When stress becomes fatal
Mental health may not be the first thing you think of when pundits and bloviators blather on about high foreign policy and international security issues, but it’s there.
If policymakers think they have it tough with their late nights at the White House and Congress try being at the point of spear. If all soldiers and marines had to worry about were lack of sleep and newspaper columnists or think tank experts voicing criticisms they would be rolling on the floor laughing.
You probably know where I’m going with this but let me get specific. After six years of being ground down in Iraq U.S. forces in Afghanistan, currently over sixty thousand of them, are in the thick of it, getting wounded and killed far too freely.
Thus far, 2009 is turning out to be the most tragic for Americans in the Afghan War, with 176 dead, far more than the 155 casualties in all of 2008. A very high number indeed, considering the United States has suffered a total of 806 military deaths since the 2001 invasion.
The only other coalition members with triple-digit casualties since the war began are the United Kingdom, which has 207 deaths, and Canada, which has 127. The impact in those countries is even higher since, as they have far less forces there their casualties are proportionally far higher.
Yet the psychic casualties are also staggering.
As the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported this past Saturday the Army, with 128 suicides last year, already has 79 so far this year. The Navy had 41 last year and 28 this year. The Marines have 34, seven shy of last year, and the Air Force has recorded half its 40 suicides of 2008.
And 2008 itself was a record year for military suicides. That year 140 soldiers on active duty took their own lives, continuing a trend in which the number of suicides has increased more than 60 percent since 2003, surpassing the rate for the general U.S. population.
The government says around 5,000 veterans a year commit suicide. To counter that, a VA suicide hot line launched in 2007, (800) 273-TALK, fielded close to 100,000 calls in just its first eight months.
An article in early August by Dahr Jahmail noted that on July 26, the Colorado Springs Gazette ran a story headlined “Casualties of War, Part I: The hell of war comes home.” The article highlighted what is happening to soldiers upon their return from the occupation of Iraq. It begins:
Before the murders started, Anthony Marquez’s mom dialed his sergeant at Fort Carson to warn that her son was poised to kill.
It was February 2006, and the 21-year-old soldier had not been the same since being wounded and coming home from Iraq eight months before. He had violent outbursts and thrashing nightmares. He was devouring pain pills and drinking too much. He always packed a gun.
“It was a dangerous combination. I told them he was a walking time bomb,” said his mother, Teresa Hernandez.
His sergeant told her there was nothing he could do. Then, she said, he started taunting her son, saying things like, “Your mommy called. She says you are going crazy.”
Eight months later, the time bomb exploded when her son used a stun gun to repeatedly shock a small-time drug dealer in Widefield over an ounce of marijuana, then shot him through the heart.
Marquez was the first infantry soldier in his brigade to murder someone after returning from Iraq. But he wasn’t the last.
Marquez, like many others in his brigade, returned home scarred from war, suffering the ravages of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He, like his fellow soldiers, began to murder civilians and each other, drive around and shoot at people, beat their former girlfriends to death, rape, kidnap, brawl, deal drugs, stab people, commit suicide, and self-medicate via alcohol and drugs.
From 2007 to 2008, the murder rate for his brigade, the 4th Infantry Division’s 4th Brigade Combat Team, was 114 times that of Colorado Springs.
Soldiers are returning from the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan destroyed mentally, spiritually, and psychologically, to a general population that is, mostly, willfully ignorant of the occupations and the soldiers participating in them. Troops face a Department of Veterans Affairs that is either unwilling or unable to help them with their physical and psychological wounds, and they are left to fend for themselves. It is a perfect storm of denial, neglect, violence, rage, suffering, and death.
Back in May regular duties were suspended for three days at Fort Campbell, Kentucky which was leading the Army in suicides this year, so commanders can identify and help soldiers who are struggling with the stress of war and most at risk for killing themselves.
What is the military doing? When presenting suicide data in early July for the month of June it noted it was
“completing the second phase of a three-phased service-wide suicide stand-down and chain teach program, July 15, 2009. Phases one and two included an interactive training program, that features a video, and a small unit leader training effort which began on February 15, 2009. The third phase of the Army program will include sustained annual suicide prevention training for all soldiers, emphasizing common causes of suicidal behavior and the critical role Army leaders, friends, co-workers and families play in maintaining behavioral health.
The Army’s Suicide Prevention Task Force will continue implementation of the Army Campaign Plan for Health Promotion, Risk Reduction and Suicide Prevention to further enhance suicide prevention and behavioral health programs that directly affect our Army community and save soldiers’ lives.”
Even allowing for the traditional slowness of a military bureaucracy it seems almost criminally negligent. Somehow having troops watch videos like “Shoulder to Shoulder, No Soldier Stands Alone.” or giving them a laminated “Ask, Care and Escort” card that tells soldiers to ask questions like, “Are you thinking of killing yourself?” just doesn’t cut it.
And, it is not as if this is all of a sudden. The problem isn’t new. An Army survey of 1,124 Iraq troops in 2005 found that GIs who served more than one tour had higher rates of acute stress — a condition that prevents a soldier from working.
The most recent Mental Health Advisory Team report, released in 2008, found few changes. Third- and fourth-tour troops had “significantly lower morale, more mental-health problems and more stress-related work problems.”
Suicide rates, it continued, “remain elevated in both theaters and are above normal Army rates.”
And for all the whoop de doo the rightwing likes to make about the Bush administration’s surge to Iraq 2007 saw a sharp jump in suicides as President Bush sent 28,000 more troops to Iraq to break an insurgency that had mushroomed into civil war. By the end of that year, 295 GIs had killed themselves.
To be fair it is not clear there are any good solutions. The military has been aware of PTSD since the Vietnam War. Yet too many veterans still feel they have no choice but to suck it up. The first thing they need to know is that that PTSD is a natural reaction to a screwed-up situation.
What else? Oh yes, note to the Obama administration; continuing the Bush policy of fighting wars which the country is not really engaged in fighting and for which it doesn’t want to sacrifice is a really bad idea.
No related posts.
PTSD, stress and the greater inclination for suicide represent one of the chief reasons why war and military conflict is an obsolete anachronism in this new millennium. Isenberg quite rightly points out that it isn’t just a handful of people affected. Since the Second World War it has been proven that hundreds of thousands (perhaps more) of veterans experience stress, nightmares, depression, and other symptoms. And that often manifests itself in not only suicide but assault, family/spouse abuse, alcoholism, paranoia, drug abuse, homicide, and other crimes. For those conservatives ranting about our huge multi-trillion dollar deficits, you’ve got to realize that a large portion of that deficit is related to huge, overinflated military budgets (beyond any reasonable conceivable notion of true “national defense”). And were’ talking about more than the hundreds of billions wasted on Star War missile defenses, and many more boondoggle big ticket military spending projects (often made worse by a Congress that uses military spending as a jobs program even when Pentagon or outside experts say that some additional weapons are wasteful and unnecessary), we’re talking about the real need to spend our treasure to heal the physical and mental wounds to our veterans caused by war. These expenses are almost always NOT factored into calculations about the ‘true costs of the war.” We’re talking about LONG-TERM, decades-long hospitalization, extensive treatments, disability income, and many many more expenses incurred by our veterans. Those expenses can run into the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars! Obviously, this is NOT the wasteful spending I was referring to earlier—it is ESSENTIAL that we care for our veterans—short-term and long-term. But it is NOT essential to fight unnecessary wars (Iraq, 2003- ), or to over-militarize legitimate operations to kill or capture the leaders responsible for the 9/11 attacks (Af-Pak War, 2001- ). Fighting these unnecessary wars and especially the ramped up GWOT is a prescription for dramatically increasing our federal deficit while also abusing our greatest treasure—our young men and women. There will ALWAYS be terrorists and criminals as there always have been in history, putting a “war” label on the international law enforcement, political, economic, and special forces mission to prevent, mitigate, and derail these criminals represents tremendously expensive overkill Obviously it is extremely unlikely that war as an institution can be quickly eliminated, but while we’re working on that, an interim step is to bring back the military draft—as part of a larger, nonpartisan-framed National Service Program. In this program even those that opt out of military service and choose the Peace Corps or volunteering in our nation (for a required two years after high school), will still be subject to working at times on hazardous duty (such as forest fire fighting or rescue/disaster operations). And most importantly, we’ll apply the lessons of Vietnam and NOT allow the rich or well-connected kids to opt out through college deferments or appointment to other safe, cushy, postings.
Comment on September 1, 2009 @ 5:07 am
Dear Mr. Isenberg:
Thank you for a superb essay. May I kindly note there is much more damaging information about the consequences of the failed Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive and unilateral war? According to a RAND study released last year, nearly one-third of the two million troops sent to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will return home with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and/or traumatic brain injury (TBI).
The situation facing our returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans remains bleak and worthy of far more probing coverage by the national and local media. While some facts have been reported, there has not been sustained investigative reporting of the kind that is necessary of the government’s willful failure to care for our veterans. For example, of the two million deployed so far to the two war zones, one million are now veterans eligible for healthcare and disability benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
Among eligible veterans, 425,000 have already been treated by VA hospitals and clinics, and 405,000 have filed disability compensation claims against the government. Most notably, among the 115,000 recent war veterans diagnosed by VA with PTSD, only 58,000 are receiving disability benefits for PTSD. As James Dao recently reported in The New York Times, veterans facing claim delays are calling VA’s new suicide prevention hotline – a new service established by VA after our organization sued VA for failing to provide prompt care. Dao also covered the news that advocacy efforts by veterans’ groups may result in streamlined disability benefit claim reviews by VA.
Veterans for Common Sense leads the way using the Freedom of Information Act to uncover these salient statistics so Americans know the full human cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. For more information, please read the book, “The Three Trillion Dollar War,” by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes. The authors used information obtained exclusively by Veterans for Common Sense to estimate up to 700,000 casualties from the two wars costing U.S. taxpayers $700 billion over the next 40 years. As the Afghanistan war escalates, we expect the costs to soar higher.
Why are these numbers so absolutely essential to an informed public debate? Here is the dire warning: So long as the wars continue, and so long as our soldiers and veterans lack prompt access to high-quality medical care and benefits from the military and VA, this tragedy of veteran suicides will continue to repeat itself. Unless VA is reformed now – new pro-veteran leaders, new streamlined policies, and more funding for staff – the situation will deteriorate further. Fortunately for our veterans and their families, President Obama and Congress have addressed the leadership and funding issues. Now all VA needs to do is streamline access to care and benefits.
Sincerely,
Paul Sullivan
Executive Director
Veterans for Common Sense
Washington, DC
Comment on September 1, 2009 @ 6:41 am
David,
Great piece. Both the former and current administrations continue to ride the military like a rented mule with no compassion or understanding of the burden they are carrying for our nation’s foreign policy posture.
SF
Jake
Comment on September 1, 2009 @ 11:32 am
There is no doubt that our warriors wounded by PTSD are paying a terrific price for their time spent in the war zone. But as we are now observing, so are their partners, family members, and the communities to which these veterans return. And in time, if these individuals do not receive the help they need, we will see these wounded individuals raising children who in turn grow up into emotionally wounded adults. Except we do not have to allow this to happen?and perhaps we can avoid this outcome if will educate ourselves about this disorder as well as strive to build the type of supportive communities they need. In fact, can’t we all encourage these young men and women to get needed help? Couldn’t we all repeat, as if a mantra, that help-seeking behavior is a sign of strength versus weakness? Couldn’t we remind those harmed that just as we wouldn?t hold it against a person with a sudden heart problem if he or she sought help, that when the brain is changed by trauma and essentially becomes the individual?s enemy versus friend, that helpseeking behavior is the right action to take–a sign of strength versus weakness? Let?s not allow a repeat of what occurred after Vietnam. That doesn?t have to happen?but it will if we don?t work together to create more compassionate and supportive communities for our returning wounded warriors.
Comment on September 1, 2009 @ 11:45 am
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