Dark Side of Military "Prevention" Efforts

Dark Side of Military "Prevention" Efforts
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
September 9, 2013

Suicide Prevention results on efforts prove we've been snookered addresses how much money has been spent on "prevention" efforts but the worst one shows that with all these years of this "training" we are at a point where Veterans seeking death over life is at least 55 a day. That number came from the report of 1,000 veterans a month attempting suicided tied into the deaths of 22 veterans a day. I left out the totals for attempted military suicides since the 2012 Suicide Event Report with the numbers in it have not been released yet (plus the report has the latest data on all branches including the Army National Guards and Army Reserves) so while I showed the numbers that have been released, it is focusing more on the attempted suicides they admit to. The truth is we'll never really know how high these numbers are but we do have a baseline. We also know what is behind the rise in veterans wanting to die.

This was written in 2011 and what happened in 2012 proved them right and the military wrong.

The Dark Side of Comprehensive Soldier Fitness

Also problematic, the CSF program is adapted primarily from the Penn Resiliency Program (PRP) where interventions were focused on dramatically different, non-military populations.

Even with these groups, a 2009 meta-analysis of 17 controlled studies reveals that the PRP program has been only modestly and inconsistently effective. PRP produced small reductions in mild self-reported depressive symptoms, but it did so only in children already identified as at high risk for depression and not for those from the general population.

Nor did PRP interventions reduce symptoms more than comparison prevention programs based on other principles, raising questions as to whether PRP's effects are related to the "resilience" theory undergirding the program.

Further, like many experimental programs, PRP had better outcomes when administered by highly trained research staff than when given by staff recruited from the community. This raises doubts as to how effectively the CSF program will be administered by non-commissioned officers who are required to serve as "Master Resilience Trainers."

It is also important to note here two controversial aspects of the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program that have already received attention from investigative journalists.

First, Mark Benjamin has raised provocative questions, not yet fully answered, about the circumstances surrounding the huge, $31 million no-bid contract awarded to Seligman ("whose work formed the psychological underpinnings of the Bush administration's torture program") by the Department of Defense for his team's CSF involvement.

Benjamin notes that the government allows sole-source contracts only under very limited conditions. The Army contract documents note that "there is only one responsible source due to a unique capability provided, and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements." But as we have detailed above, public claims about the effectiveness of the Penn Resiliency Program and its superiority to alternative prevention programs are significantly overstated, casting doubt upon the rationale for awarding the sole-source contract.

They took a program designed to treat kids with very little evidence it worked, then decided to force it onto the troops expecting it to work? Huh? Really?

Why would they give a contract to save lives to the same man they went to for how to torture others?
Considering this came out while we ended up with the highest suicide rate on record in 2012, someone should have been paying attention.

Army strong
August 20, 2009
Training soldiers for battle, and emotional resiliency
The Army has worked diligently to stem the tragic swell of suicides and cases of post-traumatic stress disorder among soldiers burdened by physical and psychic wounds of repeated deployments. It is no quantum leap, then, that the Army would take a proactive stand and require some 1.1 million active-duty troops, reservists and National Guard members to begin "emotional resiliency" training that arms soldiers with coping skills in all kinds of situations. The hope is to stem the tide of PTSD, which plagues up to a fifth of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and head off other mental-health problems.

Let's take a look at another claim made focused on divorces

The Huffington Post has an article Military Divorce Risk Increases with Lengthy Deployments This included a link to a USA Today story Military divorce rate at highest level since 1999.

The military divorce rate reached its highest level since 1999, as nearly 30,000 marriages ended in fiscal 2011, raising the prospect that troop withdrawals may lead to more divorce, according to interviews and Pentagon data released Tuesday.

While that sounds really bad, the American Forces Press Service reported this way back in 2005.

Recognizing the stresses military life and multiple deployments put on families, the services are stepping up their efforts to help their members strengthen their family relationships and avoid the divorce courts.

A full range of outreach programs - from support groups for spouses of deployed troops to weekend retreats for military couples - aims to help military families endure the hardships that military life often imposes.

Specific service-by-service statistics about divorce rates within the military weren't available, but the rates for the Army give a snapshot of what are believed to be a militarywide trend.

Army officials reported 10,477 divorces among the active-duty force in fiscal 2004, a number that's climbed steadily over the past five years. In fiscal 2003, the Army reported fewer than 7,500 divorces; in 2002, just over 7,000, and in 2001, about 5,600.

During the past two years, the divorce rate has been higher among Army officers than their enlisted counterparts, reversing the previous trend, officials said. In fiscal 2003, the Army reported almost 1,900 divorces among its 56,000 married officers. The following year, that number jumped to more than 3,300 - an increase of almost 1,500.

Bad numbers going up should have proven this does not work.