‘The US military is exhausted”

A photograph with a message – and without a hope

By Sarah Lazare

The call for over 30,000 more troops to be sent to Afghanistan is a travesty for the people of that country who have already suffered eight brutal years of occupation.

It is also a harsh blow to the US soldiers facing imminent deployment.

As Barack Obama, the US president, gears up for a further escalation that will bring the total number of troops in Afghanistan to over 100,000, he faces a military force that has been exhausted and overextended by fighting two wars.

Many from within the ranks are openly declaring that they have had enough, allying with anti-war veterans and activists in calling for an end to the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with some active duty soldiers publicly refusing to deploy.

The architects of this war would be well-advised to listen to the concerns of the soldiers and veterans tasked with carrying out their war policies on the ground.

Many of those being deployed have already faced multiple deployments to combat zones: the 101st Airborne Division, which will be deployed to Afghanistan in early 2010, faces its fifth combat tour since 2002.

“They are just going to start moving the soldiers who already served in Iraq to Afghanistan, just like they shifted me from one war to the next,” said Eddie Falcon, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Soldiers are going to start coming back with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), missing limbs, problems with alcohol, and depression.”

Many of these troops are still suffering the mental and physical fallout from previous deployments.

Fort Campbell tries to address the consequences of exhausted soldiers.

As far back as 1919, exhausted warriors suffer numerous medical complications.

Symptoms Of Hyperthyroidism Observed In Exhausted Soldiers, by W. Johnson © 1919 BMJ Publishing Group.

McClatchy has a blog dedicated to the perils facing “Wounded Warriors” a collection of veterans coverage from the McClatchy Washington Bureau, McClatchy Newspapers, and other sources

As far back as 2004, MSNBC recognized and warned about some of the consequences facing returning troops:

1 in 8 returning soldiers suffers from PTSD – But less than half with problems seek help, report finds

The Psychology Of Healing For Returning Soldiers And Their Families

Coping with the aftermath of war is challenging for returning soldiers and their families. Psychologists offered ways for individuals and their families to handle post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health problems that may arise.

Returning Soldiers Project – The United States is in the midst of a military conflict in Iraq that has involved thousands of men and women in the armed forces of this nation. These men and women are not only regular service people, but also reserves whose necessary service disrupts their lives in a variety of ways.

Walter Reed

Regardless of active duty or reserve status, soldiers are returning from Iraq or Afghanistan, from combat to civilian life to peace time. This return can happen in as little as 48 hours with

contemporary transportation capabilities. Surely that return brings with it a host of issues related to reunion with one’s family, friends, and colleagues. There may be physical issues related to injury and rehabilitation. There may be psychological dimensions of that return that are difficult to navigate. And there may be spiritual and religious dimensions to that return that must be addressed by the individual soldier.

In addition to the issues that an individual soldier might face upon a return from combat, there are the family and friends who may experience a range of emotions upon the return of their familymember or friend.
About the Returning Soldiers Project

The Returning Soldiers Project is a collaborative effort among Villanova faculty and staff members to address an important series of questions:

• What obligation does society have to assist the returning soldier, his or her family, and his or her friends, in the transition from war to peace?
• How ought society respond to the soldier’s need for healing, physical, psychological, and/or spiritual?
• Indeed, how ought society help to facilitate any forgiveness that a soldier needs, both from him- or herself, his family and friends, and the society that sent him or her to war?

Walter Reed Army Medical Center – Returning Wounded Warriors –

TruthHugger has often complained about the inadequate medical support system receiving troops and especially support contractors returning from hostile areas.  Whether its Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa or any of those secret places the American Public is not authorized to know about, the system has a great facade but little follow through.  The bureaucratic obstacle course is almost as traumatic as the environment that caused casualties in the first place.  The physically and mentally harmed are damaged again and again then returned to a socially unprepared, uneducated and inadequate environment.  Accountability is spotty and easily denied by a government that addresses the issue as an afterthought.  Playing catch up, the US Government scrambles to clean up its negligent, short sighted support system.  The best attention is being provided at smaller levels like specific military bases, specific veterans associations and non-profit agencies.  But, the largest institution that falls short is still the same one that puts it’s human capital into dangerous and traumatic environments.

Returning from one traumatic environment to another can be a knock out blow to many returning people.  There should be no distinction between US Military and US Support Contractors, whether you like them or not.  These returnees are expected to incorporate back into, what America calls, a stable, productive and civilized society. Then, they are expected to resume whatever life they left behind. Move along.  Forget about it, don’t talk about it, unless your social circle was  with you in the trenches, your family and friends cannot relate to your experiences or your dreams.  They cannot see your dreams.  They don’t understand you are seeing them much differently than you did before you went on a violent adventure.

The worst insult for returning warriors and support contractors is the misunderstanding of their problems.  America’s focus fixates on the monetary expense first and the human expense second.  Mental issues caused by repeated psychological trauma is something Americans cannot deal with unless they work in the medical field.  Medical expenses must be factored in when calculating war funding instead of manufacturing new destructive toys to profit generals and senators.  After all, bringing industry to your constituency is so patriotic … and profitable.

Returning to America is as traumatic as leaving it.  Culture shock.  It does not have to be that way.  Weary soldiers must be helped by allowing them to recover before expecting them to incorporate back into society.  The consequences; they remain broken, traumatized and hazardous. Hazardous?  Yes, the collateral damage to families sending their loved ones into harms way, then receiving a changed person back is very disruptive and can spread the toll of psychological trauma.

Polarization.  Watching it happen is watching history repeat itself.  American media is focusing on Hasan’s religion more than the cause for his meltdown.   The negligence of the American military to adhere to the precepts of their own American Constitution, First Amendment and take the human condition seriously seems to be ignored by the pre-programmed media. If Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press … then the US Military has failed Congress and the people of the United States.  The American Military Complex is equally responsible for the environment that caused the unnecessary tragedy at Ft Hood.  Failing to enforce the American motto of “Liberty and Justice

Troops’ mental health in spotlight

Civilization has experimented with polarization to achieve goals sought by it’s leaders throughout history. Today, the children of Abraham reach for their ‘self-fulfilling’ moment as described by their prophets.  They seek Armageddon to vindicate themselves.  They reach for it using terror.  Pointing their fingers at every crime, associating it with a specific religion allow their followers to fan the flames of hatred.  Each side feels they have exclusive possession of God. Each side feels divinely justified to suppress or destroy in the name of their prophet.  Whatever tipped Hasan over the edge, he just used his religion to justify his actions.  Tragedies don’t JUST happen.  We see Christians harass people every day, especially Muslims.  Anything to justify making another person’s life miserable, demeaning their means of worship, ethnicity, heritage or preference. Abraham is the common patriarch of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. The infighting among Abraham’s children will make Armageddon happen, as long as each sibling insists it will justify their abominable behavior.

The United States Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed …”  No where in the Declaration or Constitution does it permit radical, self proclaimed “warriors of Jesus” to be exempt from law or the rules founding this country.  Each sibling challenges and taunts the other without regard for collateral damage or consequences.  This is what took place in Kileen Texas.  Bible toting preachers have rallied thoughtless behavior from their congregations and given blessings, in the name of Jesus, to break America’s laws of equal rights.  Conversely, Imams have rallied equally radical behavior in the name of Muhammad.  Rabbis have justified the exclusion of non-jews from the land of their fathers, by quoting old scriptures claiming rights to disputed land from thousands of years ago.  Each child of Abraham has soiled it’s beginnings with extremism, corruption, and flaunting contradictions as truth.

Is Nadal Malik Hasan’s Religion Relevant? by Amy Sullivan

In general, conservatives have held up the shooting as a “we told you so” moment and lectured liberals about the dangers of trusting Muslims, especially in the armed forces. For their part, liberals have insisted Hasan was simply a lunatic whose rampage was unrelated to his religious affiliation and decry attempts to draw a connection as “double standards.”

Religious extremism: the good, the bad, and the deadly Laurence R. Iannaccone Department of Economics, George Mason University, Eli Berman Department of Economics, University of California at San Diego’ Prepared for a special issue of Public Choice on the Political Economy of Terrorism, edited by Charles Rowley.

Adam Smith laid the foundation for the economic analysis of religion in 1776. In The Wealth of Nations, Smith (1965, pp. 740-766) argued that self-interest motivates clergy just as it does secular producers; that market forces constrain churches just as they constrain secular firms; and that the benefits of competition, the burdens of monopoly, and the hazards of government regulation are as real for religion as for any other sector of the economy.

The political economy of freedom, democracy and terrorism PETER KURRILD-KLITGAARD, MOGENS K. JUSTESEN & ROBERT KLEMMENSEN,  Dept. of Political Science and Public Management, University of Southern Denmark

Social Fractionalization, Political Instability, and the Size of Government ANTHONY ANNETT (IMF) Working Paper No. 00/82 Published:  April 1, 2000

This paper explores the relationship between the degree of division or fractionalization of a country’s population (along ethnolinguistic and religious dimensions) and both political instability and government consumption, using a neoclassical growth model. The principal idea is that greater fractionalization, proxying for the degree of conflict in society, leads to political instability, which in turn leads to higher government consumption aimed at placating the opposition. There is also a feedback mechanism whereby the higher consumption leads to less instability as government consumption reduces the risk of losing office. Empirical evidence based on panel estimation supports this hypothesis. [JEL E62, 023]

When countries are heavily divided along ethnic, religious, communal, and regional lines, they are likely to experience bouts of political violence and are prone to the frequent breakdown of law and order. Clearly, serious conflict between competing groups, especially violent conflict, would be harmful to economic growth and the process of development. In such a divided country, can the government use expenditure to appease the competing groups and will this contain the potential conflict?

On The Roots of Religious Fractionalization by Murat Iyigun

RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM – RELIGIOUS RIGHT article collection compiled by Sheila Musaji

A very illuminating series by Professor Steven Yates

• The Four Cardinal Errors That Almost Destroyed America, Part 4, 10-1-09
• The Four Cardinal Errors That Almost Destroyed America, Part 3, 9-17-09
• The Four Cardinal Errors That Almost Destroyed America, Part 2, 9-27-09
• The Four Cardinal Errors That Almost Destroyed America, Part 1, 9-13-09

Looking to Other Religions, and to Atheism, for Clarity in Faith

Colin Powell speech at the University of Oklahoma: “What is the greatest threat facing us now?” Powell asked. “People will say it’s terrorism. But are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No. … The only thing that can really destroy us is us.

We shouldn’t do it to ourselves, and we shouldn’t use fear for political purposes—scaring people to death so they will vote for you, or scaring people to death so that we create a terror-industrial complex.”

We’re spending an enormous amount of money on homeland security, and I think we should spend whatever it takes. But I think we have to be careful that we don’t get so caught up in trying to throw money at the terrorist and counter-terrorist problem that we’re essentially creating an industry that will only exist as long as you keep the terrorist threat pumped up. … Let’s make sure that we are spending money on the right things and not spending money just to spend money.”

The original model for Powell’s statements — President Eisenhower’s 1961 farewell address — was primarily concerned with the threat to a free society of granting “unwarranted influence” over US policy to a “military-industrial complex” of defense contractors and national security think-tanks that might “endanger our liberties or democratic processes.”

Don’t forget Timothy McVeigh was a radical Christian who prayed before he set off the bomb in Oklahoma City.

Shooting Violence: A Reason Why?

If the state of Medicare and Veteran’s Health Care is an example, of how the US Government runs medical service, the Uninsured American Public should be very afraid.  If I had to choose between high priced arrogant profiteering insurance corporations and uninspired, underpaid, uninterested bureaucratic medical providers, I would hitchhike to Mexico or Canada. This is what Republicans, Health Insurance Conglomerates and ‘Big Pharma’ would like you to believe.

Obama does not describe this scenario, Republicans do. Obama will let the government act as your insurer, you will choose your provider as you normally would, but, like Medicare, the government would pay your doctor “at Medicare rates”.  As much as I want to see universal coverage available to America’s Uninsured, government bureaucracy will be the same as Medicare, the only screw up will be those who use it fraudulently.

Obama has not restored government accountability to my satisfaction.  I am part of Obama’s cheerleading squad, but there is practicality to contend with.  Obama has a long way to go toward dismantling those little bureaucratic empires that permeate US Government Agencies.  As long as those empires, kingdoms and fiefdoms exist in every agency the Congress creates, there will be no streamlined, reliable systems for the government to offer.  Obama has a daunting task before him because, he has to satisfy all those contributers, political allies and lobbyists in order to get anything done.  That is called the “Political Machine”.  I was convinced Obama had a well lubricated machine to get those things done that he promised.  What I see today is a Political Machine with so many monkey wrenches thrown at it, that it will be miraculous for anything to get done.  Universal Health Care opponents use sneaky and vile ways to undermine getting this program on its feet.  Because Republicans are grasping at straws, they throw the dirtiest, self serving rhetoric they can invent, to distort Obama’s Health agenda.  They are bound and determined to take their revenge on Obama by screwing the American Public.  Republican spokespersons have carefully promoted extremist behavior and lauded acting out by their less stabile, hateful minions.  Hate mongers are having pep rallies everywhere and some are starting to act out destructively … domestic terrorism is part of their extremist agenda.  Guantanamo should stay open to receive US Domestic Terrorists only.

Obama’s Health Care push is becoming watered down daily as he tries to satisfy the hundreds of special interests that are tied to his administration.  Not unlike other Presidents that preceded him.

Health Care Reform, NYT

• President Obama took his health care overhaul proposal to one of its more skeptical audiences, telling doctors at the American Medical Association conference in Chicago that the United States is “not a nation that accepts nearly 46 million uninsured men, women and children.” June 15, 2009
• In closed-door talks, President Obama has been making the case that reducing malpractice lawsuits — a goal of many doctors and Republicans — can help drive down health care costs, and should be considered as part of any health care overhaul. June 14, 2009
• President Obama said he intends to pay for his health care overhaul partly with cuts in hospital payments. June 13, 2009
• President Obama, taking his case for a health care overhaul directly to the American people, vigorously defended his call for a government-sponsored health plan to compete with private insurers. June 12, 2009
• Opposition by the American Medical Association could be a hurdle for advocates of a government-sponsored insurance plan. June 11, 2009
• A study found that small businesses, already burdened by high health care costs, could save money under a mandate to purchase coverage for employees. June 11, 2009

Hospital stocks fall after Obama proposes cuts

Obama health care push coming to prime time on ABC

VAOIG Statements to Congress:

Statement of Michael L. Shepherd, M.D., Senior Physician, Office of Healthcare Inspections, Office of Inspector General, Department of Veterans’ Affairs Before the Subcommittee on Health Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, United States House of Representatives Hearing on Charting the VA’s Progress on Meeting the Mental Health Needs of Our Veterans: Discussion of Funding, Mental Health Strategic Plan, and the Uniform Mental Health Services Handbook, April 30, 2009 [4/30/2009 PDF 57 KB]

Over 10,000 war vets want answers as to why they were put at risk of infections

Daily Outrage: Nonsterile equipment at VA hospitals

VA patients hope for real answers: Congress to address contamination at hospitals

Chronology of VA endoscopy controversy, excerpt:

Feb. 9: VA begins sending out notification letters to veterans who received colonoscopies offering free testing for HIV and hepatitis. About 6,800 patients at Murfreesboro and 1,070 at Augusta receive letters.

March: Improper cleaning procedure at Miami hospital discovered, affecting up to 2,400 veterans. Mail notifications begin to those veterans.

April 1: VA announces 11 Murfreesboro hospital patients have tested positive for hepatitis.

April 17: VA announces a Murfreesboro hospital patient tested positive for HIV.

May 18: VA records show about 8,000 of the 10,500 possibly affected patients have been notified of their follow-up blood test results.

May 21: VA officials give Congress a briefing, drawing criticism for not proceeding quickly enough with notifications.

June 8: VA reports that at Murfreesboro a total of 27 have tested positive for hepatitis, one for HIV. At Miami, 11 have tested positive for hepatitis, three for HIV. At Augusta, nine have tested positive for hepatitis, two for HIV.

June 16 and 24: Scheduled congressional hearings in Washington with the goal of looking into what caused the problems and what the VA has done to fix them.

Excerpts from: The United States Inspector General, August 2008 report,

Issue 1: PCT and PTSD Treatment Program Leadership
The complainant alleged that there is no full-time Medical Director of the PCT and that the program directors for the PCT and the PTSD Program are competent and concerned,but serve multiple roles as clinicians, researchers, and program directors. It was also alleged that their research responsibilities detracted from the time available for direction of the clinical program.
We substantiated that the designated Medical Director for the PCT and PTSD Program does not function as a full-time medical director. At the time of our review, the Medical Director, a psychiatrist, was only available for program management and clinical care 0.5 days per week and did not substantively participate in the operations of the PCT orthe PTSD Program.

Issue 2: Clinical Staffing and Access to Treatment
The complainant alleged that as a result of the absence of full-time clinic direction andstaff fragmentation, there was no consistent treatment plan or program for OIF/OEFveterans with PTSD. He stated that patientsare seen within the prescribed period of time by a psychiatrist somewhere in the system but that there is inadequate staffing to provide treatment programs, except for some formulaic, time-limited groups run by interns, and to provide real individual therapy.

Issue 3: OEF/OIFCase Management
VHA requires that each returning combat veteran seeking treatment at a VA facility be assigned a case manager and that an adequate number of case managers be designated based on the workload. A VHA handbook states that the standard caseload should be 25–30 patients per case manager.12 At the time of our review, 260 OEF/OIF veterans were identified as needing case management, and the OEF/OIF Care Management Program had only three case managers.

Issue 4: Prioritization of Clinical Care Versus Research
The complainant alleged that research has been given inappropriate priority over clinical PTSD care. VHA’s mission includes clinical care, teaching, and research, and there is an expectation that all three may be achieved concurrently. It is also expected that neither teaching nor research should be allowed to detract from clinical care, which is the foremost priority.

NYT: Obama Tries to Woo Doctors on Health Care

“I understand that you are concerned that today’s Medicare rates will be applied broadly in a way that means our cost savings are coming off your backs,” Mr. Obama said, in the keynote address at the A.M.A. annual meeting. “These are legitimate concerns, but ones, I believe, that can be overcome.”

Mr. Obama’s quick trip to Chicago to try to sell doctors on his health proposal is part of a wider White House effort to push what is a central tenet of Mr. Obama’s domestic policy program. He called health reform central to the American economy, and promised that he could enact his ambitious plan without burdening the budget deficit.

What’s wrong with Obama’s health care plan

Why can Canadian Military recognize that exposure to battle and drugs have terrible consequences, and America’s military deny it? Is it because of the high cost of ‘after care’?  It is because the military is trying to diminish it’s responsibility, or is it because they prefer to spend their resources on fancy new and deadly toys?

Mental toll on soldiers skyrockets

More than 1 in 5 returning from Afghanistan suffer psychiatric problems, documents show

… as of April 2008, 700 Canadian soldiers and Mounties who had served on the Afghan front lines – 19 per cent of all forces deployed – had qualified for medical release from the Canadian Forces or RCMP with a “pensionable psychiatric condition,” but warned of a dramatic hike in those numbers.

… the documents say that longer, multiple and more dangerous deployments “have led to an increase in the prevalence of operational stress injuries among the members of these organizations.”

“Is it an epidemic? No,” said retired Canadian colonel Don Ethell, head of the mental health advisory committee for the military and RCMP. “It’s just finally a realization that in addition to physical injuries, the maimed and the injured and so forth, it’s also a mental price that Canadians have to pay and many of them, and many of us, have paid that without knowing where to go.”

Another reason for the jump appears to be an effort by the military and government to quickly identify and treat individuals with post-traumatic stress before their conditions worsen. Untreated cases in the past have resulted in tragic and horrifying cases of drug addiction, assault, rape and even suicide.

None of the mental health staff on the tour was trained in addiction counselling – a clear problem given that some troubled soldiers mask their problem with alcohol and drugs.

A staff psychologist had to leave before all the soldiers had rotated through the decompression zone, leaving the mental health team without one of its top experts. A number of soldiers were also not pre-screened for “psychosocial” problems before departing Kandahar, meaning some early warning signs may have gone unaddressed.

“Military members should be quickly screened by a (mental health) professional before they leave the theatre to briefly access their support needs during the (decompression) and their reintegration,” the report says.

Drug Addiction, And Misery, Increase In Afghanistan

Morning Edition, April 16, 2009 · A growing number of Afghans — including children — are escaping the pain of war and poverty by using opium or heroin, for as little as a dollar a day.  A United Nations survey begun this month is widely expected to show that at least 1 in 12 people in Afghanistan abuses drugs — double the number in the last survey four years ago.

‘Coming Home: Soldiers and Drugs’ – In Their Own Words

Vietnam War and Drugs: Essay Excerpt

Marijuana, Amphetamines, Opium and Heroin were a serious problem from 1968 onward during the Vietnam War. In 1968 50 percent of American service men used drugs, after Tet Offensive drugs rose dramatically. By 1970 that number had jump to 65 percent. Drugs were cheap and very available. They were a way for the soldiers to ‘escape’ from the pure anxiety and stress of combat while filling the bored time.

Vietnam-Era Drug Problems Last for Decades, Study Finds

Although young men from the Vietnam War era have reduced their use of illicit drugs as they have moved into middle age, some still have a problem, a new study shows. The men who were young during the Vietnam War are now in their 40s and 50s. One visualizes them, both veterans and non-veterans, as seasoned by desk jobs or steady work, very possibly married and responsible for families. The war era and the turbulent 1960s, with the widespread use of illicit drugs, is now long behind them. Or is it?

It is VERY interesting that there were few follow up stories to the ABC Documentary:

ABC investigates ‘soldiers hooked on drugs’

Editor’s Note from Brian Ross: In the third year of a joint project with the nonprofit Carnegie Corporation, six leading graduate school journalism students were again selected to spend the summer working with the ABC News investigative unit.

This year’s project involved an examination of whether, as happened in the wake of the Vietnam War, Iraqi war veterans were turning to drugs as a result of the trauma and pain of war.

The U.S. military maintains the percentage of soldiers abusing drugs is extremely small and has not increased as a result of Iraq.

The students’ assignment was to get the unofficial side of the story from soldiers, young men of their own generation.

“Lots of soldiers coming back from Iraq have been using drugs,” said Spc. William Swenson, who was deployed to Iraq from Fort Carson. “Right when we got back, there were people using cocaine in the barracks; there were people smoking marijuana at strip clubs; one guy started shooting up,” he said.

In interviews with ABC News at the Pentagon, however, the U.S. Army strongly denied there was an increase in drug abuse among soldiers deployed to Iraq.   According to Dr. Ian McFarling, acting director of the Army Center for Substance Abuse Programs, less than one half of one percent of soldiers in Iraq have tested positive for illegal drugs.    But Dr. McFarling said that once soldiers return from Iraq, the positive rate for drug tests doubles to more than one percent. In addition, Dr. McFarling said five percent of soldiers back from Iraq seek help for substance abuse issues from clinical providers.

OK conspiracy nuts, if you want a detailed account of America’s hand in Global Drug activities from the 1960s, you would enjoy this article from DrugWar.com:

Drug War: Covert Money, Power & Policy: CIA/Syndicate

Where are we going with this history lesson? Aside from the similarities with Vietnam, Afghanistan is  the “high end” CANDY STORE for the world. With all the hoopla about convincing Afghan farmers to plow under their poppy fields and plant ‘Pomegranates’.

Afghanistan diary: Pomegranates not poppies

Alternatives to opium are being shown to farmers in Kabul, while Bagram sees the arrival of more US troops

Cover story: M features the story of James Brett, a former drug addict from Britain, who has devoted himself to replacing Afghanistan’s opium trade with pomegranates.

James Brett’s first glimpse of Afghanistan after crossing the Khyber Pass were poppies growing across the dusty miles of Torkham in April 2007. They stretched for hundreds of acres, the petals light and blowing in the breeze. A lone farmer stood in their midst, tending the crop. It wasn’t what Brett expected.

“The picture I envisaged was that of a load of terrorists packing up big bags of heroin to destroy the West,” he admits. The contrast between the innocence he perceived in that farmer and the loss of two friends to heroin overdoses back home in England haunted him as he continued to drive to Kabul, where he had been invited to give a speech to farmers about growing pomegranates instead of poppies.

“There is so much emptiness in the world and heroin maintains that emptiness,” he says.

The cannabis product had an estimated wholesale value of $400 million, a statement by the NATO-led ISAF force said on Wednesday.

With the availability of poppy products, methamphetamine and pharmaceuticals in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the middle east region, how can stressed or bored soldiers resist partaking of available drugs for recreation, coping and escape.  PTSD is notorious for reducing it’s victims will power and distorting perception.  PTSD must be considered an expected byproduct of traumatic wartime events.  Vietnam was just a taste of what can happen when stressed soldiers are offered a cheap escape from their condition.  Is it possible that many of the under-reported “accidents” and “unfortunate mistakes” that create high collateral damage, are caused by recreational escapism?  How many soldiers are “self medicating” as you read this post?

Drug exposure could actually explain why some returning veterans slip into deep depression upon returning home … they may be experiencing withdrawal from whatever they were taking during combat.  Of course, America’s military is very reluctant to admit this problem publicly. The military is already providing drugs to soldiers to alleviate pain, both mental and physical.  Some of those medications have been questioned, briefly, by the media.

There is also the possibility that America’s soldiers are being exposed to these drugs when they are slipped into the food supply or their water supply.  Hypothetically, whole combats units may be effected at one time.  I have not heard any official report discussing this possibility.  As it is, the military is famous for deliberately misdiagnosing soldiers for the convenience of keeping their statistics palatable to the media, and the ‘folks back home’.

Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report : Coverage & Access | Overdiagnosis of Concussions Among Veterans Leads to Delay in Care for Other Conditions, NEJM Article Says

A focus on concussions, or mild traumatic brain injury, is preventing soldiers returning from battle from being treated for other conditions, according to an article published on Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, USA Today reports (Zoroya, USA Today, 4/16). The article was co-authored by Carl Castro, a psychologist at the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command; Herb Goldberg, a communications specialist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center; and Charles Hoge, director of psychiatry and neuroscience at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

Currently, soldiers returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan undergo a survey in which they are asked if they became dazed and confused following an injury or exposure to a bomb blast in combat. The survey attributes such symptoms to mild TBI, according to the authors. However, the survey often is administered months after the injury was sustained, according to the article (Stobbe, AP/Austin American-Statesman, 4/15). The article states that the survey could cause unnecessary concern among the soldiers and might result in soldiers wrongly attributing certain symptoms to TBI, when they could have been caused by simple causes, such as sleep deprivation. The authors recommend that the current survey be discontinued because most servicemembers who sustain TBI in combat recover within days (USA Today, 4/16). Furthermore, soldiers who are misdiagnosed risk being unnecessarily exposed to drug side effects and other negative conditions, Hoge said (AP/Austin American-Statesman, 4/15).

The article also states that such symptoms often are caused by other conditions, such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder or substance abuse. The diagnoses for mild TBI could lead to delays in proper treatment of the other conditions, according to the authors. According to USA Today, the article — the authors of which have conducted some of the earliest influential research on conditions like PTSD for the military — suggest that the Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs are “relying on flawed science to identify” as many as 360,000 cases of brain injuries sustained by the returning veterans.

Reaction
The article has prompted Army Surgeon General Eric Schoomaker to decide that the TBI survey should be changed, according to a spokesperson for Schoomaker. However, some government and private researchers on TBI disagreed with the article’s findings and said that their recommendation could result in some soldiers receiving improper care. John Corrigan, an Ohio State University psychiatrist and researcher who advised VA on the screening process, said it is premature to suggest that most servicemembers who sustain TBI during combat recover within days.

David Hovda, director of the Brain Injury Research Center at the University of California-Los Angeles, said that veterans with mild TBI who do not receive timely treatment could develop long-term neurological problems. Rep Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), chair of the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force, cautioned against proceeding with “efforts that might restrict the Department of Defense’s ability to identify affected individuals and provide them with the proper care and compensation they deserve” (USA Today, 4/16).

Abundance Of Drugs Fuels Demand

The U.N.’s Jean-Luc Lemahieu calls it the “Coca-Cola effect.” The widespread abundance and affordability of the drugs have made them as ubiquitous and available as soft drinks.

“What people always forget is that not only demand creates supply, but supply creates demand,” said Lemahieu, the representative in Kabul for the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

But even at $1 or $2 a day, an opium or heroin fix in Afghanistan can easily become unaffordable.

More questions must be put to politicians who are supposed to “protect” American citizens, and their defenders. Politicians are quick to give ‘lip service’ to veteran’s health crisis.  Those same politicians will rant and rave about ‘out of control spending’,  while, at the same time,  they sneak their own pet pork projects into totally unrelated bills and resolutions.

Putting Americans in harm’s way is understood when ‘duty to country and flag’ is required.  These are a soldier’s creed.  It is NOT, however, in the soldier’s creed to forgo proper and thorough treatment to actual conditions incurred during combat zone deployment.  Modern soldiers are no longer the ‘throw away’ commodity they endured throughout history.  Military deployment remains a source of medical controversy when soldiers symptoms contradict the ‘company line’.  Effects from exposure to Agent Orange is still denied.  Effects from ‘Desert Storm’ Syndrome is still controversial.  Effects from drug, alcohol and prescription drug abuse are still being downplayed by military brass, with the exception of the actual doctors.  Where is the promised “TRANSPARENCY”?  When will the problem of medical honesty be required of today’s US Military?  The American Taxpayer has a right to know why veterans are not being  accurately diagnosed and treated for their conditions.  The American Taxpayer must be protected from some of the same veterans they depend on the keep them safe.

With all the news about health scams, this sharp issue cuts both ways into a tender target.  Todays insurance industry causes health care to become an assembly line. Actual patient issues are compartmentalized and tucked away into cost projections.  Of course there are uninsured people who use emergency rooms as their primary care provider.  Yes, these people have no choices, so they use a system that has little to offer anywhere else.  Substance abusers are most targeted for taking unfair advantage of emergency treatment.  But, with necessary health resources becoming so exclusive to guaranteed payment, the system is more complex for the general public. Too many uninsured people must resort to emergency rooms.

For outpatients with mental health issues, there are no options available beyond a fixed time frame for treatment … their families live with the burden.  These families cannot afford their own health care, let alone being responsible for a high maintenance mental case.  They are not doctors. They do not have the facilities to protect you, me or themselves.  So, why do we send people that require treatment home?  MONEY!

In Austin, Texas, a mental health patient was denied medication because he had no insurance, he went on a violent spree that ended in murder.

Updates:

Murder suspect had been out of prison three months before killing local actor, police say

After beating his mother’s roommate with a garden tool at their South Austin home Wednesday, Seth Tatum walked about three miles to the home of an Austin actor whom he had never met and killed him, according to an arrest affidavit.

Suspect in South Austin murder now in custody

The murder suspect reportedly drove right up on to the sidewalk in front of the Travis County jail, in a car that’s registered to the same address where the murder took place. Based on information Tatum gave them – police swarmed the South Austin neighborhood.

KEYE: Austin family members react to murder arrest

The family says they tried to get Tatum into Seton Shoal Creek Hospital so he could get medical attention and medication.   But Tatum’s mother says he was turned away because he doesn’t have insurance.

Actor Lou Perryman

The relative tells us Tatum gave him a brutal beating.  “Staples in my head, I got contusions and part of my thumb is gone now,” said the family member.  Thursday morning, police say Tatum drove a car to the Travis County Jail to turn himself in.  Minutes earlier police say he killed a man at a home on Darvone Circle.

KVUE: South Austin homicide victim was actor

KXAN:  Lou Perryman, 67, stabbed to death
Famous Texas actor attacked randomly, police say

On the set of The Whole Shootin' Match (l-r): art director Jim Rexrode, actor Sonny Davis and his dog, soundman Wayne Bell, an unidentified extra, director Eagle Pennell, assistant director Doug Holloway, and actor Lou Perryman

Police say Tatum stole the actor’s car and drove off. It wasn’t until the next day, Thursday, that Tatum turned himself in at the courthouse, telling authorities that the car he was driving was stolen and that he may have killed the car’s owner.

“[Tatum] said, ‘That’s a stolen car,’ and I’m pretty sure that I killed the owner of that car,” said Austin Police Detective Jose Chacon.

Tatum’s sister says the family was trying to get him help for his bipolar condition at the time of the crimes.

Perryman’s Legacy

Among Perryman’s most famous films were “The Whole Shooting Match,” “Poltergeist” and “The Blues Brothers.”  Perryman’s longtime friend, Wayne Bell, described the death as “…a heartbreaking loss.”  “You can see it in the ‘Whole Shooting Match’ and a few other films that he did something wonderful,” said Bell. “We’ll always be the better for it.”  “Lou Perryman was a special Austin character, an original Austin character,” said Bell.

Actor Lou Perryman Killed in S Austin

myFOXaustin (AUSTIN) – A member of Austin’s film community is found murdered in his home. The body of Louis Perryman was discovered Thursday. Police say the man, accused of the murder, drove to the Travis County Courthouse, surrendered and confessed. Police were already looking for the man, not for the murder, but because of an earlier incident on Wednesday at his mother’s house.

With bandages on his hands, and a fractured skull, Carl Drake is trying to make sense of the past 48 hours. Wednesday afternoon, while in his Glen Meadow Dr house Drake says he was attacked. According to a police warrant, the man responsible for the attack used hedge clippers, and identified as Seth Tatum. Investigators say Tatum is Drakes step-son. Seth Tatum recently moved into the Glen Meadow Dr home after serving time in state prison for aggravated robbery. Joan Tatum told investigators her son is bi-polar, off his meds and drinking. That information had officers launching an immediate search.

Seth Tatum

All over this country, news focuses on suicides and crimes related to the economy.  Why is there so little emphasis on what happens when medications are denied, when people fall out of their support system?  It is so easy for short sighted people to complain about a “nanny society” that coddles those ‘lazy bums’.  Well, some of those ‘lazy bums’ are recently released from prisons and mental facilities, because their ‘nanny system’ cannot afford them.  So, now its your problem and my responsibility to absorb the consequences.  Get a gun, get a dog, get heavier locks and gates if you want to isolate yourself from unattended mental time bombs.  Welcome to a ‘brave new world’ that prefers to deny PTSD, Bi-Polar, Schizophrenia, Paranoia and other combinations of social disorders.  Denial, avoidance and delusion are social disorders, too.  The general public has these disorders when it prefers to spend money on more comfortable services.  The list of mental and personality disorders is huge and most can be controlled with medication that corrects chemical imbalances effecting the brain.

When a person has been stabilized with medication for a long time, then the treatment stops, there is a period of withdrawal that can amplify the original condition and cause violence.  Where is the common sense here?  Each person on this planet has a seed of mental illness somewhere in their genetics.  Something can trigger that seed to grow into a full blown mental issue.  The poor state of limited and abbreviated mental health treatment is a condition that is as dangerous to civilization as global warming.

UPDATE:  Even though Tatum is not specifically described as a “mental health” patient, his family claims he was bi-polar and required medication for that condition.  Bi-Polar is on the list of serious mental conditions that require medical supervision for the sake of the patient and anyone coming in contact.  A health care system at the mercy of insurance driven profit motive, must no longer be endorsed by the politicians we elect to be our voice in state and federal legislatures.

MERCK List of Mental Disorders

More and more news stories involve people being mean to other people.  The general condition of America is stressing everyone.  That does not mean we have to take it out on each other.  Tempers are ready to blow at the slightest trigger.

Americans are getting meaner!

Yes, crime rises as personal desperation spreads across the country.  People are fast to blame a segment of our population for their woes.  Their children, their spouses, their neighbors, the system and the government are becoming targets of animosity.  This is a symptom of  personal tribulation, distress and suffering resulting from economic depression or perceived persecution.  The news media focuses on the worst case scenario and targets perpetrators of specific crimes of deception to scam money   from trusting people.  Trust is on the decline.  Skepticism is on the rise.  The mental attitude of  too many have been rebuilt as confrontational.

Conspiracy Theories are rampant as frustration explodes.   However, finger pointing and blaming does not improve your own personal crisis.  Looking directly at yourself will be the first step toward recovery.  How can you personally adapt to the conditions facing you?  If you can read this editorial, you have the resource to find help.  There are numerous web sites that offer constructive alternatives.  There are ‘self-help’ sites everywhere.  You are responsible for yourself and your family.  If you have a family, recruit everyone in self preserving decisions.  If you are alone, there are support groups.  Whether faith based or community based, there are others with similar problems.  This is called a co-op.

Wiki: A cooperative (also co-operative or coöperative; often referred to as a co-op or coop) is defined by the International Co-operative Alliance’s Statement on the Co-operative Identity as an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise^[1].

Do not sit alone and grieve over your situation.  If everyone did that, this America would have totally lost it’s definition.  You will have shamed your own ancestors.  You cannot compare your situation with anyone elses, so your solution must be unique to you.  History is full of revenge based solutions.  Any excuse would precipitate violent or oppressive behavior.  We have evolved beyond that.  We should know better.  We must act and behave smarter than those who preceded us.  We must restore the ability to adapt.  We must become a community again.  There is no excuse and no single person to strike.  Holding people accountable for criminal behavior is necessary.  Holding ourselves accountable for our own behavior is also necessary.  There is no place to run.  We must all be responsible.

Welfare economics is no longer an option.

Natural resource economics is our personal and social responsibility.

If we are to survive, we must rethink how we live.

Motivation is the set of reasons that determines one to engage in a particular behavior. The term is generally used for human motivation but, theoretically, it can be used to describe the causes for animal behavior as well. Human motivation. According to various theories, motivation may be rooted in the basic need to minimize physical pain and maximize pleasure, or it may include specific needs such as eating and resting, or a desired object, hobby, goal, state of being, ideal, or it may be attributed to less-apparent reasons such as altruism, morality, or avoiding mortality.

There are others who want major personal transformation, who aspire, to quote Henry David Thoreau, “to live with the license of a higher order of beings”.

Thoreau also wrote that most of us live lives of “quiet desperation”. Why? Why do so many people settle for drifting in the status quo sea of a second-rate survival? There are four reasons why most people settle for living on and on with negative issues that they could eliminate or dramatically improve. Each reason is associated with a category or group of people … While there is no such thing as a panacea that will magically make all your problems go away, advances in personal transformation now make positive personal change a reality for just about anybody.

Thoreau’s Four Reasons

“The first group of people has actually tried to make positive changes in the past but have had little or no success. They have relied completely on conscious mind technology and its tools of willpower, traditional affirmations, talk therapy and positive thinking. These tools of the conscious mind have their place, as far as they go. The problem is they usually don’t go very far. Willpower, for example, is excellent for brief bursts of activity or denial. But it usually proves useless for lasting results.

Second, many people, with their busy lives, are simply unaware that advances in personal transformation technologies have made relatively rapid and dramatic changes quite possible.

A third group of people have heard about such changes but are skeptical; they are especially skeptical that it will work for them.

Finally, a fourth group of people is neither unaware nor skeptical but have settled in to a comfort zone below their potential. They have become rather apprehensive about change, even positive change. Eventually, as the years pass by, these people frequently have major regrets about their failure to act and to make the most out of their lives.

The bottom line is that no matter what categories you do or do not fall into, positive change – often of a dramatic nature – can be yours. Yours no matter what the past has been, if – and it is a big if – if you really want it and are committed to it.”

• Medal will not be given solely for diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder
• Eleven percent of Iraq veterans, 20 percent of Afghanistan veterans may have PTSD
• PTSD “not a wound intentionally caused by the enemy,” awards panel decided
• Decision could be revised in the future, Pentagon says

“The Purple Heart recognizes those individuals wounded to a degree that requires treatment by a medical officer, in action with the enemy or as the result of enemy action where the intended effect of a specific enemy action is to kill or injure the service member,” according to a statement released by the Pentagon.

“PTSD is an anxiety disorder caused by witnessing or experiencing a traumatic event; it is not a wound intentionally caused by the enemy from an ‘outside force or agent’ but is a secondary effect caused by witnessing or experiencing a traumatic event,” the statement continued.

The distinction made by the US military, between physical damage and mental damage, is remarkable.  One wound you can see and one wound you cannot.  One leaves visible scars to prove the consequences of war. The other leaves invisible scars that twist your ability to cope with life.  Demeaning mental damage is the US military’s way of sweeping their failure to mentally prepare soldiers for the experiences they will encounter, beyond enemy engagement.  US soldiers have a social conscousness ingrained by the American lifestyle they came from.  They are not prepared for the horrors they encounter, which are very alien to their life experiences.  The US military does not encourage soldiers to vent their emotional frustrations, that would weaken their image and may infect fellow soldiers.  With no trustworthy outlet for emotional discrepancies, many soldiers feel the necessity to internalize their emotional pain.  Now planted, the seed of PTSD will grow and emerge, at an uncharted future moment, as a social disorder.

How dare the US military be so arrogant and backward as to decide that PTSD is just a pre-existing anxiety disorder, not deserving of honorable recognition.  For my neighbor, co-worker and long time friend whose PTSD finally caused him to take his life last year, I condemn the Military Brass for their arrogant and barbaric decision. BTW, my friend had several medals for honor and bravery, including a Purple Heart from the marines, for his visual wounds of course.

Bush, Cheney to skip GOP convention due to Gustav

Bush to go to Texas to oversee hurricane response

U.S. Gulf oil output at a trickle ahead of Gustav

HOUSTON (Reuters) – U.S. energy companies shut nearly all offshore oil production and were racing to bring down flood-prone Louisiana refineries on Sunday ahead of Hurricane Gustav’s landfall, which could rival the wrath of 2005′s Hurricane Katrina.  

Gustav holdouts turn to guns, knives and God

Will Gustav make Republicans wish for Jindal as VP?

A Brief History Of: FEMA

The Conspiracy Side

• In Depth: Hurricane Gustav
• McCain: Act like Americans
• Family or duty? Louisiana delegates torn
• Viewer’s Guide: Republican convention
• CNN.com Live: Complete coverage, all night

Gustav prompts major changes to convention agenda
The Republican National Convention will cut back most of its activities Monday because of Hurricane Gustav, Sen. John McCain said Sunday. Campaign manager Rick Davis said Republicans would meet in an abbreviated fashion, conducting only what was necessary to constitute a convention. “Tomorrow’s program will be business only and will refrain from any political rhetoric,” he said. Full story

TEXAS prepares for it’s own GUSTAV response while preparing to receive more evacuees from Louisiana and the Texas coast. AUSTIN is ready, again, to reach out to the displaced . . .  hopefully they will be in better shape this time.  Katrina brought BossKitty and NYTexan to the Austin Convention Center for the duration of their stay.  We learned much about the circumstances of a displaced NOLA population.  We saw heart felt, but clumsy attempts to comfort these shell shocked neighbors and strangers, and we picked up the slack where we could. The range of emotions was overwhelming.  The innocent and the guilty were lumped together, separated from their families, from all that was familiar, and ended up in what seemed another planet.  They had landed in an alien land, bringing their cultural strife with them.  There is no describing how different Louisiana is from what you and I are accustomed to.  Normal is defined VERY differently in Louisiana.  This is a state with a different understanding of class and rights based on a French Legal Foundation from the 1800s.  For too many, fear and mistrust of whites, pre-1960, was still ingrained. The culture that Austin inherited finally relaxed enough to share stories, with us, that would fill a host of novels.  The most distressing part of their evacuation was the total disregard for keeping families together.  Parents and children, husbands and wives were separated in the rush to evacuate, they were herded like cows and not told where they were going.  Katrina was indeed a modern diaspora.  Please don’t let this happen again … FEMA has a mulligan and it appears that Washington is paying attention this time.

Strapped for cash, some in New Orleans stay and hope

“You gotta make as much money as you can, because when we shut down — and we’re gonna shut down — that’s it for a long while,” the 26-year-old said, exhaling, a dribble of sweat rolling into his mouth.  “The thing is,” he continued, “most people don’t have cars to leave, don’t have money for gas. Pay for a hotel for that long? I mean, you have to do whatever you have to do, and I guess I’m gonna stay and work.”  Too many NOLA residents, like many of us, don’t have the resources to leave, just like last time.  Too many people are barely getting by with today’s economy, evacuating costs, even with government help, when it finally comes. People with pets are especially adamant about their extended family.  “Can’t take ‘em?  We just won’t go.”

Gov. Jindal to Hold Press Conference with DHS Secretary Chertoff & FEMA Administrator Paulison on Hurricane Gustav in Baton Rouge

Gustav prompts talk of altering RNC agenda

• President making plans in case he misses convention because of storm
• Sen. John McCain suggests hurricane may affect the Republican convention
• GOP source says convention may turn into a massive telethon
• Gulf state governors already have canceled trips to convention

McCain, Palin team up as Hurricane Gustav looms

WASHINGTON, Pa., Aug 30 (Reuters) – White House hopeful John McCain and running mate Sarah Palin hit the campaign trail as a team on Saturday, seeking to build on the momentum of her surprise addition to the Republican ticket even as Hurricane Gustav threatened to overshadow next week’s party convention.

Republicans ready to tone down convention because of Gustav

ST. PAUL, Minn. — With Hurricane Gustav gaining power as it nears the Gulf Coast, Republicans scrambled Saturday to make contingency plans for changing the tone of their national convention this week, worried that televised images of a lavish celebration would provide a jarring contrast to the looming disaster.

John McCain and his running-mate Sarah Palin are to make an unplanned visit to Mississippi to inspect the preparations for Hurricane Gustav, his campaign has said.

Ah, the photo ops are endless.  But, don’t forget, these are human lives that are fleeing from three year old nightmares. PTSD revisited.  The rest of this country will be victims, too …

Oil Manipulator Named: Gustav

…… This Post WILL Update …….

This photo was taken on March 25, 2003.

Soldier in famous photo never defeated ‘demons’

They found Dwyer lying on his back, his clothes soiled with urine and feces. Scattered on the floor around him were dozens of spent cans of Dust-Off, a refrigerant-based aerosol normally used to clean electrical equipment.

Dwyer told police Lt. Mike Wilson he’d been “huffing” the aerosol.

“Help me, please!” the former Army medic begged Wilson. “I’m dying. Help me. I can’t breathe.”

Unable to stand or even sit up, Dwyer was hoisted onto a stretcher. As paramedics prepared to load him into an ambulance, an officer noticed Dwyer’s eyes had glassed over and were fixed.

A half hour later, he was dead.

This photo was taken in 2007.

Returning to the U.S. in June 2003, after 91 days in Iraq, Dwyer seemed a shell to friends.

And he wanted to be a medic. (Dwyer’s first real job was as a transporter for a hospital in the golf resort town of Pinehurst, where his parents had moved after retirement.)

In 2002, Dwyer was sent to Fort Bliss, Texas. The jokester immediately fell in with three colleagues — Angela Minor, Sgt. Jose Salazar, and Knapp. They spent so much time together after work that comrades referred to them as “The Four Musketeers.”

When he deployed, he was pudgy at 6-foot-1 and 220 pounds. Now he weighed around 165, and the other Musketeers immediately thought of post-traumatic stress disorder.   Dwyer attributed his skeletal appearance to long days and a diet of MREs (Meals Ready to Eat). He showed signs of his jolly old self, so his friends accepted his explanation.   But they soon noticed changes that were more than cosmetic.

When people would teasingly call him “war hero” and ask him to tell about his experiences, or about the famous photo, he would steer the conversation toward the others he’d served with. But Dwyer once confided that another image, also involving a child, disturbed him.

He was standing next to a soldier during a firefight when a boy rode up on a bicycle and stopped beside a weapon lying in the dirt. Under his breath, the soldier beside Dwyer whispered, “Don’t pick it up, kid. Don’t pick it up.”

The boy reached for the weapon and was blasted off his bike.

In a telephone interview later … from what he called the “nut hut” at Beaumont, Dwyer told Newsday that he’d lied on a post-deployment questionnaire that asked whether he’d been disturbed by what he’d seen and done in Iraq. The reason: A PTSD diagnosis could interfere with his plans to seek a police job. Besides, he’d been conditioned to see it as a sign of weakness.

“I’m a soldier,” he said. “I suck it up. That’s our job.”

Dwyer told the newspaper that he’d blown off counseling before but was committed to embracing his treatment this time. He said he hoped to become an envoy to others who avoided treatment for fear of damaging their careers.

“There’s a lot of soldiers suffering in silence,” he said.

“And so it’s a dance between the clinicians and the patient.”

Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, feels the VA is a lousy dance partner.

Rieckhoff said the VA’s is a “passive system” whose arcane rules and regulations make it hard for veterans to find help. And when they do get help, he said, it is often inadequate.

“I consider (Dwyer) a battlefield casualty,” he said, “because he was still fighting the war in his head.”

In 2005, Daily Koss Blog referenced Dwyer’s photo in an article about PTSD on MyLeftWing

#1 | Returning Vet PTSD – One Soldier’s Story

This photo was taken on March 25, 2003.

Snapped by AP and published in newspapers and magazines world-wide a week following the invasion, Army medic Pfc. Joseph Dwyer carries an injured Iraqi boy to safety. Caught in the crossfire in a fierce battle near the village of Al Faysaliyah, the lines of hero and victim appear to be well-defined, not blurred.

On October 7, 2005, Dwyer was arrested after a 3 hour standoff with police in which he discharged ‘volley after volley’ of gunfire in his apartment.

And, so this story unfolds from the date of impact, 2003, to the date of conclusion, 2008.  Five years of suffering and dillusion about the “manly” thing to do, has ended in the news.  The part of the story seldom, if ever, followed up on is how the family, he left behind, will unfold.

The children asked what was wrong.

“Joseph is dead,” she told them.

“You said he wasn’t sick any more,” Justin said.

“I know, Justin,” his mother replied. “But I guess maybe the help wasn’t working like we thought it was.”

The kids were too young to understand acronyms like PTSD or to hear a lecture about how Knapp thought the system had failed Dwyer. So she told them that, just as they sometimes have nightmares, “sometimes people get those nightmares in their head and they just can’t get them out, no matter what.”

Despite the efforts she made to get help for Dwyer, Knapp is trying to cope with a deep-seated guilt. She knows that Dwyer shielded her from the images that had haunted him.

Since Dwyer’s death, Justin, now 9, has taken to carrying a newspaper clipping of the Zinn photo around with him. Occasionally, Knapp will catch him huddled with a playmate, showing the photo and telling him about the soldier who used to come to his school and assemble his toys.

Justin wants them to know all about Spc. Joseph Dwyer. His hero.

Joseph Dwyer Obituary [here]

Obituary responses [here], [here], [here], [here], [here]

Joseph is not the first, nor last, example of the ‘time bomb’ effect that PTSD has.  Past posts on TrurhHugger and BlueBloggin have illustrated the consequences and ultimate social and economic impact this nation should be preparing for.  Veterans from past wars have had PTSD symptoms, but were accepted as “he never was the same when he came back”, then they are just written off.   Today’s US veteran was plucked from a consumer society whose deepest thoughts concerned sports, celebrities, cars and electronic toys.  They started out soft.  They were plunged into a physical nightmare where the infrastructure they took for granted was destroyed.  The social norm they are accustomed to is turned upside down. The results of firing their weapons no longer resembles video games.  Bodies no longer evaporate into a haze of pixels.  They hear, see, smell and taste the results of their actions and the actions of their opponents.  This sensory assault upon an American Soldier defies representation by recruiters, news media or politicians.  These sensory memories become their ghosts.  Whether or not a soldier has religious foundation, there is a moral starting point, even for athiests.  The American moral starting point is so foreign from reality on the ground that mental damage should be expected … especially when the same soldier attempts to incorporate back into the world they left.

The only renewable resource this administration has taken advantage of is HUMAN.  Citizen or not, volunteer or not, literate or not, America will accept you into its ranks of cannon fodder.  If you survive, you will be patted on the back, given some bandages and salve (maybe an artificial limb) and expected to go along your way.  This is WRONG! The inequities of war shine a harsh light on class disparity … this angers and motivates the under class to rebel.  This began the impetus for socialism, and it’s more violent offspring, communism …

The slogan from the Vietnam War protests deliberately speaks to this, “What if they had a war, and no one came?” The U.S. military is overwhelmingly recruited from the working class, and convincing our class as a whole to refuse to work for this blood money may be our best chance for both ending the war in Iraq and limiting the imperialist ambitions of the U.S. for future decades.

by Stephen “Flint” Arthur

“Endless development of armed force. Every day we hear of fresh inventions for the more effectual destruction of our fellow-men, fresh expenditure, fresh loans, fresh taxation. Clamorous patriotism, reckless jingoism; the stirring up of international jealousy have become the most lucrative line in politics and journalism. Childhood itself has not been spared; schoolboys are swept into the ranks, to be trained up in hatred… drilled in blind obedience to the government of the moment, whatever the colour of its flag, and when they come to the years of manhood to be laden like pack-horses with cartridges, provisions and the rest of it; to have a rifle thrust into their hands and be taught to charge at the bugle call and slaughter one another right and left like wild beasts, without asking themselves why or for what purpose. Whether they have before them starvelings… or their own brothers roused to revolt by famine-the bugle sounds, the killing must commence.”
Peter Kropotkin – War!

• Anxiety disorders and schizophrenia

• Defining Schizophrenia: A Testable Model for Schizophrenia Incorporating Homogeneous Subtypes

• Linking Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Psychosis: A Look at Epidemiology, Phenomenology, and Treatment

• Trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder in people with schizophrenia.

• PTSD Forum

Since 9/11, one Army division has spent more time in Iraq than any other group of soldiers: the 10th Mountain Division, based at Fort Drum, New York.

Over the past 6 years and and six months, their 2nd Brigade Combat Team (BCT) has been the most deployed brigade in the army. As of this month, the brigade had completed its fourth tour of Iraq. All in all, the soldiers of BCT have spent 40 months in Iraq.

At what cost? According to a February 13 report issued by the Veterans for America’s (VFA) Wounded Warrior Outreach Program, which is dedicated to strengthening the military mental health
system, it is not just their bodies that have been maimed and, in some cases, destroyed. Many of these soldiers are suffering from severe mental health problems that have led to suicide attempts as well as spousal abuse and alcoholism.

As the VFA report points out, “Mental health experts have explained that ’shifting the goalposts’ on a soldier’s deployment period greatly contributes to an increase in mental health problems.”

Perhaps it should not come as a surprise that, during its most recent deployment, the 2nd BCT suffered heavy casualties. “Fifty-two members of the 2nd BCT were killed in action (KIA),” the VFA reports and “270 others were listed as non-fatality casualties, while two members of the unit remain missing in action (MIA).”

This level of losses is unusual. “On their most recent deployment,”
the VFA report notes, “members of the 2nd BCT were more than five times as likely to be killed as others who have been deployed to OEF and OIF and more than four times likely to be wounded.”

One can only wonder to what degree depression and other mental health problems made them more vulnerable to attack.

When they finally returned to Fort Drum, these soldiers faced winter conditions that the report describes as
“dreary, with snow piled high and spring still months away. More than a dozen soldiers reported low morale, frequent DUI arrests, and rising AWOL, spousal abuse, and rates of attempted suicide. Soldiers also reported that given the financial realities of the Army, some of their fellow soldiers had to resort to taking second jobs such as delivering
pizzas to supplement their family income.” What has the army done to help the soldiers at Fort Drum? Too little.

In recent months, VFA reports, it has been contacted by a number of soldiers based at Fort Drum who are concerned about their own mental health and the health of other members of their units. In response, VFA launched an investigation of conditions at Fort Drum, and what it found was shocking.

Soldiers told the VFA that “the leader of the mental health treatment clinic at Fort Drum asked soldiers not to discuss their
mental health problems with people outside the base. Attempts to keep matters ‘in house’ foster an atmosphere of secrecy and shame,” the report observed “that is not conducive to proper treatment for combat-related mental health injuries.”

The investigators also discovered that “some military mental health providers have argued that a number of soldiers fake mental health injuries to increase the likelihood that they will be deemed unfit for combat and/or for further military service.”

The report notes that a “conversation with a leading expert in treating combat psychological wounds” confirmed “that some military commanders at Fort Drum doubt the validity of mental health wounds in some soldiers, thereby undermining treatment prescribed by civilian psychiatrists” at the nearby Samaritan Medical Center in Watertown, NY.
Because some soldiers do not trust Samaritan, the report reveals that a number of “soldiers have sought treatment after normal base business hours at a hospital in Syracuse, more than an hour’s drive from Watertown … because they feared that Samaritan would side with base leadership, which had, in some cases, cast doubt on the legitimacy of combat-related mental health wounds. According to the VFA, the problem of military doctors refusing to back soldiers with mental health problems is widespread: “VFA’s work across the country has confirmed that soldiers often need their doctors to be stronger advocates for improved treatment by their commanders and comrades. For instance, soldiers need doctors who are willing to push back against commanders who doubt the legitimacy of combat-related mental health injuries.”

While talking to soldiers at Fort Drum, VFA also discovered “considerable stigma against mental health treatment within the military and pressure within some units to deny mental health problems as a result of combat. Soldiers at Fort Drum are not alone. In an earlier report titled “Trends in Treatment of America’s Wounded Warriors” VFA disclosed that leaders of the military mental health treatment system have been warning Department of Defense leadership of the magnitude of the mental health crisis that is brewing.

This is an epidemic of abuse that has long term implications. Twice wounded soldiers; once in Iraq or Afghanistan and a second time by their own country. These victims will be released into society with incomplete repairs. Our throw away society must not be applied to used human beings. The lowest bidder must not be imposed on our wounded. This is a glaring indictment on the Bush Administration who failed to accept the consequences of their insidious actions. Attacking the wrong enemy and loosing a generation of soldiers when the,y are needed in other places, is a monumental crime.