Staff Sgt. Robert Bales Defense Must Decide Strategy

Bales Defense Must Decide Strategy
Apr 24, 2013
Tacoma News Tribune
by Adam Ashton

Attorneys for the Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier accused of murdering 16 Afghan civilians last spring are five weeks from a deadline for declaring whether they intend to use a mental health defense at his court-martial.

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales faces the death penalty on charges that he slipped out of his combat outpost by himself twice in the early hours of March 11, 2012, to murder the civilians in their homes and to wound six more noncombatants.

His lawyers have said for the past year that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and combat-related head injuries, suggesting those ailments overcame him on what was his fourth combat deployment from Lewis-McChord since 2003.

Army judge Col. Jeff Nance on Tuesday ordered the lawyers to signal by May 29 whether they plan to argue that Bales' mental health ailments diminished his responsibility for the massacre in Kandahar province's Panjwai district.

They also must hand to prosecutors by that date a summary of a sanity review Bales recently completed if they plan to call a mental health expert to testify at any point.

"Bottom line is, on the 29th of May the defense has to advise the government if they are going to defend on lack of mental responsibility," Nance said.
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$800,000 in funding for APSU, PTSD program

State Senate approves $800,000 in funding for APSU, PTSD program
Sen. Green pushed funding for PTSD program, animal science facility at APSU
Leaf Chronicle
Apr. 23, 2013

Freshman state Sen. Mark Green, R-Clarksville, announced on Tuesday that the Tennessee Senate accepted $800,000 in budget amendments he offered that will help fund construction of the new animal science facility at Austin Peay State University and provide post-traumatic stress disorder counseling for veterans, reservists and their families.

Green’s amendments provide $400,000 to the new animal science facility at APSU’s Agricultural and Environmental Education Center and $400,000 for counseling services provided by Not Alone, a national nonprofit organization that provides confidential, no-cost programs to veterans and military families facing PTSD, according to a news release from Green’s office.
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Study Looks at How Ecstasy Can Possibly Treat PTSD

Study Looks at How Ecstasy Can Possibly Treat PTSD
WDTV News
Written by Whitney Wetzel
Last updated on April 23, 2013

"Well, it's not as crazy as it sounds, but I don't look forward to it happening within the next day or two," said Dr. Bob Williams, Executive Director of the United Summit Center.

A small study is looking at how the illegal drug ecstasy can help treat those who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD is an anxiety disorder that some people get after seeing or living through a traumatic event. It most commonly affects military veterans, survivors of physical or sexual abuse, and accident victims.

"Some people struggle through it. Some people struggle for a long time. Then, some people, it really gets to the point where they can really become dysfunctional. The fear and the anxiety can overcome them and change their life," Dr. Williams explained.
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Managing PTSD is possible with help

I cannot begin to express how important this article is. It points out there is no cure for PTSD. The longer it lasts, the more things change including the mind itself. That is why it is vital to getting help as soon as possible. Still Vietnam veterans are a living testament that healing is possible even when they suffered up to 40 years without any help at all. As soon as you start talking about it, it stops getting worse. Read this article and then we'll talk about how to get there.

Panelists say post-traumatic stress disorder can't be cured, can only be managed
Fayobserver.com
By Caitlin Dineen
Staff Writer
April 24, 2013

There is no way to cure post-traumatic stress disorder, but those suffering from it can learn to manage it, health professionals said Tuesday night.

Kevin Smythe, a supervisory psychologist in the Mental Health Service Line at the Fayetteville VA Medical Center, said managing the disorder is currently the only option.

"There are a lot of ebbs and flows (with the disorder)," Smythe said.

He was one of five panelists to speak about the disorder and post-traumatic stress symptoms.

The Cumberland County Public Library headquarters on Maiden Lane hosted the event, where about 60 people attended to learn more about the disorder and how it affects the community.

Other panelists included John Bigger, of the Regional Area Health Education Center; Dr. Harold Kudler, associate director of the VA's Mid-Atlantic Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center for Deployment Mental Health and medical lead for the VISN 6 Rural Health Initiative; Heidi Vance, a licensed professional counselor associate and yoga therapist; and Molly VanDuser, a national certified counselor.

Post-traumatic stress starts after some life altering event that can be visible through several symptoms, including irritation, nightmares and hypervigilance, Kudler said.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is when those symptoms have lasted longer than a month and affected one's ability to work and socialize. It is a diagnosed disorder, he said.
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Step 1 Understanding it
Understand what PTSD is. It does not begin with you. It begins with a traumatic event that puts you in fear for your life. That is the only way to get it. It hits you.

Undertand that while there are many causes for PTSD, while they are all treated the same way, one day will come when experts understand the types must be treated differently. Treating someone with PTSD associated with combat should not be treated the same way a woman gets it after childbirth. It is not just the one event that sets it off but the threat of it happening again, the number of events piled on others and the duration of the dangerous environment being "where you live."

If you start talking about what you survived in a safe place with someone able to just listen to you patiently, you are able to bring that horrible event into the safe place and sort it out. Make sure you talk about the event from start to finish. What were you thinking and what was your intent? Too many of you have the horrible frozen in your mind and you end up focusing on that aspect. You forget what else happened. Talking about it helps you see "the whole movie" and not just the outcome. You can't understand how the ending happened in a movie if you don't watch the whole thing.

Talking about it this way removes you from the event and brings you into the safe place.

Crisis intervention teams have been doing this for years with police officers, firefighters, emergency responders and survivors of other traumatic events. If it is done right, you are also able to remember goodness that was happening at the same time.

The reaction of people in the crowds after the Boston marathon bombings, rushing to help, even though they knew another bomb could explode, showed that there are more good people caring about others than the two perpetrators meaning to harm. If you acknowledge that then you stop thinking that either God abandoned you or does not exist. When good rises above the bad, God is there. When you are able to feel compassion for others even after something like that, God is there.

Know that you are not evil if you grieve at all or feel compassion for someone else. Evil people do not grieve for others. They feel no empathy. Most of the veterans experiencing PTSD have a strong level of compassion and that ability to feel more for others carries the ability to feel more pain than others do. You need to focus on what really happened in a different way. It takes a bit of work but it is vital in healing.

Step 2 take care of all of you

That means your mind with therapy and often medication to level the chemicals in your brain. Remember each part of you is connected to the other parts. Seeing a psychiatrist or psychologist must be part of this. They need to be experts on trauma and able to understand what is happening inside of you. If you are seeing someone and they do not understand the difference between mental illness and trauma, they will not give you the proper treatment. If they are experts on it your healing will being.

It means taking care of your body. You just spent a lot of energy training it to do things so that you would be able to withstand combat. It learned fast. It learned how to react to the adrenaline jolt.

This is a great video on that. It is about a fire, flight or fight response.

When faced with immediate danger, the brain releases adrenaline, a hormone secreted from glands above the kidneys. In the case of a police officer confronted with a raging fire surge, adrenaline triggered the body to release stored ATP so the officer could run faster.

It is also in this video I made in 2007. It used to be on YouTube but I moved it to Great Americans in 2009.

You need to teach it to calm down again. This can be done with many different approaches. One may not work for you but keep looking until you find what works best on this. Taking walks, meditating, Yoga, martial arts, swimming, music, writing and getting massage therapy.

Proper food and vitamins along with getting rest because of what you put your body through during deployments and trainings.

Stay away from alcohol. That adds to depression. Numbing yourself prevents healing.

Until the above approaches start to work, notice how you are reacting to other people and events. If you feel yourself getting angry, take a deep breath and ask yourself how important is it to react to what just got you angry. Most of the time it really wasn't that big of a deal and in the process of doing this, you are changing the way you react to a lot of things.

The spiritual part of you must also be addressed since combat PTSD is associated with the "moral injury" and one of the heroes on this topic is Jonathan Shay. He was writing about it and treating veterans long before most the new generation was in grade school.


Seek spiritual healing based on where you are and what you already believe. Go to Point Man International Ministries and find an Out Post in your area. If you can't find one near you, call the number and ask to speak to someone. We do it on the phone as well as in person.

Talk to a member of the clergy and if they do not understand what you need, have them call Point Man and we can help them get caught up on how to help you. Remember most people care but few understand.

Talk to your family and let them know what is going on with you and help them understand so they can help you. You don't have to tell them every gory detail but they do need to know why you are acting the way you are. If they know then they will be able to understand and not take it personally.

Above all else, do not give up!

What kind of justice is this?

What kind of justice is this? When you read what happened on a 3rd tour of duty, you should be asking the same question. Families lost people they love over something that never should have happened.

May 2009

The U.S. military charged the suspect with five counts of murder, and one count of aggravated assault in the killings. Maj. Gen. David Perkins told reporters Tuesday that the charges were filed against Sgt. John M. Russell of the 54th Engineering Battalion based in Bamberg, Germany.

Perkins said the dead included two doctors, one from the Navy and the other from the Army. The other three dead were enlisted personnel.

Sources tell CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier the suspect was on his third tour of Iraq.

A recent Army study found soldiers on their third or fourth deployment are twice as likely to suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Caught early enough, the symptoms including nightmares, sleep disturbances and rollercoaster emotions and hypervigilance, can be treated. But often troops won't ask for help, reports Dozier.

His father was interviewed by Associated Press in May of 2009.

Army 'broke' soldier held in killings, dad says
Feels military bears some responsibility: 'It shouldn't have happened'

Wilburn Russell said Tuesday that 44-year-old Army Sgt. John M. Russell wasn't typically a violent person, but counselors "broke" him before gunfire erupted in a military stress center Monday in Baghdad.

Excerpts of his military record, obtained by The Associated Press, show Sgt. Russell previously did two one-year tours of duty in Iraq, one starting in April 2003 and another in November 2005. The stress of repeat and extended tours is considered a main contributor to mental health problems among troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the military already knew the problems associated with redeployments.

The Washington Post reported this in 2006

Redeployments

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........

But the military also said they had addressed it with "Battlemind" training that every soldier received by 2008. Sgt. John Russell would have been one of them. By 2009 Russell was on his 3rd deployment.

In 2007 it was another soldier.

The killing of Jamie Dean Police in rural Maryland staged a military stakeout and shot a troubled Army vet. As his family plans to sue, they are asking how a soldier being treated for PTSD could be shipped to Iraq.

Spec. Allen Hill had two months between two deployments.

Hill joined the Army in Texas in 1986 at age 18. He was placed at Fort Riley in 1990 and has lived in Kansas since. He fought in the 1991 Persian Gulf War before joining the Army National Guard.

When war again found Iraq, Hill was deployed from August 2005 to November 2006. He deployed again in January 2007 with the 731st Transportation Company out of Larned.

Hill’s unit served as convoy security, where he most often drove the Humvees. That was until Nov. 21, the day before Thanksgiving.

And then there was this report about Combat Stress Clinics

Combat stress unit at center of Iraq slaying trial
Sunday, May 17, 2009
The trial of Pfc. Steven Green may end up explaining part of what was behind Sgt. Russell's action at Camp Liberty's Stress Clinic. If doctors are under pressure to return soldiers back to duty, they are not getting the kind of care the doctors are trying to give them. What good do stress clinics do if the commanders are more interested in getting them back into action instead of being healed enough first before sending them back?

Combat stress unit at center of Iraq slaying trial
By BRETT BARROUQUERE
Associated Press Writer
© 2009 The Associated Press
May 16, 2009, 2:42PM
PADUCAH, Ky. — Pfc. Steven Dale Green held on to his sergeant on the hood of a Humvee as it sped down a road in a doomed effort to save the life of his leader.

Staff Sgt. Phillip Miller, who served in Iraq with Green, has testified the incident pushed the soldier over the edge.

"I call it his breaking point," Miller said.

Eleven days after Sgt. Kenith Casica's death on Dec. 10, 2005, near Mahmoudiya, Iraq, Green sought help from combat stress counselors. Army nurse practitioner Lt. Col. Karen Marrs listened to Green talk about wanting to kill Iraqi civilians, gave him a prescription for sleep medication and sent him back to his unit.

The combat stress unit's actions with Green have become central as defense lawyers try to persaude jurors not to condemn him to death for rape and murder in Iraq. Green was convicted May 7 for the rape and murder of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and the shooting deaths of her family — an attack that took place three months after Green visited the stress unit.

Now John Russell will spend the rest of his life behind bars after pleading guilty. Is this justice? Is this justice for the families?

Was anything done about this report from Army Times?

The Camp Liberty Combat Stress Center in Baghdad, Iraq, where a soldier is accused of shooting and killing four other soldiers and a Naval officer on May 11, had “numerous physical security deficiencies” that put staff and patients at risk, according to a report released Friday.

Many of the patients seen by the center’s staff are “potentially violent,” according to the AR 15-6 investigation into the shooting. And the report highlighted several problems, among them inadequate locks on the one-story building’s exterior doors, training for staff and storage for weapons.

The investigation also found the 54th Engineer Battalion, the unit to which the accused shooter belongs, did not have formal written policies and procedures in place regarding behavioral health treatment. Instead, the battalion relied heavily on the battalion chaplain’s expertise.