Why refuse help to heal?

It does not seem possible that there are still some soldiers thinking it is better to appear to be a drunk or drugged up than to be thought of as being wounded but somehow that is the message they end up getting. Why? Why is it better to appear to be selfish, mean, nasty, uncaring and even thought of as a "low life" than it is to let someone know they are hurting?

If they admit what's going on inside of them it can help save their lives as well as help their families. The stigma is still alive and well so there is much more work to do before all of them know what PTSD and there is no shame in it. It does not make them weak. It does not make them less than the man or woman they were before. It does not make them tough to fall apart instead of getting help to heal.

Many troops turning to drugs, crime

A task force investigating the high rate of Army suicides released a report in July concluding that more soldiers died as a result of high-risk behavior last year than they did in combat.

The report said that although soldiers are seeking behavioral health treatment in record numbers, a troubling subset refuse to get help, use illegal drugs and commit crimes.

In the month before the 350-page report became public, 32 soldiers killed themselves, the highest number in a single month since the Vietnam era. Armywide, 239 soldiers, including National Guard and Reserve troops, committed suicide in fiscal 2009. Of those, 162 were active-duty soldiers. The number of active-duty suicides was 52 in 2001, the last year before the wars began.

The study - titled Army Health Promotion, Risk Reduction and Suicide Prevention Report 2010 - found that soldiers and their units have become "transient tenants of garrisons," largely because of multiple deployments and troops moving from base to base.

The result, the report said, is that young and midlevel commanders are unaccustomed to taking care of soldiers' needs and problems at home. As a consequence, the report says, some discipline has been lost.

"There are instances where a leader's lack of soldier accountability resulted in suicide victims not being found until they had been dead for three or four weeks," the report says. "In an organization that prides itself on never leaving a soldier behind, this sobering example speaks to the breakdown of leadership in garrison, which appears to be worsening as the requirements of prolonged conflict slowly erode the essential attributes that have defined the Army for generations."

The report concludes that the lack of leadership and the stress of war are leading some soldiers to engage in high-risk behaviors, including crime and drug and alcohol abuse.

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Many troops turning to drugs crime