Advocate for Soldiers and Veterans

My Prescription to Address Soldiers and Veterans Issues

• Revamp screening process for returning soldiers, the system as it stands detracts and dissuades soldiers from reporting traumatic stress and depression, thus impeding effective assessment. After a negative report of mental illness, the soldier will have a difficult time in receiving treatment after the fact. The question of "Do you have any psychological problems?", in contrast to the internal question of "Do you want to answer yes, or do you want to go home and see your family and friends?", does not fully appreciate and record the numbers of mentally wounded soldiers.
• Implement rigorous psychological training throughout the military from basic training and integrate into regular training at the company, squad and regimental levels on a continual basis. This will be the only way to break the stigma of psychological wounds. Additionally, it will increase the soldiers capability to recognize internal reactions and external signals from their battle buddies.
• Include a Clinical Social Worker in every Battalion to address psychological needs and counseling as they arise
• Double the Veterans Administration funding
• Replace every bureaucrat that has impeded veterans receiving benefits
• Hire thousands of clinical psych-workers
• Implement effective national treatment and reintegration programs, such as the Minnesota veterans program
• Develop initiatives to fund university programs to teach Combat Trauma Therapy (to aid hiring quotas)
• Significantly increase research monies for combat trauma based disorders, attach funding to universities that have Combat Trauma Therapy programs
• Adopt Substance Abuse and Mental Illness (SAMI) treatment modalities, treating both disorders as primary illnesses, across all VA treatment facilities and contract facilities
• Open long term treatment centers specializing in PTSD, if possible, one in every state
• Fix the VA disability process, in 2005 after 7 tries and 15 years I finally received a diagnosis, treatment and compensation, for which I should have been receiving continuously for 15 years. My mental illness was too severe to navigate the process. Only after spending 20 months in a treatment center was I able to complete the process. The bureaucracy is to complex and overwhelming for someone suffering from PTSD or other psychological injuries.
• Increase Concentration in area of Veteran Criminality research concentrating on connections and implications for individual, family and societal impacts
• Federally mandate Veterans Courts for every major municipal entity, such as Rochester and Buffalo NY, and Tulsa OK. Mandate to direct veterans in rural areas to such courts

PTSD Rates: Part One

Image by The U.S. Army via Flickr

Combat Saturation
 
I am just now starting to sift through the sea of case law and journal articles on the considerations of PTSD and criminality, unfortunately I think that there will be an ever increasing need for individuals well versed in the pitfalls of combat trauma and difficulties in reintegration. I feel as you do that something needs to be done to address this issue head on, such as a Veterans Court much like the one just established in Minnesota. Additionally, we have only begun to see the tide of returning veterans with psychological troubles facing criminal charges.

Never before in the history of American warfare have we seen such high numbers of soldiers who have been under unimaginable stress. In WWII 18% (Flashback, 2006, p. 73, War Psychiatry, n.d., p. 15; Grossman, 2007) of our soldiers actually engaged in combat, with Vietnam it was 30-40%, today 68% to 86% have actually engaged in combat (Veterans for common Sense and Veterans United For Truth, Inc, 2007, item 54, National Center For PTSD Fact Sheet, n.d., paragraph 2, and Hoge, 2004). Not only have more soldiers engaged in combat, they have been in combat longer with an average of 2 to 3 tours of duty (Boston.com, 2005, Veterans for America, 2008). Many have been on 5 tours and some as much as 6. As high as 80-90% (Journal of the American Medical Association, 2006, paragraph 5) have seen someone get killed, or been in a combat zone, we have reached "Combat Saturation."

Today 15% (300,000; Rand, 2008) of our soldiers and veterans have been diagnosed with PTSD and this seems like it may be a smaller number compared to other wars. 30% PTSD rates in Vietnam, 15% to 25% of combat soldiers "...nonfatal battle casualties...[were] neuropsychiatric" as reported in WWII by the Surgeon Generals report (as cited in War Chronicle, 1944) and 15-20% of Gulf War I vets reported to have PTSD.

It took Vietnam veterans up to 10-20 years before their symptoms reached the point of becoming debilitating. The implications for our modern veterans will have monumental deleterious effects in the next 10 years, it has been projected that PTSD rates in today's wars will reach 50-60%. We will be inundated with mentally ill veterans who have few options and no where to turn and they will run afoul with the law.

Causes of Gulf War Syndrome

On November 17, 2008, after 17 years, Gulf War Syndrome Really Does Exist. These guys have been through a rough time of acceptance with the Gulf War Syndrome. Which by the way have you heard that after 17 years the government finally has admitted that the Gulf War Syndrome exists? But what about the 23% of Gulf War Veterans getting Multiple Sclerosis (MS)? My girlfriends nephew, is getting out of the Army due to PTSD and MS. How many of our modern day veterans will receive a crippling and debilitating diagnosis?

Even though this has only become a reality for the government, this reality has been a denied one for my Gulf War I brothers and I for 17 years. Finally, we have been told that the physical pain, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), Severe Headaches, Joint Pain, Muscle Pain, Nerve Damage, Neurological Damage, Auto-Immune Deficiencies, Unusual Fevers & Night Sweats, Sleep Disturbances, Gastrointestinal signs or symptoms, Confusion, Memory Loss, Blood In Stools & Urine, Fybromyligia, Epstein Barr Syndrome, Micoplasma Fermentans Incognitis Infections, Chemical Sensitivities--(These are just the symptoms that I have--YES there is more).

Here you will find the "probable causes" of GWS,

• Pyridostigmine Bromide (PB) - I was forced to take this experimental drug - it has been reported that this was an optional participation experiment - bullshit, my squad leader watched me three times a day when I took this drug of death, I had to open my mouth and lift my tongue after ingestion as he inspected
  
• Pesticides - yes I slathered this shit on (the old Vietnam pesticide worked the best, yes it had DEET in it) the fucking flies where thick you could look up at the top of the tent and see black patches of flies as big as 6 feet in diameter.
• Oil Well Fires - uh check, it was night for a week before I was shipped out to go home
  
• Psychological Stressors - if you call watching over 20,000 enemy soldiers dying that did not stand a chance to our superior weaponry and technology then yes I, may, could have possibly, received some psychological damage
• Depleted Uranium - Well the report does say that this one here was not a contributing factor, I say bullshit - up until the first Gulf War the government has had strict handling procedures in the storage of depleted uranium (think of the storage facilities that every state in the US does not want Nuclear Waste stored in their backyard - YES, HELLO Depleted Uranium is that exact same Nuclear Waste - except now the US has a place to 'safely' put this waste), I was talking about storage handling - the factory that makes DP rounds for the military have the employees dress in radiation suits all day during manufacturing, then when we get them in the field, sitting right on top of the rounds, YES on top, it somehow is 'OK' to handle them without any safety precautions (except point your weapon down range of course), the government is more worried about LEAD then this toxic metal, LEAD is bad - DU is good - how long were we feed that Lead did not fry our kids brains when they ate that paint?
  

An excerpt from the Gulf War Illness and the Health of Gulf War Veterans report quoting Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Gulf War illnesses, LTG Dale Vesser, [he] remarked that although Saddam Hussein didn’t use nuclear, biological, or chemical agents against coalition forces during the war, 'it never dawned on us … that we may have done it to ourselves' (emphasis added) (Gulf War Illness and the Health of Gulf War Veterans: Scientific Findings and Recommendations, p. 128).

I think that even though this war was so short, that the experience of killing literally thousands upon thousands of people in 100 hours cannot be imagined and has had a profound effect on the Gulf War I veterans which has been overlooked. The movie Jarhead does a disservice to the experience that I had. My experience, 100 hours of sustained combat and carnage, watching many thousands of people die, and I contributed to many sons losing their fathers. A crippling guilt that I still face today.

Anyway, my point is that we, Gulf War I veterans have been through quite a bit of shit from the government and would be an asset to the guys coming home now. The reason that I have been extending my hand to those that need help and recognition of the walking wounded and the fight against the stigma of asking for help.

Decades of denial, starting from the Vietnam War, that our military service has had a lasting impact, mentally and medically on our lives--Agent Orange and PTSD with our Vietnam Vets, Gulf War Syndrome with Gulf War I vets and now a psychological band-aid for our modern vets.

When will our nation learn that we cannot keep ignoring our veterans, that to do so, we do to our nations peril?