American Troops Going Insane video

After I watched this yesterday, I had to struggle with if I should post it or not. Too many will take it as a slam against the troops instead of thinking about all of this. I also do not want to publicize behavior like this. Yet the more I thought about publishing it out of draft form, the more I knew it had to be done. There are not enough qualified people joining the military and we've all read the reports about the requirements being dropped to allow people with criminal records to join as well as gang members. More and more high school drop outs have been allowed to join. I'm wondering if the soldiers in this videos are part of those groups or not. Videos and actions like this are part of the overall judgment of the military, just as when the contractors were going on shooting rampages in Iraq. Their actions caused the Iraqi people to take out their anger against the troops. Something has to be done to stop this from spreading while the troops are in Iraq. I don't know what the answer is but if no one is aware of the problem, there will be no answers even looked for.


From April 20, 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq5_vG3cYGM
American Troops Going Insane--www.freedomfighterradio.net

I just finished watching this. A friend sent it to me knowing what I do with PTSD and she was under the impression I would be deeply troubled. She was right.

The fact the soldiers on video are having Iraqi children repeat things after them like F---Iraq, doing even worse to Iraqi men, among other things is very troubling because the Iraqi people know they some of them are doing this. The most troubling part is that they thought is was worthy of capturing on tape. Stress can make them do a lot of what is seen on the video but there is no excuse of it because it puts them into even greater danger. Did they think that there will be some Iraqis seeing this who happen to speak English? Toward the end of this video there is the Marine captured on tape doing the puppy toss off a cliff. Are they all part of the same unit? How many more of these videos are going to surface before the military brass gets to the bottom of any of this? If these soldiers are so stressed out they lost all sensibility, then they need to be sent back home and get some care for their state of mind.


This is just part of what I'm talking about:

The Army doubled the number of waivers it issued to allow convicted felons to enlist between 2006 and 2007, while felony waivers issued to Marine recruits increased by nearly 70 percent, according to newly released numbers from the Pentagon.

The House Oversight Committee released the Department of Defense statistics Monday, and requested more explanation for the increase in criminals who have been allowed into the military's ranks. The Army issued 511 waivers in 2007, compared to 249 in 2006. The Marine Corps issued 350 waivers last year compared to 208 the year before.
go here for more
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Army_doubled_felony_waivers_for_recruits_0421.html

Veterans' Mental Health by the Numbers

Center for American Progress

Veterans' Mental Health by the Numbers

April 7, 2008

The Pentagon’s decision last year to extend tours in Iraq and Afghanistan to 15 months from 12 months in order to support the Bush administration’s ill-conceived surge has resulted in the longest Army combat tours since World War II. Moreover, dwell time—time in-between deployments—has been shortened to 12 months as many soldiers are on their second, third, or even fourth tour of duty in either theatre. As a result, soldiers are being pushed beyond their physical and mental breaking points.

The full psychological effect of the war is impossible to estimate, as debilitating conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder can take years to appear and last a lifetime. Warning signs, however, are already appearing that indicate soldiers and Marines returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan face lasting psychological effects. A review of the problems facing our brave men and women in uniform indicates that not enough is being done to help them.

Overall Mental Health
30 to 40: The percentage of Iraq veterans who will face a serious psychological wound, including depression, anxiety, or PTSD. Multiple tours and inadequate time between deployments increase rates of combat stress by 50 percent.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
One in five: Number of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who show signs and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Nearly 20,000: The increase in the number of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans seeking treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder from the Department of Veterans Affairs in the 12 months ending June 30, 2007, VA records show. This represents a nearly 70 percent jump since June 30, 2006.

30 percent: The percentage of troops returning from war zones who experience some level of PTSD, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Substance Abuse
40,000: The number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who have been treated at a VA hospital for substance abuse.

Families
20 percent: The number of married troops in Iraq who say they are planning a divorce.
42 percent: Number of returning soldiers and Marines who said they felt like “a guest in their own home, ” according to a 2007 poll. The study also found a link between family problems and PTSD, with the two reinforcing each other in a vicious spiral.

Traumatic Brain Injury
150,000 to 300,000: The number of veterans who have suffered a TBI during the war.
30 percent: The percentage of soldiers admitted to Walter Reed Army Medical Center who have suffered TBI.

Suicide
121: Number of Army suicides in 2007, which amounts to a jump of more than 20 percent over 2006.

2,100: The number of attempted suicides and self-injuries in 2007, as reported by the Army. There were less than 1,500 in 2006 and less than 500 in 2002.

55 percent: The percentage of suicide cases in 2006 that involved soldiers who were serving or had served at some point over the preceding five years in Iraq or Afghanistan.

A Strained System
Over 100,000: The number of mental health diagnoses the VA has already given to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, or 38 percent of new veterans who visited the VA for any reason.
150 percent: The percentageincrease in VA disability pay for PTSD among veterans between 1999 and 2004—or $4.2 billion.

200:1: The ratio that patients outnumber primary care managers in some major military facilities. Until recently, the ratio was 1200:1.

22 percent: The percentage decrease of licensed psychologists in the military in recent years.
We have no greater duty than to ensure that the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Coast Guardsmen, and Marines who volunteer to defend our country receive not only the best equipment and medical care we can provide, but are supported with programs and policies that improve their quality of life—before, during, and after deployments.

Together with the Department of Veteran Affairs and the Department of Defense, the Congress must do more to repair our social compact with our troops. This includes increasing funding for psychological health care in the military, increasing awareness of these problems, and preparing for long-term care of our returning troops in the years ahead.
For more on this issue, please see:
Quality of Life in the Military
How to Redeploy: Implementing a Responsible Drawdown of U.S. Forces from Iraq
To speak with our experts on this topic, please contact:
For print, John Neurohr,
Press Assistant
202.481.8182 or
jneurohr@americanprogress.org
For radio, Andrea Purse,
Deputy Director of Media Strategy
202.446.8429 or
apurse@americanprogress.org
For TV, Sean Gibbons,
Director of Media Strategy
202.682.1611 or
sgibbons@americanprogress.org
For web, Erin Lindsay,
Online Marketing Manager
202.741.6397 or
elindsay@americanprogress.org

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/04/veterans_mental_health.html

Steroids in Sports Or Suicides In Soldiers?

I get alrerts all the time on a lot of subjects. This really got me! I received this one from the Washington Post, yet never got one on the hearing being done in Washington over the suicides of our soldiers and veterans. Imagine that! I never would have imagined that steroid use in sports players would be more important than our soldiers and veterans killing themselves needlessly. Just goes to show where our priorities in this country are.

The care and needs of our veterans as well as active deployed forces today are not even the number one issue facing voters according to recent polls. We have two occupations going on right now and the majority of the country seem to not even want to have the slightest clue what is going on in either of them. This make no sense to me at all because when the subject of Iraq comes up, everyone seems to have an opinion of it, but really has nothing to base that opinion on. This is evident when you read the poll data and the impression of events in Iraq as well as Afghanistan, never seem to match the news reports. Ambivalence is easy to twist when passion may be there but there is no knowledge to go with it.

I don't know if it is the case of the media not reporting on the importance of Iraq and Afghanistan and the lives of our veterans, or it's a case of the media just reporting on what the public is showing interest in. Whatever the reason, our troops and veterans are the ones suffering while sports players are the ones getting all the attention.

Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com


News Alert 3:47 p.m. ET Thursday, December 13, 2007

VIDEO: MLB Commissioner on Mitchell Report, 4:30 ET Commissioner Bud Selig will respond to report on use of steroids and performance-enhancing drugs. To view live streaming video of this event on the Web (courtesy of Comcast), go to http://letters.washingtonpost.com/WBRH016F1841EE30A48E73787BC7D0.