Clinic Shootings Highlight Mental Health Challenges

It's no secret my heart is tugged, ok, ripped out, by what is going on with our troops and veterans but it's been like beating my head against the wall trying to get someone to finally see the obvious. Battlemind is part of the problem. How many times do I have to say it until someone hears me or the others trying to get the military to open their eyes before it's too late for a lot more?

Battle mind tells them they can train their brains, be "resilient" but when you look at the meaning of the word itself, it's easy to see what kind of damage this can do.

Main Entry: re·sil·ient

Function: adjective

Etymology: Latin resilient-, resiliens, present participle of resilire to jump back, recoil, from re- + salire to leap -- more at SALLY: characterized or marked by resilience : as

a : capable of withstanding shock without permanent deformation or rupture

b : tending to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change
http://cougar.eb.com/dictionary/resilient

While this may appear to be fine, it's not when the program has been adapted to "train" the troops to toughen their minds. They are told they can actually train their brains! Meaning that if they should end up with PTSD (which is an emotional wound coming from an outside force after traumatic events) it's their own fault. Then think of them facing the fact what they went thru, what they see and what they do ends up eating them alive but they feel they can't tell anyone because they went through Battlemind training and hearing that it's their fault. Nice work for a piece of "preparedness" propaganda even though the rest of the program is pretty good. The message is delivered in the first few moments of the program and that's the one they walk away with, not the rest of what they are told.

Common sense tells us that it does not work. If it did then units like the Montana National Guard wouldn't have been in a position where they had to come up with their own program to address the wounds of their own troops. It tells us that if it worked then the numbers of suicides and attempted suicides would go down instead of up. While the military wants to paint a picture of troops being stressed out by any other issue than PTSD, they miss the point that these are not your average citizen but men and women with more regard for those they serve with and the nation itself than for their own sake. Otherwise, they wouldn't have enlisted to serve. They are being pushed and pushed so hard that there is nothing to catch them when they fall if they already understand the message that it's their fault for not preparing their minds as Battlemind drills into them. While thankfully some have a lot more common sense than what Battlemind told them and they seek help, either it is not enough or the help they get is a kick in the ass by commanders still denying what PTSD is.

This will keep happening until they use their own common sense and begin to understand what works and the differnece between what they want to work.

Clinic Shootings Highlight Mental Health Challenges for Military
As Repeated Deployments Take Toll, Army Expands Prevention, Treatment Efforts.
By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 17, 2009

Sgt. John M. Russell was near the end of his third tour in Iraq when he snapped and gunned down five fellow service members at a Baghdad combat stress clinic last week.

The incident cast a stark light on some of the military's biggest mental health challenges: the deepening psychological and personal toll of repeated combat deployments, the stigma that surrounds seeking help, and the growing indications that some hardened soldiers such as Russell are having trouble ever mentally departing the war zone.

Army leaders, alarmed by recent trends -- particularly a rise in suicides -- are working to provide training and care aimed at bolstering soldiers' resilience and preventing those who become distraught from harming themselves or others. But a slew of programs, including mandatory "Battlemind" training and a suicide-prevention campaign, have blunted but not reversed the decline in the Army's mental well-being.

Since 2001, nearly 1 million soldiers have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and more than 300,000 of them have served multiple combat rotations, most lasting 12 to 15 months. Currently there are 160,000 soldiers in those war zones, and of those, nearly 30,000 are on at least their third or fourth tour, Pentagon data show.
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Clinic Shootings Highlight Mental Health Challenges

While I am glad reporters are trying to do a good job with this, they are getting too much wrong as well. This last part, the numbers are wrong. It's not "nearly 1 million" but 1.7 million already. No wonder why so many people get confused about what kind of numbers we're talking about. After all these years of doing this and finding out as much as possible about them, plus living with my own husband, my fear is that we're almost to the point of no return. Within the next couple of years we're looking at 1 million with PTSD added to the older veterans already not being taken care of. All you have to do is look at the numbers from Vietnam. 500,000 by 1978 with 1.6 million in what was considered heavy combat zones. Most of Iraq and Afghanistan have been heavy combat zones with an uptick in Afghanistan. Vietnam had one tour for 12 months and for the most part, it was over. For newer veterans it's over and over again with longer tours and less time home. Each redeployment increases the risk of PTSD by 50% according to an Army study release years ago. That's why I come up with these kinds of numbers. This is not including the number of Vietnam veterans and older veterans still unaware of what PTSD is.

Even though the people with the power to do anything will not listen to me, I'll keep screaming until someone does because to see these men and women die because of this is just too much for anyone to ever be able to just accept and walk away.

This was on Army Times and addresses PTSD as well.

Military fights stigma of mental care

By Robert H. Reid - The Associated Press
Posted : Saturday May 16, 2009 13:52:21 EDT

BAGHDAD — A military culture that values strength and a "can do" spirit is discouraging thousands of soldiers from seeking help to heal the emotional scars of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite top-level efforts to overcome the stigma, commanders and veterans say.

Up to one-fifth of the more than 1.7 million military members who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan are thought to have symptoms of anxiety, depression and other emotional problems. Some studies show that about half of those who need help do not seek it.

"It's a reality that for some — certainly not all, but for some — there's a stigma to stepping forward for behavioral health," Maj. David Cabrera, who runs counseling services at a military hospital in Germany, told the Associated Press.

"Our goal is to eradicate the stigma," he said. "We're not there yet."

Encouraging more soldiers to seek help, and training leaders to spot signs of trouble, have taken on new urgency since the fatal shooting last Monday of five U.S. service members at a counseling center at Baghdad's Camp Liberty.

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Military fights stigma of mental care