DOD Resilience Training in the land of Null

DOD Resilience Training in the land of Null
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
October 14, 2013

If you look up the definition" of null you will find this, "Amounting to nothing; absent or nonexistent . It is the best word to describe what is going on in the military. All the "resilience" training they have been doing is actually worse than null because after they started this training, suicides and attempted suicides went up. Suicides and attempted suicides among veterans also went up because the VA started to use the same approach. Resilience is something each individual has but as RAND Corp pointed out, it is not something that someone can be trained for. This training was based on a research project for school aged children, not members of the military facing combat.

PTSD has been researched for over 40 years while they have tried to figure out the best way to numb bad memories causing emotional pain. Sounds good until you understand the medications they are given numb them to the point where good emotions can no longer be felt. Every bad feelings are not overcome but remain to resurface with vengeance.

We have seen this among Vietnam veterans years after they returned from combat. They thought they were able to escape PTSD only to discover it followed them home. In October of 2007 there was this little noticed report.

In the past 18 months, 148,000 Vietnam veterans have gone to VA centers reporting symptoms of PTSD "30 years after the war," said Brig. Gen. Michael S. Tucker, deputy commanding general of the North Atlantic Regional Medical Command and Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

In the same report the nasty secret of putting OEF and OIF veterans ahead of Vietnam veterans seeking treatment and compensation came out.

Vice Adm. Daniel L. Cooper, undersecretary for benefits in the Department of Veterans Affairs -- in a memo obtained by the El Paso Times -- instructs the department's employees to put Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans at the head of the line when processing claims for medical treatment, vocational rehabilitation, employment and education benefits...

Veterans Affairs officials say prioritizing war-on-terror veterans is necessary because many of them face serious health challenges. But they don't agree that other veterans will suffer, saying that they are hiring thousands of new employees, finding ways to train them more quickly and streamlining the process of moving troops from active duty to veteran status.

The first step is always to get them to first admit they need help, but the DOD has told them their training was supposed to make them "resilient" and mentally tough. If they ended up with PTSD, it wasn't the training's fault. It was their fault for not training right and being mentally weaker than others. Nice trick.

If you doubt this, then you need to know what the attitude of the military brass has been.

"First, inherently what we do is stressful. Why do I think some people are able to deal with stress differently than others? There are a lot of different factors. Some of it is just personal make-up. Intestinal fortitude. Mental toughness that ensures that people are able to deal with stressful situations. General Raymond Odierno

Every legitimate expert involved in researching Combat and PTSD points to the fact that getting help as soon as possible is vital to healing but as we look at the history of what the DOD has done, it has all ended up being barriers to seeking it. Then, topped off with the fact they have not been able to get what help is available, when they finally decide to seek it they can't get it. When they do get it, it has been more about taking medications than talking. When they get talk therapy they end up with cognitive therapy they don't want to do. They don't want to do it because the therapist expects them to just talk about what happened over and over again without providing any emotional/spiritual resolution.

What comes out is anger when this part of the whole veteran is ignored.

Returning veterans find forgetting is impossible; struggling with 'bottomless well of anger'
Associated Press
Article by: COLLEEN KOTTKE
Updated: October 14, 2013

GREEN BAY, Wis. — When Simon Bertholf, Matt Rose and Tony Phillips were sent overseas, they had no idea the events they experienced in the Middle East would haunt them a decade later.

While they appear normal to the casual observer, each has been forever changed by the death, atrocities and pain witnessed firsthand during their tours of duty, Gannett Wisconsin Media reported (http://gbpg.net/1hFXKUv).

"Just because we look fine doesn't mean there isn't anything wrong," said Navy veteran Simon Bertholf of Virginia Beach, Va. "I can be talking to someone for a short time and be absolutely sure they have no idea of what I'm struggling with. But that doesn't mean that when I'm alone or asleep or actively engaged in something that takes all of my focus, that those things don't come back."

Bertholf, 40, said symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) appeared soon after he returned from his third tour of duty in the Middle East. As a Special Forces soldier, Bertholf was often tasked with handling the fallout after roadside bombings. It would be years until he was formally diagnosed with PTSD.

"The whole time you're gone everything is moving at 900 mph; you don't have any time to think about anything but what you're doing. You tend to push everything off to the side because you have to," Bertholf said. "Then, when you get home, everything comes back in a hurry. Everything gets replayed, reviewed and watched again and again."

Sleep provided little respite from haunting memories.

"There isn't anything that turns off the picture show. You can't erase the memories; it's almost impossible to block them out," Bertholf said. "I still wake up about six times a night and can't stand to be touched when I'm sleeping. Oftentimes I would wake up to find myself sleeping in a closet."
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They are haunted because they are not unfeeling but too many in the military fail to acknowledge that part of the human trained to defeat the enemy with lethal force.

Combat causes PTSD but PTSD does not cause suicides. Hopelessness does. Being told that you are just weaker than others makes you feel that it is your fault. Being told that combat is not tied to suicides also says it is their fault.

Yet while a study by Journal of American Medical Association found no link between deployments and suicides, Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers by the Army found that they are in fact tied.

The coalition of researchers found a statistically significant rise in suicides following initial deployments. This finding contrasts sharply with a study featured in the Journal of the American Medical Association's Aug. 7 edition. Led by personnel at the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego, that study found no association between deployments and increased suicide risk.

That's just not the case for the Army, as depicted by Army STARRS data, said Dr. Michael Schoenbaum, collaborating scientist at NIMH.

"Soldiers who have deployed at least once do have an elevated suicide rate compared with Soldiers who never deployed," Schoenbaum said.

When a soldier hears the claims the DOD makes about taking care of them then discovers many of their friends committed suicide, that says more about the DOD than anything the DOD has claimed. When soldiers and veterans read about what military brass has to say about them, that does more harm than anything else brass tells them about getting help.

If you want to know what else the DOD is missing, start here. Walking Point out of PTSD darkness