Fort Drum works with community on soldier mental health

Fort Drum works with community on soldier mental health
North Country Public Radio
by Joanna Richards
Fort Drum, NY
Oct 11, 2012

For the first time since Fort Drum's expansion after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, all of its three brigade combat teams are back home at the post.

After revolving deployments in two wars, the need for mental health services in the 10th Mountain Division is unprecedented, and complicated.

Suicide rates and substance abuse remain problems throughout the military. Post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury are the distinctive injuries of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. At Fort Drum, as in the rest of the military, demand for services is outpacing their availability.

Colonel Mark Thompson is commander of medical services at Fort Drum. He says the post is struggling to fill the gap: "Never has an all-volunteer force fought a 12-year war over a period of time," he says. "We continue to play catch-up because we're experiencing behavioral health care needs that we've never seen before, because we have a population that has not gone through what this population has gone through before."
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