Note to Congress: Stop Passing PTSD-Suicide Bills Without Knowing Cost

Members of Congress think we're stupid. They keep holding hearings, pretending to be listening, then pass bills to do something, but something is not always better than nothing. Sometimes it is worse.

When it involves combat and PTSD, this has been proven. The rates of OEF and OIF veterans with PTSD went up faster than other wars mostly tied to two factors. Repeated deployments increasing the risk is a big one. The other is the simple fact that there is much more information out there than ever before, so more talk about it.

Vietnam veterans and older veterans didn't have mass communication. Gulf War veterans were just beginning to understand the internet. As for reporters, this ability caused them to jump on the bandwagon and report on what has been happening for decades all across the country.

As for Congress, they held hearing after hearing with families, veterans groups and politicians telling heartbreaking stories of suffering but they never seemed interested in hearing what was working. It isn't just the committees focusing on veterans failing them. We'd have to include the Armed Services committees. After all, they started about 10 years ago to come up with something to reduce military suicides and treat PTSD but the opposite result hit them.

Suicides have also proven that Congress doesn't understand. Suicides in the veterans population went up after they started titling bills with names of dead veterans on them. How many more years do they expect to be able to pull this bullshit on us? How many more times will they pretend to understand PTSD and what it does when those hearings are always followed by more families having to talk about the lives lost simply because congress never really understood the cost that goes far beyond money?

When do they hold people accountable for all the money congress spent on what has not worked? When do they call in all the groups, researchers and businesses pulling in millions a year in donations and grants popping up all over the country while the results are worse?

When do they hold hearings on the largest group of veterans, the survivors and healers?

Senate: Mental-health needs should be high-priority for VA
The Washington Times
By Jacqueline Klimas
November 19, 2014

Joshua Pallotta, who served with the Vermont National Guard, killed himself just six weeks ago after a 2010 deployment to Afghanistan where he saw several close friends die in combat.

“We struggle to get through a shower without breaking down,” Ms. Pallotta told the Senate committee. “We just go through the motions.”

Lawmakers talked Wednesday about the challenges facing the VA in treating mental-health issues, including not enough money, not enough doctors, and not enough time left in the legislative year.

But Valerie Pallotta, testifying to those lawmakers at the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said she faces the challenges that come with suicide in a different way: getting out of bed in the morning, making a meal for herself and her husband, and thinking back to the night two police officers knocked on her door at 3 a.m. saying that her 25-year-old son was dead.

The VA touted statistics that showed middle-aged veterans who got mental healthcare at the VA had lower rates of suicide. But Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Democrat, questioned why the youngest veterans, even those who get care at the VA, are committing suicide at such a high rate.

Susan Selke, the mother of a Marine who committed suicide, said her son’s unit lost 20 Marines in 2008 while deployed in combat. Since coming home, the unit has lost another 20 to suicide as of earlier this week, she said.

Ms. Selke told reporters ahead of the hearing that VA Secretary Bob McDonald promised his support of the suicide prevention bill named after her son, Clay Hunt.
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