U.S. Reps. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., and Mike Thompson, D-Calif., introduced legislation Thursday in the House that would require a face-to-face mental health screening for all soldiers before they are deployed on a combat mission, after their tour and every six months for two years following their return.
The bill is a companion measure to legislation introduced in the Senate by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., last month.
"Rehberg's support on this is critical," said Matt Kuntz, director of the Montana chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. "It's really wonderful that he's come on board with this."
The measure came about because there currently is no psychological baseline for troops heading into conflict, though many service members returning from combat are asked to fill out questionnaires about their mental health.
"I have fought for PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) treatment funding, but money can only solve part of the problem," Rehberg said. "Soldiers need in-person treatment to ensure that no one falls through the cracks."
At least one in five new veterans are experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression, Thompson said, there isn't a system in place nationally that adequately can address those issues.
"This legislation will fill this void," he said."It is a practical solution and has already been successfully tested in the field. We owe it to our brave men and women serving our country to make sure that they get the services they have earned."
The proposed Post-Deployment Health Assessment Act of 2009 creates new requirements for identification of PTSD among service members.
Under the act, a service member would be interviewed prior to deployment in order to establish a baseline to measure change upon return from combat. By requiring these interviews to be timely and personal, the bill's sponsors believe the likelihood of identifying PTSD later is dramatically increased.
"This legislation's intensive face-to-face screening program will provide the military with a powerful tool to help our injured heroes get help for their post-traumatic stress injuries," Kuntz said. "Congressman Rehberg's leadership is critical because he is in position to build a bipartisan coalition to help stop our military's suicide epidemic."
Diagnosis is critical in addressing PTSD said Jed Link, Rehberg's communications director.
"Congressman Rehberg has fought to provide treatment for vets with PTSD, but if they don't know they have the disorder, if they haven't been diagnosed, it won't do any good," Link said. "So this legislation is an important step forward in that process."
SALT LAKE CITY — At a recent mental health conference in the Salt Palace, a Utah National Guardsman described how he finally learned to sleep again.
It's a simple technique that the Veterans Administration has tested in Salt Lake City and found effective for both sleep disorders and for post-traumatic stress disorder.
"When they told me about 'mind-body bridging,' I thought they were blowing smoke because it was so simple," Sgt. 1st Class Kip Day of Salt Lake City said last week.
"But it works," he added.
The system developed by Dr. Stanley Block and described in his book, "Come To Your Senses," involves listening, touching, seeing and smelling your environment instead of wrestling with your thoughts.
"That's a grounding technique that's common to a number of therapies," noted Steve Allen, a VA psychologist in Salt Lake.
Day said he returned from an intense tour of duty in Iraq in 2003 and had severe nightmares every night for the next six years.
"Drugs didn't work for me," he said. "They just made my dreams worse.
"But the first night I tried the program, I began listening to the clock in my room as a way to go to sleep," said Day. "That very first night, I slept and didn't dream — which was amazing to me.
"The next night, I had a funny dream and woke up laughing," Day said. "I even woke my wife up with my laughter."
To test whether the therapy was effective, the VA took 60 vets with sleep disorders, many of whom also had symptoms of PTSD, and broke them into two random groups, said Rich Landward, a licensed clinical social worker for the VA in Salt Lake City.
One group received four sessions of sleep hygiene: medical advice on what to do to sleep better, things like not drinking caffeine in the evening or trying to sleep in front of a television set.
"There was some sleep improvement with this group, but not nearly as much as the bridging the mind and body group," Landward said.
"We told them to tune into their senses — sight, sound, hearing, smell, touch," Landward said. "We told them to listen to a fan at bedtime or concentrate on feeling the sheets.
WASHINGTON, April 9 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Thursday said the government would create a national electronic medical records system for the military that will serve as a model for broad reform of U.S. healthcare administration.
The system, organized by the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs, would follow military personnel from active duty through retirement, keeping records organized and complete.
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First ladies are always the subject of fascination. Their experiences often illustrate the evolving roles of women in our society, and they are usually an essential part of the governing team at the White House. Most first ladies have taken on special projects that reflect their core values, such as highway beautification for Lady Bird Johnson and the promotion of reading for Laura Bush. Michelle Obama is emulating her predecessors, with a difference. Her signature initiative--improving the lives of military families--has become a personal mission and an emotional cause.
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Sen. Max Baucus introduced legislation Wednesday night requiring stepped-up mental health screenings for all American combat troops.
The purpose for the testing — to be done every six months for the first two years after a soldier returns from combat — will be to identify post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury or major depression resulting from combat, Baucus said.
It's based on the model developed by the Montana National Guard following the suicide of Chris Dana, a former combat vet with the 163rd Infantry who died a few days after being given a less-than-honorable discharge for failing to attend Guard drills.
"When I hear of young men and women whose life is ended too soon or who have had to silently battle mental conditions, it absolutely devastates me," said Baucus. "And that is why I wanted to introduce this much-needed legislation because if we can prevent just one needless tragedy, it would have been worth it."
According to a RAND Corp. study last year, one in three combat veterans will return home with PTSD, TBI or major depression so severe that it will require treatment. Last year, the Army reported 143 suicides, the highest number since the Army began keeping records in 1980.
The legislation — which is expected to cost $220 million over five years — would apply to the National Guard and the Reserves, as well as to active-duty soldiers.
"It's everybody," Matt Kuntz of Helena, Dana's stepbrother, exclaimed Wednesday. "We designed it for everyone who goes into combat.
"This is going to help ensure that this generation doesn't have to go through decades and decades of pain, like the Vietnam vets did," Kuntz added. "I'm very grateful for this legislation."
Currently, states have different mental health assessment procedures for returning combat troops. Some soldiers are asked to fill out questionnaires self-identifying their problems, while others receive face-to-face counseling.
Only Montana conducts face-to-face screenings for the full two years after deployment, then adds a mental health component to the physical exam given each soldier each year.
"We have a great program in Montana," said Sen. Jon Tester. "If we can get similar things done in the National Guard across the country, that would be a huge step, and if we can get the Department of Defense to buy into it, that would be another huge step.
"Ultimately, it's the right thing to do because it saves money, it saves lives, and it does the right thing to help the young men and women who have volunteered to serve their country," Tester said in a recent interview.
Some steps are already being taken by the National Guard Bureau in Washington, D.C., which coordinates activities and advises the National Guard organization in each state.
The bureau has received $7.5 million to build a mental health network nationwide by hiring a director of psychological health in each state, Capt. Joan Hunter said recently.
"That funding is wonderful, but it needs to be multiplied by tens," said Pete Duffy, deputy director for legislation of the National Guard Association.
The new director's job has been posted in Montana and the Guard is interviewing candidates, said Col. Jeff Ireland, chief of manpower and personnel for the Guard in Helena.
"When the directors of psychological health are in place, we'll create a psychological health screening committee that will drive this program forward with best health practices that are documented, not merely anecdotal," Hunter said.
The bureau has also received $65.4 million to fund the Yellow Ribbon Program, the pilot program Montana pioneered last year, for nationwide implementation by the Army National Guard and the Air National Guard.
"Obviously, it's becoming a success story, so we're grateful to be able to implement it around the country," said Lt. Col. Mike Johnson, the National Guard Legislative Liaison Branch Chief in Washington.
One important component is a family reintegration effort. In other states, soldiers returning from combat are given the first 90 days off, but Guard officials at Fort Harrison realized that combat vets needed their buddies as a support group.
The Guard in Montana has begun bringing soldiers and their families together in civilian clothes at a convention center where they can socialize together, but also attend seminars on such things as marriage enrichment, anger management, personal finance, and learning how to drive as civilians again.
"One of the most important components of the Yellow Ribbon program is to have our service members be able to keep in contact with each other," said Hunter.
"It's important to be able to keep an eye on our soldiers," agreed Randy Knowles, the Guard Bureau's information officer. "Otherwise, they feel abandoned."
"And it's important that our soldiers realize they have a responsibility to maintain their emotional and mental health in the same way they maintain their physical fitness," Hunter said.
Hunter said she has been watching the TriWest pilot programs in California and Montana that put embedded counselors in National Guard armories during drill weekends to be available for assistance and to observe abnormal behavior among soldiers beginning to show signs of PTSD.
"The Montana National Guard has now taken over that responsibility," Hunter said. "That's why what Montana is doing is so impressive — it shows the state's commitment."
Ireland said Montana is now spending nearly $80,000 a year on the embedded counselor program.
Hunter cautioned now that it's critical not to lose momentum and said it has been gratifying to hear President Obama's repeated statements about the importance of treating soldiers with PTSD.
"It will be most important with this new administration coming on board that we remember the sacrifices these young men and women have made," said Hunter. "With all the economic challenges and with all the demands on our system, it's vital that these reforms not slip off the table."
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced yesterday that the Army will phase out the unpopular practice of "stop-loss," which mandates that soldiers stay in the Army beyond their service obligation, over the next two years.
In the meantime, the Pentagon will offer extra pay to soldiers who continue to serve under the policy, Gates said.
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HELENA — Two years after former Army Spc. Chris Dana committed suicide after struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder, the Montana National Guard is spending approximately half a million dollars a year to make combat deployments easier for its soldiers and their families.
The Montana Guard's Yellow Ribbon program has become a model that the rest of America should adopt, said U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont.
"We're getting terrific responses to the program from the families of our soldiers, but also some great suggestions," said Col. Jeff Ireland, chief of manpower and personnel for the Montana Guard. "For instance, we were told it would be useful to have a special breakout session for spouses.
Ireland said officials believe the session was a great idea.
"We plan to act on it and other suggestions until we meet all the needs we're aware of," he added.
With the approval and funding of the National Guard Bureau in Washington, D.C., the Montana National Guard is adding five positions and spending approximately $500,000 to fund the Yellow Ribbon program, Ireland said.
The core of the program is twofold: mental health assessments every six months after deployment and crisis response teams that can be activated immediately to check out concerns about the emotional wellbeing of a soldier.
"The genius of the Montana screening model is that it happens every six months," Matt Kuntz, Dana's stepbrother, told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee last week during testimony in Washington.
"I really — in my heart — believe that if they would have sat down with Chris six months (after his redeployment to Iraq), when he could no longer go to drill, when he was having the flashbacks, when he was having trouble dealing with his own family — that's when that counselor could have gotten him out of his shell," Kuntz said. "But I tell you, we tried later — a year later — and it was too late."
Dana returned from his redeployment, had trouble adjusting to drills and was dishonorably discharged prior to committing suicide.
To help prevent that type of situation, the Guard's new program goes beyond additional mental health assessments. For example, some family meetings are now held in convention facilities instead of armories.
"The primary focus of our Yellow Ribbon program is that it's a proactive program, not reactive," Ireland said. "We try to get medical assistance and information to our soldiers before there's a crisis."
After Dana's suicide on March 4, 2007, a task force charged with recommending reforms concluded that many soldiers and their families weren't aware of the benefits available to them, nor did they know how to access them.
"And that surprised us because we had presented it to them multiple times in multiple ways," Ireland said. "So we had to conclude they just weren't listening to us."
Those briefings occurred in the days immediately preceding a deployment, when the soldiers and their families were so preoccupied with the ordeal facing them that they weren't terribly concerned about the aftermath.
The Guard now holds an "academy" two or three months before deployment to present that information to soldiers and their families.
"The beauty of it is that we've received funding from the National Guard Bureau to put on our academy in a civilian facility and they (the soldiers) can wear civilian clothes to the meetings," Ireland said. "We can pay for meals, motel rooms, mileage and childcare. That takes the stress off them."
As many as 60 vendors — ranging from TriWest Healthcare to Veterans Affairs to educational services, finance and legal counseling — may be present over the weekend to explain various programs.
When the soldiers are gone, family readiness units are activated to keep track of their families.
"Family support groups do monthly checks on each family, and we have Webinar training programs that spouses can take from their own homes," Ireland said in referring to Internet-based training.
Shortly before the troops return, the National Guard sponsors a special reunion workshop so spouses will know how to be prepared.
"Everyone expects that when a soldier comes home, everything will go on as usual," Ireland said. "Unfortunately, that's not the case. When the soldier leaves, family life continues for everyone but the soldier, so he and his family have to readjust to life together again."
In every other state in the nation, soldiers returning home from deployment get a three-month break from drill weekends. In Montana, personnel officers found that the soldiers struggling to readjust to civilian life need their buddies as a support group during that time.
"So we hold drills 30, 60 and 90 days after deployment that are like the academies, except that we focus on family reintegration," Ireland said. "We have training on marriage enrichment, anger management, symptoms of depression and how to reconnect with your children."
For soldiers accustomed to driving fast and swerving around potential dangers in Iraq, there's a session with a Montana Highway Patrol officer to remind them of the civilian rules of the road.
Additionally, mental health assessments are held every six months for the first two years after soldiers return from deployment, and the crisis response teams are on alert for any suggestions that a soldier is beginning to experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
"Our crisis response team has been very effective, and the embedded counselors have been very helpful," said Wing Command Chief Larry Seibel of the Montana Air National Guard on Gore Hill.
He said the crisis team has intervened to get airmen immediate psychological help in four or five cases during the past year.
"We dealt with one case about a month ago," Seibel said. "It involved a person who had been to Iraq two or three times and was basically showing a lot of signs of stress at work.
"Putting a uniform on and driving through the main gate brought back all the bad things this person had been through, and there was a meltdown at work during a drill weekend," Seibel said.
Mental health counselors assigned to the unit took the airman to Benefis Health System immediately, after which counselors at Malmstrom Air Force Base took over.
The patient is now in recovery, he said.
"This situation turned out to be a total success story, but it very easily could have gone the other way," Seibel said.
Siebel added that the Guard's crisis response teams are scheduled to get additional training in assessing symptoms of emotional problems and in dealing with crisis situations.
The Montana National Guard also has added a Yellow Ribbon program coordinator and two support positions to assist soldiers and airmen, as well as their families. It also is seeking to hire a director of psychological health and a military family life counselor.
Last year, TriWest Healthcare launched a pilot program in which it assigned mental health counselors to spend one weekend a month at Army and Air Guard armories when the units were at drill.
That worked so well that the National Guard has taken the program over and funded it, Ireland said.
"We see sometimes 50 guys a day and spend between five and 45 minutes apiece with them," said Rich Kuka, a Great Falls counselor assigned to the Army National Guard in Helena.
He estimated that the prevalence of problems in Montana is about the same as the Rand Corp. national predictions: one in four soldiers will suffer post-traumatic stress disorder and one in three deployed military members will experience either PTSD, traumatic brain injury, major depression or a combination of all three.
"And I'd guess that 99.5 percent of the guys I've seen exhibit symptoms of hypersensitivity and hypervigilance," Kuka said.
Hypersensitivity may mean a soldier hits the ground at a sudden sound or loses control at the sound of a helicopter — for many infantry soldiers, a chopper means a firefight or casualties flown from the scene of a battle.
Hypervigilance may lead a soldier to constantly scan rooftops for snipers, check out apartment windows for suspicious individuals or have a lot of trouble sleeping at night.
Another common symptom is an explosive temper, Kuka said, adding that a lot of infantry soldiers drive their own vehicles at high speeds, quickly avoiding trash or parked cars and swerving around obstacles.
"Everything you hear and read about these guys is true — plus some," Kuka added.
The Montana National Guard is making its Yellow Ribbon training sessions available to all members of all branches of the military service, including active and reserve members, Ireland said.
"Our funding from the National Guard Bureau makes it possible for anyone who needs that training to attend," he said, adding Yellow Ribbon is the most cohesive outreach program in the nation.
In a news release last week, Tester said legislation is being prepared to make many of the reforms employed in Montana mandatory nationwide.
"The big thing that Montana has learned the hard way — and now the nation is learning it, as well — is that we just can't wait for service members' lives to fall apart before they reach a counselor," Kuntz said. "By that time, it could be too late or it could be harder to treat.
"This will take the Montana model of face-to-face screening every six months after deployment to the entire country," he said. "That means that every active-duty, Reserve or Guard service member returning from combat will get the help they need."
Sometimes, sometimes we are greatly blessed by the right voice, the right words, the right book at the right time.
Pulitzer Prize winning, Crusading Journalist, Eric Newhouse has graced us with such a gift at the absolutely right time with his Faces of Combat, PTSD & TBI: One Journalist's Crusade to Improve Treatment for Our Veterans.
January 2009 presented us with the horror our soldiers face in war, and in coming home, with the simple fact that more of them committed suicide than died in combat. Take a moment, please, and let those words sink in—more deaths by their own hand than by IED's, than by bullets and bombs.
That fact is an indictment of us, each and everyone on us who endorses sending women and men to war and then ignoring their overwhelming needs in country and when they come home.
To fight a war you must designate an enemy. To have soldiers present themselves to combat you must stir up something that will enable them to confront and, yes, kill, another human being. That something is anger—anger than once turned on is very hard to turn off.
War is, by its very nature, destruction—leveling the civilized work of centuries—ending human life, not only of the soldiers of the enemy, but of those elderly, women, and children that we so euphemistically call collateral damage.
We, hopefully, raise our young to a standard of morality taught by their culture, instilled in them by their religious training. When they are on the field of combat, and in today's wars that field is just about everywhere they are, with just about no real downtime, that training is catastrophically challenged by the intense need to stay alive. Their entire code of conduct, code of ethics, training of what is right, what is wrong, is turned upside down. They will see things, have to do things, that are the stuff of nightmares, of that proverbial monster lurking at the top of the stairs, under the bed, in the basement of everything diabolical that terrifies us as humans.
We ask them to go into the unknown, to drive down roads blistered with IED"S. We ask them to go into private homes searching for the enemy—private homes with children in them, just like their own. We ask them to pick up and bag pieces, brain matter, of their closest buddies, of civilians, of enemy soldiers. We ask them to suffer Traumatic Brain Injury quietly, and to not speak of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for fear of repercussions, losing benefits, and social and military stigma. We ask them to not question the long term impact of Agent Orange, or Depleted Uranium on their bodies, and possibly the bodies of their still unborn children. We ask them to do a thousand other soul wrenching things and then within just a few hours they are back in the world and asked to get up, have their cup of coffee, and get on with life.
War is insanity; asking them to leave that irrational world and come back and slip back into civilian skin, heart, and soul is irrational. It is also unkind, exploitive, and deadly.
Such is the story, such is the reality, the Eric Newhouse presents us in Faces of Combat, PTSD & TBI: One Journalist's Crusade to Improve Treatment for Our Veterans as he gives us, word by word, page by heart rending page, the real stories, the sleeping and waking nightmares, of what has bored into those who know, up close and personal, war.
Sit down with Mr. Newhouse and LEARN.
Learn what happens when that anger, denial, pain, terror, loss come home and have no outlets but self, the community, co-workers, and nuclear families.
Learn the fear of forgetting because forgetting might just make you forget the buddy who died bleeding out in your arms, or who scattered into pieces on the ground around you; who splattered onto you.
Sit down with Mr. Newhouse's words and feel the frustration of months and months and months of waiting, pleading, red-taping their way through to try to find help from the VA.
Sit down with Mr. Newhouse's words and feel the bullets they eat, the cars they crash, the drugs and the alcohol they down in desperate attempts to end, or at least momentarily quiet, the never ending pain and begin to realize that by our not being there for them, by our not assiduously insisting on immediate, professional, and respectful treatment for their physical, mental, emotional, and soul wounds that we are part of the stuff of their nightmares.
Sit down with Mr. Newhouse's words and understand the impact of these current wars on National Guard troops who probably never expected to be in any county other than this one—and learn how be deployed, redeployed, and possibly redeployed again has impacted on these people.
Sit down with Mr. Newhouse's words and lean what it is to be a female soldier who lives with fear of rape from her own comrades in arms.
Sit down with Mr. Newhouse's words and learn what happens when the given underlying causation of the war, the thing that made the cause righteous, is undermined by the unveiling of the less than righteous statements that caused them to be there in the first place.
Sit down with Mr. Newhouse's words and feel what the apathy of the public does to the gut of a soldier.
I know, you're busy. Well, so are they—pulling sixteen hour shifts, with no place safe to rest—pulling sixteen hour shifts where the temps are 140 F, or -3F. They are busy, wearing Kevlar, hoping that their Humvees are or will be armored, and they will not die because they are not properly supplied. They are busy pulling sixteen hour shifts, deployed for whatever numbered time, watching uncontrolled private contractors pull down salaries way, way beyond theirs while they lose homes, wives, children, and their own personal mental, physical, and spiritual stability. Think about this—there but for the grace of no draft, go you.
Is there a way out of this? If the damage is physical, if the war wounds are neurological, if the war wounds are spiritual, can we help to heal them? Montana thinks so, Mr. Newhouse thinks so, and tells you about the changes in Veteran care in his state—about their successes, about their learning what works and what doesn't—about their problems with the entrenched and often abysmal bureaucracy of the VA they come up against.
Do your homework—LEARN, help, write to Senators, to your Representatives, to your President, to General Shinseki at the VA and insist that we do 100% of what is right for our Veterans. If you do your homework—if you help clear away the mess and smoke of war—if you make sure no war is fought without real justification—you will be helping their coming HOME WORK for them.
And remember this, something we so blatantly forget—the troops, in country or coming home, are US. They are not separate from us—they are our daughters, our sons, our wives, our husbands, our mothers and fathers.
By saving our Veterans, we save ourselves. We save America from a new wave of alcoholism and drug addiction. We save this country from increasing divorce and joblessness and homelessness. We save families from the violence that boils over; violence that causes additional suffering from war related post traumatic stress disorder.
We ease the burden on our jails and prisons.
It's a lesson we should have learned after 7 million Veterans came home from Viet Nam four decades ago and were allowed to fall, were often pushed through, the cracks—without compassion, without justice, without us there for them.
Learn it.
Say it—Never again!
This time we are here for you—for all of you—and we demand that it be made right for you.
I have been helping many Veterans with EFT, mostly by phone. The results for their overall wellbeing, their release of insomnia and other symptoms of PTSD have been quite wonderful.
To be able to communicate the progress that Veterans can make with EFT, I have decided to monitor their shifts and progress with two standardized forms, the SA-45 and the PCL-M. These research tools are described briefly at the end of this article. In addition to signing an informed consent form, the Veterans that I work with are also required to keep a daily sleep journal, which documents sleep duration, quality of sleep, overall wellbeing and other factors. It is my hope that the results of this single case study will encourage and inspire others to move forward with the clinical, larger scale research studies that need to be done in this field, so that the Veterans and their families get access to this important and powerful healing tool.
“Don” is a 61 year old Vietnam Veteran who and has been diagnosed with...
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Six weeks after James Fair, a 22-year-old combat engineer, began serving in Iraq in the fall of 2003, he detonated a homemade bomb while walking away from a barbed wire fence he had just erected near Falluja. He lost his eyesight and both arms below the elbows, and sustained brain injuries.
Seven months later, when he was released from a military hospital — the blue scars from the powder burns on his face still visible — he moved in with his then wife in Kansas but left after two months, because, he said recently, she “couldn’t take care of me.” After that, he returned home to Western Pennsylvania to live with his mother, Lonnie Mosco, and her new husband, Scott, in a small two-story house they had moved to in his absence.
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Combat vets — especially those who are homeless or suffering from mental health issues — can get help Friday and Saturday at the second annual Great Falls Veterans' Stand-Down.
Organized by the Vets4Vets group and staffed by about 100 volunteers, the stand-down gives vets free clothing, survival gear, haircuts, medical and dental exams, mental health assessments and counseling.
It's designed to help vets like Mel Deppneier, an Army vet from the 1960s, who had been camping under a bridge in Great Falls for the past four years but lost virtually everything he owned this spring when the Missouri River rose nearly out of its banks and flooded his camp. Four or five sleeping bags were reduced to a soggy, muddy mess.
"I could use a couple new sleeping bags," said Deppneier, a wiry 63-year-old with a bushy salt-and-pepper beard who makes his living collecting aluminum cans in company of his old Dalmatian, Sarah. "And I need a good military-issue poncho."
Last year, it was raining on stand-down day, and Deppneier decided not to leave his tent, but Don Scott, one of the volunteers, dropped off a new sleeping bag and some cold-weather gear.
Organizers believe they served more than 200 vets and about 400 people, including family members. Thirty-eight percent of the vets reported a service-connected disability, and 14 percent were homeless.
Stand-down volunteers brought in two semi-truck loads of surplus gear, about 63,000 pounds, and gave away about 35,000 pounds of it — duffel bags full of fatigue pants and shirts, underwear, socks, raingear and overcoats.
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A Letter in Memory
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI) commented today on a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, the latest in a number of reports on the Department of Defense’s failure to adequately assess the post-deployment health of returning servicemembers. Akaka, Chairman of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee and a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, stressed the need for the Department of Defense to aggressively address deployment-related health issues.
“The Department of Defense owes it to servicemembers to ensure adequate assessment and reassessment of their health after they return from deployment,” said Akaka. “They have committed to defend our freedom, and in return, we have committed to protect their health and wellbeing. Our troops and their families are too important to let any potential mental health issues slip through the cracks.”
The report issued September 4, 2008 by the Government Accountability Office, found several problems with DOD oversight of the post-deployment health reassessment (PDHRA). While DOD has developed requirements for administering the PDHRA, the Department is unable to determine whether servicemembers are completing their reassessments. This report follows a June 2007 GAO finding that DOD does not collect or provide Congress with the information necessary for the Congress to evaluate the military’s compliance with post-deployment health assessment regulations. GAO noted that while DOD agreed to the recommendations in the June 2007 report, the Department failed to incorporate those recommendations into DOD’s oversight practices.
According to GAO, DOD is unable to exercise oversight for post-deployment health assessments and reassessments. In response, DOD has concurred with some of GAO’s recommendation, but also suggested that oversight is beyond the scope of the quality assurance programs. Chairman Akaka responded, “Oversight is a necessary function and an essential component of the Department of Defense’s mandate to perform quality assurance. The post-deployment health of our troops depends on the DOD’s ability to collect and manage all necessary and relevant information. I will continue to work to ensure that the DOD improves its accountability to both decision makers in Congress and to our nation’s servicemembers and their families.”
Various studies and reports have found that warzone deployment puts servicemembers at risk of mental health issues that can be crippling if left untreated. For example, a recent RAND study found that nearly one in five troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan report symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression. Other research suggests that mental health issues are more likely to be detected during post-deployment health reassessments, which occur months after servicemembers return from deployment, than during earlier assessments.
For more information contact Daniel Kawika Riley (Chairman, Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs) (202) 224-9126 email: Kawika_Riley@vetaff.senate.gov
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama promised Wednesday to expand Montana's pilot program to assess the mental health of combat vets nationwide, if elected.
The Montana National Guard has developed a program to check its soldiers and airmen for signs of post-traumatic stress disorder every six months for the first two years after returning from combat, then once a year thereafter. The program exceeds national standards set by the U.S. Department of Defense.
The pilot program was created in response to the suicide of former Army Spc. Chris Dana of Helena, who shot himself on March 4, 2007, days after being given a less-than-honorable discharge because he could no longer handle attending drills following a tour in Iraq.
"He (Obama) told me he understood why we need to have additional screenings for PTSD," said Matt Kuntz, Dana's stepbrother, who was among a small group invited to meet with Obama on Wednesday in Billings. "And he told me when he is elected president, he will implement Montana's pilot program nationwide."
Kuntz, who recently gave up his job as a lawyer in Helena to advocate for the mentally ill and their families, said he was invited to brief Obama on how Montana had become a national model for assessing the mental health of its combat vets.
Besides the additional screenings, the Montana National Guard has developed crisis response teams that include a chaplain to investigate behavioral problems among its troops, and TriWest Healthcare pays to have four part-time counselors on hand to talk with soldiers and airmen during weekend drills.
After the briefing, Obama spent about 20 minutes telling several hundred veterans and their families that, if elected as president, he will be committed to meeting their needs.
He told the largely partisan crowd that his Republican rival, John McCain, deserves gratitude, but not votes, for his years of military service.
McCain is a former Navy pilot who served two decades in the military, including more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam after his plane was shot down during a bombing mission.
McCain spokesman Tom Steward said "Obama's rhetoric does not match his record," and pointed out the Democrat voted last year against a bill funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Obama said, at the time, that he did not want to give a "blank check" to continue the war in Iraq without a timeline for troop withdrawals.
Steward said he was confident McCain's record would be enough to maintain GOP loyalty among veterans. He added that some of the Arizona senator's fellow POWs would appear with him at next week's Republican convention in Minneapolis.
"No one knows better than Sen. McCain what veterans have put on the line for our country," Steward said.
Obama's speech to Montana veterans on Wednesday came a day before Obama is scheduled to accept his party's nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
If elected, the Illinois senator has pledged to secure more funding for veterans' health programs, improve mental health treatment for soldiers returning from war and end the war in Iraq. By reaching out to the nation's 25 million veterans, the Obama campaign is hoping to make inroads on a constituency that traditionally leans Republican.
Montana has the second highest concentration of veterans in the country — 16 percent of its voting-age population.
"(Obama) took a lot of questions from the audience," Kuntz said of the Billings event. "And he didn't have to look at any notes. He had it all there in his head.
"Perhaps the thing that blew me away the most is that he gets it — he understands what we're doing here and why it's important," Kuntz said. "I was blown away. After it was all over, I teared up - couldn't even talk."
VISTA – A once-dismissed therapy for mental disorders is gaining a following among San Diego medical experts who treat combat veterans.
Social workers, chaplains and psychiatrists from Naval Medical Center San Diego and Camp Pendleton are learning the Emotional Freedom Technique, an unorthodox method that even its creator can't explain precisely.
It and a treatment that uses virtual reality are two of the enterprising approaches being tried at the medical center to alleviate combat-induced psychological wounds.
The Emotional Freedom Technique was developed by Stanford engineer Gary Craig in the 1990s. It was largely ignored by the mental health establishment because no one had conducted a study on its effectiveness.
But Jeannie Ertl, a senior clinical social worker at the medical center, gave the technique a chance in November.
She and many of her patients are happy that she did.
"EFT is tremendous for treating anxiety associated with post traumatic stress disorder," Ertl said.
She has tried the method on 15 patients, 12 of whom found it helpful at relieving or eliminating symptoms such as anxiety and stress. Ertl uses the technique, which hasn't been approved by the Defense Department, in conjunction with more traditional therapies.
"It seems to work for a lot of people," she said.
Seaman Wilbur Hurley is one of them.
Hurley, a 20-year-old corpsman, returned to Camp Pendleton in October plagued with horrible visions. In mid-September, he had witnessed a young Marine kill himself while serving in Iraq. It was just weeks before Hurley returned to his base at Camp Pendleton.
"I don't care what happened in Iraq," Hurley promised himself. "What happened there would stay there."
But back home in Calvert County, Md., Hurley couldn't erase the image of the dead Marine.
"I felt like a black cloud was over my head every day," Hurley said. "I had vivid dreams of walking through fields of gore. I isolated myself from friends and family."
By early December, anxiety attacks sometimes made Hurley pull to the side of the road until his tremors passed.
Willing to try something new, Hurley followed a friend's advice and went to Susan Hannibal, a self-described intuitive healer from Vista who uses the Emotional Freedom Technique to treat stress, anxiety and post traumatic stress disorder. It was Hannibal who taught the technique to Ertl and several military chaplains.
Hannibal explained to Hurley how the method is based on the same theory as acupuncture – that the body is an energy field with points that can be manipulated to restore health.
Patients focus on a traumatizing event while repeating a self-affirming chant and tapping parts of their body, such as their hands, lips and sides. A typical session is about 90 minutes, and some results can be seen after a single session.
"Once I started doing the tapping, an overwhelming calm came over me," Hurley said. "I had no cares or worries in the world. In fact I left Sue's (office) singing. It was pretty much the greatest day of my life."
Hurley spent that weekend trying to summon bad feelings just to prove that he could stay calm. He concentrated on the worst cases he'd seen while patching up Marines for seven months in Ramadi. He also thought about the suicidal Marine.
"But I felt nothing. It wasn't there anymore," Hurley said.
More then a month later, Hurley said he believes that what happened in Iraq is finally staying there.
"Nothing that happened over there ruins my day now," he said.