Culpability in complacency

Culpability in complacency
by
Chaplain Kathie


When dedicated people assume all is well, it adds to the reality that veterans live with on a daily basis as they seek help after combat. The VA will say they have added on psychologists, psychiatrists and even claims processors, but what they won't tell you is that there are still not enough to meet the need. The DOD will say they have instituted programs to address the anguish of PTSD but what they won't say is if these programs are working or not as we read the suicide figures rise every year even after millions of funds have gone into the programs they claim will work.

Take a look at your own life. When you go home at the end of the day, it's doubtful you spend any time researching what you do for a living. Unless you are in college to get a degree, what you do for a living is not part of your home life. That is the way it is for most people in the VA as well as the DOD. They see what they are shown, doing very little investigating on their own.

When they see new soldiers or veterans seeking help, they assume they are filling the need, however missing the long lines behind these new patients. They don't have to read about another suicide some place else across the country. They don't read the story of yet another homeless veteran's body being found in the woods. They don't read about the National Guards soldier being told they have to go to the back of the line for help, wait for their claim to be approved so their war wound is taken care of, as they try to find out how the hell they are supposed to pay their bills and take care of their families.

In the DOD, they have their own way of doing things. The chain of command feeds them the programs they are supposed to use and they are just supposed to use what they are given no matter if they believe in the program or not. Much like the attitude of "it's better than nothing" they dutifully use it and hope for the best.

The people in charge are supposed to be keeping up on facts and removing themselves from ego driven attachment to what they have been doing. If they spend no time investigating what is being done across the country to find the programs that have been proven successful, they will never know how much they are part of the problem.

When the DOD assumed a program called Battle Mind was working the VA adopted the program. We saw the suicides, attempted suicides, homelessness, divorce, incarcerations and crimes go up to the point where there are now special veterans' courts opening the doors to address the unique aspect of being a veteran of combat. Had there not been such enormous public pressure on the DOD and the VA do to more, they would still be relying on this program instead of finding something that would not do more harm than good.

The problem was so bad that when Spec. Chris Dana, of the Montana National Guard, committed suicide, his commanders were fed up with losing more after combat than they did during it. They came up with their own program to address the aftermath of combat. Had the DOD been doing due diligence, they would have figured out the failure of this program long ago. It's not that they didn't care. They suffered from complacency assuming it was working. Maybe they figured they just needed to give their efforts more time to work since the chain of command above them came up with the programs they were using.

At the VA there is a long line the mental health providers never see. While they see their cases rise and see more new faces joining as co-workers, they assume all that is needed to be done is being done. They don't read about the phone calls the suicide prevention hotline gets that are never followed up on, or the calls when the veteran is told to call back in the morning. They only know about the ones who are saved and the ones who are helped because of this effort. They know about approved claims but they don't know about the devastation veterans suffer when their claim is tied up or erroneously denied.

Members of congress will not know until either reporters break stories in their district or a constituent reaches their aid to tell of a heartbreaking story of a family member no longer here because they were not provided with the help they needed to heal after war. Congress will assume the DOD and the VA are taking care of all the issues because they have provided increased funding to address the problem. What they do not do is follow up to make sure there are no more veterans falling through the cracks.

All of this makes them culpable and us as well.

When the veterans are suffering, when the troops do not have what they need, we are all responsible for it. If we ignore what is happening, we are part of the problem. Even service organizations assume that the VA is taking care of all of the need or at least getting close to it. They simply do as they always did with small efforts on the local level, while in their local community there are hundreds of National Guards coming home to no jobs, no financial support, families unaware of what came home with them in the form of PTSD, leaving them feeling abandoned until it's time to deploy them again.

Marines, soldiers, airmen and sailors desiring to dedicate their lives as career military, suddenly find themselves unable to return to duty after the wounds of war strike them down. This they wanted to spend the rest of their lives doing, yet because of a physical wound or invisible one they are discharged. Then they must try to find a job if they can work or compensation if they cannot. Then they wonder what they are supposed to do with the rest of their lives now that their life plans are no longer possible. They also have to deal with members of their units deploying again while they remain here.

The VA and the DOD have not taken notice of the fact that many groups have formed outside to address the needs. They have also not seemed to have noticed that it is not happening in every community just as there are not enough Vet Centers in every community. Veterans are unique because while they may leave small towns and rural areas, they serve in the same place, taking the same risks, suffering the same kinds of wounds, as others from larger cities with more resources to provide veterans with. These veterans deserved the same care other veterans receive but not much is being done for them.

Congress continues to look for ways to help. They keep finding funding to try to address the problems. They keep holding hearings to find out what is going on. The problem is, they are not holding hearings on what has already been done that has been proven to work. They are not talking to people that have been already having successful outcomes.

How did a lot of Vietnam veterans marriages survive when there was nothing for support back then but now there is support but shattered families go up as well as suicides and homelessness?

How did some veterans manage to heal so much so that they turned around and started organizations to help other veterans heal, yet some fall so far into the abyss they end up living in the woods or on the streets?

How did some members of the clergy take their ministries to a whole new level and begin to train on trauma while most members of the clergy avoid any knowledge of it?

There needs to be an attitude adjustment in this country and all of us need to stop assuming someone else will do what needs to be done because clearly the evidence is in and it is not happening. Congress needs to find out what really works and stop hearing the same things over and over again. The DOD and the VA need to take a fresh look at the results of what they've done so far and keep doing what has proven to be successful and ditching what doesn't work the same way they would ditch faulty weapons.

The numbers are not all in. Even the experts point out the reluctance of seeking help because of the stigma at the same time they are unaware of the fact mild PTSD can be healed pretty successfully and they can stay in the military. Just ask the four generals who had the courage to talk about their own wounds. This means for all the numbers we have now, we are not even close to what is to come. If we do not treat this as an emergency situation now, it will be catastrophic over the next few years.