Military, civilian leaders faulted for Iraq aftermath

While we should be concerned for the welfare of all the men and women deployed into Iraq and Afghanistan, we need to pay more attention to the National Guard forces and Reservists.

It also reports that Army National Guard and Reserve soldiers have demonstrated in Iraq and Afghanistan that they "are a fully capable, and indeed, an absolutely essential part of the Army." But it warns that "the price paid by reservists and communities to sustain the long and repetitive mobilizations, however, may not be sustainable in the future."

Army's History of Iraq After Hussein Faults Pentagon
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 29, 2008; Page A03

A new Army history of the service's performance in Iraq immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein faults military and civilian leaders for their planning for the war's aftermath, and it suggests that the Pentagon's current way of using troops is breaking the Army National Guard and Army Reserve.


The study, "On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign," is an unclassified and unhindered look at U.S. Army operations in Iraq from May 2003 to January 2005. That critical era of the war has drawn widespread criticism because of a failure to anticipate the rise of an Iraqi insurgency and because policymakers provided too few U.S. troops and no strategy to maintain order after Iraq's decades-old regime was overthrown.

Donald P. Wright and Col. Timothy R. Reese, who authored the report along with the Army's Contemporary Operations Study Team, conclude that U.S. commanders and civilian leaders were too focused on only the military victory and lacked a realistic vision of what Iraq would look like following that triumph.
go here for more of this
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/28/AR2008062802427.html

What they thought they were getting into when most of them joined.

National Guard helps shore up Ottumwa sub-station
With water levels rising rapidly in Ottumwa by the hour, one of the city’s power sub-stations was in danger of being overrun. However, thanks to nearly 100 National Guard Soldiers, this central power supply was rescued through the construction of a three-foot tall levee...June 19, 2008

Air National Guard works to corral Mississippi
The men and women of the 185th Air Refueling Squadron from Sioux City, Iowa, are teaming with local farmers to maintain the 20 miles of levees, keeping the flooded Mississippi from inundating the 14 thousand acres of homes and farmland here...June 19, 2008

Guard ratchets up Missouri mission; tackles floods in five states
Missouri was the latest Midwest state to see increasing numbers of National Guard Citizen-Soldiers and –Airmen on duty in the face of the region’s worst flooding in 15 years...June 20, 2008

Guard aircraft, aircrews battling California wildfires
Army and Air National Guardmembers from California and North Carolina were supporting firefighting efforts in Northern California today following a state active duty call up by Gov. Arnold Schwarznegger and a request for airborne firefighting assets by the Interagency Fire Center...June 24, 2008

North Carolina Air National Guard fights California wildfires
The North Carolina Air National Guard deployed four C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft with flight crews and support personnel to Northern California June 23 to assist the U.S. Forest Service and the governor in firefighting efforts to contain, control, and extinguish wildfires...June 25, 2008

Fighting floods and fires, National Guard on duty from coast-to-coast
National Guard Citizen-Soldiers and –Airmen fought Midwest flooding and California fires Thursday...June 26, 2008

National Guard Bureau chief: Firefighting and flood efforts “outstanding”
Assessing the National Guard’s California fire and Midwest flood-fighting efforts first-hand Thursday and Friday, the chief of the National Guard Bureau visited adjutants general and troops in impacted states....June 27, 2008

These reports are just from the this month. When they are helping the nation deal with natural disasters, they are able to still do their other jobs. Their jobs are what they base their personal budgets on. Often their incomes do not come close to taking care of their financial needs when they are deployed. This adds to the stress they are under when they are deployed into foreign lands. While it may be true they are highly trained to do their assigned jobs while deployed, they are not trained as fully as the regular military for the rest of what they have to go through.

When they come home, they return to family and friends, jobs they had (provided the jobs are still there) and are expected to pick up where they left off. Some return to businesses as craftsmen, offices, laborers, while others return to law enforcement positions and fire departments. They are expected to return the same way as they would if they were simply doing the same kinds of duties they carry out on our own soil, not unlike the reports above. Yet when they come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, the long absences, they also carry with them the traumas of combat.

We have neglected their needs even more than we have neglected the needs of the regular military. At least when their deployment is over, they return with their brothers in arms by their side and have a watchful eye on them if there should be readjustment problems. The citizen soldiers however return to the lives they had before, the extra strain on their finances, families unaware of the wounds they carry within and no one around them able to understand.

Too often they return with PTSD, but as hard as it is to understand what they went through deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, it is nearly impossible for others to understand the signs of wounds they cannot see. VA clinics and hospitals are too far away to get to on a regular basis for many of these soldiers. Civilian mental health providers do not all understand PTSD. Civilian doctors are also lacking knowledge of this wound and the physical illnesses spawned by PTSD. Local clergy are unaware of the wound, the strain on marriages as well as the spiritual wound that needs to be addressed. This is where the communities need to step up for the sake of the citizen soldiers. Why isn't this happening?

Local providers are trained to focus on all the problems civilians endure. While they can address some of the issues these citizen soldiers face, they cannot address the central issue to all of the problems, which is the horrors of war. We cannot keep neglecting their needs. We cannot keep treating them like the rest of the citizens.

This report on the mistakes made regarding Iraq and the increase of the Taliban's capabilities in Afghanistan should raise a red flag warning these occupations will go on much longer than civilians planned on requiring the more deployments of the citizen soldiers as well as their families. National Guard forces are reporting rates of PTSD at around 50%, yet they receive less help than regular military men and women receive. The citizen soldiers only have their communities to depend on in return for us depending upon them.

Even when they are returning to jobs usually associated with traumatic events, law enforcement and emergency responders, often their own commanders are unaware of PTSD at the levels deployments raise the risk of and depth of this wound. Again, they need more attention than civilian forces never deployed receive.

If we do not address the additional needs of the citizen soldiers, they will suffer needlessly. This is a moral duty for all of us as well as a financial one for every community across the nation.

Un-addressed PTSD leads to the break up of families, drug and alcohol use as self-medication, crimes, homelessness and suicides. This puts a strain on the finances of the local governments as they must deal with arrests, drunk driving, accidents, crimes, violence, domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, growing need for health services in mental health care as well as the physical illnesses extreme stress causes. Reliance on social services are increased. This also leads to reduced incomes as all too often the citizen soldier's wound is neglected to the point they can no longer function on their jobs. We've already seen evidence of all of this because we still have not come to the awareness of PTSD in the citizen soldiers.

When are we going to do it? When will local officials put out an emergency call to all the people in their communities to address this? When will programs be in place across the nation to take care of them? When will the local clergy and physicians be educated to deal with the burdens the citizen soldiers carry? While the plans for the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq found fault with the military and civilian planners, what is happening to the citizen soldiers is also caused by the same officials and lack of planning.


Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos
International Fellowship of Chaplains
Namguardianangel@aol.com
http://www.namguardianangel.org/
http://www.woundedtimes.blogspot.com/
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington