Purdue University program taking a bite on suicides into poisoned apple

Battlemind is the poisoned apple

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
July 31, 2019

Purdue University is planning a conference on suicides tied to military life. The problem is, the seem to think that a program that failed miserably is a good place to start!

I have been slamming this Battlemind BS since 2008

Battlemind started almost a year ago and has done, nothing! Since then soldiers are still being discharge under "pre-existing" conditions, TBI is still getting confused with PTSD, they are still committing suicides and yes, homicides, and still being told they have to wait to have their wounded minds tended to. For all the "steps" taken to address the problem, it looks like they are still in training shoes learning to take baby steps, when they need a great pair of rocket roller blades! Give me a break!

This is a great example as to why this program should have been left to rot...

This comment was left on my blog for a post I did on 1st Sgt. Jeff McCkinney. Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The tragic story of 1st Sgt. Jeff McKinney": Hello. I read your article about the 1st Sgt. that recently committed suicide. I wanted to tell you my story. My husband was in the 278th TN National Guard and he committed suicide on May 16, 2008. Here is my story:http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/video/blog/2008/11/military_sees_rise_in_troop_su.htmlSincerely,Tracy Eiswert

Please, help me spread the word about veteran suicides! Send this link to everyone you know. P.S. The VA has denied all my appeals for a 100% rating................

This is what I wrote afterwards. 

Well, I watched the video in horror. At first as I listened to Tracy, I started to cry because she said, "no one told her" about PTSD. That's been the problem since Vietnam. People like me are hard to find. Let's face it, there is nothing glamorous or Google worthy when it comes to PTSD or trauma for that matter. Most of the people that need to know about all of this, need to know it well in advance of it coming into their family, but considering two thirds of the American people do not know what PTSD means, they are not about to go looking for information on it. I know what I know because my life depended on it when I met my husband 26 years ago.

Tracy's story was just one more reminder I didn't need that no matter how many hours I spend doing this, no matter how many videos, Power Points or posts I do, it does no good if people like Tracy have no idea what's available to help. Most of the emails I get come in the middle of the night from a veteran or a spouse after finding me by accident, either by a post or because of one of my videos. Yet if they were searching for sexy videos or comedies, they'd find what they were looking for right away. No matter what you Google, you can find it, but what you can't find is the miracle you're looking for when a life is on the line.

Let's face it, when it comes to PTSD, the government, as others have put it in the past, suck at what they do.

Watching the video on PBS I am even more convinced that Battle Mind is not only bad, it's dangerous. There is a Chaplain talking to a bunch of soldiers talking about getting angry, nightmares and flashbacks. His advice, based on Battle Mind, is to wait 90 days. Imagine that? After all, all the experts I've read over the last 26 years all seem to agree that if the symptoms of PTSD do not begin to fade in 30 days, they need to seek help. It appears the VA is 60 days too late along with everything else. (Is there any wonder why they won't hire me to work for them anymore?)

James Peak is also in this video. He denies that the rise in suicides is tied to combat. Isn't that remarkable considering that the news accounts of some of these suicidal veterans all have one thing in common. They all experienced combat and ended up with flashbacks, nightmares, along with all the other symptoms of PTSD but when Peak tries to tie it into nothing more than relationship problems and financial ones setting off depression, it's easy to hide it. Simply because PTSD ends up setting off depression and relationship problems and financial problems as well.

Battle Mind does not work and gives bogus advice. If it worked you'd see the number of attempted suicides and successful ones go down instead of up every year. Peak also denied that the redeployments increased the risk even though the report was released by the Army a couple of years ago, stating categorically that the risk of PTSD increased by 50% for each redeployment. At least there is a VA psychiatrist in this video saying that it has increased the risk.

As bad as we are treating the regular military, we are even worse at treating the National Guards men and women. They come home and are expected to just get back to normal life when there is nothing normal about life in combat for any of them.

The question is, how can people like me be paid attention to by the people in charge? It's impossible. Letters sent to congress go unanswered or they answer with a form letter. Even service organizations that are sent my videos ignore them. It's all backed up by research, news reports and living with it everyday plus doing the outreach work and listening to them very carefully. Some service organizations are using them and they are helping, which is a good thing, but how many accidental finds are out there searching for help right now?

The other point is that the local communities aren't paying attention either. If they think they have budget problems now, wait until they see family after family have to bury another National Guards man or woman because they didn't get the help they needed. Wait until yet another church holds a funeral for one that took their own life because the church refused to get involved in a family falling apart and a combat veteran suffered.

Service groups across the country are falling all over themselves trying to increase membership to stay active and pay their bills, but do they think of getting active when it comes to what the new generation of veterans need? Hell no! That would be too beneficial to their communities. I know. I've tried to get them to pay attention and have been ignored. It's not that I don't know people with the power to change all of this, they just won't listen.

Go to the link below and watch the video on what happened to Tracy's husband and know that everyday there are 18 more of them. We are losing over 6,000 a year to suicide and that number is expect to go up because the VA yet again is late but the veterans, well they were expected to show up on time to be sent into combat or they had to go to jail. Nice. Isn't it?

There are a lot of posts up on this program along with Comprehensive Soldier Fitness...another loser sold to every member of the military. On that one, I predicted in 2009 that suicides would increase..and they did. 

Both programs ended up with producing more suicides because they only became aware of bullshit instead of hearing the truth about what PTSD is and how they can heal.

If you are wondering how it is that I figured all this out way back then, but they are still living in denial, so am I. They are supposed to be the experts. All I do is pay attention like it really matters!

‘What IF We Ended Military and Veterans Suicide?’

Purdue University
Jeanne Norberg
July 29, 2019

The term “battlemind” initially was used by military to talk about the inner strength needed to face adversity, fear and hardship during combat. The application of the term then was broadened to take in psychological resiliency both during and after deployment.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The nation is grappling with service members and veterans who find it hard to cope with coming home. It affects their families and communities as well.

To address this challenge, the Military and Family Research Institute at Purdue University is hosting the 10th annual summit of "Battlemind to Home" on campus Oct. 8. Registration is open now, and early-bird pricing runs through Aug. 7. The “What IF We Ended Military and Veterans Suicide?” event is part of Purdue’s Ideas Festival, the centerpiece of the university’s Giant Leaps sesquicentennial campaign, which is a series of events that connect world-renowned speakers and Purdue expertise in a conversation on the most critical problems facing the world. One of the Ideas Festival’s themes is health, longevity and quality of life.

Legal, mental health and community leaders at the Battlemind summit will learn and share strategies to ease the transition from the battlefront to the home front for military personnel, veterans and their families. Previously held in Indianapolis attracting 340 attendees, this year the conference will take place 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Purdue Memorial Union's ballrooms. It is expected to draw participants from more than 100 organizations in Indiana and nearby states.

The opening addresses will be delivered by Conrad Washington, the deputy director of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiative, who will talk about available programs and resources. In the afternoon Oz Sanchez, a former Marine and Navy Seal will address the conference. Injured in car-motorcycle accident, Sanchez is now a five-time world champion in the sport of handcycling under the Paralympic umbrella. The emcee will be Indiana Supreme Court Justice Steven David, whose 28 years of active duty and reserve military service included two post 9-11 deployments and three commands.
read it here

Hi Matthew,
I was reading about the upcoming Battlemind event and cringed. First, I applaud the spiritual aspect of helping them heal, however, modeling anything after the failure of Battlemind is a losing battle.

After extensive research on Battlemind, when it was introduced, I came to the conclusion it would do more harm than good. It turned out, I was right as evidence has shown.

That was followed by an equally repulsive attempt called “Comprehensive Soldier Fitness” which was also slammed by me in 2009. It also looks like I was right on that one too.

I have been doing this work for 37 years as if my life depended on it. That is because it does. I am married to a Vietnam veteran with PTSD.

Please, reexamine the “cure” before it is too late to discover it was a poisoned apple.

The Brains Behind Battle Mind

The Brains Behind Battle Mind
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
July 8, 2017

A friend sent me a link to someone that has not been written about lately and that link (seen below about Pulitzer Prize) took me on a 4 hour hunt. What you will read, hopefully, will open your eyes to some very important details. The first one is, just because someone get attention, it does not mean they deserve it. It just means they know how to get as much as possible for themselves.

The "brains" behind the lost battle for minds caused this landmine for our service members and first responders. There is another way to put it but I'd end up with an "adults only" rating if I used what I am thinking.

Valvincent Reyes and Dave Grossman are among the "brains" responsible for telling the most courageous among us that they must be weak minded if they end up with PTSD or think of suicide.

Demographic characteristics and their associations with suicide A total of 255 active duty soldiers committed suicide in 2007 and 2008 (115 in 2007 and 140 in 2008). Table 2 presents the distribution of demographic characteristics for this group of individuals. Suicides were predominantly male (95%), 18e24 years old (45%) and Caucasian (73%), married at the time of death (59%) and lower enlisted (54%). Almost 69% had been deployed at least once to combat theatre.

"Battlemind training before they deploy." 

"As soon as they are approved medically and psychologically, they are sent to war."

Published on Sep 9, 2010 Lt. Colonel Valvincent Reyes, Clinical Assistant Professor at the USC School of Social Work, delivers a lecture at the San Diego Academic Center on November 24th, 2009 about Battlemind, the army's current model for mental health care, with an emphasis on its application before deployment. Lt. Col Reyes illustrates the discussion with his recent experiences debriefing victims and family members of victims in the aftermath of the shooting at Fort Hood.

But this training does not work. The rise in the number of suicides within the military and veterans community prove that one.

While the number of reported veteran suicides is in dispute, the percentages are not. 65% of the veteran suicides are over the age of 50. That is a reflection of the Veteran demographics with the majority of US veterans are in fact, over the age of 50. 

What is even more troubling is that those older veterans did not receive "preventative" training before deployment, nor did they receive any of the "efforts" people like Grossman were pushing.

Every service member has been "trained" yet the results in the OEF and OIF veterans as well as those currently in the military have proven beyond a shadow of doubt, this is not only not working, it has had the opposite result.

The rate of OEF and OIF veterans are triple their peer rate. For female veterans, suicides are six times higher than other females. Training, like Battlemind, followed by the stupidity of Comprehensive Solider Fitness, actually prevents them from seeking help as soon as they acknowledge they need it. How? Because they were all told they were training their brain to be tough enough to take whatever they face. In other words, if they need help, they were weak minded or did not train right. Thus, prevented from opening up to the others they served with so that no one would see them as weak.

In 2009, I had a prediction of this disastrous outcome.

Then again, Grossman does not seem to even get the functioning of the human body. While no human can take a bathroom break during combat, but the body does what it has to even though it is not convenient, Grossman took the opportunity to disparage even that aspect of combat.

Warrior Mindset: Mental Toughness, Skills for a Nation's Peacekeepers."If we look only at the individuals at the tip of the spear and factor out those who didn't experience intense combat, we can estimate that approximately 50 percent of those who did experience it admitted they had wet their pants and nearly 25 percent admitted they had mess themselves."

Ok, sure he must expect them to be able to say "hold your fire I need to take a leak" and then walk away from the action. So why point out something like than unless you figure it matches what you already assume they are? 

Back to the video, Reyes called them "maladaptive" and that is defined as this,

adjective1. of, relating to, or characterized by maladaptation or incomplete, inadequate, or faulty adaptation:

Back to the facts, these are the numbers after they pushed this training. As you look at the numbers remember the size of the military had gone down year after year. Less enlisted equals higher suicide rates.

As you have just seen, the "training" did not work and when the DOD points out that the "majority have never deployed" proves it even more. Think about this training not preventing the "non deployed" from killing themselves, then wonder how they expected it to work on those with multiple deployments. Any reasonable "expert" would have understood this calamity and ended it, but they turned around and planned on just pushing it harder.  

It also seems that Grossman did more than push this training. It seems he has also tried to sell himself as a "Pulitzer Prize Nominee" and was pointed out clearly on thetruthaboutsocnetlies

I’ll leave it to the reader to determine the whys of someone that sells books and training for a living to likely fudge the difference between paying $50 and filling out a form to being an actual Pulitzer Prize nominee. My opinion is if, like John Giduck, Mr. Grossman is knowing lying about his background to sell you books and seminars, what else is he lying about?  See the links below to learn more about the circle around that mutually promote and defend each other.
I still laugh about how cops pay a guy that never killed anyone for advice about killing.  How dumb is that? You may as well be sitting in a Grossman lecture about menstrual cramps. 

That article is from 2014 but his claim goes back even further.

Pulitzer-Nominated Author to Keynote TREXPO West 2007 January 29, 2007  CS StaffLOS ANGELES – Campus Safety Magazine and the organizers of TREXPO announce that Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, one of law enforcement’s most in-demand speakers and trainers, will be one of the charismatic keynote speakers at TREXPO West 2007, March 19-22, in Long Beach, Calif.Grossman has been featured on TV and radio talk shows, in documentaries and in newspaper stories across the United States, Australia and Canada. Wherever Col. Grossman speaks, he draws enormous crowds and standing ovations. The way he energizes and captivates his audience is legendary!Grossman will deliver the opening keynote address on Tuesday, March 20, discussing a sensitive topic he has studied extensively: violent behavior and the ways law enforcement and communities can prevent fatalities. He is the founder of Killology Research Group, a police and military consultancy, and the author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated On Combat and On Killing, which is required reading at the FBI Academy and some of the nation’s top military schools.This talented speaker and trainer combined his experiences as a West Point psychology professor, a professor of military science and an Army Ranger to become the founder of a new field of scientific endeavor, which has been termed “killology.” In this new field the impressive Grossman has made revolutionary new contributions to our understanding of war and violence in our society. 

And yet these "brains" do not seem to be able to explain how the bravest of the brave have not only proven their courage in combat, they have received the Medal of Honor. Many of them talk about their own battles with PTSD as well as how heroes like Dakota Meyer have attempted suicide.

"But triumphant times led to terrible times, with Meyer attempting to kill himself:  "So, I pulled over to the side of the road and I just pulled one of my guns out and I just put it to my head and squeezed the trigger.  And...there wasn't a round in it.  I don't know.  I have no idea, but, obviously somebody had taken it out...and it sobered me up. And it was like, at that point in time, I told myself, I have to figure this out. I have to figure this out because if I would have killed myself, that was the most, you know, selfish thing that I could ever do.""

Maybe folks should stop listening to the "brains" that have contributed to the stigma of PTSD and start listening to the folks actually trying to do something to change the outcome?

History has proven need for accountability on military suicides

History has proven need for accountability on military suicides
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
February 15, 2013

The numbers released on military suicides from last year were not the shocking part.

The numbers are from Air Force Times

Army 351-296=55
Navy 59-46=7
Air Force 59-55=4
Marines 48-45=3

The shocking part is no one has been held accountable since 2008 and no one ever will be unless the public demands it.

The headlines are not impressive at all considering every branch has also had a reduction in enlisted personnel and the rate of younger veterans committing suicide has gone up. 517 revised from 2012?

This is from 2009 with military leaders. House Armed Service Subcommittee held the hearing.



As you can see, the numbers went up after this hearing even though they made it sound as if they were doing everything possible to reduce suicides.

This is from 2010 with General Carroll Air Force Vice Chief of Staff



This is a year after training was pushed across the military. The number of Air Force Suicides, Post Traumatic Stress and TBI were increasing. As you can see, they increased even more after "addressing" the problems.

One more thing to consider when any military brass talks about how non-deployed forces committed suicide is the simple fact, civilians do not receive mental health evaluations but enlisted personnel do. They were tested before they enlisted. Either the testing is inadequate and cannot discover underlying psychological problems or the problems are in fact caused by the military.

Nice speeches did not save lives. Good intentions did not save lives. When the military decided to do more to prevent suicides and encourage troops to seek help for PTSD but ended up with these terrible results, they should have changed but they didn't. They just pushed the same programs harder.

JULY 2, 2010
Veterans and Military Mental Health
National Institute on Mental Health 2010 Convention Officials from the Defense and Veterans Departments took part in a discussion looking at the range of mental health and counseling services available to returning war veterans. Among the topics they addressed were evaluation methods, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and congressional initiatives to address to assist veterans. Psychiatric service dogs in the audience were pointed out. Following Colonel Ritchie’s remarks, Vietnam War veteran Ron Morton unexpectedly stepped up to the podium and spoke about soldiers committing suicide and the increase of veterans with AIDS and HIV. He argued that the Veterans Administration is not doing enough for veterans with PTSD. After the panelists' prepared remarks, they responded to audience members' questions.

"We have solutions we're working on" but after listening to Richie, it is clear their solutions did not work. Just look at the numbers above as a reminder.

Richie praised Dr. Ira Katz. Dr. Katz was hiding data that at the time there were 12,000 attempted suicides each year within the VA system. Another good reminder is that the VA cares for only a fraction of the veterans in this country. Less than 4 million out of almost 23 million veterans.

John Bradly of NAMI reminded the audience they had given Katz an award in 2009. That is the same year I resigned from NAMI Veterans Council. Dr. Katz was the focus of a lawsuit by Veterans for Common Sense and documents were uncovered by a Freedom of Information Request.

Sens. Daniel Akaka of Hawaii and Patty Murray of Washington state said Tuesday that Dr. Ira Katz, the VA's mental health director, withheld crucial information on the true suicide risk among veterans. "Dr. Katz's irresponsible actions have been a disservice to our veterans, and it is time for him to go," said Murray, a member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. "The No. 1 priority of the VA should be caring for our veterans, not covering up the truth."

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

That report was from 2008.

Katz said during his address in 2010 that the VA takes care of 24 million veterans but the VA records showed there was less than 4 million receiving VA compensation. Katz's chart showed 7.8 million enrolled in VA healthcare with 5.2 million seen each year and 1.6 million with mental health diagnosis.

That is an important factor in attempting to discover how many veterans attempt suicides and how many are not being counted.

Was it a serious problem in 2008? Yes, like the story of Josh Barber,

FORT LEWIS, Wash. — Josh Barber, former combat soldier, parked outside the Army hospital here one morning last August armed for war.

A cook at the dining facility, Barber sat in his truck wearing battle fatigues, earplugs and a camouflage hood on his head. He had an arsenal: seven loaded guns, nearly 1,000 rounds of ammunition, knives in his pockets. On the front seat, an AK-47had a bullet in the chamber.

The "smell of death" he experienced in Iraq continued to haunt him, his wife says. He was embittered about the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that crippled him, the Army's failure to treat it, and the strains the disorder put on his marriage.

Despite the firepower he brought with him, Barber, 31, took only one life that day. He killed himself with a shot to the head.

"He went to Fort Lewis to kill himself to prove a point," Kelly Barber says. " 'Here I am. I was a soldier. You guys didn't help me.' "

Barber's suicide is part of a larger story — the record number of soldiers and combat veterans who have killed themselves in recent years, at a time when the Pentagon has stretched deployments for combat troops to meet President Bush's security plans in Iraq. In 2007, the Army counted 115 suicides, the most since tracking began in 1980. By October 2008, that record had been surpassed with 117 soldier suicides. Final numbers for 2008 have not been released.

This post would never end if I kept going but after tracking news reports from across the country since 2007, there is enough proof on Wounded Times that what the DOD has been doing has not helped keep them alive. It has caused too many to not want to live anymore.

List of Resilience Programs Reviewed by RAND

Today has been one more eye opener while researching my book, The Warrior SAW, Suicide After War and I am sick to my stomach over what I discovered today. The following cannot wait until the book is done.

Rand has a fascinating report that must have just missed every reporter in the country because it addresses the problems with the military approach of reducing military suicides by making them "resilient" and actually showed the results from this huge study.

If you want to know why hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent over all these years producing the record high suicide rates across the military branches, this is it.

Table 3.2 List of Resilience Programs Reviewed
Assessment of the Army Center for enhanced Performance (ACeP)
Battlemind
Operational Stress Control and Readiness (OSCAR)
Employee engagement Program (nSA)/Corporate Athlete
Energy Project
Gallup Consulting
HeartMath
Joint Speakers Bureau (JSB)
Landing Gear
Marine Resiliency Study (MRS)
Mindfulness-Based Mind Fitness training (MMFt)
National Guard Resiliency Program
Operational Stress Injury Social Support (OSISS)
Passport toward Success
Penn Resiliency Project (PRP)
Preventive Psychological health Demonstration Project (PPhDP)
Promoting Alternative thinking Strategies (PAthS)
School Mental health team (SMht)
Senior Leader wellness enhancement Seminar (SLweS)
Soldier evaluation for Life Fitness (SeLF)
Spiritual warrior training Program (SwtP)
Warrior Resiliency Program (wRP)
Warrior Resilience and thriving (wRt)

Most programs have been implemented before evidence of their effectiveness has been established. Programs often are modified for each client or context, making it difficult to design studies that will provide evidence of effectiveness for all military populations and situations. New scientific studies have recently been funded and are in the planning or initial data collection stages, but, as with most quasi-experimental or controlled studies, it will be a number of years before evidence of their effectiveness is fully established. As these studies with evaluative data progress, they should be encouraged to publish their results.

Conduct More Rigorous Program Evaluation
Although there are many programs available to the military and civilian communities, there is very little empirical evidence that these programs effectively build resilience.

Similarly, there are a number of factors related to resilience, but there is almost no evidence that resilience can be taught or produced. Results from both the literature review and the program review echo the need for more program evaluation, as identified as one of the missions of the DCoE. As noted, only 11 documents in the literature review are based on RCT evaluation design, and only five of the programs reviewed have formally evaluated program success, yet programs are often rolled out before evidence of their effectiveness has been established and are modified for each client or context, making it difficult to provide evidence for effectiveness across populations and situations.

In general, studies of resilience in the military should enhance scientific rigor by conducting more RCTs and longitudinal studies that span the phases of deployment. This is particularly true for military families, since little research has been published in this area (MacDermid et al., 2008). In addition, studies with existing evaluative data need to be encouraged to publish their results.

Conclusion
Promoting resilience in the military is an increasingly important objective of DoD.
Effective programs that improve service members and their families’ resilience directly assist the military in keeping its personnel better prepared for combat. Our study reached the following conclusions:
• There is evidence in the literature supporting many factors that can help to promote resilience at the individual, family, unit, and community levels.
– Scientific evidence is especially strong for positive thinking, positive affect, positive coping, realism, and behavioral control, as well as for positive command climate and belongingness.
• Many of the programs that were reviewed as part of this study incorporate these evidence-based factors into their core missions.
• However, interviews with program representatives identified five types of challenges to program implementation, which suggest opportunities to improve program capabilities:
– lack of leadership support by the military
– problems with logistics
– limited funding to sustain programs
– poor fit within the military culture
– mental health stigma.
Building resilience in the military can be strengthened in several ways. Clear policy to define roles, responsibilities, and broad guidance for implementation would be extremely helpful. Using evidence-based resilience factors in a flexible, culturally sensitive context is also important. Resilience policies should also direct more rigorous program evaluation, using standardized measures and comparing across different programs.

Such evaluations could help guide military members and their families to make informed decisions about program selection. Ultimately, strong command leadership will enable the success of resilience programming and will enhance the overall strength and resilience of service members and their families.

I knew this was bad but I didn't know how much proof there was the DOD has pushing something they didn't even know would work and then refused to end it when it was proven to leave more dead by suicide, 43% still refusing to get care and 57% committing suicide even after they got it.

UPDATE MARCH 21, 2013

Findings from 2011 also by RAND RAND Study Promoting Psychological Resilience in the U.S. Military 2011 Summary of Reported Barriers to Program Implementation
Lack of leadership support

13 “Supportive leadership . . . can model change in their own behavior and also serve as a ‘strong internal champion’ for the program.” “when communication from the top down is not as clear, families may not get relevant information or feel particularly encouraged to attend. there is higher participation when commanders’ families participate in the program.”

Problems with logistics

12 “Identifying appropriate periods of measurement within the military is an ongoing challenge.” “there are many demands on training time . . . sometimes training time is cut short in order to continue the mission.”

Limited funding to sustain program

8 “the business process [of] traditional systems works against efforts to provide a prevention oriented system. Currently, they are tied to a system that rewards for patient encounters.” “we started with some seed money to develop the program and got additional support from local representatives. It will be important to get ongoing support to further develop and expand the program.”

Poor fit within the military

8 “It is a challenge to figure out how to present the material in an effective way, e.g., self-care and self regulation can be presented as part of self-sustainment.”

Mental health stigma

5 “Soldier’s reaction is ‘why do we need this touchy-feely course?’ It is sometimes hard to get through to senior leadership the importance of addressing these issues prior to deployment.”

Navy SEAL's suicide, lesson for all

Navy SEAL's suicide, lesson for all
by Chaplain Kathie
Wounded Times Blog
October 16, 2012


They try to tell us that they are taking action on preventing suicides. They tried to tell us that message year after year. This blog has a long list of press releases and interviews with military brass saying they are addressing it going back to 2007, but these claims have always been followed by, more reports of more suicides. Buried in the reports are attempted suicides. The Suicide Prevention Hotline has thousands of calls every month but no one is asking why the numbers keep going up at the same time.

Why isn't anyone in the media asking the right questions?

There is a poll on this blog asking if Congress should be held accountable for military suicides. The majority of the responses is "yes" they should be. Someone has to be and the no one in the military seems to be held to account for any of this.

I've read these reports everyday for the last 5 years for Wounded Times, but before this there were websites and other blogs I had tracking all of it. If I post 10 times a day, I've read at least 10 times more articles. Few give me hope. Most break my heart.

Most of these suicides could have been prevented when the first attempts to address Combat PTSD began with the troops being sent into two wars. The program Battlemind was supposed to be the answer, but it caused more problems when young, impressionable minds being broken with military training were told at the same time they could train their brains to be mentally tough. Did they understand what kind of message the soldiers were hearing? To them it meant if they ended up with PTSD, it meant they didn't train right and thus, they were mentally weak. Nice! Would have admitted you needed help if you thought your weak mind caused it?

While PTSD has nothing to do with the strength of "mind" in anyone, they pushed the program year after year. When the numbers of suicides went up, they changed the title they used to "resiliency" tweaked it a bit, then passed it off as the answer to all the problems. We saw the results.

Year after year we saw young men and women coming home, still not understanding what PTSD was, why it hit them, or what they could do to heal. Families, well, they knew even less about all of it. "No one told me." is the response I get when I talk to Moms after it is too late to keep sons and daughters alive. Too late to help a family stay together. I thank God when it is not too late to save a veteran, but I am discouraged to discover how little they were actually told by all the "training" they were getting while in the military.

The stigma lives on. The lack of proper programs perpetuates all while servicemen and women lose all hope of healing.

Here is a story of a Navy SEAL, the toughest of the toughest, not getting what he needed to heal and now his widow has to take a stand to try to keep other families from experiencing the same heartbreak that didn't need to happen.

Chief Petty Officer Jerald Kruse didn't have a weak mind, or he couldn't have become a SEAL. He didn't lack bravery or commitment to do his duty and he was not new to this career. His death is a lesson for all and I pray a lesson for the reporters out there so the next time they hear about what the military is doing to address all of this, they actually start asking why failures are being repeated. Why is research being repeated that was done before over the last 40 years? Why haven't they learned from what is already known? Who will be held to account for all of this>

Sad tale of suicide touches Iowa Guard members
A woman whose husband took his life urges service members not to fear seeking help for emotional distress.
Oct 14, 2012
Written by
Tony Leys

Maybe someday, Miranda Schaumburg will get a decent night’s sleep before she has to stand in front of a military audience and describe her husband’s collapse into suicide.

She’s made the presentation about 20 times in various parts of the country over the past several years, but the anxiety still grabs her. It woke her at 3 a.m. Saturday, 11 hours before she was slated to tell Iowa National Guard soldiers her family’s story. She sat in her Pleasant Hill home before dawn, going over it again and again. How could she explain the way her Navy SEAL husband slipped into despondency, and the way the military failed to rescue him? How could she convey how important it is that service members feel free to seek mental help without endangering their reputations and careers?

The Iowa Guard invited Schaumburg to speak Saturday afternoon to officers and senior sergeants as part of the Army’s national effort to stem a wave of suicides. When the time came, she gathered her courage, walked to the front of a lecture hall in Johnston and faced about 125 men and women in camouflage uniforms. Her voice had a quaver at first, but it settled down and the facts spilled out.

Her husband, Chief Petty Officer Jerald Kruse, served 19 years in the Navy. He was a SEAL, an elite warrior sent to fight in some of the toughest situations around the world, including in Iraq. “His problems really began in ’05. That’s when I really began to notice something was wrong,” she said. He drank excessively, stayed up all night and lashed out at her and their three kids.
read more here

Losing the battle for combat minds

Losing the battle for combat minds
by Chaplain Kathie
Wounded Times Blog
October 14, 2012

It is very odd that we can acknowledge when it comes to drinking alcohol, someone under 21 is not physically or mentally able to handle it but we can't understand how their thinking is different than adults in other ways. The reason we are losing the battle for their minds is because the DOD doesn't understand the training they receive to send them into combat sets them up for failure when they are done fighting.

They are trained to have minds set for combat but not trained how to get them out of it.

When the news came out in 2006 redeployments increased the risk of PTSD, what did the DOD do about it? Nothing. They kept sending them back. This ended up causing soldiers to return into combat with medications to help them sleep, calm them down and basically numb the hell out of them. This sent them a message that as far as the DOD was concerned, their lives just didn't matter.

When these combat veterans returned home, they returned to families with absolutely no knowledge of how they could help their veteran heal and even less understanding about where they had been.

Years ago one wife told me that she had enough to worry about while her husband was in Iraq and didn't want more to worry about. She passed on getting ready to help him in case he needed it. He came home. He needed it. She left him. She said she sacrificed enough while he was gone taking care of everything and she wanted things back the way they were before. She didn't want to know why she couldn't have what she wanted.

One soldier, one year: $850,000 and rising
CNN
By Larry Shaughnessy
February 28th, 2012
Keeping one American service member in Afghanistan costs between $850,000 and $1.4 million a year, depending on who you ask. But one matter is clear, that cost is going up.

The DOD spends millions a year on medications, research and programs that have been proven failures but they keep repeating them. The suicide rate increased, medications proved deadly and more families fell apart.

One of the biggest failures is Resiliency Training, otherwise known as Battlemind. What this program does could be helpful however telling a young soldier he can "train his brain to be mentally tough" ends up telling him he's weak if he ends up with PTSD. That actually prevents them from talking to others they were with when they need to talk. They feel defective. They feel as if the others are tougher than they are and that is why they are falling apart.

The only way to save them and their families is to tell them the truth about what PTSD is, why it hit them and what they can do to heal.

They are humans able to do what they do because they care courageously. That ability to care that much about others also allows them to feel pain more deeply. They confuse compassion with being weak when in fact it requires courage to act on what they are passionate about. No one told them. No one told them that no matter how much pain they feel while they are deployed, they don't allow themselves to really feel it as long as others are in danger. They push past it. They try to do that back home but that is when their personal pain begins to take over. They try everything to numb it. Getting busy doing stuff, drinking, using drugs, doing dangerous things like starting fights and driving too fast, but what they don't do is what they used to get pleasure out of before. Hobbies are forgotten about. They stop enjoying life because they believe they don't deserve to at the same time they try to blame the people in their lives for feeling so miserable.

This can only be broken when everyone knows exactly what PTSD is and what it does as soon as possible because when PTSD is mild, most of it can be reversed. The longer it goes unaddressed, the more damage done, but as Vietnam veterans have proven, it is never too late to being to heal.

Peter Chiarelli wants to stop "scapegoating" the military?

While there is no doubt Chiarelli does care about the troops, this is one of the most terrible comments he could have made. He talks about civilian suicides as if they really have anything to do with the failure of the military to prevent suicides. Really? Is he kidding? Scapegoating the military?

The fact that military suicides have gone up despite hundreds of millions spent on what he kept saying would prevent them does not seem to matter to him anymore.

Peter Chiarelli continues his siege on suicides
By STEPHANIE GASKELL
9/20/12

Retired Gen. Peter Chiarelli spent the final act of his career combating suicides in the Army.

Now, he says, it’s time to stop “scapegoating” military leaders when troops take their own lives and, instead, focus on preventing suicides among all Americans.

After 11 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, every branch of the military — especially the Army — has been under scrutiny over the increase in suicides. A recent Time magazine cover illustrated the problem with a powerful story headlined “One a Day,” referring to recent Army statistics showing that an active-duty soldier commits suicide nearly every day. In fact, more troops committed suicide last year than were killed in combat in Afghanistan.

While these suicides are tragic, Chiarelli told POLITICO, the criticism being heaped on the nation’s military is being overshadowed by an even more troubling number: the estimated 35,000 Americans who take their own lives each year.

“We’re beating up the services who’ve been fighting with an all-volunteer service,” said the former Army vice chief of staff. “We’ve decided that we’re going to scope in on 200 suicides. We ought to quit focusing on this and beating up on the services. What are we doing for the other 34,800?”
read more here

There are reports right here on this blog going back to 2007 where claim after claim had been made about how much they were doing to prevent suicides but we've seen the results with report after report proving what they were doing was not working, yet now we read that it is more about "scapegoating" and that civilian suicides are high too.

This is a huge WTF moment!

Since 2008 I have posted on how what is now called "resiliency" training has been making things worse but military brass just kept pushing it when I was still having to talk them off the ledge as they apologized for not training right and blamed themselves for having PTSD.

I had to help families when it was too little-too late to save the lives of veterans when they were supposed to have come back home safely but the family still had to plan a military funeral.

I hope this was just a poor choice of words on Chiarelli's part instead of an attempt to change his role in all of this.

If Resiliency Training worked, then why are they still committing suicide?

UPDATE June 11, 2012
I ran across something that was written about what I said way back in 2009. I am no longer with the IFOC but you'll get the point. I am with Point Man Ministries now so while my "hat" has changed, what's under it is still the same.

The Burden of PTSD: An Ongoing Conversation
April 6, 2009
MATTHEW NEWTON
Writer + Reporter

Perhaps you've heard: PTSD among veterans returning from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is a huge problem and we might not have the resources to deal with its ramifications. GOOD recently ran my feature on the subject, "The Memory War," and since then, I've had many conversations on the topic-ranging from readers' personal experiences, to sprawling discussions on the multifacted challenges facing service members suffering from PTSD. One such discussion, however, really forced me to take a step back.

In an email exchange with Kathie Costos DiCesare, a Senior IFOC Chaplain, she expresses a view of the Army's Battlemind training program that I'd never heard, or even considered. For the unfamiliar, Battlemind is a training program used to try to counter the effects of war on armed forces. It's been heavily criticized as inadequate. DiCesare takes that criticism one step further.

"Battlemind and Warrior Mind both have the same problem and-it's my belief-have the most to do with the rise in suicides as well as attempted suicides," she writes. Both programs, she says, tell troops they can prepare their minds for war, implying that if they are somehow wounded by PTSD, it's their fault.
read more here

When I posted how psychiatrists are coming out against Resiliency Training it seemed too little too late but I was relieved to finally read it from a source other than my blog.

Every time I talk to someone, trying to get them to understand how much damage is done with this program, they look at me as if I'm insane. After all, most of the press on this has been positive because reporters are too lazy to look up the facts. None of them stopped to ask anyone from the DOD or Congress one simple question. If Resiliency Training, also know as Battlemind, was working, then why have the suicides and attempted suicides gone up instead of down?

It is not as if this failure was not known for a very long time. I took a look back at this blog and my older one to remind me of how long I've been talking about this.

Here's an example from 2007

DOD spreading mental illness one GI at a time
June 6, 2007
When you take a look at the "BattleMind" training the troops go through, it is not a far fetch to see how manipulating their thinking process can cause great harm. The first time I read about this program, I winced. Looks like I was right in finding this type of training very troubling.

Here's an example from 2009

Study finds ‘Battlemind’ is beneficial?

Sorry but I just choked on my coffee.

February 16, 2009
Col. Carl Castro should have known better when he developed this program. From what is said about this program and the evidence, this program does more harm than good. Not that any of these people would ever listen to me or the veterans or the BBC investigation that showed the troops arriving in Afghanistan with 11 1/2 minutes of BattleMind training crammed into two straight days of briefings. There are parts of this program that are good and should be used but they begin with telling the troops that they can "toughen" their minds, which translates to them that if they end up with PTSD, it's their fault because they didn't get their brain tough enough. Try telling that to a Marine.

They can say whatever they want, but when you see the suicide rate go up every year, see them still not wanting to seek help, still not being treated for this as if they have nothing to be ashamed of, then there is a problem. You cannot begin by telling them they can train their brain and then tell them it's ok if they failed to do it. While they may be able to prepare for combat what they cannot do is change the fact they are human, exposed to abnormal events in combat situations and have normal reactions of stress after as a normal human! No matter what the cause, people get wounded by PTSD. The difference between civilians and the troops is that the troops are exposed to it over and over and over again when they deploy into combat. Telling them they just didn't do a good enough job to toughen their minds is the wrong way to begin what could have been a really great program. Again it's just my opinion and based on 26 years of all of this. Plus add in the fact that the Montana National Guard had to come up with their own program along with a lot of other units. That should have been an alarm bell right there, but no one heard it that is in charge.

It would be wonderful if reporters on cable news would finally take a look at this instead of only doing political reports!

Wounded Times told you resiliency training was a failure, now some psychologists agree

Maybe some reporters and politicians will listen to me now but I doubt it.


DOES COMPREHENSIVE SOLDIER FITNESS WORK?

JUNE 04, 2012
A Call for Retraction
The Army’s Flawed Resilience-Training Study
by STEPHEN SOLDZ and ROY EIDELSON

Ten years of continuous war — characterized by multiple deployments, elusive guerilla adversaries, and occupied populations seemingly more tilted toward resentment than gratitude — have taken a significant toll on US troops. In addition to those who have been killed, physically maimed, or neurologically impaired by combat, many soldiers have experienced debilitating psychological disorders including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety. Large numbers are on antidepressants and other psychotropic medications, while the suicide rate among troops has risen to alarming levels.

The sobering realities of the psychological effects of war pose a serious challenge for the US military tasked with simultaneously fighting multiple wars and anticipating years of “persistent conflict” ahead. The good news is that key sectors within the military have now identified the mental health of our troops as a major issue that must be addressed. Indeed, in addition to treatment for those suffering psychological impairment, the military leadership is pursuing intervention efforts aimed at preventing such adverse outcomes by increasing soldiers’ psychological resilience to combat exposure. The largest of these new initiatives is the Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) program, launched in 2009 and based upon the “positive psychology” framework of psychologist Martin Seligman. And that brings us to the bad news: despite the over-hyped claims of CSF’s leading proponents, at this point there is little evidence to suggest that CSF works.
read more here

Since 2008 I've been coming out against this program because it does not work, has reduced the survival rate of the men and women after they survived combat and has left servicemen/women thinking they are mentally weak, thus leaving them with the notion PTSD is their fault! Now it looks like there have been brilliant minds looking at this even longer.

This pretty much sums up what veterans have been telling me since 2008.

Program participants may subsequently take greater risks if they think they have received some form of preventative protection. Participants may suffer from even greater stigma and shame perhaps interfering with help-seeking if after training they fail to effectively handle an adverse event. And the strategies taught may disrupt the participants prior effective coping strategies.

Most people "naturally" respond in a resilient manner when exposed to potentially traumatic events. It cannot be assumed that resilience training will be more helpful than harmful to these individuals.

Scoops picked up on the story too.
Army’s Flawed Resilience-Training Study

Here are some more links to what I posted about this
DOD message has been PTSD is your fault



The $125-million Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Failure

Pentagon has not evaluated PTSD and TBI programs, just repeated them

Repeat Iraq Tours Raise Risk of PTSD, Army Finds
By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 20, 2006; Page A19
U.S. soldiers serving repeated Iraq deployments are 50 percent more likely than those with one tour to suffer from acute combat stress, raising their risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the Army's first survey exploring how today's multiple war-zone rotations affect soldiers' mental health........

General Pittard retracts "selfish suicide" statement

UPDATE Would be nice if "reporters" would either stay on a story or give credit where credit is due. Happens all the time and they get paid for what they do.

Army general retracts statement about suicide By Patricia Kime - Staff writer Posted : Friday May 25, 2012 13:29:21 EDT

General Pittard retracts "selfish suicide" statement too late!
by Chaplain Kathie

When Major General Dana Pittard blames soldiers for committing suicide and says they are "selfish" for doing it we should all be wondering how much more he isn't saying. How many others in his position feel the same way? Is this type of thinking holding up recovery after combat? Is it what is behind a failure like Resiliency Training? After all, considering the theory behind what was called "Battlemind" claims soldiers can "train their brains to be mentally tough" ended up telling them if they do become a combat survivor with PTSD, it is their fault.

We have rejoiced when general have come out publicly talking about their own battles with PTSD and how they got help to heal. The assumption the military finally got it turned out to be wishful thinking when the servicemen and women were still being betrayed by the military. The number of military suicides went up along with attempted suicides no matter how much was "done" to address it.

I started to slam Battlemind back in 2008 when reports started to come about what the programming was actually producing. A generation of troops with limited knowledge on PTSD corrupted by thinking PTSD was their fault for being weak minded and not training right.

It seems General Pittard just let the cat out of the bag when he said soldier suicides were selfish acts.

Then while "working out in the gym" he thought better about it and retracted his statement. So why did it take this long to change his mind? He wrote his commentary in January? It took Yochi J. Dreazen National Journal publishing this May 22, 2012 before the general public was made aware of it.

Thoughts while working out in the gym

Maj. Gen. Dana J. H. Pittard 1st AD and Fort Bliss Commanding General
Maj. Gen. Dana J. H. Pittard
1st AD and Fort Bliss Commanding General
On Suicide – A Retraction

In my commentary published January 19, 2012, I stated suicide was a selfish act. Thanks to many of you and your feedback, I have learned that this was a hurtful statement. I also realize that my statement was not in line with the Army’s guidance regarding sensitivity to suicide. With my deepest sincerity and respect towards those whom I have offended, I retract that statement.

There are many reasons why a person may take his or her own life; it is very complex. Suicide is a serious problem, not only in our Army, but throughout our entire nation. Our efforts to prevent suicide at Fort Bliss are having a beneficial effect. We have lower than average suicide rates within FORSCOM. We have more than four times the number of Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) personnel than other Army installation, the most Master Resilience Trainers, 160 behavioral health providers, and inspiring stories every month of Soldiers who intervened when one of their battle buddies had suicidal ideations or attempts. Our Wellness Fusion Campus is unique within the Army and is the cornerstone of a deliberate, programmed and accountable installation-wide resilience campaign. Our goal is to create the most fit, healthy, and resilient community in America.

We must continue to do better each and every day, reaching out, encouraging and helping those in need.

A person sometimes considers suicide when they lose hope about the future and they do not feel connected with others around them – a profound sense of hopelessness. We can all help by wrapping our arms around our fellow Soldiers and showing them a future that is positive and supportive. This takes both leadership and compassion. Leaders at all levels must continue with the intrusive, yet caring and compassionate, leadership that has become a part of our culture at Team Bliss. Battle buddies and leaders must stay vigilant and act when someone is in need. None of us are immune from needing help. All of us, at some point, need help for mental, emotional, or relationship stress.

Please seek help – it is the right thing to do!

• 24-hour Chaplain: 915-637-4265
•Team Bliss Operations Center: 915-744-1255
• Emergence Crisis Hotline: 915-779-1800
• National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

Would you want to listen to this guy on what to do about PTSD after he said what he said? Why is he still pushing "Resiliency Training" when it has been proven to be a deadly failure? Stop and think about the other steps taken to save their lives and get them help. All of these programs along with groups around the country have not been enough to bring the suicides and attempted suicides down for a reason. Battlemind already told them to blame themselves just like Pittard's comment calling them selfish!

General Pittard, was Marine Clay Hunt selfish too?

Soldiers still fight combat back home

I was going through some old emails and I ran across this. It was from a post I did two years ago. A post that has haunted me and angered me ever since. This is one of the biggest reasons why I think programs like Battle Mind, while well intended, have done more harm than good. The other factor is that suicides have gone up instead of down.

The BBC did interviews in 2008 with US troops in Afghanistan. As reported, Battle Mind training was reduced to 11 1/2 minutes during two days of briefings after troops arrived. This is what we knew in 2008 and this is what has still been part of the problem in helping them heal.

Soldiers' fight persists post-war
Tuesday, 27 May 2008 00:28 UK
Nearly half the US soldiers who serve in Iraq and Afghanistan will suffer some form of post-traumatic stress, according to the US military.

Now there are efforts to find new ways to deal with the 60,000 cases of combat-related stress diagnosed since the conflicts began.

Dominic Di-Natale reports from Afghanistan.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/7422853.stm

Battlemind study leaves too many questions

by
Chaplain Kathie

There has been something bothering me all week about the post I did on Battlemind. The word "reported" has been nagging at me. Given the fact suicides and attempted suicides have gone up, reports of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans suffering in astronomical numbers, tells me that this program has not worked, but it's not just what I think. It's what they think that causes the concern.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Study finds ‘Battlemind’ is beneficial?
Among soldiers who returned from Iraq and participated in "Battlemind Training," fewer reported sleep problems, and there were less-severe post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, compared with soldiers who had received either no post-deployment mental health training or a briefing about stress, according to research psychologists with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

Battlemind begins by telling the troops they can toughen their minds to prepare for combat. This is the biggest problem of all because anything the instructor says after this point is pointless. Once this message is delivered the serviceman gets it into their brain conscience that if they end up having mental health problems after this, it's their fault because they were not tough enough to prepare their brain.

There are several questions that need to be asked if we are ever going to understand how the military can claim Battlemind is a success when all evidence points to it not working.


How many units use Battlemind?
What is the suicide rate of soldiers in each unit?
What is the attempted suicide rate each unit?
How many times are the soldiers interviewed?
Are they interviewed with questions that verify truthful answers? (In other words, trick questions that if they answer a question one way, they answer it another way later.)
Are they tested along with the interview? (This is important because of the stigma associated with PTSD and the reluctance to admit they have a problem.)
Does the military track these soldiers at regular intervals to see if PTSD symptoms present later? ( This is another important issue because many times PTSD symptoms do not surface right away, are mild or combat veterans are able to "stuff" the trauma until a secondary stressor hits and they go over the edge.)
Are families interviewed when the soldier comes home?
Are families interviewed at regular intervals after?
Are soldiers records tracked when problems arise with domestic violence, divorce, arrests, homelessness or a host of other issues PTSD is usually the root of?

This is just a start of questions that need to be answered to know if Battlemind really works or does more harm. The program itself has some good points but once the message of mental toughness is delivered, they are apt to take away it's their fault and deny they have a problem. Telling them they can train their brain adds to the stigma of being wounded.

There are two obvious results pointing to the need to toss Battlemind. One is the rise in suicides and attempted suicides. The other is the fact there are many other programs units are developing on their own. The Montana National Guard is using their own program and it has been so well produced that President Obama intends to take it national. If Battlemind worked, then there would have been no need for something else.

PTSD comes with a series of complexities. I would really like to know all these answers if I am ever going to change my mind about the usefulness of this especially when the BBC did a report with our troops in Afghanistan showing that there is 11 1/2 minutes of Battlemind training within two days of briefings they receive after they arrive in theater. Think of being exposed to all that is crammed into their brains in those two days and the tiny fraction of Battlemind begins with telling them if they don't toughen their brains, they'll end up with PTSD.
web sitehttp://www.namguardianangel.com/


"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington

"He went to Fort Lewis to kill himself to prove a point,"

"He went to Fort Lewis to kill himself to prove a point,"
by
Chaplain Kathie

" 'Here I am. I was a soldier. You guys didn't help me.' "

Those were the words Josh Barber's widow told a reporter in the article below. That's the real issue here. For all the talk about what's being done, no one is talking about what does not work and may in fact cause more harm than good. What good does it do to tell wounded veterans we're doing this and we're doing that but they still don't get the help they need? As for the "programs" they have in place, some are good but some are bad but they still use them. We don't know why they do and the widows, well they only know they sent their husbands into combat expecting they would be taken care of if they were wounded but they end up with a stranger needing help that never seems to come in time.

If anyone other than the government said they had a program that would cut down the number of PTSD cases, attempted suicide and successful ones, would you really believe them without proof? Wouldn't there have to be years of clinical trails and scrutiny from psychologist and psychiatrists from around the world before they even began to offer the program?

RELEASE #2008-01-04-1 Jan. 4, 2008

‘BATTLEMIND’ PROGRAM SEEKS TO HELP SOLDIERS DEAL WITH COMBAT EXPERIENCES
By Susan Huseman
U.S. Army Garrison Stuttgart Public Affairs Office
STUTTGART, Germany – Every Soldier headed to Iraq and Afghanistan receives“Battlemind” training designed to help him deal with combat experiences, but few know the science behind the program. Dr. Amy Adler, a senior research psychologist with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research's U.S. Army Medical Research Unit Europe visited Patch Barracks here to explain the support and intervention program to an audience of medical, mental health and family support professionals.

The Battlemind system includes separate pre-deployment training modules for Soldiers,unit leaders, health care providers and spouses. Psychological debriefings are given during deployment and upon redeployment. There are also a post-deployment module forspouses and several post-deployment modules for Soldiers. Not every Soldier who deploys is at risk for mental health problems; the main risk factor is the level of combat experienced, Adler said.

Army studies show the greater the combat exposure a Soldier encounters, the greater the risk for mental health problems, including post traumatic stress disorder, depression,anger and relationship problems. When Soldiers first return home, they may not notice any problems; sometimes it takes a few months for problems to develop.For those in the medical community, “Our challenge was how to develop interventions that can get at all these things,” Adler said. “How do you develop a mental health training (program) of some sort that's going to prevent that eventual increase over time?“We realized we needed to develop some kind of alternative,” Adler continued. “Therewas no existing mental health training that made sense for these sets of questions. It’s not like there was something ‘off-the-shelf’ in civilian literature that would begin to address this.”

Post-deployment health briefings didn’t specifically target Soldiers going into combat and coming back with adjustment challenges, so researchers at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research began to define their objectives for a mental health training program. Adler said the team needed to develop something that was “going to make sense for different phases of the deployment cycle.”“For example,” she said, “the existing mental health brief (at the time) was the same for pre- and post-deployment. That doesn’t make sense. The challenges are different.”“Secondly,” she continued, “we wanted to make sure it was integrated. If we tell somebody something at (pre-deployment), we want to make sure whatever theme we’regoing for or concept we’re trying to communicate, it’s going to connect with the same information that we’re going to talk about at (post-deployment).”The result? “Battlemind,” a term used to describe combat readiness that the researchers felt was appropriate for the training they were designing.

Adler called it a Soldier’s inner strength to face fear and adversity in combat with courage, labeling it “resiliency.”The Battlemind system is built on findings from surveys and interviews given to Soldiers and Marines returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, many of the researchers themselves have deployed.The research team gathered Soldiers’ accounts of specific events and incidents, turning them into teaching tools that warriors can relate to. “Some of these stories tell more than any briefing ever could,” Adler said.The first Battlemind product was a mental health post-deployment briefing. It quickly became a training system supporting Soldiers and families across the seven phases of the deployment cycle.

As part of her presentation here, Adler discussed various challenges in developing arelevant pre-deployment mental health briefing for Soldiers.“You have 45 minutes -- maybe an hour -- to tell Soldiers, before they deploy to Iraq, something about mental health,” she said. "What are you going to tell them? You don’t want to sugar-coat it, but you don’t want to teach them a whole lot of new information right at a time when they are focused on the task ahead of them.”The researchers first chose to identify the reality of combat and deployment. It may sound rudimentary, but earlier research found that soldiers were not telling other Soldiers what to expect.

Soldiers didn’t want to sound as if they were bragging, Adler said. Pre-deployment Battlemind tells Soldiers what they are likely to see, to hear, to think and to feel while deployed by describing the worst-case scenario.For the post-deployment phase, Battlemind addresses safety concerns and relationship issues, normalizes combat-related mental health reactions and symptoms, and teachesSoldiers when they should seek mental health support for themselves or for their buddies.The researchers realized that this post-deployment briefing, the original Battlemind, was not enough. The Soldiers they talked to were raw, edgy and angry. Another training program, Battlemind II, was developed to be given three to six months into redeployment.The system reemphasizes normal reactions and symptoms related to combat and“Battlemind checks,” which are signs that indicate mental health support is needed.“If you’re still carrying a weapon around with you during the three- to six-month postdeployment phase; ... if you’re still looking around for snipers; if your sleep is still really messed up; these might be signs that your transition is not going smoothly,” she explained. “These are signs that you need to get help."

The problem with Battlemind is that it does not work because of the mixed message they are giving.

Psychiatr News May 4, 2007
Volume 42, Number 9, page 2
© 2007 American Psychiatric Association

Professional News


Combat Stress Should Be Considered Preventable, Manageable
http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/42/9/2
Aaron Levin
The stresses of combat in Iraq or Afghanistan need to be seen in a context that is broader than just that of PTSD risk—a context of resiliency and recovery
Soldiers returning from war in Iraq and Afghanistan often bear the psychic scars of battle, but a closer understanding of their experience can help reintegrate them into civilian life and avoid overpathologizing their conditions, said two clinicians who have studied and treated posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

"We need to move from an obsession with PTSD to focus on combat stress, injury prevention, and management," said Charles Figley, Ph.D., a professor at Florida State University's College of Social Work and director of the university's Traumatology Institute and Psychosocial Stress Research Program

Figley spoke at a conference on mental health needs of returning soldiers and their families in Columbia, Mo., sponsored by the International Medical and Educational Trust at the University of Missouri.

Calling wartime trauma "combat stress injury" would place it in the same light as other war wounds: preventable and manageable, if sometimes irreversible, said Figley.

However, prevention and management must begin early, he said. Troops should acknowledge the likelihood and fact of injury beginning in boot camp. Before they are wounded, troops believe they are invulnerable and even after physical injury, often deny they are hurt. To a soldier, injury, whether physical or psychological, is a source of embarrassment. They have to move from denial to needing to talk about their injuries, said Figley. click link above for more

I am not a psychologist or a psychiatrist but in a sense that makes me more qualified to understand what all this mumbo jumbo sounds like to average people. First they are giving the impression that PTSD can be "prevented" but they have yet to understand why some are wounded by PTSD and others walk away. (More on this later) So how can they claim it can be preventable if they don't even know the detail? It's either one out of three, which happens to be the percentage most professionals go by or one out of five, which gets tossed around a lot but no one seems to know exactly who gets signaled out when traumatic events strike. In order to prevent it they would have to prevent humans from being exposed to traumatic events all together.

The "manageable" part, yes that is possible but that comes with knowing what it is, being treated for it and finding the best way to live your life living with it. No small task but it is possible.

I need to stress here that Battlemind is not a total bust. It does have a lot of good points like trying to make sure they get the point across this is nothing to be ashamed of, along with some other points but the problem is this information comes after this part.

"Battlemind is the Soldier's inner strength to face fear and adversity with courage. Key components include:
Self confidence: taking calculated risks and handling challenges.
Mental toughness: overcoming obstacles or setbacks and maintaining positive thoughts during times of adversity and challenge."

They actually think that you can just make your mind tough enough to handle it! What kind of a message does this send? Do they really, really think that it's only those with weaker minds? After all this is what they are telling the troops at the same time they want to deliver the message there is nothing to be ashamed of.

I tell the story often of how one of the visits to the Orlando VA, I was talking to a couple of Iraq veterans. One was a Marine. He was a tough looking Marine until he began to cry and apologized for it. I had on my Chaplain shirt so he knew who he was talking to but he still felt he needed to apologize for showing emotion. When I told him that it was actually good for him to release some of his pain at that moment he told me that I didn't understand. "I'm a Marine. We're supposed to be tough enough to take it." It took a lot of talking before he understood that he did his duty and was tough enough to get through having his life and his buddies lives on the line until they were all out of danger before he even began to think of what was going on inside of him. This is what Battlemind does. It tells them their minds are not tough enough. This damages them more than anything else ever could and reinforces the idiotic attitude that only weak minded people crash. If this was the case then they'd all be crashing in combat and not after they have already returned home. How much tougher can these men and women get to be able to do that? Did the creators of Battlemind ever think of that?

The next part about Battlemind is the lack of time they are exposed to it before they go into combat. This is from VetsVoice.

BATTLEMIND: A Guide to PTSD for Military Members and their Spouses
by: Combat Infantry Bunny
Sat Dec 29, 2007 at 13:48:29 PM EST

.........From my understanding from those deployed, they are already requiring soldiers about to redeploy this, but my friend said it was just lumped in with all the other random redeployment briefings and no one really cared.

In addition, PTSD is a post-deployment thing and a refresher is sometimes necessary. Anyway, reading this brochure and explanations for PTSD really made sense, especially when I realized I pretty much fit every description re: PTSD behavior. Again, it made me realize I had made the right decision to seek help and I hope that everyone that reads this will forward it to any military personnel they know who may have PTSD and/or to their families who may be trying to understand what their soldier is going through, I think the following explains it very well:

Battlemind is the Soldier's inner strength to face fear and adversity with courage. Key components include:
• Self confidence: taking calculated risks and handling challenges.
• Mental toughness: overcoming obstacles or setbacks and maintaining
positive thoughts during times of adversity and challenge.

Batttlemind skills helped you survive in combat, but may
cause you problems if not adapted when you get home.

Every letter in B-A-T-T-L-E-M-I-N-D, refers to a different behavior, as shown below:

Buddies (Cohesion) vs. Withdrawal
Accountability vs. Controlling
Targeted Aggression vs. Inappropriate Aggression
Tactical Awareness vs. Hypervigilance
Lethally Armed vs. "Locked and Loaded" at Home
Emotional Control vs. Anger/Detachment
Mission Operational Security vs. Secretiveness
Individual Responsibility vs. Guilt
Non-defensive (combat) driving vs. Aggressive Driving
Discipline and Ordering vs. Conflict

While he does say that Battlemind does have some good points the first point made was that it was introduced lumped in with a bunch of other stuff. This was first reported by the BBC that uncovered only 11 1/2 minutes of Battlemind are provided when they arrive "in country" along with the two days of operational briefings they have to get through.

They will be left thinking they can toughen their minds enough to not have to face PTSD and that also means that if anyone does, they are not tough enough. This includes their buddies and some of the others in their unit they may not happen to like very much and if they should end up wounded by it, well then, they must not be tough enough either. This is why Battlemind does not work and as a matter of fact very well could contribute to the increase in suicides and attempted suicides.

Army suicides rise as time spent in combat increases
By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
FORT LEWIS, Wash. — Josh Barber, former combat soldier, parked outside the Army hospital here one morning last August armed for war.

A cook at the dining facility, Barber sat in his truck wearing battle fatigues, earplugs and a camouflage hood on his head. He had an arsenal: seven loaded guns, nearly 1,000 rounds of ammunition, knives in his pockets. On the front seat, an AK-47had a bullet in the chamber.

The "smell of death" he experienced in Iraq continued to haunt him, his wife says. He was embittered about the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that crippled him, the Army's failure to treat it, and the strains the disorder put on his marriage.

Despite the firepower he brought with him, Barber, 31, took only one life that day. He killed himself with a shot to the head.

"He went to Fort Lewis to kill himself to prove a point," Kelly Barber says. " 'Here I am. I was a soldier. You guys didn't help me.' "

Barber's suicide is part of a larger story — the record number of soldiers and combat veterans who have killed themselves in recent years, at a time when the Pentagon has stretched deployments for combat troops to meet President Bush's security plans in Iraq. In 2007, the Army counted 115 suicides, the most since tracking began in 1980. By October 2008, that record had been surpassed with 117 soldier suicides. Final numbers for 2008 have not been released.

Suicides among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans doubled from 52 in 2004 to 110 in 2006, the latest statistics available, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

And the suicide rate among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans is outpacing the rate among civilians, a disturbing trend because the military screens troops for mental health issues and servicemembers typically are healthier than civilians, says Han Kang, a VA epidemiologist. click link for more

So why are they still using it and why are they still pushing it as if it has done any good at all? As I said, there are some really great points to this program but they come after that damage has already been done. Believe me, I'm no genius, so I don't have all the answers but if I can figure out what harm this program has done, this bunch of "egg heads" should have been able to look past their books and see into the people this would be delivered to. They are not genius material either. They are just men and women willing to lay down their lives for what this nation asks of them. They are common people just like most Americans and words do matter to them. You can't tell them in your first breathe that they can train their brain to be tough and then follow that up with "Oh by the way, if you don't, you may end up with PTSD and need help so here's what you do then." The damage is already done to them. After that they can repeat it until they are blue that PTSD is nothing to be ashamed of and they need to ask for help because it's already in there that it's their fault.