Fort Hood suicidal soldiers slipped through the cracks

This is what I've been talking about. There have not been enough people to take care of the need at Fort Hood or any other base. There are not enough deployed with the troops either and if Major Hasan is any indication of the kind of care some have been getting, the problem is a lot worse than many would ever suspect.

This is what I've been hearing when I get the emails flying in from frantic family members not knowing what to do. This is what I've been hearing when I get the phone calls from veterans who were never properly taken care of. What I tell them is not rocket science. It's what they need to hear. What I hear from them has had me terrified for years and it's getting worse. People like me are not paid attention to because we have no money, no clout, no advertising budgets and as for all the organization springing up as charities, most of them I can't get a straight answer out of what they have in place to take care of the need. They say they have people there for the soldiers and veterans to talk to but they can't answer how experienced these listeners are, what they know, how they were trained and they can't tell me if any of these helpers are even monitored. Wanting to help is one thing but are they actually helping or hurting?

If they think they have a problem at Fort Hood they need a lot more help with, they are not even close and frankly I'm sickened by being proven right so often while they are paying the price for how much others keep getting wrong. We need an immediate influx of trained trauma responders today, not when the military decides they can find later. We need them out in the communities to help the National Guards and we need them to be trained on PTSD as well as trauma and not just mental illness in general. PTSD comes only after trauma so it is absurd to have doctors not fully trained on trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

If they are like Hasan, then you'll need a calculator to figure out where this is going because you'll have to factor in the normal rate of PTSD, one out of three, multiply that by 50% for each redeployment and then factor in the scale of PTSD ranging from mild to full blown but then you'll also have to factor in the family members living with untreated PTSD because they'll end up with secondary PTSD from all the turmoil in the house. Wonder if they are thinking of any of this especially when the troops at Fort Hood have just had their last sanctuary attacked leaving them with no safe place in their mind.

Soldiers' mental health comes under scrutiny
Ft. Hood has had 10 soldier suicides this year, the second-highest of any Army post. Families of troops who have committed suicide say troubled soldiers are slipping through the cracks.

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske

November 10, 2009 1:30 p.m.


Sgt. Justin "Jon" Garza joined the Army eight years ago at age 20. When he arrived at Ft. Hood in June, the communications specialist had deployed six times to Europe and the Middle East, including two bloody stints in Iraq, and was due to return in September. He had broken up with his girlfriend, developed a drinking problem and gone AWOL.

While he was AWOL, Garza threatened to kill himself with a shotgun. Military personnel took him to Ft. Hood's Darnall Army Medical Center.

Psychiatrists there diagnosed him with an adjustment disorder and depression and sent him home with his best friend, a fellow soldier. He was put on a Monday-through-Friday suicide watch. Eleven days later, on July 11 -- a Saturday -- Garza was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head.

It was the eighth anniversary of his enlistment.

"I've been a wreck and in pain for a long time. I could not take it anymore," Garza wrote in a suicide note left for his mother. "I was never good at opening up and letting things out, so things just festered and got worse."

With the shooting rampage at Ft. Hood last week drawing attention to the mental state of America's troops, the families of soldiers who have returned from combat with significant mental health issues believe the public may be ready to listen to their stories.

"My son slipped through the cracks," said Garza's mother, Teri Smith, 52.

Army records show that 117 active-duty soldiers have committed suicide so far this year, including 10 at Ft. Hood, the second-highest number of any Army base (Ft. Campbell in Kentucky had 14 soldier suicides). Ft. Hood has had 76 soldier suicides since 2003, according to Army records, but it is also the largest base in the country, home to about 50,000 soldiers.

Two weeks after Garza's death, Ft. Hood's commander, Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch, told Congress that he needed more mental health staff.

"That's the biggest frustration," Lynch told a House subcommittee. "I'm short about 44 [personnel] of what I am convinced I need at Fort Hood that I just don't have."
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Soldiers mental health comes under scrutiny