Congress holds hearing but changes nothing on PTSD

We were warned, "Those returning are facing serious combat related mental health issues. According to a study conducted by RAND Corp. last year, one in three combat veterans will return home with PTSD, traumatic brain injury or major depression requiring treatment." But what happened to Ben Driftmyer happened all the same. "I had spent eight years serving the military. I never got in trouble. Never did anything bad. And I got treated like I was a piece of crap because of it," said Ben Driftmyer, discharged U.S. Army Sergeant and Cottage Grove resident." but that was way back in 2009.

What happened in the military went hand and hand with what happened to our veterans but no one seemed to be able to fix anything out of the DOD or the VA. What came was more suicides and those included suicides among Special Forces.

Concerned with the increase in commandos taking their own lives, a subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee is calling for the Pentagon to review Department of Defense efforts regarding suicide prevention among members of the Special Operations Forces and their dependents.

The call for a review is included in proposals by the Military Personnel Subcommittee as part of the half-trillion dollar-plus military budget request for the fiscal year beginning in October. If the measure passes, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel would have three months after passage of the budget to report the findings to the House and Senate Armed Services committees.

Please tell me what one more hearing is going to do when no one is doing anything about what they are still listening to?

Voices: The heartbreak of veterans' suicides
USA TODAY
Kelly Kennedy
July 10, 2014

WASHINGTON — Nothing grabs my heart like seeing a 90-year-old veteran with his hand over his heart and tears in his eyes.

As a veteran myself — I served as a soldier in Iraq and Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm and later in Mogadishu, Somalia — I know those tears stand for long-lost friends, stories too harsh to tell and a feeling of camaraderie that bubbles up instantly in the presence of other vets.

For some, those memories can cause guilt, anxiety or depression, sometimes leading to substance abuse, broken relationships — or even suicide when the pain becomes too much to bear.

When I cover veterans' issues, what always strikes me is the short-term memory of the bureaucrats charged with helping men and women recover from the traumas of war. I was reminded vividly of that at a hearing on Capitol Hill on Thursday focusing on veterans' suicides.

"In a note he left behind, Daniel Somers wrote that he felt his government had 'abandoned' him and referenced coming home to face a 'system of dehumanization, neglect and indifference,'" Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., said at the hearing. Somers was an Iraq War soldier who killed himself in 2013.

Seven years ago, the script was almost exactly the same during a series of hearings I covered about veterans who were killing themselves after combat.

In late 2006, Army reservist Joshua Omvig went home for Thanksgiving a week after he returned from Iraq. While home, he pulled out a gun in front of his mother and shot himself.
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