PTSD when war follows them home

Forgotten Soldiers
Thursday, 1 November, 2007
Forgotten Soldiers WATCH A VIDEOUS VETERANS
Nick Lazaredes looks at the hidden cost of America's war on terror.

Tens of thousands of US soldiers are returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan, suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.

They say they've been abandoned by the Bush Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs, claiming that government officials are actively trying to cover up the extent of America's traumatised soldiers.

For many vets, this means not enough help is being offered and their lives are plagued by anxiety and mental health issues. But for some, the results are even more tragic.

Dateline video journalist Nick Lazaredes meets the widow of an Afghanistan veteran who was severely depressed by his recall to fight in Iraq.

He was killed in a police shootout on Christmas Day, his death dubbed 'police-assisted suicide'.

As Dateline reveals, his story is not an isolated one.
go here for the rest and for video
http://news.sbs.com.au/dateline/forgotten_soldiers_134093

950,000 by 2008~

As spokesman for the lobby group Veterans for Commonsense, Paul Sullivan believes the government is badly failing its former soldiers.
PAUL SULLIVAN: There are multiple epidemics going on in the United States among our returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. There's an epidemic of suicides. It's clearly stated by the military, record number of suicides this year. We have an epidemic of homelessness. News reports are coming out that as many as 2,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans already homeless from this war. Every American, everyone, should be highly alarmed that regardless of your position on the war, this administration is shamefully, shamefully betraying our veterans.
Sullivan certainly knows about the horrors of war as well as the inside running of the Department of Veterans Affairs. He served as a cavalry scout in the first Gulf War and later worked as a senior manager at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the VA. He believes the VA's failings are no accident.
PAUL SULLIVAN: While I was working at VA, political appointees who are the top-level employees appointed by President Bush personally, were trying to undermine and destroy the Department of Veterans Affairs. They were coming up with policies to block veterans with PTSD from getting disability benefits and health care.
Sullivan claims these Bush appointees actively attempted to cover up the true scale of the PTSD problem.
PAUL SULLIVAN: In 2005 I was looking at the data as part of my job and seeing that there was a tidal wave of disability claims for mental health problems among returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. When I briefed the political appointees about this, one political appointee told me to "Make the numbers lower." She said, "God doesn't like ugly, you need to make the numbers lower."
According to Sullivan, the political interference extended to misleading the US Congress, but the VA says the political winds are blowing in its favour.

First let me say that the veterans, all veterans, in this country have a fantastic advocate in Paul Sullivan. He did a fantastic job in this report. I just wish the US media decided to do the same kind of reporting on our own veterans instead of Australia having to do it.

Explaining why and how the government can get away with this is very easy. Although documentation does not always provide a claim being honored swiftly, it helps. A visible wound of limbs blown off, sculls crushed with plates replacing bones, missing eyes, disfigured bodies and faces by burns, are usually approved fairly fast. The catch is as long as the DOD did their jobs and documented the wounds the VA has no problem approving the claim. This however assumes they get most of the wounded documented with all the correct information. Any error can tie up a claim. When you have visible wounds that prevent you from working, with a claim tied up, you end up with facing homelessness because there isn't any more income coming in. You also have the extra burden on your family even if you are able to keep a roof over your head. This also cuts into the ego of an ex-soldier. They are brave, risking their lives one day and then end up not even being able to provide for themselves or their families within a blink of an eye.

Now take wounds you cannot see. A back injury can cause severe pain and be debilitating enough to cause unemployment as well as end careers. In the cases of National Guardsmen, this ends their private careers as well. TBI cannot be seen but it can and does also end the ability to make a living. PTSD works the same way as well. While some wounds are obvious when they come home to the wounded, the VA demands documentation the wound occurred during service. Trap a claim in the system and then tell them a year or two later that they have to prove it happened in service and you trap the claim even longer without having to pay out one dime.

With the backlog of claims you also have a backlog of bills these veterans have to pay without any money coming in. To wonder why so many end up homeless proves how out of touch with reality our country is. The biggest thing we have to understand is that when the VA or the DOD release numbers, those are not the numbers of claims they have but approved claims they have linked to service. A claim denied is an obligation uncounted.

The hardest claims to prove are the ones you cannot see with your naked eye. We have depleted uranium exposures that will not all be honored as battle born. Just as we had with the "Gulf War Syndrome" still being fought for to be honored and treated. Just as we had Agent Orange and they are still linking other illnesses to it aside from the list they already have. Proving you have cancer is easy but proving what caused it is easier to avoid for the VA. Proving your back was injured is not as easy, close to impossible to prove it was caused by your service unless there is documentation showing when and where it happened. TBI is harder to prove but they are getting better at testing it. PTSD is harder to prove but what makes this all the more difficult to have a claim approved is that it can take years for mild PTSD to become full blown. This gets into "secondary stressor" category that can send mild PTSD into a full blown explosion.

We have contaminated bases causing cancers and other illnesses. The list goes on. We all tend to think that when they come home, their wounds are already known and they get what they need. At least we did until the media picked up on it or we lived with it. While some in congress are thinking about 300,000 wounded with PTSD, that figure was real about three years ago as a true projection. What they keep missing is the basis of the figures they are looking at are not the numbers of claims filed, but the numbers of claims approved.

To get a true indication of how bad this will get they need to look at statistics. For all causes of PTSD the rate is about one out of three or the going "30%" of those exposed to trauma. Divide the number of those who have served in combat and you have a base to work from. What is really interesting is that it is also now necessary to calculate the number of veterans redeployed and how many times they were redeployed. Each time they are redeployed the risk of developing PTSD is increased by 50%. Those of us working with these veterans and tracking the reports are trying to warn of 800,000 if both occupations ended now. These numbers would include those who would show symptoms of PTSD years from now as well. What we are seeing now is just the beginning and we are nowhere close to taking care of all of them. Where does this leave us five years from now? Where does this leave our obligation to those we send? If you think it is all bad now, "you ain't seen nothing yet!"

With the media paying attention to PTSD now it is also informing older veterans, especially Vietnam veterans of what has been wrong with them for the last 30 years. No one ever took into their accounting these veterans.

Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com