The VA: Protect the Budget Policy Breeds Barriers to Care for Veterans

Photo by Scott Lee

On August 19, 2009 at 2:22 PM, I had a conversation with a Combat Veteran's Mother pleading for help with the criminal charges her Combat PTSD son received during a flashback. Incarcerated Combat Vet Mom makes a critical connection on why so many veterans are not receiving the care they scream out for in the night.

Anonymous said,

My son is just begining to show signs of something after being placed in jail for domestic violence and robbery II. He's been in jail for over 4 months with a bail high as the sky and the VA Med Ctr not willing to accept him with a felony charge. My son, who was bail out 2 times in one week was place there for allegly attacking the victim again. My question is, he's wanting the bail lowered so we can get him out. Can I trust him?

Scott A. Lee said,

I would like to direct you to a woman who has been going through a similar situation. Her name is Sue, click here, her email is on her blogger profile.

I have been talking to her for about a year now and she has come a long way and making the best of her situation. She has become active in this area of concern and has gained some wisdom and insights that may help you.

PTSD and Incarcerated Veterans

Hello! My name is Jamie Keyes, and I am the mother of an Iraq war veteran who has PTSD and is also in prison due to a PTSD related incident. I really don't know exactly how to start this blog other than to say that my son's service in the military, PTSD and subsequent incarceration has really sent me on a long and painful journey, but given me a new mission in life. That mission being a part of educating our country of the plight of our returning veterans and soldiers, so that the appropriate changes can be made to better support them.

Because of my advocacy and experience with these issues, I have been given many opportunities to reach out to the families of veterans who have PTSD and unfortunately been arrested and thrown into prisons all over this country because of their service to this country. On any given week I receive calls from many desperate family members who's young veterans have come home suffering the unseen wounds of war, fallen through the cracks, and ended up in prison. I have heard all their stories, and despite the different circumstances surrounding the arrests of their loved ones, the stories are all the same. It begins with the soldier who is still in the military. Commanders and those who are supposed to be taking care of their soldiers are not paying attention to the signs of distress or responding appropriately.

There is no seamless transition from the military to the V.A. and many of them are sent out into the civilian world having to fend for themselves. If they do make it to the VA, they are not taken care of in a timely and appropriate manner, and many end up in prison or morgues all over this country. Currently there is no way of telling how many of our current conflict veterans are in jails and prisons all over this country because there are no studies on the numbers, or ways of keeping track of them. I will tell you this. It is at epidemic proportions and the citizens in this country would be shocked if they really knew how many of our young soldiers were incarcerated due to their PTSD.

Sentencing Alternatives for Veterans

One county over from where I live, there is a special Veterans Court which offers a second chance to current and retired service members who commit crimes while struggling with war-related psychological wounds, notably PTSD and traumatic brain injuries. The aim being to identify and treat veterans before they get deeper into trouble with the law and their crimes become serious and violent.

The defendants accept treatment and regular monitoring in lieu of jail time however if they don’t comply with the conditions of their treatment program they land in jail as the judge can revoke the suspended or reduced sentence they received. Anyone with half a iota of common sense, should realize this is a huge step in the right direction.

I come from a correctional background, working in a jail and seeing veterans incarcerated without the proper treatment they need is a national disgrace. I was embarrassed to be a part of a system that couldn't pull it's head out of its ass for veterans yet offered Sentencing Alternatives and multiple treatment options for Sex Offenders.

There are barely twenty veterans courts around the country, a woefully inadequate number yet still encouraging when compared to two years ago when the first one was started in Buffalo, NY.

The Buffalo court has had a zero recidivism rate, surely those kinds of results and the potential tax dollar savings will encourage more of these courts to spring up around the country.

I stumbled across this PBS News Hour Veterans Suspected of Crimes Swap Guilty Pleas for Rehabilitation report I thought was worth sharing.

Another Soldier Receiving Prison Time

Angry commenter (pissed I'd say because pukes who willfully failed this man who served without question),

I posted here sometimes last year about my Marine son being in jail for Domestic Violence and his girl being angry because he messed around on her. Anyway, she being a scorn woman after hearing all the stories of my son messing around on her from other women, put a robbery and burglary charge on him for alleged taking of her necklace out of spite. He was sentenced to 3 years in prison a few days ago. He has been in jail for 13 months already because the judge slapped a $125,00 bail on him, and now he has to do 16 more months in prison. I got the VAMC to go to the jail and have him assessed by a VAMC Clinical Social Worker. The conclusion and recommendation was, he's suffering from PTSD and they recommend he would benefit from treatment. Another Veteran Bureaus Affairs guy did an evaluation and said that my son had brain injury. I guess he and my son discussed what he went through. The judge gave him prison instead of health care. What a bitch!

Combat PTSD's Stigmata: Why We Hesitate to Ask For Help

The jail was not only a place of employment and a source of income, it also provided me with an invaluable education; especially as far as mental health issues are concerned. I've dealt with bipolar females off their meds getting into physical altercations with loved ones taken into custody actively resisting. I've gone "hands on" with these fellow human beings who have no more control over their actions than any of us can suppress a sneeze or hiccup.

Schizophrenic males screaming at demons taunting them into cutting themselves with plastic spoons filed into a sharp edge on concrete walls, placed on mandatory 15 minute observations draped in suicide smocks in bare cells with lights on 24/7 like some Victorian science experiments. In the beginning I would come home and cry about the plight of incarcerated mentally ill individuals, now I've resigned myself to the fact this is how it is and I cannot possibly take on all the troubles of the world when I have so much going on in my personal life.

So is it any wonder there is a stigma attached to mental health issues given the high profile certain conditions are afforded, which can lead some veterans to conceal the true havoc PTSD is wreaking on their lives deterring them from seeking the help they so desperately need. After all, a soldier is supposed to be strong both physically and mentally right? They may have concerns about being perceived as being down right crazy or weak, or someone who could no longer be counted on, maybe even passed up for a promotion.

And as a spouse, there is a stigma attached to admitting you are unable to cope, overwhelmed and uncertain what to do for the best. It is easy to become angry about being the one that makes sure everything keeps functioning as it should… the laundry, the housework, the cooking, the finances, the kids… it can leave you feeling swamped almost to the point of breaking. But how do you say I’m hurting too, when your loved one has just returned from combat? The veteran has been through so much and your urge to shield them from any additional trauma, to protect them from the stress of dealing with the minutia only heaps it onto your plate making matters worse. For me, I worried admitting to my own issues would somehow be in direct competition with my husband’s needs, a fear I now know was irrational and totally unfounded.

Yes there is a stigma, a stigma which only the truly belligerent of us despite what we're experiencing can shake off, thankful we're not suicidal in a 5x5 cell wearing a tear-proof velcro-fastened smock, not too proud to stand up and wave our hand above the crowd to say "over here people, I'm over here."

US Department of Justice Reports 9.3% of Incarcerated Veterans

Image via Wikipedia

Should we really throw our expensive Prison Forces against our returning veterans?

November 2009 VA FACT SHEET says,

The most recent U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) Survey of Inmates in Local Jails (2002) data indicate that 9.3% of people incarcerated in jails are Veterans. Historically, reports of Vietnam and post-Vietnam era Veterans with histories of civilian and/or military trauma have suggested an association between trauma and subsequent contact with the legal system. Half of homeless Veterans have histories of encounters with the legal system, and the news media report with frequency stories of returning OEF and OIF Veterans being arrested for a variety of offenses, a number of which appear to be related to reactions to extended periods of battle readiness and combat exposure over multiple tours in the current wars, and maladaptive coping upon return to life in the U.S.

If we take our sons and daughters to war with great effort, pride and honor and do not return them home in much the same way...then many will become lost.

November 2009 VA FACT SHEET says,

In sum, these data indicate that there are substantial numbers of Veterans in jail eligible for VA services, they have high levels of health and mental health service need, and many of them are potentially eligible for referral to, and are good candidates for, drug or mental health court intervention as an alternative to incarceration.

Tell Me About Sgt J Patrick Lamoureux

The double edged sword cuts both ways, it is a blessing and a curse; and oddly there is no better example of the power to both help and harm than the act of sharing my interests with my husband. It's a blessing that he genuinely wants to involve himself in the pursuits I'm interested in and the online research I enjoy, it helps him feel connected to me and strengthens our bond. And yet at the same time it's almost a curse when he wants to be engaged with reading accounts of veterans fallen on hard times or struggling with life after combat. He becomes terribly distressed about those stories, and consequently all I want to do is stop sharing yet he still insists I keep talking until he can't take it anymore.

The latest quandary was when I was reading a story online about Sue Highsmith Lamoureux, the wife of a former Army Reserve Sergeant J Patrick Lamoureux incarcerated in Nye County Detention Center, after being involved in a pre-dawn gunbattle with Nye County sheriff's deputies. It's a very compelling story for me, especially as I work in corrections, and have first hand experience of dealing with combat vets in jail. Highsmith Lamoureux says it was the weight of post-traumatic stress that caused her 46-year-old husband with a previously "squeaky clean" record, to mentally collapse in September 2008.

As I was reading her Blog "The J Patrick Lamoureux Defense" I was about to click on the relating newspaper story link when my husband just hapened to glance across at my laptop.

"What'cha reading there?"

"A blog written by the wife of a Sergeant J Patrick Lamoureux, he's in jail awaiting trial after getting into a shootout with deputies last year. I was just gonna get the scoop from the newspaper report."

"Really? Do you mind reading it to me."

And as the healing edge of the sword swooped down, I clicked on the link to the newspaper article, and our bonding session began.....

Joseph "Pat" Lamoureux couldn't erase from his mind the sight of the young Iraqi girl walking up to his heavy equipment transport truck and blowing herself up. "Her body parts were all over his vehicle," his wife, Sue, said about the 2003 suicide bomber attack.

She said her husband was knocked down from the blast and later was evaluated for traumatic brain injury. In a benefits claim he filed with the Department of Veterans Affairs, Lamoureux wrote that the Iraqi girl, who was 12 to 14 years old, "came out of nowhere.

Then there was a firefight near the Baghdad airport and, later, an old man with a donkey who wouldn't stop when soldiers hollered at him. "He was 'lit up,'" Sue Lamoureux wrote in a July 1 e-mail. "To this day Pat believes the old man may have been deaf, and the image of him haunts Pat."

She said it was the weight of post-traumatic stress from these and other incidents that caused her 46-year-old husband to mentally collapse last September. That's when he went on a shooting spree that began in their mobile home at Terrible's Lakeside RV Park and Casino in Pahrump and ended after a pre-dawn gunbattle with Nye County sheriff's deputies......."

.... partway through the fourth paragraph I felt a nudge against my arm and looked down to see my husband collapse into my lap, tears streaming, almost as though he had literally been struck by the harmful edge of the sword.

"Stop, please stop." He said in a broken voice.

"But I thought you....?"

"I just don't want to hear any more." He sobbed.

"You know you're training me to want to keep my mouth shut and not share this stuff with you. I can't keep putting you through this all the time. I'm not gonna do it any more...no...that's it...no more." I came back defiantly fighting back tears of my own.

"No, I want you to share, it's just.... it's just.... it's hard you know?" Came his emotional insistence.

And as he lays with his head in my lap, I wished he wouldn't argue with me about sharing this stuff with him, wished I hadn't upset him, wished I could turn the clock back just 15 minutes and been checking emails instead of reading her blog when he looked at my screen. Then spared a heart-wrenching thought for J Patrick Lamoureux's wife who I'm sure would do anything right now to be in a position to comfort her husband during his greatest hour of need, wishing she could turn back the clock too.

For Family of Incarcerated Veterans and Soldiers

In the last post I wrote some suggestions to help with a veteran or soldier diagnosed with PTSD and charged with a crime, today I want to touch on some additional suggestions to those persons involved and separated from their loved ones. This information could apply to anyone in a position of adversity and great change.

During times of great turmoil and adversity such as a loved one struggling and succumbing to the ravishing effects of PTSD, this will release devastating effects on the person and sometimes can reap outrageous and deleterious consequences to others. During times such as the later, we may have our loved one incarcerated due to their actions under extreme duress due to triggered stressors leading to abominable repercussions to all involved.

This tragedy will lead to a host of emotional states, starting a whole cycle of sensations you will be going through, similar to the grief cycle that goes with a loss of a loved one as if they had passed away. Realize this and begin your passage through it, without doing this you will not be able to weather the oncoming issues.

The first issue needing attention more than anything; take care of yourself first. This will be a long journey that you find yourself in, it has just begun. I'm sure your loved one wants you to be happy and to do that, you need not put your life on hold during this ordeal.

I went through a long custody battle for my children and put everything on hold for 8 years and as this court battle went on, to the detriment of my mental and physical health. I won custody of my children in my state, but she moved them to the next state that did not recognize my states proceedings or my court order for custody. Long story short, I DID NOT THINK OF MY SELF FIRST and lost everything, my kids, house, my second marriage and eventually my sanity. I let the whole ordeal define me; I was the case and the case was me, there was nothing else, and I was consumed by the whole process.

Self-care is not being selfish, since I have learned that by thinking about myself and meeting my needs first I was able to take resume my responsibilities. I learned the concepts of personal boundaries where boundary concepts and identification gives you the ability to not let life and situations overwhelm and control you; your feelings of discomfort will alert you of boundary intrusions.

Self-care is loving yourself so you can love others, helping yourself so you may help others as long as no harm has come to you. When I figured this out I was able to function at a level I had never before achieved. By not taking care of self we begin to loath self and think only in terms of failure, a development of self-loathing and negative perspectives will warp our reality and doom us to fail; a self fulling prophecy. Extremely important to my peace of mind, praying and meditating.

It seems counterproductive to issues of great importance to you today, this process will be a long and drawn out trial and ordeal for all concerned. You have to accept that, it is of utmost important that you accept this, right now. It will alleviate quite a bit of anxiety and stress just by accepting that you have been committed to a long process that may take years to resolve.

It may feel as if you will be betraying your soldier or veteran by trying to let go of some of the feelings that you have been clinging to. It only feels like this, you have to let go of these feelings to get through it. By holding on to the emotions and not letting go we stay stuck in the moment and cannot grow. The ability to grow in personal development during times of extreme adversity will be the ONE thing we need to begin toward a forward momentum, without it we will fail.

Now, with our acceptance of personal self and our life situation our load will lighten, as we now have the ability to spontaneously interact with our environment instead of only reacting. We can begin to trust our own judgments in the moment without having to try and think of every possibility and contingency in exchanges between individuals. By doing this we loose sight of the subtler interactions in life and miss out on important exchanges that effective interpersonal communication requires.

List of Self-Care Contingencies:

• Self-care, by taking care of self we can navigate life successfully
  
• Personal boundaries, with self defined boundaries we can assert ourselves effectively
  
• Grief-cycle, by accepting our situations and self we can grow as our life situations require
  
• Acceptance, self validation and self examination allows change and forward momentum
• Interpersonal communication, allows for effective exchanges; a give and take interaction necessary for negotiations that dominate most social situations, business networking and judicial settings
  

I wish you well on your journey, it will be difficult and can be an opportunity to advance and advocate the cause by shedding light on the plight our veteran and soldiers face due to the consequences of inadequate funding and lack of mental health services.

Suggested Guide to Help Your Veteran or Soldier Diagnosed With PTSD and Charged With a Crime

Today we have become faced with a growing trend of soldiers and veterans becoming enmeshed in the court systems. In direct conflict with the perception in the media I propose the theory that our veterans and soldiers face an insufficient mental health care which has a major impact to their lives, families and communities.

The problem is not individualistic but systemic requiring major changes in how we view and treat PTSD. The care of our soldiers and veterans is not being meet and we have just begun to see the aftereffects of the mind shattering results of combat trauma. Untreated PTSD can destroy the lives of many, not only the soldier and veteran. We send our soldiers to war for our freedom and then lock them up when they are broken and of no use anymore.

Below is a suggested guide on how to help your soldier or veteran with PTSD that has been charged with committing a violent crime:

To whom it may concern,

I would suggest that you start researching about PTSD right away. The mind-body connection and interactions, the psychology of PTSD, defensive mechanisms, how the mind responds to trauma, the symptoms of PTSD, how extended combat (such as multiple tours served) effects soldiers and veterans, legal ramifications of criminal behavior and PTSD, the processes of the psychic split from reality and past combat experiences, how anxiety plays an everyday part of our lives, how ordinary stress can lead to higher levels of stress and extreme responses and flashbacks, the nature of flashbacks, the nature of triggers and how they apply to PTSD, and the mental compartmentalization that happens to a PTSD survivor. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but should give you some kind of idea of where you might want to start.

Like it or not, this has consumed your life by no choice of your own, instead of letting that energy overwhelm you and feeling helpless, turn that energy into a useful endeavor and focus it toward finding out as much as possible about PTSD and the effects of combat. You have more passion about this subject than anyone, use this as an opportunity to help your loved one get a fair trial and to force the courts to consider his/her mental illness as a contributing factor in their actions.

Do not take no for an answer from his/her lawyer as to your wanting to get involved in your significant others case, jump into his/her pocket and become the "paralegal" and find them the information that needed for fair consideration of the case. Most lawyers will resist this from you, again do not take no for an answer. I am guessing that the lawyer will probably be a public defender, they are overloaded with cases and cannot really give the appropriate attention that their caseload needs. So, you need to assume that role of "defender" and information detective, this can greatly impact the outcome of the trial.

Consider trying to find a high profile lawyer who will take the case on pro bono, this type of case has become a hot topic in the news and media. A lawyer might take a case for this reason and could benefit the outcome.

Go to the clerks office and get a copy of the court case file, this will help you by becoming familiar with the states perspective on the case and what exactly is being done.

Educate yourself in Miranda rights (If they violated his rights here, this could have a considerable impact on the outcome), federal constitutional law concerning 1st, 4th (emphasis here), 5th, 6th and 8th amendments, along with state constitutional law.

Educate yourself on how the court works, the proceedings, when and where evidence can be brought, the questioning of witnesses and how that process is different in every aspect of the trial.

Educate yourself on case law concerning PTSD and other mental illnesses where a consideration or precedent has been set, this can be used in your case and can greatly influence what happens. Look into your state laws first as they will have the most sway, because state law guides state cases first, then look to federal law to find precedents and findings where PTSD was considered in the sentencing phase. Concentrate on first on the main trial part where the evidence and witnesses will be displayed then on the sentencing. Both of these parts of the overall court proceedings will be the most important part, your soldier or veterans fate will be decided between these two proceedings.

Educate yourself on and things to do:

• Do not talk with the police or anyone else until you have talked with your lawyer, what you say will be used against you
  
• Learn your rights and assert them, you do not have any rights if you do not know your rights
  
• get a copy of court case file
• get a copy of VA file and military file
  
• jump in your lawyers pocket
• try to find a pro bono lawyer
• individual rights, Miranda and if they were violated
• legal proceedings, structure of court formalities and rules of law
• psychology of PTSD
• case law, state and federal, concentrating on the main trial and sentencing process
• constitutional law
• legal responsibilities of the judge, your lawyer and the prosecutor
• find a support group
• contact your senator, congressperson
  
• contact your local VFW, AMVETS, or veterans associations

I know that this seems like to much, just figure out what is coming next and then concentrate your efforts into that. Take one court proceeding at a time and concentrate on the legalities of that part of the process and use it as a guide to where you need to research and what you should do. The structure of the next proceedings will be your sign post for the direction you need to concentrate on.

You can do this, if you accept that you have been put on this earth for this. You were born to do this, this may be your purpose in life, to be the freedom fighter for all veterans and soldiers who will face this tribulation. You have more vested in this than anyone else, you have more to loose, do not stand by and be a spectator. Get involved and later you will not have the guilt of "I wish I had done something".

A most important issue to face would be finding a support group that you feel safe with and trust. You cannot do this alone, enlist the help of as many people that you can. Contact your congressperson, senator and your local VFW, AMVETS, DAV or American Legion.

This is only a suggestion for what to do. I have compiled this list and information as a suggested guide for personal empowerment.