July, five soldiers from Joint Base Lewis-McChord have died in apparent suicides

There are conversations going on across the country that you never hear about. These are passionate debates about what the military has been getting wrong. They claim to be doing things to save lives and take the aftermath of combat seriously. They fund "programs" with millions of dollars. These so called "programs" turn out to be nothing more than harmful. This is not an outrageous claim made by me. It is proven by the numbers of suicides within the military and in the veterans population. What stuns most of us is the DOD keeps repeating the same mistakes, funding the same programs that have proven to be failures and then they dare wonder why.

Upsurge of suicides at Lewis-McChord, Army-wide
Since the first of July, five soldiers from Joint Base Lewis-McChord have died in apparent suicides, part of an Army-wide upsurge in such...

By Hal Bernton
Seattle Times staff reporter

Since the first of July, five soldiers from Joint Base Lewis-McChord have died in apparent suicides, part of an Army-wide upsurge in such deaths despite stepped-up prevention efforts.

Their memorial services came so close together that one bereaved mother, at a hotel in DuPont where the Army had her stay, encountered another couple struggling with the loss of their son.

"This is just too much in too short a time," said Karrie Champion, whose 21-year-old son, Spc. Jonathon Gilbert, died July 28. "This is just not right."

In recent weeks, commanders have met with soldiers stricken by grief over the passing of their comrades, and a recent directive at the base put a heightened focus on an Army-wide effort to reduce suicides.

The Army suicide rate has nearly doubled during a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, which has seen more-frequent overseas deployments for soldiers and a broader range of recruits.

During the past two years, the Army has embarked on wide-ranging efforts to reduce suicides. At Lewis-McChord, those efforts include repeated mental-health evaluations for soldiers. Despite these programs, the Army suicide rates remain high.

During the first seven months of 2011, the Army investigated 109 deaths throughout the service that may have been suicide, compared with 91 during the same time period in 2010. July's suspected suicides hit a record.

"There should be no mistaking that this is a full-scale crisis that demands every resource we can muster. But we also need to be clear that this isn't a problem with easy answers or overnight fixes," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who was briefed this week on suicides at Lewis-McChord.

Nine soldiers stationed at the base took their own lives in 2010. In the first seven months of this year, nine deaths are under investigation as suicides, including the five in July, according to Murray's office.

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People like me have been reading these efforts since the 80's, studying the data and then left with the heartache of what happens next. Talking to families when it is too late to save another combat survivor's life wears me out because I know it did not have to happen. I run out of things to say when I know I can no longer tell them the DOD is doing everything to prevent suicides. I can no longer tell them the military gets it because of the death of their son or daughter woke them up.

How stupid are the people funding the programs they have when they have been proven to do more harm than good? What is behind all of this?

There are some thinking they are doing it on purpose to cut down on the compensation they have to pay out. A lifetime, permanent total rating from the DOD and the VA doesn't cost as much if they kill themselves instead of staying alive. These men and women survived combat for Heaven's sake! It is not as if they are accustomed to taking the easy way out of anything. If they were really being helped to heal, they would fight this battle just as they fought every other battle they faced. With courage and determination.

While I admire Senator Murray and know she really cares, she is uninformed. There are easy answers and fixes to stop these suicides but the answers are not glamorous and not headline grabbers. They don't need to be funded with billions of dollars and no huge corporation will be able to return the favor of a contract with a huge donation to a politicians campaign for re-election. The fix has to come from where these men and women live.

I have not made the official announcement yet, but in interest of full disclosure, I am brining in Point Man Ministries into Central Florida. I believe in what they do that much. Point Man has Outposts for the veterans and Homefronts for the families. We do this because we fully understand the families are on the front lines of helping the veteran heal. They also need support to be able to hold it all together. The basis of Point Man is simple. Heal the soul and you heal the veteran. By healing them, we save them.


Point Man International Ministries
Statement of Faith

We are a ministry committed to the Lordship of Christ and each other. We recognize that the development of Christian character must of necessity be an individual and a corporate endeavor. We believe that God communicates with man; that it is His intention to reveal Himself and His ways. The following are some of the standards and values to which we are committed:

We believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God; that God, through the Holy Spirit, moved upon the authors of the Scriptures in such a way that they faithfully, accurately, and completely recorded all that God intended them to record-, that the Scriptures are a reliable, accurate, and fully trustworthy account of God's nature and character, of His actions in human history, of His laws, and of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

We affirm that the Scriptures are to be the standard of faith and practice by which the life of the church and the lives of its individual members and their families are to be governed. We also affirm that the Scriptures are the standard by which all revelation and tradition is to be judged. We believe that there is a progressive aspect to God's revelation - that there are areas of truth which are taught in Scripture, but which we do not fully understand until the Holy Spirit further illuminates them.

Mission Statement

PMIM is a service organization with an evangelical purpose. Keeping Jesus Christ the focal point PMIM acts as a referral service to connect hurting veterans and their families to our Outpost and Home Front system for continued support and fellowship. These support groups are available at no charge, and utilize the gospel of Jesus Christ and Biblical principles to facilitate healing and restoration.

PMIM participates in national conferences and international publishing, radio and television as well as other forms of media to help educate and raise awareness of the needs of veterans around the world. We provide evangelistic materials, leadership training seminars, restoration conferences and support outreaches as missionaries to a target group (active duty soldiers, veterans and their families).

PMIM is an interdenominational mission-oriented ministry. We embrace any Christian denomination that agrees with the basic evangelical statement of faith established by the Corporate Board of Directors of PMIM.

They cannot be cured of what part of their lives did to them any more than anyone else can. It is a wound that cannot be fixed with surgery. It cannot be medicated away. It did not begin inside of them as if they were defected and didn't train their brains to be "resilient" no matter how much money the DOD spends on telling them exactly that. It happened to them the day they were exposed to the traumas of war. The younger the soldier, the harder they are hit because the emotional part of their brain is not fully developed until the age of 25. They don't have the tools to recover or the spiritual strength to defeat this enemy. We have to remember that while many claim this is a Christian nation, there are more people not attending church than turning to it. The sadder fact is, most churches have nothing to do with taking care of the men and women coming home from combat or taking any interest in them at all. Yet PTSD is a wound to the soul of "man" and cannot be healed as long as the onslaught of stressors increases.

Claims are tied up or denied in error and that piles onto their stress.
They ask for help but find out the help they are given does more harm.
The list goes on and yet the DOD scratch their heads wondering why?

You can't just hope it goes away. The fix is not that hard but will take a commitment from communities to do it. It will take a commitment from the military to make sure the standards of care are equally high no matter where they are stationed. There also has to be a commitment from the media to report on what is happening, which is very important but also add in what is possible and proven to have been working.

Congress is great at holding hearings on what has failed but listening to families when it is too late to help them does not offer solutions. They need to start listening to families and veterans after they've come out on the other side of this darkness so that they can point the way.


If you're still doubt what I say, then read this.

Despite programs the Army has instituted to build "resiliency" in troops and families, the number of Army Reserve and Army National Guard soldiers dying by their own hands has gone up since 2008. Active-duty deaths rose in 2008 and 2009, but dipped last year.

So please take what I report on this blog seriously because it comes from facts almost as much as it comes from the broken heart I post with on a daily basis. It comes from the fact that next month I will be reminded of the day I married my best friend in 1984 and how I almost lost him. Of the time in our lives when even being considered an "expert" on PTSD was not enough to give me the strength to stay. I don't want anyone to go through any of this alone or lose hope. Back when I met my husband, there was nothing for wives like me. I had to learn the hard way but I've been through the fire and want to help others to get to that safe place in their own soul to heal this wound.

Please read this and know why the suicides have gone up instead of down.
Army concerned, vigilant over rise in troop suicides
Identifying risk for soldiers still a priority goal
By SIG CHRISTENSON
STAFF WRITER
Aug. 16, 2011, 10:44PM

SAN ANTONIO — Melissa Dixon sees a lot of the war in the tattoos she draws on soldiers returning from the war zone to Fort Hood.

Some get tattoos in her Killeen shop to mark their kills, the lives of fellow troops they've saved or bombs they've disabled.

Beneath it all are waves of stress born of combat.

"Some of them have issues with their wives or their loved ones, where they're fighting, or one will have a friend commit suicide," said Dixon, 31. "I had one guy who had to deal with a friend's family because he had just committed suicide and they were both in the service together."

As the 10th anniversary of the war nears, the Army continues to be plagued by suicides, about two-thirds of them veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The latest numbers offer little encouragement despite years of effort. Army Lt. Col. Steve Warren said 32 active-duty soldiers in July likely had killed themselves — the highest number for any month since it started tracking the problem in 2009.

For the year, the number of suicides is down slightly from 2010, 163 through July compared with 175 during the same period last year.

Last year the Army lost a record 300 active-duty and reserve troops to suicide. Of those, 109 active-duty troops had one or more deployments. Sixty-five of 145 reservists had served up to four war-zone tours.
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And yet, here again, this report out of the UK

Soldiers and suicide
Until the military alters a culture that sees sorrow as weakness, suicide will go on taking its toll on serving soldiers and veterans


Chris Miller
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 17 August 2011

Thirty-two American soldiers committed suicide this July, the highest number since the Army started releasing monthly figures. That is one soldier per day, and one more than died in the recent helicopter attack that killed 31 American troops, including more than 20 Navy Seals. The annual number of suicides in the Marine Corps, which doesn't release monthly figures, is on pace with the Army. These figures do not include the suicide rate among veterans, which averages 18 per day.

Institutionally, the military recognises this is a problem; culturally, it does not.

My battalion deployed to Iraq in April 2003. We came home after an extended 15 months of combat in July 2004. We returned home for a year and redeployed in November 2005. During these two tours, my unit lost 13 soldiers in combat and handed out twice as many Purple Hearts, including my own. I left for the Army Reserves in 2007. There I was told that my "deployment clock" was at zero and, though I had just returned, could deploy again. Fortunately, it didn't come to that, though I know it did for others. My story is not unique. Ask another vet and you'll hear the same.

I have friends still serving. Some have done as many as four tours in either Iraq or Afghanistan. Everyone who went knows someone who didn't come back. Relationships have also been casualties. Of the first five years of my marriage, I spent more than half that time away. The wars have caused many divorces, and many military children are growing up with one or both parents missing because of death or deployment. The memory of what happened "over there", and the difficulty dealing with that memory, lead many to divorce, to drink or, worse, to commit suicide.

Each time we came home, we were told that if we needed counselling, we would be given time. But as we got back to the daily grind of military life, this proved untrue. The problem was never a lack of services. There were always counsellors available and everyone received mandatory "reintegration" training. But I know leaders who expressed suspicions about soldiers who sought help.

The problem is that military leaders at the lowest levels still see the expression of grief over the difficult experiences of military life and combat as a weakness. In the military, those seen as weak do not thrive.
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