Editorial Board is wrong on Joint Base Lewis-McChord and PTSD

The News Tribune Editorial Board is wrong on Joint Base Lewis-McChord and PTSD
by
Chaplain Kathie

The best place to start on this is the claim that "it’s gotten more aggressive about teaching soldiers to recognize the signs that may signal a colleague is contemplating suicide" because it has been going on for years. The claims of the military doing anything that works on PTSD has been trumped by reality. If anything they were doing was actually working, there would be a decrease in suicides, attempted suicides, arrests and a lot less phone calls to the Suicide Prevention Hotline. For the editors of TNT to make this kind of claim shows one thing. They have not been paying attention. If they had, they would be just as sickened by the outcomes as everyone else.

JBLM has problems, but it’s hardly ‘on the brink’ of disaster
Post by TNT Editorial Board
The News Tribune on Dec. 28, 2011
This editorial will appear in Thursday’s print edition.

Is Joint Base Lewis-McChord “on the brink,” as claimed in a Los Angeles Times article and headline Monday? (The brink of what is never spelled out, but it’s safe to assume that it’s not “on the brink of something good.”)

The Times cites an article that appeared a year ago in Stars and Stripes that described JBLM as “the most troubled base in the military.” That billing was based on the courts martial of a group of Stryker soldiers for murdering civilians in Afghanistan, a much-publicized – and disputed – complaint by Oregon National Guardsmen of second-class treatment at Madigan Army Medical Center, and increased steroid use among soldiers.

The Times article adds to the list by citing several suicides and crimes committed by soldiers who returned to the South Sound after deploying to war zones, including the tragic case in April of a combat medic being treated for depression and other conditions. He shot his wife and himself, and their 5-year-old son was later found dead in the family’s Spanaway home. (Read about that case here.) The “base on the brink” description of JBLM came from a local veterans group that was not named in the Times article. The reporter says the group is Iraq Veterans Against the War – hardly an unbiased observer.

It’s true that the Army has been slow to recognize the mental health issues facing its soldiers, especially combat troops who have had multiple deployments. But it is starting to address those issues. At Madigan this year, it opened the $52 million “warrior transition” barracks that can accommodate more than 400 wounded or psychologically impaired soldiers and their families.

And it’s gotten more aggressive about teaching soldiers to recognize the signs that may signal a colleague is contemplating suicide.

read more here

This is the first point they missed.

It was around the same time the DOD came out with the flawed notion servicemen and women can "train their brains" to become tough enough to prevent PTSD.

1. REPORT DATE
01 NOV 2006
Methods:

“Battlemind” is the Soldier’s inner strength to face fear and adversity in combat with courage. The two components of Battlemind are self-confidence and mental toughness; strengths that all Soldiers must have to successfully perform in combat.

The key precept in Battlemind Training is that all Soldiers have the necessary skills to successfully transition home. By building on the Soldiers’ existing skills and inner mental strengths, the transitioning home process can be enhanced.

Through Battlemind Training, Soldiers are shown how their combat skills, if not adapted for home, may interfere with their transitioning process. Battlemind training focuses on ten specific skills, using the word B-A-T-T-L-E-M- I-N-D, and emphasizing how it is possible to avoid the problems that can occur when Soldiers go, in a matter of hours, from the battlefield to the home front.
Buddies (cohesion) vs. Withdrawal
Accountability vs. Controlling
Targeted Aggression vs. Inappropriate Aggression
Tactical Awareness vs. Hypervigilance
Lethally Armed vs. “Locked and Loaded” at home
Emotional Control vs. Anger/Detachment
Mission Operational Security (OPSEC) vs. Secretiveness
Individual Responsibility vs. Guilt Non-defensive (combat)
Driving vs. Aggressive Driving
Discipline and Ordering vs. Conflict
read more here

The problem with this is it makes the soldiers believe it is their fault if they end up with PTSD, enforces the idea they are defective or mentally weak and did not train properly. Training them to face combat is what bootcamp is for. Evidently they haven't discovered that yet. Whatever else this program offers, which could be very beneficial, the rest of the message was trumped by telling them it is their fault if they end up with PTSD.

The fact is, this program doesn't work because everything it "attempted" to avoid increased, including drunk driving and minor crimes that have resulted in the necessity of communities offering Veterans Courts to get them help instead of jail time.

The common rate used by most experts on PTSD point to 1 out of 3, meaning 2 will walk away without PTSD. Some use 1 out of 5, meaning 4 will walk away from the same traumatic experience without PTSD. Any program claiming to prevent PTSD should have to prove the test subjects are among the group more likely to develop PTSD, but they didn't have to prove anything before this was put into practice in the DOD. Everything coming out of the DOD thus far has shown they don't understand what causes PTSD or makes one more apt to be suffering from it.

None of the reports coming out on combat and PTSD are new.

A copy of this hangs over my desk to remind me of what was known and when we knew it. It was a study done on Vietnam veterans. The report not only supported the need for Veterans Centers because of the reluctance of Vietnam veterans to go to the VA, but supported the need for them to be able to come together with others. Talk therapy was vital in healing these men and women, but as psychologist are being replaced by psychiatrists handing out prescriptions instead of listening, there is more numbing going on than healing.

The report also stated that there were 500,000 Vietnam veteran with PTSD along with warning the numbers would go up in the following 10 years. Two later reports put the number of suicides between 150,000 and 200,000. As you can see, the link between combat and PTSD has been studied for a very, very long time, so none of the new studies have shown any progress or we wouldn't be seeing higher negative reports.

We would be seeing more reports on the different types of PTSD being addressed. While there are many causes connected to different traumatic events, combat is in a class by itself. The duration has a lot to do with it because they do not feel safe while deployed then the fact of redeployment will not allow them to feel the threat is over. Keep in mind, most Vietnam veterans did one tour of duty. Some of the men and women of today's wars have been deployed multiple times. The number of exposures during deployment are one component to all of this but then there is the fact they are participants in them. They are not just bystanders. They are not responders showing up after the fact but we seem to be able to understand emergency responders with PTSD better. In New York they studied responders after 9-11 with PTSD even though they were not there when the planes hit the Twin Towers. These men and women are right there when it all happens and then exposed to more attacks.

Joint Base Lewis-McChord has been using the same type of program as Battlemind under Comprehensive Soldier Fitness "program aims to equip troops mentally Brig. Gen. Rhonda Cornum of Gulf War fame has been deployed to lead the military's new program to prepare soldiers for the psychic trauma of war and its aftermath." This just received another $125 million in funding even though there is no proof it has done any good at all. While the reporter Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times, said it was "new" it has been around since 2009.

The article also stated "The suicide rate among our soldiers is at an all-time high. The number of soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress is also high. And the stress of long separations due to combat is felt by our family members too," Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army's chief of staff, wrote in an article about the program this year. "As such, we are starting not with a blank slate but rather with the challenge of having the preponderance of our force influenced in some way — both positively and negatively — by the effects of sustained, protracted conflict."

So how can a program like this be allowed to claim it is anything "new" when the results have been so deadly for this long?

When editors and reporters do not know what they are reporting on, we end up with them defending all the wrongs that have been done to the men and women serving this country. We end up with veterans still reluctant to go to the VA or seek help for PTSD because they have been "trained" to see PTSD as their fault. We see suicides go up at the same time the Suicide Prevention Hotline phone calls flood in. Had any of these programs worked, there wouldn't be so many reaching the point where suicides seems to be their only option. We see so many veterans being arrested there is a need for a special court for them. We see employers unwilling to hire them because they don't understand what PTSD or the simple fact that unlike the general population the combat veterans are actually better employees because of what their last job was.

We see thousands of claims waiting for processing yet this simple fact never makes it into the veterans suicide reports. If they do not have an approved claim, they are not counted by the VA. If they are not active military, they are not counted by the DOD. Each branch of the military has their own numbers but they only include active duty.

One more thing reporters and editors need to understand is the fact there are over 2 million veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan but very few of them are causing any kind of trouble. They have allowed the fear of PTSD take over the minds of the general public because they will not address the reality of what PTSD is, what causes it and what these men and women are like any more than they address what they need to heal.