Military’s Mental Health Treatment Leader Steps Down

Is it too late? I believe this should have happened a long time ago when the reports painted a dark future for our troops and thus, an even darker one for our veterans. The numbers of suicides and attempted suicides kept going up at the same time "success" was announced regarding the number of calls flooding into suicide prevention hotlines. The most troubling aspect of the rise in calls was mostly overlooked. No one was asking why they would ever reach the point when taking their own lives was that strong they felt the need to call the suicide prevention hotline in the first place. It should have never, ever gotten so bad so many would think their only option was ending their lives after all the time, money, research and claims had been expended.

We're not new at trying to get rid of the stigma surrounding PTSD. We've been tackling that problem with education since the late 70's along with outreach efforts and support programs. Research has produced very little new information in recent times yet hundreds of millions of dollars are paid out to fund repeated research all asking the same questions and coming up with the same answers. Where's the new thinking? Where have the people on the front lines been in all of this when they should have been listened to?

There are some fantastic things going on regarding PTSD and mental health for combat veterans but the military has been the last ones to look at what the civilian world has been doing.

An example is one of the first videos I made, Wounded Minds, in 2006. The first version of it was created when I was just learning how to make videos. It wasn't that good. Comments left on YouTube were telling me the slides moved too fast to read, the color was hard on the eyes and it was clear it had to be remade. Yet even given this I was contacted by psychologists as well as military personnel for permission to use the video. They said there was nothing like it available to them. This was four years ago! Two versions later the Wounded Minds video you see on the sidebar of this blog is the finished one and was seen by thousands of viewers. Just as with the rest of the over 30 videos I created, they are able to provide information and support it took more than half my life to learn.

This blog tracks PTSD reports from around the country and I track reports internationally to see what other countries are doing. All the information is out there to find if the military bothered to look across the web. If they were experienced in searching they would know what was news and what was just a bunch of claims with nothing to back any of them up. They would know what kinds of questions to ask when someone claimed to be an expert on PTSD when in fact, other than a medical degree, they had no specialized training on PTSD. They would know the best providers are not only veterans but veterans recovered from PTSD themselves. They would have also learned that families are the best therapy a veteran could ask for. Families are the ones the veterans need the most from and all too often they can setback any therapy because of their own lack of understanding.

It all goes hand in hand.

Brig. Gen. Loree Sutton did the best she could given the military culture of obstructing vision. They operated with rules and regulations so tight it makes it impossible to think outside the box. They have contractors they turn to when they keep providing methods and programs that don't work. They use the same "experts" over and over again no matter how valuable or not their information was. The result is it's too late for far too many veterans and their families just as it is far too late for too many active military because they have already committed suicide.

It is not too late for survivors to actually begin to heal instead of suffering without hope as long as the military finally learns from their mistakes. I have no doubt they have the best intentions even if it is all tied to the expense of taking care of these men and women for the rest of their lives. Even the military knows the sooner PTSD is addressed, the better the healing and less expensive it becomes. Aside from doing the right thing to care for the troops, taking care of them now costs less in the future. It reduces divorce and thus, keeps families together to reduce homelessness. It reduces the severity of disability and thus, cuts down on compensation to be paid out for the rest of the life of the veteran. Doing the right thing early also reduces the problem of keeping trained soldiers in their boots.

I hope the next person to step up to take over this at least has an awareness of the outside world so that more time is not lost and less have to pay the price with needless suffering.

Military’s Mental Health Treatment Leader Steps Down
By Katie Drummond

The director of the military’s top center for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries is resigning, after ongoing criticism of the facility’s inability to cope with the thousands of troops suffering from the “signature wounds” of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Brig. Gen. Loree Sutton announced the decision to staffers at the Defense Centers of Excellence (DCoE) on Monday, ProPublica is reporting. The center is at the crux of the military’s massive efforts in bolstering both psychological and brain injury-related diagnostics, treatment, prevention and research. Sutton was instrumental in creating the DCoE in 2007, and has held the top job ever since.

The timing of her departure, which has yet to be publicly announced, is another indication of the armed forces’ messy, mismanaged mental health program. Even as the Defense Department unveils a 72,000 square-foot facility dedicated to mental health issues, some legislators are wondering why the military still can’t get a grip on ailing troops.

“This is a total failure,” Rep. Bill Pascrell, co-chairman of the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force, said last week. “We’re failing to find TBI and post-traumatic stress disorder in an era when the military is trying to find and assist folks who need it.”


And, with the bulk of a 2007 influx of $1.7 billion for mental health-care going to the DCoE, it makes sense that Sutton would shoulder the brunt of the responsibility for the failings.

Even worse for public perception were ongoing media reports, including those from the Washington Post, ABC and NPR/ProPublica, that exposed gaping holes in the military’s abilities to spot traumatic brain injuries and PTSD, which are estimated to afflict one-third of returning troops.



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