Saturday, February 28, 2009

Community Action on War Trauma

By Jan Barry

Many communities in the United States have a hidden problem, one that is in grave need of the American tradition of neighbors helping neighbors. The problem is the burden of memories that many young men and women bring home from a war, which can often become harder to deal with as time goes by.

Many veterans try to deal with war memories by trying to forget, by drinking or taking drugs. Some join veterans’ groups that offer comradeship and service programs. Yet an increasing number of veterans and active duty soldiers have felt nothing eased their anguish and committed suicide. Most veterans find ways to cope with life after war. But too often, when a veteran realizes he or she has a problem and seeks assistance from government agencies, they run into a bureaucratic logjam. Family members and friends often feel they don’t know where to turn to find a helpful program.

This is where community networking and community forums can play a vital role. Non-profit agencies may have counseling programs that are not widely known. Some advocacy groups have trained counselors to help navigate the mental health care system. Government agencies are trying to figure out how to do improved outreach to veterans, active duty troops and National Guard members.

Adding to the problem is pent-up anger. Perhaps most of all, soldiers, veterans and family members need public forums or community gatherings where their concerns can be heard and responded to in supportive ways.

A forum on this issue at Bryant University in Rhode Island drew a small, but emotionally intense gathering of veterans and supporters on the weekend before Veterans Day last fall. The forum included viewing a new documentary film, Leave No Soldier, which explores how diverse activist groups of vets (Rolling Thunder, Veterans for Peace) cope with war grief. Speakers on a panel included the filmmaker, vet activists, Veterans Administration counselors, a National Guard public affairs officer and a Navy officer with a program to address post traumatic stress. Several Vietnam veterans in the audience bitterly described experiences that soured them in seeking government assistance. In response, one of the government representatives thanked the vets for helping bring these problems to public attention. The VA and military representatives talked about how programs are being revised to address what is now recognized as a widespread, national problem.

This problem has become even more acute since Congress approved legislation more than a year ago to boost programs that assist veterans with acute post traumatic stress. The Joshua Omvig Suicide Prevention Act, signed by President Bush just before Veterans Day 2007, was named after a 22-year-old Army reservist from Iowa who killed himself after returning from Iraq. The bill requires additional mental health training for VA staff and improved counseling and treatment programs at VA medical facilities, as well as “outreach and education for veterans and their families, peer support counseling and research into suicide prevention,” as The Associated Press reported.

One way to help expand this outreach would be to hold community meetings on this issue throughout the country. Donna Bassin, the director of Leave No Soldier, who is a psychologist, suggests showing her film as a discussion starter, which she has done in Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York and other locations. In film fund-raisers, Bassin has done showings of the work in progress in friends’ living rooms, followed by candid discussions of these issues by veterans with their neighbors.

“Like a Greek chorus, our veterans express our collective sorrow; they warn of the dangers of ignoring and forgetting. They hold the grief of war for us who will not, and in so doing help us come to grips with its catastrophic impact,” Bassin says of the veterans of Vietnam and Iraq she interviewed. “Their communal mourning forces us to reflect upon our politics, and to pause and think critically about actions done in our name and that of our nation. If we as a nation send our children to war we have a responsibility to share the heavy load they carry.”

At a showing of the film at Pratt Institute in New York in December, Iraq veterans and I joined Bassin in a panel discussion with a roomful of mental health therapists. In the 1970s, I spoke to similar audiences on behalf of Vietnam vets beset by problems of readjusting to civilian life, in a time when many Americans dismissed or ignored what was then called post-Vietnam syndrome. Activist veterans, with the help of supporters around the country, helped identify what is now called post-traumatic stress and convince Congress to fund VA outreach centers to provide counseling and treatment—a program that still exists. This is one wheel that doesn’t need reinventing, but does need a renewed infusion of civic action.

For further information:
http://www.leavenosoldier.com/
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/87964.php
http://www.truthout.org/021809A

For PTSD resources:
http://www.ptsdinfo.org/
http://ptsdcombat.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Suicide and Soldiers

By Jan Barry

The Army says it’s at a loss to explain the latest twist in US war casualty figures—which show that more soldiers killed themselves than died in combat operations.

“In January, 24 U.S. soldiers are believed to have committed suicide — seven confirmed cases and 17 more awaiting confirmation. By comparison, last January there were only five suicides in the Army,” NPR reported recently. “Last month's total is not just the highest monthly total since the Army started counting in 1980; it is more deaths than were sustained in combat last month by all branches of the armed forces combined.”

Addressing this issue, “Gen. Peter Chiarelli, vice chief of staff of the Army, says that the Army is actively looking into the deaths and is trying to figure out why the suicides are happening. ‘If we knew why, in every single instance we would, in fact, be able to stop this problem,’ Chiarelli tells NPR's Robert Siegel. ‘We've got to try to find out why the numbers continue to go up.’"

For a start, the generals ought to study the Rand Corporation’s report to the Pentagon last year, "Invisible Wounds of War: Psychological and Cognitive Injuries, Their Consequences, and Services to Assist Recovery," which found that “Nearly 20 percent of military service members who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan — 300,000 in all — report symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder or major depression. … Since October 2001, about 1.6 million U.S. troops have deployed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with many exposed to prolonged periods of combat-related stress or traumatic events. Early evidence suggests that the psychological toll of the deployments may be disproportionately high compared with physical injuries.”

"If PTSD and depression go untreated or are under treated, there is a cascading set of consequences," one of the Rand researchers wrote. "Drug use, suicide, marital problems and unemployment are some of the consequences.”

The generals ought to also study the Portland (OR) Tribune’s investigation last August titled “‘Suicide epidemic’ hits veterans,” which found that one-third of recent suicides in Oregon was a military veteran. “In 2005, the last year for which complete Oregon data has been compiled, 19 Oregon soldiers died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. That same year, 153 Oregon veterans of all ages, serving in various wars, committed suicide.

“The rate of suicide among Oregon men who are veterans is more than double that of Oregon men in general — 46 suicides out of every 100,000 compared to 22 out of 100,000 — according to the Oregon Department of Human Services Center for Health Statistics,” the Portland newspaper reported.

“Nationally, reports of high suicide rates among veterans began to gain attention in April, when a series of e-mails from the federal Department of Veterans Affairs officials came to light during a class-action lawsuit brought by a veterans group in San Francisco. The e-mails say that 12,000 veterans under VA treatment attempt suicide each year, and that more than 6,000 veterans succeed in killing themselves each year. There are about 25 million veterans.

“’There is clearly a suicide epidemic,’ says Paul Sullivan, executive director of Washington, D.C.-based Veterans For Common Sense, which brought the lawsuit. Sullivan says the VA’s own data on calls made to its suicide hot line might be the best indicator of the depth of the problem. According to the VA, in July there were 250 calls a day to the suicide hot line. And veterans have made more than 22,000 calls since the hot line started in July 2007. “

The Portland Tribune found evidence of increasing numbers of suicide among Vietnam veterans, as well as National Guard, Reserves and Marines who served in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Linda Rotering, a social worker who counsels veterans at the Portland Vet Center on Northeast Sandy Boulevard, says she is seeing an increase in the number of Vietnam veterans coming in to see her with post-traumatic stress disorder. Rotering and others say many Vietnam veterans may have been able to keep the symptoms of their stress disorder at bay while they busied themselves with jobs and families after the war. Now, she says, many are retiring, with adult children, and may be more susceptible to the images from the war in Iraq.

“’There’s nothing to block out the memories,’ Rotering says. ‘I hear over and over again, if I have a 19-year-old sitting in my office or a 60-year-old from Vietnam, the exact same things are coming out of their mouths.’”

During the Vietnam war, the VA and the Pentagon pretended there was no such problem for veterans. Yet as early as 1963, nearly 10 percent of Army deaths in Vietnam were suicides or otherwise killed themselves—“accidental self-destruction,” “misadventure”—according to casualty reports. Only after massive evidence of veterans experiencing serious readjustment problems was presented by Vietnam vet and other organizations during the 1970s was post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) given a name and a treatment plan. Under prodding from Congress, the VA in 1979 created storefront Vets Centers that provided counseling and therapy services for PTSD.

With the US fighting two hellacious wars in Asia, the VA is overwhelmed by a tsunami of vets seeking help and the military is scrambling to stop a suicide epidemic among the troops. "It's going to take system-level changes — not a series of small band-aids — to improve treatments for these illnesses," a Rand researcher said.

For more information:
http://ptsdcombat.blogspot.com/
http://www.rand.org/news/press/2008/04/17/
http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=121926671416052100

Asbestos and Military Veterans

My name is Allen Dutton and I’m the Veteran Liaison for the Mesothelioma Cancer Center (Asbestos.com); an organization devoted to assisting veterans through their application processes for VA benefits, and helping them obtain the maximum benefits for which they are entitled. I’m also a Veterans Benefit Counselor for the Veterans Assistance Network, and a retired Lieutenant Commander in the US Navy. I came across your site while searching for bloggers who post about veterans' issues.

Countless veterans are currently suffering from life-threatening illnesses that are a result of exposure to asbestos, a material that was commonly used in hundreds of military applications, products, and ships primarily because of its resistance to fire. Unfortunately, asbestos-related diseases are not always recognized by the VA, which is why I’m reaching out to veterans -- in hopes of helping them win the rights to their benefits.

The Mesothelioma Cancer Center provides a complete list of occupations, ships, and shipyards that could have put our Veterans at risk for developing asbestos-related diseases. In addition, they have thousands of articles regarding asbestos and mesothelioma and they’ve even created a veterans-specific section on their website in order to help inform them about the dangers of asbestos exposure. The main reason I’m contacting you is to see if you’d be interested in posting an article about military asbestos exposure on your blog.

Thank you for all your help,
Allen Dutton
Mesothelioma Cancer Center
Asbestos.com