Thankful for NBC and Dallas Morning News Cover Mistreatment of PTSD Soldiers

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
November 27, 2014

This all may seem like news to the American public, but it isn't. In the Veterans Community we talk about all of this while the press hasn't been interested. Graves are being filled every day across this country yet while the number 22 for veterans committing suicide a day may seem high to them, we know there are a lot more.

This morning as people watch Thanksgiving Day parades, we watch a parade of funerals that didn't need to happen. I'll be attending another one on Saturday for a veteran/firefighter killed by police. One more thing we talk about but the national press is obsessed with reporting on another event.

While Americans gather around their tables to give thanks for all they have with their families and friends, over 8,000 families have an empty chair and broken heart remembering all the other holidays they were grateful for the soldier setting their life aside for the sake of others yet left to suffer until all hope of healing was gone.

This morning military families are grateful for the reporting being done out of Texas because it is about us. About what far too many have known about in our world, but was kept secret from the American public.

“Injured Heroes, Broken Promises,” a joint investigative project between The Dallas Morning News and NBC5 (KXAS-TV), examines allegations of harassment and mistreatment in the U.S.’ Warrior Transition Units, which were created to serve soldiers with physical and psychological wounds. Reporters David Tarrant, Scott Friedman and Eva Parks based their findings on dozens of interviews with soldiers, Army officials and medical experts, and hundreds of pages of military documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

It was the responsibility of every member of Congress to know what was going on in their own state so there is no excuse for them to simply come out and be "frustrated" now. Families have been screaming for help for decades while they were ignored. Veterans have been complaining about the lack of care and being betrayed by the Army at the same time they had to listen to generals and politicians talk about the "efforts" to care for those with PTSD.

We saw it all along yet no one seemed to care until Dallas Morning News and NBC 5 decided to actually do something about it.

While the national news stations and papers pretend as if nothing else is happening other than Ferguson, we are attending funerals.

Rep. Michael Burgess, a Dallas-area congressman and physician, expressed frustration that problems continue to pile up in the medical units set up to treat soldiers wounded in combat.

In 2008 another member of Congress was upset as well. The Courier Journal reported this.

Injured in a roadside blast in Iraq, Sgt. Gerald Cassidy was assigned to a new medical unit at Fort Knox, Ky., devoted to healing the wounds of war.

But instead of getting better, the brain-injured soldier from Westfield, Ind., was found dead in his barracks Sept. 21. Preliminary reports show he may have been unconscious for days and dead for hours before someone checked on him.

Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., linked his death in part to inadequate staffing at the unit. Only about half of the positions there were filled at the time. The Army is still investigating the death and its cause, and three people in Cassidy’s chain of command have lost their jobs.

“By all indications, the enemy could not kill him, but our own government did,” Bayh told the Senate Armed Services Committee recently. “Not intentionally, to be sure, but the end result apparently was the same.”

Bayh pointed to a September report from the Government Accountability Office showing that more than half of the Warrior Transition Units nationwide had shortages in key positions at the time. Of 2,410 positions, 1,127 — or 47 percent — had not been filled.

That was followed by Spc. Lawrence L. Holloway, 29, of Ponchatoula, La found dead in Fort Drum Warrior Transition Unit.

Holloway joined the Army in February 2004. He arrived at the upstate New York post in October 2004 after completing basic training at Fort Knox, Ky., and advanced individual training at Fort Sam Houston, Texas.

Fort Huachuca, Ariz.

Pfc. Eli Mundt Baker, 22, of Foothill Ranch, Calif., was undergoing advanced individual training at Fort Huachuca, found dead WTU barracks.

That was followed by "Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, the Army’s surgeon general, said there has been “a series, a sequence of deaths” in the new so-called “warrior transition units.” Those are special units set up last year to give sick, injured and war-wounded troops coordinated medical care, financial advice, legal help and other services as they transition toward either a return to uniform or back into civilian life."

There have been at least three accidental drug overdoses and four suicides among soldiers in special units the Army set up last summer to help war-wounded troops, officials said late Thursday.

A team of pharmacists and other military officials met early this week at the Pentagon to look into the deaths in so-called “warrior transition units” — established to give sick, injured and wounded troops coordinated medical care, financial advice, legal help and other services as they attempt to make the transition toward either a return to uniform or back into civilian life.

The Army said officials had determined that among those troops there have been 11 deaths that were not due to natural causes between June and Feb. 5.

Cpl. Scott Vickrey, 23, of Fayetteville, Ark., was found unconscious in his room at Rough Rider Village by his squad leader.

Medical services personnel were dispatched to the barracks room, but Vickrey was declared dead at the scene, Fort Hood said Wednesday.

Rough Rider village is home to Fort Hood’s Warrior Transition Unit for wounded or ill soldiers.

Vickrey joined the Army in 2003 and served a tour of duty in Iraq from February 2004 through February 2005 with the 1st Infantry Division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team, during which he was decorated for repelling a suicide attacker and again for thwarting a homemade bomb attack.

Soldiers also found body of Spc. Jared Arnn, 21, of Boonville, Ind.

The body of Pvt. Paul Muse, a native of Oklahoma found dead at Fort Huachuca in November 2008.
The horrific stories have been reported for far too many years but nothing changed. Nothing changed because the national media stopped paying attention and let all of it go on and on.

We face it all with a blend of bitterness and hope for justice. Hope that the American public will care enough when they know what has been going on to actually do something instead of settling for anything as if it is better than nothing.

Denton native Zackary Filip, who was named 2010 Soldier of the Year by Army Times, said he was harassed and belittled when he sought help with his post-traumatic stress disorder at the Fort Hood Warrior Transition Unit.
(Vernon Bryant/Staff Photographer)

The war after the war
Wounded soldiers allege mistreatment in the Army’s Warrior Transition Units
By David Tarrant, Scott Friedman (NBC 5) and Eva Parks (NBC 5)
Published on November 22, 2014

KILLEEN — At a shop that sells vacation packages to soldiers in the Killeen Mall, there’s a shrine to Zackary Filip. Newspaper clippings, congratulatory letters from congressional leaders and a large poster of Filip in his Army combat uniform cover a wall.

The Denton native was named 2010 Soldier of the Year by Army Times for his actions while in near-constant combat in Afghanistan and just afterward during the Fort Hood massacre.

Filip, a combat-hardened medic, saved the life of a civilian police officer and treated many other victims of the Fort Hood attack that killed 13 and wounded 32 others five years ago.

By the age of 24, with a Bronze Star and the Army Commendation Medal with the V device for valor, Filip looked forward to a long, successful military career.

But the Army he served with such distinction wasn’t there for him when he most needed its help, he says.

When he began suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, he entered a special program — a Warrior Transition Unit — for soldiers in need of ongoing outpatient treatment. He expected to find the kind of care he needed to heal.

Instead, he once again felt under attack.

Related Stories Part 2: Wounded soldiers have complained of supervisors’ disrespect, unfair treatment and intimidation Complaints about wounded warriors’ treatment pile up
Benn sought to help, but PTSD hindered him
Editorial: Wounded warriors deserve better

NBC 5 takes a closer look at Warrior Transition Units
Hundreds of soldiers allege mistreatment at Army Warrior Transition Units
Injured soldiers question training of WTU leaders

Injured Heroes, Broken Promises: Hundreds of Soldiers Allege Mistreatment at Army Warrior Transition Units

Soldiers in WTU with PTSD degraded and told to "man up"

Psychiatrist left disillusioned with the Army’s understanding of PTSD

No Excuse For Fort Hood Mistreatment of Soldiers With PTSD

Chuck Hagel's Last Act Should Be Holding General Odierno Accountable For Suicides