Suicide Awareness Not the Same As What We Need to Change

Failing More Veterans
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
March 22, 2015

Three years ago, a life was lost because of what we failed to do. Oh, sure, some just want to blame police officers faced with a veteran in crisis caused by PTSD. The truth is whenever these veterans reach this point, we're all responsible.

When the report came out two years ago, I posted it Veteran Marine with PTSD shot and killed by police but should have said our fingerprints are all over the bullet.

(The link is still good to Knox News)
Family: Maryville man killed after shooting at police suffered from PTSD

Theodore “T.J.” Jones IV was shot and killed at about 4 a.m. Thursday when he advanced on officers who had surrounded him at a former business at 1811 E. Broadway Ave., Maryville Police Chief Tony Crisp said.

On Thursday afternoon, Jones’ father took to Facebook to share his grief.

“Today, I feel great pain. My beloved son, Theodore ‘T.J.’ Jones IV, last night suffered another flashback to his combat service as a U.S. Marine,” wrote Theodore Jones III of Maryville.

“He has lost the battle with PTSD. This morning, he sits within sight of Creator and Jesus. He now smokes the pipe with other warriors who have fought to defend their beliefs.”

You may think this story is old news. It isn't. After Jones was buried, the heartache didn't end. It didn't end for the family. It didn't end for police officers. Above all, it didn't end for the line of families afterwards all facing planning funerals for veterans who did not die in combat but perished because of it.

Blount Marine, victim of PTSD, remembered in awareness walk
Daily Times
By Joel Davis
March 22, 2015

Lance Cpl. Theodore “T.J.” Jones IV is not forgotten.

Mark A. Large | The Daily Times
Lea Jones Glarner writes on a banner in memory
of her brother LCPL Theodore Jones IV
Saturday at the pavilion behind the Blount
County Courthouse.

Jones was remembered Saturday during Blount County’s second annual post-traumatic stress disorder Awareness Walk.

It marks two year since his death on March 21, 2013, in an armed standoff with police.

The mile-long walk began in the parking lot outside the courthouse near the greenway. The Blount County Veterans Affairs Office was involved in organizing it.

”This is one of the hardest days of the year for me,” his father, Theodore “Theo” Jones III, said. “My son suffered with PTSD.

It is something that none of us in this family knew or understood in time to help him or to save him, but we have many young young men and women right here in our own community that are still suffering and still waiting on treatment and are still afraid to acknowledge that they need help because of the ridicule they sometimes can get in the community.”

People need to start writing letters to their lawmakers to force better and more timely treatment for those suffering from PTSD, Jones said.

“They don’t get follow-up treatment for years. It’s not fair. It’s not right to our American heroes. We owe them more.”
read more here

Why is it our fault? Simple. Within days of this tragedy this report was released about a study by RAND Corp on what the military was actually doing to help the servicemen and women in uniform. No one seemed to care that the military failed them first.

MILITARY SUICIDES ARE UP, DESPITE 900 PREVENTION PROGRAMS
NextGov
By Bob Brewin
March 21, 2013


The Defense Department runs 900 suicide prevention programs, yet the number of military suicides has more than doubled since 2001, the head of the Pentagon’s suicide prevention office told lawmakers Thursday.

Jacqueline Garrick, acting director of the Defense Suicide Prevention Office, told the House Armed Services Committee that the Pentagon has identified 291 suicides in fiscal 2012 with investigations into another 59 pending. This is up from 160 in 2001. She said the suicide rate for 2012 is expected to increase once death investigations have been completed and a final manner of death determination is issued.

Lt. Gen. Howard Bromberg, Army deputy chief of staff for personnel, said the service had a record number of 324 potential suicides in 2012, more than double the previous record of 148 in 2009. Both Garrick and Bromberg said the military suicide profile matched that of suicides in the general population -- young, white males younger than 30 with only a high school education.

Eliminating the perception that seeking mental health care could cripple a career and lead to loss of a security clearance is one of the most “critical aspects” of suicide reduction, Bromberg told the hearing. He said there should be a top-down emphasis that seeking help is not a sign of weakness.

Rep. Joe Heck, R-Nev., who is also a physician and commands an Army Reserve brigade, said he has personal experience with soldier suicides -- one death and two attempts in his unit. He expressed frustration with the military’s inability to stamp out mental health care’s stigma. Heck noted that when he returned from Iraq in 2008, he asked, “Why are we still developing a stigma reduction campaign?” read more here

I left this comment.

The answer they are looking for has been right in front of them. End Resilience Training! In 2009 I gave the strongest warning possible that if they pushed "Comprehensive Soldier Fitness" suicides would go up. I was right but had no power to get anyone in the DOD or Congress to listen to what 30 years of research, living with it and helping veterans taught me. Too many know what works but it doesn't have to be tied to huge contracts that have to be refunded. Nextgov has a report out "Military Suicides are up despite 900 prevention programs" and these programs are tied to contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars but are renewed even though RAND said they did not work with the military culture among other issues. Tired of spending hours trying to undo the damage this approach has produced because it does more harm than good.

Military brass were also answering questions. The problem was no one in Congress ever gather the facts, statistics or reports enough to actually ask them questions as to why after all these years of "prevention" suicides actually increased at the same time combat deaths decreased.

Military evaluating suicide prevention programs
Stars and Stripes
Megan McCloskey
Published: March 21, 2013

Preparing to testify before the House Armed Services Committee's Subcommittee on Military Personnel Thursday, March 21, 2013, at the U.S. Capitol are, left to right, Jacqueline Garrick, acting director of the DOD's Defense Suicide Prevention Office; Lt. Gen. Howard B. Bromberg, Army Deputy Chief of Staff G-1; Vice Adm. Scott R. Van Buskirk, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Manpower, Personnel, Training and Education; Lt. Gen. Darrell D. Jones, Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower, Personnel and Services; Brig. Gen. .Robert F. Hedelund, Director of Marine and Family Programs for the Marine Corps; and Dr. Jerry Reed Jr., director of the Suicide Prevention Resource Center.
JOE GROMELSKI/STARS AND STRIPES

WASHINGTON — After another rise in the military suicide rate last year, the services on Thursday outlined to Congress their efforts to reverse the trend and evaluate their prevention programs.
Last year the Army set another record with 324 suicides. For active duty, the 183 suicides in 2012 far exceeded the previous record of 148 in 2009.

“While most Army suicides continue to be among junior enlisted soldiers, the number of suicides by non-commissioned officers has increased over each of the last three years,”

The overall program review has fallen to the Pentagon’s relatively new Defense Suicide Prevention Office, which opened in 2011.

By the end of September, it should complete its comprehensive inventory of all the service’s programs and will have identified gaps and overlaps in the various efforts, Jacqueline Garrick, acting director of the prevention office, told the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel. From there the office will begin to streamline and unify what is offered across the services, she said.

Although she didn’t answer questions about how they were evaluating the programs – besides collecting data from the branches – she said it was a top priority of her office.
read more here

So the DOD failed them first and we didn't manage to fight them to fix anything. Then the VA failed them but hey, why bother to tell the truth on how long all of this had been going on? After all, the press has a short memory on all of this.

Remember the uproar over Candy Land with the VA pushing pills? It came out as if it was all new news. Oh, ya right. I forgot that we're not supposed to remember that this was a matter of life and death. Far too many deaths for far too long.

Deal is reached in lawsuit over veteran's death reported by Kate Willtrout for the Virgina Pilot shows it was going on for the sister of a Navy veteran.

Kelli Grese - a Navy veteran like her twin sister - killed herself on Veterans Day in 2010. She overdosed on Seroquel, an antipsychotic medication that was part of a cocktail of drugs prescribed by doctors at the Hampton Veterans Administration Medical Center.

Darla Grese, of Virginia Beach, filed a malpractice suit against the medical center, seeking $5 million. It was scheduled for trial in Norfolk in April. On Tuesday, Grese and the U.S. government reached a settlement, according to her lawyer, Bob Haddad: If a judge approves the deal, the government will pay Grese $100,000.

Grese hopes publicity about the suit will draw more attention to the treatment of veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or depression, both of which her sister battled.

In a single year, Grese said in an interview, doctors at the Hampton facility prescribed 5,370 pills of Klonopin, used to treat anxiety disorders, for her sister.

What was the result of all of this? More deaths that didn't need to happen.

While the false reports of 22 suicides a day were not even close and the VA admitted the numbers were an average of 21 states provided by limited data, everyone simply assumes those numbers are true. Yet state after state produced more shocking numbers.

The number of veterans committing suicide are double the civilian rate. What is even more troubling is the majority of those deaths are 50 and over, meaning veterans from the wars civilians have forgotten about.

And then there are the reports of younger veterans, all trained in suicide prevention, coming home and committing suicide triple their peer rate.

We can talk all we want about raising awareness on the heartache but if we continue to just talk about those we fail, we will fail even more.

We need to start taking a look at what was done to them while we were being told it was being done for them!

If we don't then more families will have to suffer for what we fail to do for the men and women prepared to die for the sake of others but not prepared to live back home!