our biggest concern is this is a really tragic incident and of course we express our deepest sympathy to the family and friends of this young man," Vincent said. "We also want to encourage anyone with suicidal thoughts to seek help."
Steve Moynihan, public affairs officer for the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis, also could not get into specifics of Schulze's case.
One unresolved question is how full the hospitals were.
Ten of 25 beds in the Minneapolis VA's locked psychiatric unit are occupied this week, Moynihan said Wednesday. He said the unit doesn't have a waiting list.
The St. Cloud VA has no waiting list for its locked psychiatric unit — and never has, Vincent said. However, a separate residential mental health unit with beds had a waiting list of 21 veterans on Monday, she said. That unit is more for ongoing cases involving mental health and substance abuse, she said.
"We've never had a wait list for our beds in the acute psychiatric unit, where we would likely take people if we were thought they were suicidal," Vincent said.
In an earlier media report, Schulze's father, Jim Schulze, and his stepmother, Marianne Schulze, said their son would still be alive if the VA acted on his pleas for admittance. His parents said he unsuccessfully sought help at the facility in Minneapolis before going to St. Cloud.
On Jan. 16, Schulze called family and friends to tell them he was preparing to kill himself. They called the New Prague police, who found him hanging from an electrical cord.
Schulze's family doctor said he was convinced Schulze suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
"For a veteran at risk of suicide, contact with VA must trigger a response that will prevent suicide and provide ongoing monitoring and care," wrote Akaka.
He said that in 2004, a series of initiatives were developed to improve VA's ability to prevent suicide, and he believes all those initiatives have not been implemented. He asked the VA for information on efforts to continue to prevent suicide among vets.
Separately, the Minnesota Senate on Wednesday issued a statement also asking for information on prevention efforts, and urging the VA to find out what led to the tragedy.
--Submitted by Patti Woodard
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Army's Suicide Struggles Continue
By LISA CHEDEKEL And MATTHEW KAUFFMAN, Courant Staff Writers
The suicide rate among soldiers in Iraq remained high in 2006 and could reach record levels for the war, with 22 deaths ruled as self-inflicted and more than a dozen other cases still under review, according to Department of Defense records.
A report this month by the military's Defense Manpower Data Center shows 81 confirmed self-inflicted deaths in the Army in Iraq - 22 more than the number of Army suicides reported by the military through 2005.
The number of confirmed suicides in 2006 matches the number in 2005, when the Army's suicide rate in Iraq reached 19.9 deaths per 100,000, the highest rate since the war began.
With as many as 17 other Army deaths still pending a final cause, the 2006 rate is likely to exceed the 2005 level. The total number of deployed soldiers did not change significantly over the two years and declined slightly during some months of 2006.
Veterans' advocates said the continued increase in suicides was troubling, given that the military has made safeguarding soldiers' mental health a priority. In 2006, suicide accounted for more than one in four of all non-combat Army deaths in Iraq.
Among the 2006 confirmed suicides was Tina Priest, a 21-year-old soldier from Austin, Texas, who killed herself in Iraq after reporting she was raped by a fellow soldier and then being placed on antidepressants, investigative records obtained by The Courant show. An Army psychologist deemed her stable just days before her death.
Steve Robinson, director of government relations for Veterans for America, said he was particularly disturbed by suicides in the war zone because combat troops are supposed to be screened for mental health issues before they join the military, before they are deployed and throughout their careers.
"These people aren't the kind of people that you would think would take this step," he said.
Robinson said the military has made some improvements to mental health care, but needs to do more, including making mental health checks as routine - and free of stigma - as vehicle or weapons inspections.
"This discussion about who's having problems is the same thing as checking out your equipment. You've got to check out the human body system. And they're just not doing it," Robinson said.
Col. Elspeth Ritchie, psychiatry consultant to the Army surgeon general, said the Army was making a "concerted effort" to reduce the number of suicides in the war zone, including revising suicide-prevention training, with specialized programs targeted to recruits, commanders and deployed soldiers.
"We are always concerned about any suicides. Every one is a tragedy," Ritchie said in a written statement to The Courant.
She said the revised training emphasizes "the importance of taking care of one's buddies. We also remind leaders that they must encourage help-seeking behaviors, recognize warning signs of suicidal behavior, and refer for care, if needed."
Other initiatives put in place recently include new deployment guidelines that expand mental health screening for troops heading to war and set limits on when troops with psychiatric problems can be kept in combat.
The guidelines were issued in November, in response to congressional legislation prompted by a May series in The Courant. The Courant found that some troops with pre-existing mental conditions were being sent into combat and that others who developed problems in the war zone were being kept there, in some cases with fatal consequences.
Investigative records show that Priest shot herself in Iraq in March, days after being diagnosed and treated for "Acute Stress Disorder consistent with Rape Trauma Syndrome." The records show she was prescribed the antidepressant Zoloft, the antipsychotic Seroquel and the sleeping aid Ambien.
Her family reported that she was in good spirits before her deployment, the records say. But friends and relatives told investigators that Priest's mental health declined sharply after the rape, and particularly after the soldier she accused was not confined pending his trial.
"Priest stated that she can't do it anymore, that she just wanted everything to be over with," a fellow soldier told investigators, recounting a conversation with Priest days before her death.
Earlier this month, The Associated Press reported that an Army private charged with raping a young Iraqi woman and slaughtering her family last year was found to have "homicidal ideations" by a combat-stress team, three months before the attack, but was prescribed an antipsychotic and retained in combat.
Top Army officials have been watching the suicide rate in Iraq closely since the early months of the war, when a spike in self-inflicted deaths prompted them to assemble a team of experts to examine ways to improve the mental health care of deployed troops. When the number of suicides dropped in 2004, to 10.5 deaths per 100,000 troops, military leaders credited their renewed prevention efforts.
But when the numbers climbed back up in 2005, Army Surgeon General Kevin C. Kiley and others downplayed the significance of the suicide rate, saying they expected some variation from year to year.
Still, at a Pentagon briefing last month, Army officials made clear that they hope to see suicide numbers fall off in 2007, as the new deployment policy and other initiatives take effect. They said they had appointed a suicide prevention coordinator for Iraq, and were in the process of establishing a unit that will more closely analyze each suicide.
Kiley and Col. Edward Crandall, head of the Army's team of mental health experts, have said they believe that most suicides are triggered by relationship and other personal problems, and that troubled soldiers are receiving appropriate care in the war zone.
Because the military does not identify victims of suicide, it was not clear how many of the soldiers who killed themselves in 2006 were serving second or third tours in Iraq, and how many were deployed for the first time.
A December report by the mental health team found that soldiers surveyed in 2005 - especially those who had served more than one deployment - were more likely to report acute stress symptoms than those surveyed in 2004. The Courant's analysis of 2004 and 2005 suicides had found that some soldiers had exhibited clear signs of combat-related stress before they killed themselves, while others had serious mental health problems before they deployed.
The mental health survey found that the stigma associated with seeking mental health care was lifting, with fewer than 30 percent of soldiers worried that they would be perceived as weak. But more than half the soldiers surveyed also said the suicide-prevention training they received was not sufficient to help them identify fellow soldiers at risk. And, complicating the military's efforts to improve services to soldiers, about a third of the mental health care providers serving in Iraq reported experiencing a high "burnout" level.
Jay White, a former Army combat-stress counselor from Cromwell who recently returned from Iraq, said he battled burnout during his second deployment.
"I know that I definitely experienced it. No doubt about that," said White, who now counsels returning veterans at the Hartford Vet Center in Wethersfield. "You don't feel like going to work. You wish you could call in sick, but there was never any of that. Or you'd see people and you're like: `Oh my God, I don't feel like talking to anybody today.' You'd just rather go hide in your trailer or something."
White said he saw evidence that some soldiers with pre-existing mental health problems were being sent into combat - a problem highlighted by The Courant, which found that fewer than 1 in 300 service members saw a mental health professional before shipping out, despite a congressional order that the military assess the mental health of all deploying troops.
"You can't help but wonder what the screening policies are before sending people over," White said. "There are people who have personality disorders - maybe they're just more mild [so] they're not seen before they get there - and then they get there and you're like, `Whoa, this is somebody who probably shouldn't be here in the first place.'"
The new deployment guidelines issued in November include a directive that troops who develop mental health problems during combat tours should be sent home if their conditions do not significantly improve within two weeks of treatment. It also directs that troops with mental illnesses not expected to resolve within one year should be considered unfit for military duty and evaluated for discharge.
Because the guidelines are still relatively new and allow clinicians considerable discretion, it is not clear how they are being applied. A task force headed by Kiley is expected to make recommendations for further improvements to mental health screening and treatment when it issues a report to the secretary of defense this spring.
The Army's 2005 suicide rate in Iraq was higher than the rate of 18.8 deaths per 100,000 troops in 2003, when the spike in suicides had prompted alarm and action from Army mental health officials. The 2006 rate also is expected to exceed the 2003 level.
Throughout the Army, the suicide rate rose from 10.8 per 100,000 troops in 2004 to 13 in 2005, the highest level since 1993.
The military this month released details of a separate, military-wide 2005 survey showing high levels of stress and depression among active-duty service members - both those who have deployed and those who have not. The survey of more than 16,000 service members found that those who had deployed in the previous three years had greater stress, higher rates of depression and anxiety, more alcohol and drug abuse and twice as many suicide attempts.
In recent months, Army officials have enlisted the help of a network of clergy to watch for warning signs of suicide. In an August letter to Army chaplains, Maj. Gen. David H. Hicks, the chief of chaplains, said an "increase in suicidal behavior on the part of our soldiers suggests that the pressures on our Army may be greater than ever." He urged chaplains to assist commanders, soldiers and families in learning to "recognize warning signs and identify at-risk people. One suicide is too many."
Contact Lisa Chedekel at lchedekel@courant.com.
The suicide rate among soldiers in Iraq remained high in 2006 and could reach record levels for the war, with 22 deaths ruled as self-inflicted and more than a dozen other cases still under review, according to Department of Defense records.
A report this month by the military's Defense Manpower Data Center shows 81 confirmed self-inflicted deaths in the Army in Iraq - 22 more than the number of Army suicides reported by the military through 2005.
The number of confirmed suicides in 2006 matches the number in 2005, when the Army's suicide rate in Iraq reached 19.9 deaths per 100,000, the highest rate since the war began.
With as many as 17 other Army deaths still pending a final cause, the 2006 rate is likely to exceed the 2005 level. The total number of deployed soldiers did not change significantly over the two years and declined slightly during some months of 2006.
Veterans' advocates said the continued increase in suicides was troubling, given that the military has made safeguarding soldiers' mental health a priority. In 2006, suicide accounted for more than one in four of all non-combat Army deaths in Iraq.
Among the 2006 confirmed suicides was Tina Priest, a 21-year-old soldier from Austin, Texas, who killed herself in Iraq after reporting she was raped by a fellow soldier and then being placed on antidepressants, investigative records obtained by The Courant show. An Army psychologist deemed her stable just days before her death.
Steve Robinson, director of government relations for Veterans for America, said he was particularly disturbed by suicides in the war zone because combat troops are supposed to be screened for mental health issues before they join the military, before they are deployed and throughout their careers.
"These people aren't the kind of people that you would think would take this step," he said.
Robinson said the military has made some improvements to mental health care, but needs to do more, including making mental health checks as routine - and free of stigma - as vehicle or weapons inspections.
"This discussion about who's having problems is the same thing as checking out your equipment. You've got to check out the human body system. And they're just not doing it," Robinson said.
Col. Elspeth Ritchie, psychiatry consultant to the Army surgeon general, said the Army was making a "concerted effort" to reduce the number of suicides in the war zone, including revising suicide-prevention training, with specialized programs targeted to recruits, commanders and deployed soldiers.
"We are always concerned about any suicides. Every one is a tragedy," Ritchie said in a written statement to The Courant.
She said the revised training emphasizes "the importance of taking care of one's buddies. We also remind leaders that they must encourage help-seeking behaviors, recognize warning signs of suicidal behavior, and refer for care, if needed."
Other initiatives put in place recently include new deployment guidelines that expand mental health screening for troops heading to war and set limits on when troops with psychiatric problems can be kept in combat.
The guidelines were issued in November, in response to congressional legislation prompted by a May series in The Courant. The Courant found that some troops with pre-existing mental conditions were being sent into combat and that others who developed problems in the war zone were being kept there, in some cases with fatal consequences.
Investigative records show that Priest shot herself in Iraq in March, days after being diagnosed and treated for "Acute Stress Disorder consistent with Rape Trauma Syndrome." The records show she was prescribed the antidepressant Zoloft, the antipsychotic Seroquel and the sleeping aid Ambien.
Her family reported that she was in good spirits before her deployment, the records say. But friends and relatives told investigators that Priest's mental health declined sharply after the rape, and particularly after the soldier she accused was not confined pending his trial.
"Priest stated that she can't do it anymore, that she just wanted everything to be over with," a fellow soldier told investigators, recounting a conversation with Priest days before her death.
Earlier this month, The Associated Press reported that an Army private charged with raping a young Iraqi woman and slaughtering her family last year was found to have "homicidal ideations" by a combat-stress team, three months before the attack, but was prescribed an antipsychotic and retained in combat.
Top Army officials have been watching the suicide rate in Iraq closely since the early months of the war, when a spike in self-inflicted deaths prompted them to assemble a team of experts to examine ways to improve the mental health care of deployed troops. When the number of suicides dropped in 2004, to 10.5 deaths per 100,000 troops, military leaders credited their renewed prevention efforts.
But when the numbers climbed back up in 2005, Army Surgeon General Kevin C. Kiley and others downplayed the significance of the suicide rate, saying they expected some variation from year to year.
Still, at a Pentagon briefing last month, Army officials made clear that they hope to see suicide numbers fall off in 2007, as the new deployment policy and other initiatives take effect. They said they had appointed a suicide prevention coordinator for Iraq, and were in the process of establishing a unit that will more closely analyze each suicide.
Kiley and Col. Edward Crandall, head of the Army's team of mental health experts, have said they believe that most suicides are triggered by relationship and other personal problems, and that troubled soldiers are receiving appropriate care in the war zone.
Because the military does not identify victims of suicide, it was not clear how many of the soldiers who killed themselves in 2006 were serving second or third tours in Iraq, and how many were deployed for the first time.
A December report by the mental health team found that soldiers surveyed in 2005 - especially those who had served more than one deployment - were more likely to report acute stress symptoms than those surveyed in 2004. The Courant's analysis of 2004 and 2005 suicides had found that some soldiers had exhibited clear signs of combat-related stress before they killed themselves, while others had serious mental health problems before they deployed.
The mental health survey found that the stigma associated with seeking mental health care was lifting, with fewer than 30 percent of soldiers worried that they would be perceived as weak. But more than half the soldiers surveyed also said the suicide-prevention training they received was not sufficient to help them identify fellow soldiers at risk. And, complicating the military's efforts to improve services to soldiers, about a third of the mental health care providers serving in Iraq reported experiencing a high "burnout" level.
Jay White, a former Army combat-stress counselor from Cromwell who recently returned from Iraq, said he battled burnout during his second deployment.
"I know that I definitely experienced it. No doubt about that," said White, who now counsels returning veterans at the Hartford Vet Center in Wethersfield. "You don't feel like going to work. You wish you could call in sick, but there was never any of that. Or you'd see people and you're like: `Oh my God, I don't feel like talking to anybody today.' You'd just rather go hide in your trailer or something."
White said he saw evidence that some soldiers with pre-existing mental health problems were being sent into combat - a problem highlighted by The Courant, which found that fewer than 1 in 300 service members saw a mental health professional before shipping out, despite a congressional order that the military assess the mental health of all deploying troops.
"You can't help but wonder what the screening policies are before sending people over," White said. "There are people who have personality disorders - maybe they're just more mild [so] they're not seen before they get there - and then they get there and you're like, `Whoa, this is somebody who probably shouldn't be here in the first place.'"
The new deployment guidelines issued in November include a directive that troops who develop mental health problems during combat tours should be sent home if their conditions do not significantly improve within two weeks of treatment. It also directs that troops with mental illnesses not expected to resolve within one year should be considered unfit for military duty and evaluated for discharge.
Because the guidelines are still relatively new and allow clinicians considerable discretion, it is not clear how they are being applied. A task force headed by Kiley is expected to make recommendations for further improvements to mental health screening and treatment when it issues a report to the secretary of defense this spring.
The Army's 2005 suicide rate in Iraq was higher than the rate of 18.8 deaths per 100,000 troops in 2003, when the spike in suicides had prompted alarm and action from Army mental health officials. The 2006 rate also is expected to exceed the 2003 level.
Throughout the Army, the suicide rate rose from 10.8 per 100,000 troops in 2004 to 13 in 2005, the highest level since 1993.
The military this month released details of a separate, military-wide 2005 survey showing high levels of stress and depression among active-duty service members - both those who have deployed and those who have not. The survey of more than 16,000 service members found that those who had deployed in the previous three years had greater stress, higher rates of depression and anxiety, more alcohol and drug abuse and twice as many suicide attempts.
In recent months, Army officials have enlisted the help of a network of clergy to watch for warning signs of suicide. In an August letter to Army chaplains, Maj. Gen. David H. Hicks, the chief of chaplains, said an "increase in suicidal behavior on the part of our soldiers suggests that the pressures on our Army may be greater than ever." He urged chaplains to assist commanders, soldiers and families in learning to "recognize warning signs and identify at-risk people. One suicide is too many."
Contact Lisa Chedekel at lchedekel@courant.com.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Two Sets of Books?
From the New York Times:
January 30, 2007
Agency Says Higher Casualty Total Was Posted in Error
By DENISE GRADY
For the last few months, anyone who consulted the Veterans Affairs Department’s Web site to learn how many American troops had been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan would have found this number: 50,508.
But on Jan. 10, without explanation, the figure plummeted to 21,649.
Which number is correct? The answer depends on a larger question, the definition of wounded. If the term includes combat or “hostile” injuries inflicted by the enemy, the definition the Pentagon uses, the smaller number would be right.
But if it also applies to injuries from accidents like vehicle crashes and to mental and physical illnesses that developed in the war zone, the meaning that veterans’ groups favor, 50,508 would be accurate.
A spokesman for the veterans’ department, Matt Burns, said the change in the count was made simply to correct an error. Mr. Burns said the department posted the higher figure by mistake in November, when an employee who was updating the site inadvertently added noncombat injuries listed by the Defense Department. The Pentagon Web site had the correct total all along.
The previous total on the Web site was 18,586, strictly for combat injuries. Apparently, no one noticed the sudden leap.
The 50,508 figure caught the attention of the Pentagon when Prof. Linda Bilmes of Harvard mentioned it in an opinion article on Jan. 5 in The Los Angeles Times. A few days later, said Professor Bilmes, who teaches public finance, she had a call from Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, challenging the number.
Professor Bilmes explained that she had used the government tally, the one on the “America’s Wars” page of the veterans’ department Web site. She faxed him a copy.
A few days later, the number on the Web site was changed.
A spokeswoman for Dr. Winkenwerder confirmed that he had called the veterans’ department to have the figure corrected and that the worker had misunderstood the Defense Department figures.
For her purposes, Professor Bilmes said, the higher figure was the relevant one because she was writing about the future demands that wounded veterans would place on the veterans’ health care system. Many of the veterans would be treated in the system regardless of whether they had been injured in combat or in vehicle crashes.
About 1.4 million troops have served in Iraq or Afghanistan, and more than 205,000 have sought care from the veterans’ agency, according to the government. Of those, more than 73,000 sought treatment for mental problems like post-traumatic stress disorder.
No one disputes that more 50,000 troops have been injured in Iraq and Afghanistan or that nonhostile injuries can be serious. Of the more than 3,000 deaths that have occurred, 600 have been listed as nonhostile.
The Pentagon generally directs reporters to www.defenselink.mil, which lists counts of the wounded and dead. The deaths are divided into hostile and nonhostile, but the injuries include just those “wounded in action.”
Another site on the Web, http ://siadapp.dior.whs.mil/personnel /CASUALTY/castop.htm, shows diseases and nonhostile injuries. It is the source of the higher counts.
“The government keeps two sets of books,” said Paul Sullivan, director of research and analysis for Veterans of America. Until last March, Mr. Sullivan was a project manager in the Veterans Affairs Department who monitored the use of disability benefits by Afghanistan, gulf war and Iraq veterans.
He suggested that the differing numbers might be cleared up by a bill that has been introduced in the Senate to improve the collection of health information on Afghanistan and Iraq veterans.
January 30, 2007
Agency Says Higher Casualty Total Was Posted in Error
By DENISE GRADY
For the last few months, anyone who consulted the Veterans Affairs Department’s Web site to learn how many American troops had been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan would have found this number: 50,508.
But on Jan. 10, without explanation, the figure plummeted to 21,649.
Which number is correct? The answer depends on a larger question, the definition of wounded. If the term includes combat or “hostile” injuries inflicted by the enemy, the definition the Pentagon uses, the smaller number would be right.
But if it also applies to injuries from accidents like vehicle crashes and to mental and physical illnesses that developed in the war zone, the meaning that veterans’ groups favor, 50,508 would be accurate.
A spokesman for the veterans’ department, Matt Burns, said the change in the count was made simply to correct an error. Mr. Burns said the department posted the higher figure by mistake in November, when an employee who was updating the site inadvertently added noncombat injuries listed by the Defense Department. The Pentagon Web site had the correct total all along.
The previous total on the Web site was 18,586, strictly for combat injuries. Apparently, no one noticed the sudden leap.
The 50,508 figure caught the attention of the Pentagon when Prof. Linda Bilmes of Harvard mentioned it in an opinion article on Jan. 5 in The Los Angeles Times. A few days later, said Professor Bilmes, who teaches public finance, she had a call from Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, challenging the number.
Professor Bilmes explained that she had used the government tally, the one on the “America’s Wars” page of the veterans’ department Web site. She faxed him a copy.
A few days later, the number on the Web site was changed.
A spokeswoman for Dr. Winkenwerder confirmed that he had called the veterans’ department to have the figure corrected and that the worker had misunderstood the Defense Department figures.
For her purposes, Professor Bilmes said, the higher figure was the relevant one because she was writing about the future demands that wounded veterans would place on the veterans’ health care system. Many of the veterans would be treated in the system regardless of whether they had been injured in combat or in vehicle crashes.
About 1.4 million troops have served in Iraq or Afghanistan, and more than 205,000 have sought care from the veterans’ agency, according to the government. Of those, more than 73,000 sought treatment for mental problems like post-traumatic stress disorder.
No one disputes that more 50,000 troops have been injured in Iraq and Afghanistan or that nonhostile injuries can be serious. Of the more than 3,000 deaths that have occurred, 600 have been listed as nonhostile.
The Pentagon generally directs reporters to www.defenselink.mil, which lists counts of the wounded and dead. The deaths are divided into hostile and nonhostile, but the injuries include just those “wounded in action.”
Another site on the Web, http ://siadapp.dior.whs.mil/personnel /CASUALTY/castop.htm, shows diseases and nonhostile injuries. It is the source of the higher counts.
“The government keeps two sets of books,” said Paul Sullivan, director of research and analysis for Veterans of America. Until last March, Mr. Sullivan was a project manager in the Veterans Affairs Department who monitored the use of disability benefits by Afghanistan, gulf war and Iraq veterans.
He suggested that the differing numbers might be cleared up by a bill that has been introduced in the Senate to improve the collection of health information on Afghanistan and Iraq veterans.
Monday, January 29, 2007
This Marine's death came after he served in Iraq
Reprinted with the permission of the author:
This Marine's death came after he served in Iraq
When Jonathan Schulze came home from Iraq, he tried to live a normal life. But the war kept that from happening.
By Kevin Giles, Star Tribune
At first, Jonathan Schulze tried to live with the nightmares and the grief he brought home from Iraq. He was a tough kid from central Minnesota, and more than that, a U.S. Marine to the core.
Yet his moods when he returned home told another story. He sobbed on his parents' couch as he told them how fellow Marines had died, and how he, a machine gunner, had killed the enemy. In his sleep, he screamed the names of dead comrades. He had visited a psychiatrist at the VA hospital in Minneapolis.
Two weeks ago, Schulze went to the VA hospital in St. Cloud. He told a staff member he was thinking of killing himself, and asked to be admitted to the mental health unit, said his father and stepmother, who accompanied him. They said he was told he couldn't be admitted that day. The next day, as he spoke to a counselor in St. Cloud by phone, he was told he was No. 26 on the waiting list, his parents said.
Four days later, Schulze, 25, committed suicide in his New Prague home.
Citing privacy laws, Veterans Affairs officials wouldn't comment specifically on the case, nor would they confirm or deny the Schulze family's account. However, Dr. Sherrie Herendeen, line director for mental health services at the St. Cloud hospital, said Thursday that under VA policy, a veteran talking about suicide would immediately be escorted into the hospital's locked mental health unit for treatment.
She also said that after hearing of Schulze's death, the hospital is doing an internal review of its procedures.
Schulze's father and stepmother, Jim and Marianne Schulze of rural Stewart, Minn., say their son would be alive today if the VA had acted on his pleas for admittance. They say they heard him tell VA staff in St. Cloud that he felt suicidal -- in person on Jan. 11 at the hospital, and over the phone on Jan. 12.
On the evening of Jan. 16, Schulze called family and friends to tell them that he was preparing to kill himself. They called New Prague police, who smashed in the door and found him hanging from an electrical cord. Police attempted to resuscitate him, but it was too late.
Schulze's family doctor in Stewart, a farming crossroads in McLeod County, said he was convinced that Schulze suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, a disabling mental condition that can result from military combat.
"Jonathan was a classic," said Dr. William Phillips, who said he first examined Schulze in October 2004 when Schulze was home on leave from Marine duty.
Phillips said Schulze was reliving combat in his sleep, had flashbacks when he was awake, couldn't eat, felt paranoid, struggled with relationships and admitted to drinking alcohol excessively. Phillips prescribed medication to calm his nerves and help him sleep.
The doctor also asked Schulze to seek counseling at Camp Pendleton, the Marine Corps base in California where he was assigned. Phillips said he was unable to learn whether Schulze had done so.
"We don't have a system for this," Phillips said this week. "The VA is overwhelmed, and we're rural doctors out here trying to deal with this. Unfortunately, we're going to see a lot of Jonathans."
Seeking help
Maj. Cynthia Rasmussen, the combat stress officer for the 88th Regional Readiness Command at Fort Snelling, said veterans returning to Minnesota who have problems often don't seek help until their civilian lives begin to fall apart. "Soldiers think if they go to get help that they're going to be seen as weak, but they also think their command won't have faith in them," she said.
Rasmussen said reasons for mental illness among returning veterans are many and complex, but often relate to personality changes that service members must make while in uniform -- and especially in combat zones -- and then try to readjust to civilian life.
After Schulze left the Marines in late 2005, he continued to have aching memories of combat.
"When he got back from Iraq he was mentally scattered," said his older brother Travis, who also served there with the Marines.
Much of Jonathan Schulze's anguish seemed to relate to combat in Ramadi in April 2004. Schulze, who carried a heavy machine gun, wrote his parents that 16 Marines, many of them close friends, had died in two afternoons of firefights and bombings. Twice he was wounded but didn't tell his parents, not wanting them to worry. He wrote them about dismembered bodies. About youth and combat and disillusionment. And about the bombs.
"I pray so much over here and ask God to keep me out of harm's way and to make it back home alive and in one piece," he wrote Jim and Marianne in May 2004. "I bet I easily pray over a dozen times a day and I always pray while I am on patrol as I am terrified of getting hit by an IED aka a bomb. Our vehicle elements and Marines on patrols are getting hit hard by these bombs the Iraqis plant all over and hide on the ground."
Schulze carried guilt that fellow Marines died. He wanted to return to Iraq to somehow redeem himself, said his father, who did three tours of duty in Vietnam.
Because of that, Schulze at first resisted counseling, Jim Schulze said: "Being a Marine, he was too proud to get help. They want to make you impervious of any emotion. And when you get out it's almost impossible to put it back the way it was."
When Schulze left the Marine Corps, he participated in military color guards, visited aging veterans in the state homes, helped anyone in need. He worked with his stepfather building houses. An unmarried father, Schulze bragged of adoration for his young daughter, Kaley Marie, on his MySpace website.
But the war always got in the way of a normal life.
Schulze was on an emotional roller coaster and couldn't get off, said his close Marine friend from Iraq, Eric Satersmoen, who with Schulze's stepbrothers described him as becoming uncharacteristically quiet.
"Lot of inner turmoil, lot of flashbacks, lot of nightmares," was how Jim Schulze described his son.
The Jan. 11 visit to the VA in St. Cloud came a few weeks after Jonathan Schulze waited for more than three hours at the VA hospital in Minneapolis, hoping to be admitted, Jim Schulze said. His son last saw a psychiatrist at the Minneapolis VA on Dec. 14 but someone there told him he couldn't be admitted for treatment until March, Jim Schulze said. They went to St. Cloud with the expectation that Jonathan could be admitted quicker.
Satersmoen and Travis Schulze think that Jonathan Schulze didn't intend to kill himself. They said that he was drunk and confused and speculate that he unintentionally blacked out before police arrived.
Secondary causes of death, said the Minnesota Regional Coroner's Office in Hastings, were post-traumatic stress disorder and acute and chronic alcoholism.
At the funeral in Prior Lake, Schulze lay in his Marine dress blues, two Purple Hearts and his other medals pinned to his tunic. Dozens of young men -- fellow Marines -- gathered in groups to tell stories. They called him Jonny. He was funny, they said. The life of the party.
Cold wind ripped across the cemetery in Stewart where he was buried. Veterans from the Hutchinson, Minn., VFW fired a three-volley salute. Travis Schulze, dressed in black, and Satersmoen, wearing Marine dress blues, removed the flag from the casket and folded it. Travis Schulze presented the flag to his father. And saluted him.
"He was a delayed casualty of the Iraq war," Jim Schulze said of Jonathan.
Kevin Giles • 612-673-7707 • ©2007 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
This Marine's death came after he served in Iraq
When Jonathan Schulze came home from Iraq, he tried to live a normal life. But the war kept that from happening.
By Kevin Giles, Star Tribune
At first, Jonathan Schulze tried to live with the nightmares and the grief he brought home from Iraq. He was a tough kid from central Minnesota, and more than that, a U.S. Marine to the core.
Yet his moods when he returned home told another story. He sobbed on his parents' couch as he told them how fellow Marines had died, and how he, a machine gunner, had killed the enemy. In his sleep, he screamed the names of dead comrades. He had visited a psychiatrist at the VA hospital in Minneapolis.
Two weeks ago, Schulze went to the VA hospital in St. Cloud. He told a staff member he was thinking of killing himself, and asked to be admitted to the mental health unit, said his father and stepmother, who accompanied him. They said he was told he couldn't be admitted that day. The next day, as he spoke to a counselor in St. Cloud by phone, he was told he was No. 26 on the waiting list, his parents said.
Four days later, Schulze, 25, committed suicide in his New Prague home.
Citing privacy laws, Veterans Affairs officials wouldn't comment specifically on the case, nor would they confirm or deny the Schulze family's account. However, Dr. Sherrie Herendeen, line director for mental health services at the St. Cloud hospital, said Thursday that under VA policy, a veteran talking about suicide would immediately be escorted into the hospital's locked mental health unit for treatment.
She also said that after hearing of Schulze's death, the hospital is doing an internal review of its procedures.
Schulze's father and stepmother, Jim and Marianne Schulze of rural Stewart, Minn., say their son would be alive today if the VA had acted on his pleas for admittance. They say they heard him tell VA staff in St. Cloud that he felt suicidal -- in person on Jan. 11 at the hospital, and over the phone on Jan. 12.
On the evening of Jan. 16, Schulze called family and friends to tell them that he was preparing to kill himself. They called New Prague police, who smashed in the door and found him hanging from an electrical cord. Police attempted to resuscitate him, but it was too late.
Schulze's family doctor in Stewart, a farming crossroads in McLeod County, said he was convinced that Schulze suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, a disabling mental condition that can result from military combat.
"Jonathan was a classic," said Dr. William Phillips, who said he first examined Schulze in October 2004 when Schulze was home on leave from Marine duty.
Phillips said Schulze was reliving combat in his sleep, had flashbacks when he was awake, couldn't eat, felt paranoid, struggled with relationships and admitted to drinking alcohol excessively. Phillips prescribed medication to calm his nerves and help him sleep.
The doctor also asked Schulze to seek counseling at Camp Pendleton, the Marine Corps base in California where he was assigned. Phillips said he was unable to learn whether Schulze had done so.
"We don't have a system for this," Phillips said this week. "The VA is overwhelmed, and we're rural doctors out here trying to deal with this. Unfortunately, we're going to see a lot of Jonathans."
Seeking help
Maj. Cynthia Rasmussen, the combat stress officer for the 88th Regional Readiness Command at Fort Snelling, said veterans returning to Minnesota who have problems often don't seek help until their civilian lives begin to fall apart. "Soldiers think if they go to get help that they're going to be seen as weak, but they also think their command won't have faith in them," she said.
Rasmussen said reasons for mental illness among returning veterans are many and complex, but often relate to personality changes that service members must make while in uniform -- and especially in combat zones -- and then try to readjust to civilian life.
After Schulze left the Marines in late 2005, he continued to have aching memories of combat.
"When he got back from Iraq he was mentally scattered," said his older brother Travis, who also served there with the Marines.
Much of Jonathan Schulze's anguish seemed to relate to combat in Ramadi in April 2004. Schulze, who carried a heavy machine gun, wrote his parents that 16 Marines, many of them close friends, had died in two afternoons of firefights and bombings. Twice he was wounded but didn't tell his parents, not wanting them to worry. He wrote them about dismembered bodies. About youth and combat and disillusionment. And about the bombs.
"I pray so much over here and ask God to keep me out of harm's way and to make it back home alive and in one piece," he wrote Jim and Marianne in May 2004. "I bet I easily pray over a dozen times a day and I always pray while I am on patrol as I am terrified of getting hit by an IED aka a bomb. Our vehicle elements and Marines on patrols are getting hit hard by these bombs the Iraqis plant all over and hide on the ground."
Schulze carried guilt that fellow Marines died. He wanted to return to Iraq to somehow redeem himself, said his father, who did three tours of duty in Vietnam.
Because of that, Schulze at first resisted counseling, Jim Schulze said: "Being a Marine, he was too proud to get help. They want to make you impervious of any emotion. And when you get out it's almost impossible to put it back the way it was."
When Schulze left the Marine Corps, he participated in military color guards, visited aging veterans in the state homes, helped anyone in need. He worked with his stepfather building houses. An unmarried father, Schulze bragged of adoration for his young daughter, Kaley Marie, on his MySpace website.
But the war always got in the way of a normal life.
Schulze was on an emotional roller coaster and couldn't get off, said his close Marine friend from Iraq, Eric Satersmoen, who with Schulze's stepbrothers described him as becoming uncharacteristically quiet.
"Lot of inner turmoil, lot of flashbacks, lot of nightmares," was how Jim Schulze described his son.
The Jan. 11 visit to the VA in St. Cloud came a few weeks after Jonathan Schulze waited for more than three hours at the VA hospital in Minneapolis, hoping to be admitted, Jim Schulze said. His son last saw a psychiatrist at the Minneapolis VA on Dec. 14 but someone there told him he couldn't be admitted for treatment until March, Jim Schulze said. They went to St. Cloud with the expectation that Jonathan could be admitted quicker.
Satersmoen and Travis Schulze think that Jonathan Schulze didn't intend to kill himself. They said that he was drunk and confused and speculate that he unintentionally blacked out before police arrived.
Secondary causes of death, said the Minnesota Regional Coroner's Office in Hastings, were post-traumatic stress disorder and acute and chronic alcoholism.
At the funeral in Prior Lake, Schulze lay in his Marine dress blues, two Purple Hearts and his other medals pinned to his tunic. Dozens of young men -- fellow Marines -- gathered in groups to tell stories. They called him Jonny. He was funny, they said. The life of the party.
Cold wind ripped across the cemetery in Stewart where he was buried. Veterans from the Hutchinson, Minn., VFW fired a three-volley salute. Travis Schulze, dressed in black, and Satersmoen, wearing Marine dress blues, removed the flag from the casket and folded it. Travis Schulze presented the flag to his father. And saluted him.
"He was a delayed casualty of the Iraq war," Jim Schulze said of Jonathan.
Kevin Giles • 612-673-7707 • ©2007 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
From the New York Post
KIN WANT DETAILS OF IRAQ DEATH
By BRIGITTE WILLIAMS-JAMES and NEIL GRAVES
January 22, 2007 -- The family of a New York sailor fatally shot in the head in Iraq last week demanded yesterday to be told the circumstances of his mysterious death.
"I want to know exactly what happened," said Barbara Alomar, of upstate Livingston Manor, the mother of Pretty Officer Joseph Alomar. "And I'm not being given any answers right now."
The military has told the family of the 22-year-old sailor only that he died from a "non-combat related incident" on Thursday - a bullet wound to the head - at Camp Bucca, a prisoner detention center.
"The military told me he was shot in a fire zone, that he was not on duty," said his dad, Joseph Figueroa, 44, of Brooklyn.
Aileen Encarnaction of Queens, the sailor's stepmom, said, "I feel numb. It's like a nightmare."
Alomar and his wife, Jennifer, have a 4-year-old daughter, Jaleeha. He had been in the Navy three years and was due to finish his service in April.
His sister, Sabrina Figueroa, 15, said Alomar used to complain of homesickness, "but he never said he had any problems in Iraq."
By BRIGITTE WILLIAMS-JAMES and NEIL GRAVES
January 22, 2007 -- The family of a New York sailor fatally shot in the head in Iraq last week demanded yesterday to be told the circumstances of his mysterious death.
"I want to know exactly what happened," said Barbara Alomar, of upstate Livingston Manor, the mother of Pretty Officer Joseph Alomar. "And I'm not being given any answers right now."
The military has told the family of the 22-year-old sailor only that he died from a "non-combat related incident" on Thursday - a bullet wound to the head - at Camp Bucca, a prisoner detention center.
"The military told me he was shot in a fire zone, that he was not on duty," said his dad, Joseph Figueroa, 44, of Brooklyn.
Aileen Encarnaction of Queens, the sailor's stepmom, said, "I feel numb. It's like a nightmare."
Alomar and his wife, Jennifer, have a 4-year-old daughter, Jaleeha. He had been in the Navy three years and was due to finish his service in April.
His sister, Sabrina Figueroa, 15, said Alomar used to complain of homesickness, "but he never said he had any problems in Iraq."
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