Welcome back to another issue of the roundup.
Stories inside include: Wisconsin's Returning Troops, Outgoing Congress Gives Vets Needed Improvements, Female Fort Lewis AWOL Soldier Has PTSD, Returning Troops 'Stung' by Stateside Healthcare Treatment, Senators Call for Army Mental Health Services Investigation, Common PTSD Med Guanfacine As Effective As Placebo, 25,000 and more.
P.S. I'll be on the radio program "About Face" today and tomorrow. See all the details at the bottom of the diary or read more.
25,000
This week, on Monday, December 11, we arrived at 25,000 (22,000+ wounded, nearly 3,000 dead) official U.S. military casualities in Iraq. Newsweek presents a powerfully narrated interactive photo journal, Glenn Kutler of icasualties.com providing a steady analysis of the grim numbers, examining trends since the start of the invasion in March 2003 in this stunning presentation.
Transcribed from the program:
- 25,000 U.S. military casualties
- 22,057 WIA (as of 16 Dec 2006)
- 2,942 KIA (as of 16 Dec 2006)
- 22 days of initial fighting to take the country (April 9, 2003)
- Human cost to take country: 122 KIA (approx. 5 KIA/day)
- 5-month initial occupation following invasion
- 80% reduction in U.S. troop death rate during occupation (approx. 1 KIA/day)
- 96% of U.S. KIA since 'Mission Accomplished' speech
Kutler says that the killing of Saddam's sons was the first uptick on the insurgency. The UN mission bombing further shocked all involved; the reality of an organized insurgency was now apparent.
Year two, 2004, was the most violent period of the war. 936 dead, more than 9,000 wounded. April 2004, when Abu Ghraib became a household name, was the worst month. That also coincides roughly with the first subduing of Fallujah after four contractors were kidnapped, killed and burned and dragged through the streets, and finally hung from a bridge by a celebratory crowd the townspeople.
The second taking of Fallujah, in November 2004, produced the deadliest week of the war: 67 casualties. That month remains, not surprisingly, the most lethal as well, with 137 KIA.
Returning Troops 'Stung' by Stateside Healthcare Treatment
By Diane M. Grassi in The Conservative Voice:
There is no longer a shortage of laws and regulations in place as existed during Viet Nam or during the Gulf War with respect to mandated healthcare screenings for returning soldiers. But a lack of political will by the Department of Veterans Affairs in concert with the DOD added to a lack of oversight by a lethargic U.S. Congress, has made life extremely difficult for soldiers with acute mental health problems or those hoping to avoid them by seeking help. ... Immediately, due to a shortage of manpower, troops are now being re-deployed to battle as many as five times with less and less time to decompress between tours of duty. ...
Colonel Elspeth Ritchie, an expert in psychiatry for the Army’s Surgeon General has insisted that the DOD still prioritizes the mental health of service members. But she admitted that, "Some practices, such as sending service members diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) back into combat had been driven in part by troop shortage." Absent of outwardly exhibiting symptoms of mental disorders such as PTSD, many troops fail to report their problems due to fear of retribution or are not aware there is a problem until they start acting out in other ways such as through drug or alcohol abuse.
Public Law 105-85, Section 762-767 enacted as part of the 1998 Defense Authorization Act was presented in 1997 in order to force the DOD to comply with both pre-deployment health assessment and post-deployment health assessment for returning soldiers as the result of healthcare problems them after the Gulf War. ... The 1998 law requires evidence that face-to-face interviews are done upon demobilization, but the DOD has refused to turn over such documentation to the Congress, for the past four years, in order to verify that it has been adequately done. Therefore, all of the regulations in the world are of little use unless there is implementation of said regulations. More>>
Outgoing Congress Gives Vets Needed Improvements
Outgoing Chairman of the US Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs will go down in history as being the one to author the final piece of comprehensive veterans health legislation passed into law by the Republican-controlled Congress. The $3.2 billion Veterans Benefits bill (S. 3421) was introduced by Sen. Larry Craig [R-ID], and passed on the last day of the 109th Congress.
Improvements include:
The new law will allow the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to:
- proceed with major construction projects across the country
- improve mental health care access
- enhance telehealth outreach
- increase assistance to address homelessness
- improve protections for veterans’ personal information
- establish an Office of Rural Health
- create a pilot program that makes non-VA facilities – such as private nursing homes or community hospitals – eligible for state veterans' home per diem payments
- reimburse veterans homes run by state governments for costs of care provided to veterans with a 70 percent or higher service-connected disability
- veterans in those homes – veterans with service-connected conditions rated at least 50 percent disabled – will be able to obtain their medications from the VA
"This change will allow veterans to stay closer to home and loved ones. I think that’s important," Craig said.
Among its many provisions, the bill adds $65 million to increase the number of clinicians treating post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and $2 million for additional blind rehabilitation specialists and increases the number of facilities where the specialists will be located. It also authorizes VA to designate six Parkinson's Disease Research, Education, and Clinical Centers of Excellence, and at least two Multiple Sclerosis Centers of Excellence.
From the Eugene Register-Guard:
Suzanne Swift, the soldier who faces a summary court-martial for being absent without leave for 123 days, is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a document spelling out the facts that both she and the military prosecutor agree on.
Swift is the 22-year-old military police specialist from Eugene who said she dodged a second tour of duty in Iraq and went absent without leave last January because she couldn't face the possibility of a second round of the sexual harassment that dogged her first overseas tour. ... The preliminary agreement includes those details under the heading "relevant facts" while noting that the official investigation substantiated only the last incident.
Also under the relevant facts section: "Both the government and the defense agree that the accused has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder."
Wisconsin's Returning Troops
Reporter Nathan Comp of Madison's excellent Isthmus paper delivers a comprehensive piece on how local vets are transitioning back to life at home and dealing with the VA. Latest combat PTSD stats, too.
Comp also makes note of the work that ePluribus Media and I have been doing on the PTSD Timeline -- work difficult to cheer, but that we are pleased to see being used to inform others.
Hard to choose which grafs to highlight; here are a few:
Slowly, very slowly, Thomas Staskal is coming to grips with things he saw and did in Iraq. He is depressed, anxiety-prone and has an acute fear of crowds. Since returning home to the Green Bay area in November 2005, the 25-year-old Army reservist has lost three jobs and flunked out of college. Common things, like a flash of lightning, can induce the shakes. ...
Rarely is a soldier’s return seamless, but for battle-weary vets like Staskal, post-traumatic stress disorder can crash their landing in the civilian world. ... Staskal and his girlfriend moved to Madison in August, just before the start of the new school year. When he tried enrolling at the local VA hospital, he learned that transferring his file from Appleton would take 30 days. After that, he’d be put on the waiting list. Meanwhile, time was running out on the two years of VA benefits that reservists are given.
"If you are on active duty, there’s a lot more help," says Staskal. "The reservists get shafted. I don’t function 100% and the Army should help me, but they’re not. You can’t just use us then leave us out to dry, which seems to be what’s happening."
Senators Call for Army Mental Health Services Investigation
Aftershocks from the NPR Fort Carson investigation, from UPI:
Three U.S. senators Thursday called for in investigation into mental health services for Army soldiers suffering from PTSD. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., asked for an investigation into 'troubling allegations' that soldiers at Fort Carson, Colo., are being denied treatment for post-traumatic stress disorders, according to a report by National Public Radio.
NPR reported that two sergeants admitted they 'often refuse to allow soldiers under their command to attend mental health treatment sessions for PTSD. They said people claim PTSD from combat deployments as a means of avoiding being sent back to Iraq, or of getting out of the military.
'It is tremendously problematic that Ft. Carson officials take it upon themselves to make medical determinations without input from mental health professionals,' the senators said in a Dec. 7 letter to the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, Dr. William Winkenwerder.
Specifically, they want to know the average time in days soldiers at Fort Carson have to wait after requesting their first appointment with a mental health care professional, and then for follow up appointments; how many soldiers have sought treatment; how many have been diagnosed with PTSD or traumatic injury, and how many of those have been discharged.
Have been following Boxer's vet's advocacy; a real champion. Thank you to Bond and Obama, too.
Study: Common PTSD Med Guanfacine As Effective As Placebo
In a study funded by support from the Department of Veterans Affairs and appearing in the December 1, 2006 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, researchers found:
Guanfacine, a medication commonly prescribed to alleviate symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, is no more effective than a placebo, according to a study led by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center.
"There was no benefit at all, and there were several adverse side effects," says lead author Thomas Neylan, MD, medical director of the PTSD treatment program at SFVAMC. "People with symptoms of PTSD should probably stay away from this drug and others of its type."
Catch me on "About Face"
Tonight: December 16, 2006
Streaming at 3:00 pm PST/6:00 pm EST.
Or archived here sometime after broadcast.
Tomorrow: December 17, 2006
Streaming at 11:00 am MST/1:00 pm EST.
Call-in: In-Studio : 602-258-8800 - Toll Free : 800-989-1480
Thx 'Doc' Roerich, Kay, Dennis, Mark, and John.
A few more details on the show from the Progressive Radio Network website:
3 PM PST/6 PM EST About Face with Dennis Stout
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
This edition of About Face addresses post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that affects many veterans after returning from combat. Guests Ilona Meagher, editor of the weblog PTSD Combat, Dr. Robert Roerich, vice-president of the National Gulf War Resources Center, and Kay Shepherd of ePluribus Media discuss the nature of PTSD, how it affects veterans and their families and what can be done to assist in dealing with the problems PTSD causes.