Losing Soldiers to Suicide

Losing Soldiers to Suicide

(ABC 6 NEWS) -- In just the last two years, there have been more men and women in uniform who have died on American soil than overseas; soldiers who have died by suicide.

And one local family says their story is a reflection of how there is much more that needs to be done.

"When a person enlist, that's when they become a hero, because they have pledged to honor their country in whatever way the military sees fit," said Connie Scott, who lost her son to suicide.

Her hero is her 20-year-old son Brian Williams, a Private First Class in the Army.

"He was always volunteering, he never complained, he was the first one to show up and the last one to go home and he was proud of what he did," said Scott.


But in 2007, while on leave from Iraq, Brian took his own life.

He is among thousands of men and women fighting on a lesser known battlefield. According to the Armed Services, in 2009 there were more deaths by suicide, 334, than in combat, 297. Just last year in 2010, there were 434 more suicide deaths.

"The tragedy of that for the family is unspeakable, and for the nation, it's unconscionable for us to allow that," said Congressman Tim Walz, who serves on Veterans Affairs Committee.

"Regardless of the cause of death, it's the service that we recognize, the service that we honor," said Gail Springborge, Survivors of Suicide (SOS) Program.

According to Veterans Administration, Post Traumatic Stress disorder is an illness many face when they return from war. "It's a condition that affects your judgement, there's not shame in having that anymore than there is shame in having diabetes, or cancer," said Scott.

"They're not signs of weakness, they're not poor character, these are honorable men and women who have worked hard and have been proud of their country," she added.

Removing an overdue stigma, that those who die by suicide do not deserve the same honor as those who die on in war zones.
read more here
Losing Soldiers to Suicide

There was a report "PTSD linked to immune system in veterans" which is true but the article also pointed out this,

Patients with PTSD are six times more at risk of committing suicide and the annual loss of productivity in the United States is estimated to be approximately $3 billion."

When most people read about the excuses coming out of the DOD and the VA on why veterans commit suicide it usually has more to do with PTSD than anything else. While having a supportive family does help, in the end if they do not understand PTSD, it just doesn't do enough good. Instead of understanding the true value of involving families, the DOD comes out with something like this.

The Sensitive Soldier
The new training program offers soldiers a tool kit of psychological techniques based on years of research. They can be just as useful in facing the fear of battlefield combat as in living room flare-ups. Senior military officers say the chief stressor in our current wars—when spouses and parents can call their warriors on cellphones at any time, day or night—are the fights that lead to family breakdown. But at a much deeper level is the emotional fallout from the nonstop cycling of soldiers through several deployments.

This is the same tired old approach they've been using all along.

Brigadier General Rhonda Cornum, "new director of Comprehensive Soldier Fitness. In 1991, as a flight surgeon during the first Gulf War, she was taken prisoner when her helicopter was shot down in Iraq. After three days of beatings and humiliations, this mother of a then-14-year-old daughter was released from Iraqi prisons. Her resilience and heroism as a prisoner of war convinced many in the Pentagon that women could indeed serve on the frontlines. And unlike former POWs, Cornum stayed in the military."

Maybe they figure whatever is inside of her worked then it can work for everyone but it is more likely they don't understand what "it" is.

Unless the DOD and the VA finally understand what PTSD is, why it attacks some but not others, they will never be able to get ahead of the suicides and suffering.

Inside look: Deadly threat for returning Valley soldiers
By: Steve Kuzj
PHOENIX - There’s an enemy killing off Valley soldiers, and it’s not the Taliban or terrorists -- it’s stress.

Hundreds of thousands of servicemen and women are being affected.

After years in the military, Jeremiah Pulaski, a 24-year-old soldier in the Army came back home from the war in Afghanistan. He may have left the fighting, but the fighting never left him.

Doctors and his family believe Pulaski suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, although he was never officially diagnosed with the condition.

Pulaski shared his depressed feelings on Facebook, writing: “Today has been very depressing.” In another he wrote, "I have to figure out how to undo 5 years of military training, so I can feel a soul again."

The overwhelming emotion and pain came to an end on a cold March night in Glendale. Pulaski got into a shootout with police and was killed.

Doctors say the incredible mental stresses from his time in combat may have pushed Pulaski to snap, leading to his death.

"The stress of being overseas, being in a warzone, and knowing that any day you could be killed, really has an impact on you," Phoenix veteran Brittany Hodge said.

PTSD causes extreme anxiety, depression, and anger, among other symptoms. The condition is an enemy that kills hundreds of military servicemen and women through suicide and other means every year.

"There was a fire that killed two little kids,” Hodge remembered. “I was a first responder, I was the first there. Dealing with watching these kids die, it was pretty intense."
read more here
Deadly threat for returning Valley soldiers

This report says that "one out of five" soldiers develop PTSD but yesterday I posted another report that was closer to reality.

The numbers go up and will keep going up because it is not addressed as soon as the event is over. I trained in Crisis Intervention. One of the most important things in this training came in the form of knowing how to do a debriefing. Time matters. If a soldier is debriefed soon after the events like the above, they are able to take a closer look, step by step at everything that happened instead of allowing only the outcome to be frozen in their minds.

Even after some time has passed, when PTSD is mild, they can be taken back to everything that happened before the end of what has changed them and find peace with it. Most of the changes within them can be reversed.

The National Guards soldier I write about often experienced blaming himself for the deaths of a family and it ate away at him. The outcome was all he could remember. It haunted him. He started to believe he was evil, unworthy of being loved or even feeling it, so he pushed people away. We talked about what happened and he was able to remember all the details of that horrible day. He remembered how hard he tried to prevent it from happening. He made peace with the outcome and himself.

If they are serious about "preventing" PTSD then they better be able to deploy Crisis Intervention teams with the troops or they will never be able to do it. If they really want to heal these veterans before PTSD is so engrained within them, then they better get serious about true therapy that has been working for other humans. Treat them as if they still human and maybe, just maybe, they'll be able to really do something to help them.