Veterans cost less when they die

Veterans cost less when they die
by
Chaplain Kathie

There has been a feeling among veterans they are treated the way they are because they cost the government less if they just die than if they live. This feeling is not new, certainly not "news" and has been around for about as long as veterans came back from war. After all, considering they have to fight in combat, then come back being forced to fight for benefits, especially compensation for the wounds they received serving, it's not that hard to understand how they can feel this way. More often than not a true, honest claim, is denied due to a paperwork issue. When the claim is approved, they end up with a rating less than they really should have received. They have to fight for the balance. Again, none of this is new. Taking into consideration there are some with fraudulent claims and they eventually make the news when they are caught, we tend to focus on them instead of what happens in too many cases, which means, too many homes.

When it comes to having a wound no one can see but is made aware of by living with them, there is yet another road block to get past before the fight to heal and receive compensation can actually begin. Denial is the rule. First there is denial they have a problem they cannot get over with time. When it is PTSD, it takes someone, a family member or friend to work hard to get them to face the fact they need help. Then they seek help but as they do, they are responded to with a denial from the VA and they have to fight to have the claim approved. PTSD claims used to be very hard to prove. Now there is a presumptive attached to it. In other words, if you went into combat, chances are, you were exposed to traumatic events even if you never fired a single shot. Tests show if those events altered your life or not and then they take testimony from people in your life able to explain how much you've changed.

There is yet another factor in all of this and each year, it becomes more and more clear to them their feelings of abandonment are not baseless.

Sending a man or woman into combat is expensive. We pay to cloth them with uniforms and give them weapons then train they how to use them. We pay to feed them and shelter them. We pay to transport them. We pay to provide them with wages so their families have some money to pay for their needs, but this never really comes close to what they need to get by. There was a recent report that it costs the government a million dollars per soldier to deploy into Iraq or Afghanistan, but this is not the end of the money spent on a soldier if they are wounded.

When they are wounded during combat, they DOD takes care of the wounds and then they work themselves into the VA system should they leave the military. It is a bit easier to receive a disability rating when they have all their paperwork from the DOD showing they were wounded in action than if they had been discharged without ever complaining of any wound, but the reports still come out saying the disability rating is less than they should have received.

For many veterans with a DOD rating for PTSD, they end up with 10% or 30% even though most of them cannot work and then they have to fight for the balance. It's even harder when they seek help longer after they have been discharged.

What happens is they come home, deal with the fact they are no longer the same. Deal with the family telling them to get off the couch and get a job, deal with the fact they cannot keep a job even if they find one. Nightmares and flashbacks make it a bit hard to show up for work everyday, so many lose their jobs. Their families fall apart at the same time they try to gain some kind of control over their emotions and then the claims process drives the knife they feel deeper into their backs.

They also wonder how they ended up in the position they are in after all they wanted to do was to serve the country. None of it makes any sense to them at all.

There is also something more and again it comes from the DOD and the VA itself. We assume if they are being treated for PTSD, they are given medication and therapy. Too many times it is a matter of pills, pills and more pills with very little therapy, if they receive any therapy at all. Then as the rate of suicides goes up, they keep hearing how the military and the VA have paid attention and took steps to save lives.

On August 15, 2007, the AP reported Army suicide were at a 26 year high.


This was followed by another report Senator Patty Murray scheduled a hearing to figure out why it was going up. 2003 reported suicides were 79, 2004 reported suicides 67, 2005 reported suicides 88 and 2006 101


Thursday, August 23, 2007
Soldier sent back to duty three days after suicide attempt
Soldier sent back to duty three days after suicide attempt
Rising suicide rate among U.S. soldiers hitting close to home
Aug 22, 2007 6:38pm
The stress of combat is taking its toll on many soldiers.In fact, according to the U.S. Army, last year there were 99 suicides; 30 of those happened in war zones.It’s not a new trend, the same happened during wars like Vietnam.

According to the U.S. Army in 2005 there were 12.8 suicides per 100,000 soldiers.

That number increased last year with the army recording 17.3 suicides per 100,000 soldiers.

Staff Sgt. Derrick Degrate said he suffers from Post Traumatic Stress disorder after seeing too much in war.

"[I saw] people getting shot up, people getting blown up," Degrate said.

It took its toll, and while on a tour in Iraq he admits he tried to take his own life.

"So, I attempted suicide and, you know, and I was admitted to the hospital," Degrate added.

He said he was hospitalized for three days and then sent back to duty.


Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Military Suicides: A Treatment Issue Suicides: A Treatment Issue
Military Suicides
By LISA CHEDEKEL Courant Staff WriterOctober 3, 2007In recent months, the military has scrambled to hire additional mental health workers to treat troubled troops, hoping to allay concerns raised by a Pentagon task force and soldiers' advocates about inadequate access to care.But a new Army report suggests that the quality of care, as much as the quantity of providers, may be a factor in the rising incidence of suicides among active-duty service members.A recently released, first-ever analysis of Army suicides shows that more than half the 948 soldiers who attempted suicide in 2006 had been seen by mental health providers before the attempt - 36 percent within just 30 days of the event. Of those who committed suicide in 2006, a third had an outpatient mental health visit within three months of killing themselves, and 42 percent had been seen at a military medical facility within three months.

Among soldiers who were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan when they attempted suicide in 2005 and 2006, a full 60 percent had been seen by outpatient mental health workers before the attempts. Forty-three percent of the deployed troops who attempted suicide had been prescribed psychotropic medications, the report shows.



All of this too late for 4 Fort Erie County soldiers.

Four Erie County soldiers commit suicide
Airman Andrew Norlund, praised for his work ethic, was frustrated and angry. Top right, Sgt. Matthew A. Proulx, a soldier to the end, had no interest in seeking help. Bottom left, Staff Sgt. Justin Reyes, a proven leader in Iraq, was troubled back in the U.S. Bottom right, Sgt. Gary Underhill loved the Army life, but had nightmares and anxiety.



CBS Stunning veteran suicide rate is twice that of non-veterans


Tuesday, November 13, 2007
CBS: 'Stunning' veteran suicide rate is twice that of non-veteransDavid Edwards and Muriel KanePublished: Tuesday November 13, 2007'CBS: 'Stunning' veteran suicide rate is twice that of non-veterans'

The problem of suicide among veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has recently been in the news, with the Department of Veteran Affairs promising to beef up its mental health services in response. Veterans of previous conflicts continue to have problems as well, and the VA has estimated that a total of 5000 suicides among veterans can be expected this year.However, CBS News has now completed a five-month study of death records for 2004-05 which shows that the actual figures are "much higher" than those reported by the VA. Across the total US veteran population of 25 million, CBS found that suicide rates were more than twice as high as for non-veterans (according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide accounted for 32,439 deaths in 2004).CBS spoke to the families of several veterans who killed themselves after returning from Iraq. "The war didn't end for him when he came home," said the mother of one soldier. "I think he was being tormented and tortured by his experiences."Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) told CBS, "That's a lot of young men and women who've gone to fight for us who've come home and found themselves that lost." click all the links for more but keep in mind, these reports are old and may not have active links anymore.

Where have all these reports gotten us? There were more reports in 2008 and more this year leaving us with this report.

A Mounting Suicide Rate Prompts an Army Response
By Mark Thompson/Washington


Neither the U.S. military nor the American public would tolerate a conflict in which U.S. losses mounted for five straight years. Yet, that's what's happening in the Army's battle with suicides. The recently released figure for November show that 12 soldiers are suspected of taking their own lives, bringing to 147 the total suicides for 2009, the highest since the Army began keeping track in 1980. Last year the Army had 140 suicides.

Although Army officials don't blame the spike on repeated deployments to war zones, evidence is mounting to the contrary. Only about a third of Army suicides happen in war zones, officials note, and another third are among personnel who had never deployed. But that means two-thirds of Army suicides have deployed, many returning home with mental scars that make them prone to take their own lives, the Army's No. 2 officer said last week.
(See pictures of an Army town's struggle with PTSD.)


"Soldiers who are suffering from posttraumatic stress are six times more likely to commit suicide than those that are not," General Peter Chiarelli told the House Armed Services Committee last Thursday. "The greatest single debilitating injury of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan is posttraumatic stress." Nearly 1 in 5 soldiers — more than 300,000 — comes home from the wars reporting symptoms of PTSD. Army officials also acknowledge that substance abuse, fueled by repeated combat tours, and a war-created shortage of mental-health professionals, contribute to mental ills that can lead to suicide.

Last week, an Army major's wife told of her husband's mental woes after returning from his second tour in Iraq in 2005. "I don't know what that mission was, other than riding around and getting blown up and shot at," Sheri Hall said her husband, Jeff, says even now. Speaking at a military trauma forum in Bethesda, Md., Sheri said when she saw him for the first time upon his return, Jeff's eyes revealed "a very lost person" who "wasn't my husband anymore."
read more here
A Mounting Suicide Rate Prompts an Army Response

Each year the military makes a claim they are paying attention and doing something about it. The VA has not been that much different. The changes at the top of the food chain in the VA came about with law suits filed by Veterans for Common Sense. This ended up with Suicide Prevention hotlines so that they could talk to someone if they were on the verge of suicide. This didn't do much good for the family members after it happened because no one told them what they could do to help save the lives of their own veterans, keep their families together and stop them from ending up homeless yet still wounded. The suicide rate for veterans, at least the reported ones, didn't change much. Yet the VA did try, in some parts of the country anyway. We are still finding out too many veterans and their families lack support they need along with reports of medications and no therapy.

The veterans read these reports and the thought of being better off dead to the VA than alive eat away at them. We know the people working for the VA care deeply and we also know the majority in the military are trying to come up with answers, but what they see is what their lives are like. They see millions of dollars going into funding programs that don't work, or worse, do more harm than good. They see long lines at the VA and delays processing and paying on their claims.

They also hear the gossip. They still hear people say that PTSD is not real, most of the claims are bogus and they are looking for a free ride. How they arrived at this conclusion is never really explained. How do you go from being willing to sacrifice your life for the sake of the nation into being so self-absorbed you want to take advantage of the same government you were willing to die for? Doesn't make sense. While there is a tiny fraction seeking their own lives made easy without really being disabled, they are a tiny fraction, but they all hear others talk about leaches. None of this is helpful to them at all but more depressing is the fact some of these baseless statements come from leaders they have turned to for help. How do you get past that?

Awareness on the level. Stop acting as if they are getting everything they need from the government. Stop letting them get less than the appropriate claim they have earned. That's right, they earned it. They didn't get wounded for any other reason than the fact they were deployed into combat. Stop treating PTSD as if it is a wound to a lesser degree than other wounds you can see with your eyes. When it comes to PTSD, it is not a part of the body that is wounded, it is the most vital part of the body wounded, their minds. Stop letting them think they are defective or it is their fault they could not "just get over it" and get on with their lives and don't allow anyone to suddenly say they are less worthy because the greatness of their compassion, the very reason they were willing to risk their lives, is a thing to be ashamed of instead of valued.

Too many are waiting for this country to get this right. When we read reports of the suicides going up, it is not just the soldier so detached from hope they take their own lives, but it is the family as well as the friends they have left wondering what it wrong with this country when a veteran is allowed to feel as if they are just not worth taking care of them. Stop letting them feel as if they will cost the government too much money if they live and have their claims honored. When you think of how much they cost to train and deploy, these rarities in this country should be worth all it takes to keep them here, adding to the lives of the people around them and in their communities. They should never be made to regret they did not die sooner. Every year we read the suicides go up. It would be a great day in this nation if next year we finally read the numbers have gone down but we can't get there from here until the DOD and the VA fully understand what they need and do it.

You see them go and you see them come home. You don't see what happens to them after but at least you can pay attention to what is being reported and none of this is good. We've read too many reports that ended up being more steps to prevent what they do not really understand.