No one knows how many veterans are behind bars

Veterans Behind Bars
Swords to Plowshares
author: Megan Klein Zottarelli
date: August 15, 2012

NBC Bay Area – More Iraq War veterans are landing in jail but most counties don’t track soldier inmates.

Even the organization Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America told the Investigative Unit that it doesn’t have current data on veteran populations in prisons and jails because many local and state agencies don’t keep track of that information.

Suicides among soldiers and military veterans have reached epidemic proportions, with 154 suicides for active-duty troops in the first 155 days of 2012, according to the Pentagon.

The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit has uncovered another growing problem among soldiers returning from war — the number of those returning soldiers ending up behind bars. Experts say about one-third of returning military veterans battle mental illness and addiction. Many of them receive little help from the military, leaving them to fight their demons alone.

“I wanted to eat a bullet every single day,” said Marine infantryman and war veteran Anthony Hernandez of San Jose.

Every day since returning home from the Iraq War two years ago Hernandez fought the urge to kill himself. He says it was a battle more challenging than the two tours he spent dodging bullets in some of the hottest battlegrounds of Iraq.

“I had a really tough time,” Hernandez told Investigative Reporter Stephen Stock. “I didn’t feel normal. I was always hyper-vigilant, I was always on guard. I felt threatened by my own community. I couldn’t sleep.”

The Marine said he returned with a host of problems including post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, anxiety, depression, and alcohol addiction. Hernandez said his marriage fell apart and ended in divorce. All because, he said, he couldn’t cope with civilian life.

“It was extremely difficult,” he said. “I isolated a lot. I ruined pretty much every relationship that I had. I didn’t feel comfortable with anybody except my fellow Marines. I had extremely tough time.”

Hernandez said his demons led him to stab his new girlfriend’s father multiple times during an argument and that a combat flashback caused him to snap. He ended up serving 21 months in a local jail on attempted murder charges.

Hernandez is one of a growing number of veterans now finding themselves behind bars. Lawyers, judges and veterans advocates say mental health disorders common among veterans can lead them into the criminal justice system.

“I think people would be surprised to know how many veterans there are in their local jails,” said Duncan MacVicar, a Vietnam War veteran himself and a current veterans rights advocate who works with former service members in the criminal justice system.
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Dozens of Memphis police officers treated for PTSD

Dozens of Memphis police officers treated for PTSD
Posted: Aug 13, 2012
By Jamel Major
MEMPHIS, TN
(WMC-TV)

Dozens of Memphis Police officers are being treated for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder due to the things they encounter on the job.

"A lot of officers have high divorce rates because of the demanding jobs and also the fact that they encounter a lot of violent scenes, it's equivalent to being in a military combat zone," said Memphis Police Association President Michael Williams.

That is the reason Williams is recommending the Memphis Police Department puts a program in place with everything necessary to identify and evaluate officers with PTSD.

"Diagnosis, treatment, reinstitution, or reintroduction in the workforce," said Williams.

PTSD is a mental health condition triggered by a terrifying or traumatic event. Williams says a number of Memphis cops have been diagnosed with the disorder.
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PTSD could be a reason for the increase in suicides?

This was really, really big news, about 30 years ago!

PTSD could be a reason for the increase in suicides among U.S. troops
GRAYSON COUNTY, TX

Suicides are increasing among American Troops. Statistics show there is now an average of nearly one a day. According to the Pentagon, In 2012 more active duty troops were lost to suicide than to combat in Afghanistan.

Studies show Post-tramitic stress to be one of the reasons the suicide rate is going up among U.S. Troops. Some local veterans say they think it is a main factor. So now they are reaching out to help those who suffer from PTSD before it is too late.

Bob Hillerby was a combat photographer in the Vietnam War. Doc Blevins was an Airborne Combat Medic in Iraq and Afghanistan.They may have fought in two different wars, but they are both fighting the same battle, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

"Once you have been in combat the war never ends," Hillerby said.

They say adjusting to civilian life is an ongoing fight. Hillerby and Blevins say they have vivid nightmares and flashbacks and sometimes feel withdrawn.

"I couldn't get close even to my own family," Hillerby said.

"With me it was mostly just hyper-vigilance. Didn't like to go to Walmart. Too many people to watch because I didn't have my guys with me," Blevins said.
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TRICARE SUBSTANCE ABUSE TREATMENT FALLS SHORT

TRICARE SUBSTANCE ABUSE TREATMENT FALLS SHORT, EXPERTS SAY
NEXTGov
By Bob Brewin


By sending troops diagnosed with drug and alcohol addiction to 20-day treatment programs at civilian rehabilitation centers, the Defense Department is taking a Band-Aid approach to dealing with a problem of epidemic proportions, psychiatrists, former combat commanders and treatment experts on the front lines of veteran care told Nextgov.

Such a short stint at an inpatient facility can only begin to chip away at addiction and will do little to help troops cope with the combat experiences that many of them have tried to suppress with alcohol or drugs, experts said.

Combat veterans rarely talk about the experiences that sit at the core of post-traumatic stress disorder and are reluctant to share them in a civilian setting with patients who have no military service, let alone combat experience, said Jack Downing, president of We Soldier On, a Leeds, Mass.-based shelter and rehabilitation center for homeless veterans.

The facility provides beds and housing for 295 veterans, including a 39-unit apartment complex in nearby Pittsfield it developed and then sold to veterans.

Residents’ service spans generations, from a 92-year old WW II veteran to Vietnam veterans and about 35 who served in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Downing said the preponderance of his residents arrive addicted to alcohol and drugs, some of which have been prescribed by the Military Heath System or the Veterans Affairs Department. Recovery, he said, begins with addiction treatment and then moves on to dealing with the effects of war.
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How PTSD and Addiction Can Be Safely Treated Together
By MAIA SZALAVITZ
TIME
August 15, 2012
The vast majority of people with addiction have suffered significant previous trauma, and many people who struggle with addiction suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) simultaneously. But the treatment of these patients has posed a conundrum: experts have believed that PTSD treatment should not begin until the addicted person achieves lasting abstinence, because of the risk that PTSD treatment may trigger relapse, yet addicted people with untreated PTSD are rarely able to abstain for long.

Now, a new study suggests that there may be no need to wait. Researchers found that using exposure therapy — the gold-standard treatment for PTSD, which involves exposure to memories and reminders of patients’ past trauma — can successfully reduce symptoms of PTSD, even when people with addiction continue to use drugs. And, although exposure therapy requires patients to face some of their worst fears, it does not increase their drug use or prompt them to drop out of treatment more than ordinary addiction therapy, the study found.

“The exciting thing in my view is that [the study] supports people with drug and alcohol problems having access to other forms of psychological interventions, rather than being fobbed off and told to sort out their alcohol or drug problem first,” says Michael Farrell, director of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Center at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, where the research was conducted.
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Active-duty suicide numbers decline in June

Active-duty suicide numbers decline in June
Staff report
Army Times
Posted : Friday Jul 13, 2012

As many as 11 active-duty soldiers are believed to have committed suicide in June, five fewer than in the previous month, the Army announced Friday.

Of those, one has been confirmed as suicide and the other 10 are still under investigation.

Among the 11 soldiers who died, two were women.

So far this year, 89 active-duty soldiers are believed to have killed themselves.

Also in June, 12 reserve component soldiers who were not on active duty are believed to have committed suicide. Ten of the soldiers were in the Army National Guard; two were in the Army Reserve.

All 12 deaths remain under investigation.
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