Salem minister takes on military suicides

Will the military ever get it? This isn't about fundamentalist or evangelists out there trying to put butts in the pews. This is about the relationship between faith and healing. While there are many Christians taking different walks with many different denominations, this isn't about one branch of the tree over another. This isn't about one faith over another. This is about addressing the spiritual connections to PTSD. It is caused by an outside force and follows after traumatic events. It hits the emotional part of the brain causing a chain of changes in how the mind works. Since it is an assault against that part of the brain, it only makes sense to address it for what it is and that requires spiritual help above all else. Yes, I said that. Medication is usually needed to alter the chemicals of the brain back to normal levels. Depending on how much time between event and seeking medical care has passed, much of what PTSD does can be reversed with the proper care. That comes with treating the whole person. Mind, body and soul need to be equally treated.

October 9, 2010
Salem minister takes on military suicides
By Tom Dalton
Staff writer

SALEM — The Rev. Laura Biddle, the minister of Tabernacle Church, flew to Washington, D.C., this week to take part in a conference on a silent and often concealed killer within the U.S. military — suicides.

The number of military personnel, many recently returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, who have taken their own lives is nearly epidemic. There were 309 suicides last year and more than 1,100 over the past five years, according to a Defense Department task force.

"It's staggering," Biddle said. "The numbers are staggering. It's staggering because we didn't even know it existed."

Biddle is the spiritual advisor to a suicide outreach and education program run by the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that assists anyone who has "suffered the loss of a military loved one."

Biddle's first encounter with military suicides occurred five years ago when she was a minister in Newburyport. She served as a spiritual counselor to a member of her congregation, Kim Ruocco of Newbury, whose husband, U.S. Marine Maj. John Ruocco, a decorated helicopter pilot, hanged himself in a hotel room near Camp Pendleton, Calif. He had just returned from Iraq and was preparing for another tour.

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Salem minister takes on military suicides

also

Suicidal soldiers are humiliated by superiors with fatal results, 

military medical experts say

BY RICHARD SISK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

Friday, October 8th 2010, 4:00 AM

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/10/08/2010-10-08_mocked_to_death_suicidal_soldiers_often_humiliated_by_superiors__with_fatal_resu.html#ixzz11rYcEorN

WASHINGTON - Depressed soldiers who seek help for suicidal thoughts have been publicly mocked by higherups, military medical experts told the Daily News.

The bullying involves "humiliating-type behavior in ranks, formations, where soldiers were singled out and identified as someone who is suicidal, publicly ridiculed, and things along that nature," said Army Maj. Gen. Philip Volpe.

"They call a person out in front of a formation and chew 'em out" in a misguided effort at "tough love," said Bonnie Carroll, a retired Air Force major and head of the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors. "They tell them, 'You dishonored your unit. You're worthless.'"

Volpe, who with Carroll led the Pentagon's suicide-prevention task force, said he has witnessed bullying - and in one case relieved a lieutenant colonel who was verbally abusing a distraught soldier.

As military suicide rates continue to rise as a result of multiple deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq, the Army and the other services have struggled to erase the longstanding stigma of seeking professional help.

Read more: Suicidal soldiers are humiliated by superiors

Here is a video of a Staff Sgt. talking about PTSD, suicide and healing with Point Man Ministries. I want you to know how this ended up on YouTube.

I was invited to speak at the Point Man Ministries Conference in Buffalo. I brought my camera just in case I had the opportunity to film. I filmed the band that was playing when this Staff Sgt. got up to the microphone. I kept filming. After I told him that I had him on tape and asked what he wanted me to do with the tape. I thought he may want to just get a copy of it and that would be the end of it but he told me that he wanted it out there. He knew it would save some lives. I didn't shoot it as a professional. I left my tripod at home. I didn't focus or stabilize the shoot. I just let it roll. When I loaded it, what he said, how he said it and the emotion behind it replaced anything that all the normal routines could have provided.

He talked about how he went home one night with a gun in his hand and sat in his room with the barrel in his mouth. He talked about his wife and her love for him. Above all, he talked about how faith has begun to heal his soul and that he is forgiven for whatever he has done. He was a leader of men in battle and now he leads them in a battle to save their lives from the enemy embedded within their souls.

PART ONE

PART TWO