Mentally Ill Veterans Sent Back To War
Team 5 Investigates Uncovers Violation of DOD Rules
POSTED: 12:02 pm EST November 11, 2007
BOSTON -- The National Center for PTSD estimates that one in four soldiers coming back from war experience mental health problems. Thousands develop post-traumatic stress disorder, a serious and sometimes debilitating condition.
At just 25 years old, Damian Fernandez has already witnessed horrific human suffering.
"Everyday, for three-hundred sixty five days, they were under attack there," said his mother Mary Jane Fernandez. "Bombings and landmines were in the street and he saw his fellow soldiers killed."
The young father from Waterbury, Conn., came back a different man. Doctors classified him as 70 percent disabled from post-traumatic stress disorder. Still the order came to redeploy.
"All day long he was just getting more and more agitated until he said he was going to kill himself rather than go back," his mother said.
Russell Anderson, 50 percent disabled by PTSD, chose to go back to the front lines. And the Army allowed it.
"I don't believe in another circumstance with the war, that Russell would be redeployed with his PTSD," his girlfriend Catherine Colone said. "But in this war, there just aren't enough soldiers."
One day after Michael DeVlieger was released from an Army hospital in Kentucky for acute stress disorder, he got the redeployment order. Now he's on the front lines.
"The closer that it got, he kept saying 'Mom I'm going to die, I'm not coming back this time. I'm feeling it, I'm dreaming it. I'm not coming back," said Sue DeVlieger, his mother.
Critics say there's a contradiction between military policy and its practices. The official policy of the Department of Defense states that soldiers with serious psychiatric problems could only be sent back to the war zone if they were stable for at least three months.
But the national guard told Team 5 its policy "is based on the severity of their PTSD diagnosis...that may limit their ability to deploy."
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12/11/06
Broken By War, And Ordered Back
By LISA CHEDEKEL
Courant Staff Writer
Nothing was stranger for Mary Jane Fernandez than the events of last Christmas, which had her 24-year-old son, newly returned from the war in Iraq, downing sedatives, ranting about how rich people were allowed to sit in recliners in church, and summoning the Waterbury police to come arrest him.
This Christmas may top that.
Despite being diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder and rated 70 percent disabled by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Damian Fernandez has been called back to duty and told to prepare for another deployment to Iraq.
Two weeks ago, Fernandez, who was discharged from active duty in the Army last year and was working to settle back into civilian life, abruptly received orders to report to Fort Benning, Ga., on Jan. 14.
When the FedEx letter from the Army arrived Nov. 28, he calmly told his mother and girlfriend, "I got my orders," staring hard at them with vacant eyes.
That night, he snapped. He told his girlfriend, Riella Darko, that he wanted to die and asked her to take him to the emergency room of St. Mary's Hospital, where he was placed on a suicide watch. He has since been transferred to a locked ward in the Northampton VA Medical Center in Massachusetts.
His callback orders have not yet been rescinded. Even if they are, his mother said, simply being told he must go back into combat has set back his recovery.
"I don't understand why the military would put him through this," Mary Jane Fernandez said. "He was just starting to come back to reality a little, and now he's lost again."
Fernandez is one of 8,262 soldiers who have left active duty but have been ordered back under a policy that allows the military to recall troops who have completed their service but have time remaining on their contracts. About 5,700 of those called up have already been mobilized, with Fernandez among about 2,500 ordered to report in the coming weeks.
Team 5 Investigates Uncovers Violation of DOD Rules
POSTED: 12:02 pm EST November 11, 2007
BOSTON -- The National Center for PTSD estimates that one in four soldiers coming back from war experience mental health problems. Thousands develop post-traumatic stress disorder, a serious and sometimes debilitating condition.
At just 25 years old, Damian Fernandez has already witnessed horrific human suffering.
"Everyday, for three-hundred sixty five days, they were under attack there," said his mother Mary Jane Fernandez. "Bombings and landmines were in the street and he saw his fellow soldiers killed."
The young father from Waterbury, Conn., came back a different man. Doctors classified him as 70 percent disabled from post-traumatic stress disorder. Still the order came to redeploy.
"All day long he was just getting more and more agitated until he said he was going to kill himself rather than go back," his mother said.
Russell Anderson, 50 percent disabled by PTSD, chose to go back to the front lines. And the Army allowed it.
"I don't believe in another circumstance with the war, that Russell would be redeployed with his PTSD," his girlfriend Catherine Colone said. "But in this war, there just aren't enough soldiers."
One day after Michael DeVlieger was released from an Army hospital in Kentucky for acute stress disorder, he got the redeployment order. Now he's on the front lines.
"The closer that it got, he kept saying 'Mom I'm going to die, I'm not coming back this time. I'm feeling it, I'm dreaming it. I'm not coming back," said Sue DeVlieger, his mother.
Critics say there's a contradiction between military policy and its practices. The official policy of the Department of Defense states that soldiers with serious psychiatric problems could only be sent back to the war zone if they were stable for at least three months.
But the national guard told Team 5 its policy "is based on the severity of their PTSD diagnosis...that may limit their ability to deploy."
click post title for the rest
12/11/06
Broken By War, And Ordered Back
By LISA CHEDEKEL
Courant Staff Writer
Nothing was stranger for Mary Jane Fernandez than the events of last Christmas, which had her 24-year-old son, newly returned from the war in Iraq, downing sedatives, ranting about how rich people were allowed to sit in recliners in church, and summoning the Waterbury police to come arrest him.
This Christmas may top that.
Despite being diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder and rated 70 percent disabled by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Damian Fernandez has been called back to duty and told to prepare for another deployment to Iraq.
Two weeks ago, Fernandez, who was discharged from active duty in the Army last year and was working to settle back into civilian life, abruptly received orders to report to Fort Benning, Ga., on Jan. 14.
When the FedEx letter from the Army arrived Nov. 28, he calmly told his mother and girlfriend, "I got my orders," staring hard at them with vacant eyes.
That night, he snapped. He told his girlfriend, Riella Darko, that he wanted to die and asked her to take him to the emergency room of St. Mary's Hospital, where he was placed on a suicide watch. He has since been transferred to a locked ward in the Northampton VA Medical Center in Massachusetts.
His callback orders have not yet been rescinded. Even if they are, his mother said, simply being told he must go back into combat has set back his recovery.
"I don't understand why the military would put him through this," Mary Jane Fernandez said. "He was just starting to come back to reality a little, and now he's lost again."
Fernandez is one of 8,262 soldiers who have left active duty but have been ordered back under a policy that allows the military to recall troops who have completed their service but have time remaining on their contracts. About 5,700 of those called up have already been mobilized, with Fernandez among about 2,500 ordered to report in the coming weeks.
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