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 Wounded Warrior Outreach Program, 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.
Meanwhile, the soldiers of the 2nd BCT have been given too little time off in between deployments:
In one case they had only six months to mentally “re-set” following an eight-month tour in Afghanistan–-before beginning a 12- month tour in Iraq.
Then, in April 2007, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates decided to extend Army tours in Iraq from 12 to 15 months—shortly after the BCT had passed what it assumed was its halfway mark in Iraq.
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 umber 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.
“In the estimation of this expert, military commanders have undue
influence in the treatment of soldiers with psychological wounds,” the
report noted. “Another point of general concern for VFA is that
Samaritan also has a strong financial incentive to maintain business
ties with Fort Drum—a dynamic [that] deserves greater scrutiny.”
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.
“ In one case,” the report continued, “after a suicidal soldier was
taken to a Syracuse hospital, he was treated there for a week,
indicating that his mental health concerns were legitimate.
Unfortunately, mental health officials at Fort Drum had stated that
they did not believe this soldier’s problems were bona fide.”
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.
Some soldiers who had been in the military for more than a decade
stated that they lied on mental health questionnaires for fear that if
they disclosed problems, it would reduce their likelihood of being
promoted.”
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.
A report by the Army’s Mental Health Advisory Team (MHAT) that was
released last May found that the percentage of soldiers suffering
“severe stress, emotional, alcohol or family problem[s]” had risen more
than 85 percent since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom. MHAT
also found that 28 percent of soldiers who had experienced
high-intensity combat were screening positive for acute stress (i.e.,
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD).
Finally, MHAT disclosed that soldiers who had been deployed more than
once were 60 percent more likely to screen positive for acute stress
(i.e., PTSD) when compared to soldiers on their first deployment.
VFA’s most recent report notes points out that, despite these warnings,
soldiers at Fort Drum do not have access to the care they need: “More
than six years after large-scale military operations began in
Afghanistan and, later, in Iraq, a casual observer might assume that
programs would have been implemented to ensure access for Soldiers from
the 10th Mountain Division to mental health services on base.
Unfortunately, an investigation by VFA has revealed that [soldiers] who
recently returned from Iraq must wait for up to two months before a
single appointment can be scheduled . . .
“Given the great amount of public attention that has been focused on the psychological needs of returning service members, a casual observer might also assume that these needs would have been given a higher priority by Army leaders and the National Command
Authority—the two entities with the greatest responsibility for
ensuring the strength of our Armed Forces. These needs have long been acknowledged but,” the report concludes “ there has been insufficient
action.”
Last month the army tried putting a band-aid on the problems at Fort Drum by sending three Army psychiatrists from Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) to the Fort
D on a temporary basis to treat the large influx of returning soldiers
requiring mental health care. But, as the VFA points out, “this is
only a temporary fix, as the Walter Reed-based psychiatrists will
likely return to Washington, DC, within a few weeks.
Fort Drum will again be left with the task of treating thousands of
soldiers with far too few mental health specialists. In addition, for
those service members who were initially treated by psychiatrists from
Walter Reed, their care will suffer from discontinuity, as their cases
will be assigned a new mental health professional on subsequent visits.”
And the war drags on. Earlier this month,
the UK Times reported that “the conservative Washington think tank that
devised the “surge” of US forces in Iraq [the American Enterprise
Institute] now has come up with a plan to send 12,000 more American
troops into southern Afghanistan.
A panel of more than 20 experts convened by the (AEI) has also urged
the administration to get tough with Pakistan. “The US should threaten
to attack Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters in lawless areas on the border
with Afghanistan if the Pakistan military did not deal with them
itself, the panel concluded.”
Where do conservatives expect to find those troops?
More soldiers are likely to suffer the fate of the soldiers at Fort
Drum. They will be sent back to combat, again and again—until finally,
they break. Soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome,
depression or a host of other mental problems are not in a good
position to protect themselves. Sending them back only guarantees that
fatalities will rise.
YES
Let’s surrender, and start drinking Vichy water. And also surrender (post-facto) to the North Vietnamese, Kim Il Jung, Tojo and Hitler.
Good column — great work.
We could go a long way towards fixing this problems if we: 1) Fought to win (i.e., win the peace by ruthlessly killing the enemy) and 2) paid soldiers a fair salary (which might even require defunding a few unconstitutional federal programs).
But hey, that’s just me.
State sanctioned murder, human atrocity and carnage are all incompatable with good mental health.
Yes, Jane. And after surrendering, homosexuals should be prepared for jail and women in proper Islamic dress. Also learn “Sayings of Gen. Tojo” and the Nazi salute.
And forget about the 1st Amendment and its relationship to weirdly-correlated, non-causal conclusions by graduates of the University of Google.
drmatt:
True…but when fighting is necessary, the method I mentioned is the surest way to ensure the good health of our people. That being said, it is also important to go to war only for the right reasons.
Billy:
I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not. I’m guessing it’s mostly sarcasm. Nonetheless, I think you’re expressing less hyperbole than you think.
Test
Tom, who decides when fighting is “necessary”??
the point was, we all know the psychologic damage, we as a nation should have been prepared to address it agressively and properly, now it is a patch work attempt to fix what we broke.
Everyone:
The fact is that our all-volunteer army cannot provide enough troops for a guerilla war in Iraq unless we keep sending the same people back two or three times–with too little rest in between.
And it’s clear that this
is putting too much of a strain on our soldiers.
We’re also breaking contracts with people in reserve units who had not signed on for two tours in Iraq. Forty-years-olds with children are finding themselves in active combat.
The only way to fight a labor-intensive, body-intensive guerilla war like Iraq is to have a draft.
It’s just not fair to ask one subset of the population to fight a war for us.
So, if you’re in favor of the war, I think you really should be in favor of a draft that might well take you, your son or daughter, your spouse, your brother or sister. No exceptions.
Who decides when we fight, you ask? Well, I guess that would be our duly elected representatives.
I fully agree that our soldiers are treated like crap. They are underpaid, overworked and generally spit upon by this country.
I believe my original point was that this is yet another example of our government not doing its job. Let me flesh out the point slightly. The government failed (and is failing) our soldiers by: 1) underpaying them, 2) sending them to war with restrictive rules of engagement, 3) keeping them in theatre for extended periods and then expecting them to adjust to life in the States within the time period of a plane ride.
I’ll stop there for now with the comment that government generally does a bad job at everything it tries to do. This is a point I’ve made before in previous comment threads and I’ll keep on making it until it sinks in that the government is bad at literally everything…not just one person’s cherry-picked pet issues (i.e., previously on this blog: delivering/paying for health care).
Maggie,
You’re right. However, I would say that it’s unfair to ask any army to fight the kind of war we’re fighting. It’s got nothing to do with the enemy. We are hamstrining our own troops by not letting them win. We’re fighting to win ‘hearts and minds’ (whatever that means) and we’re paying for it with young American blood. That is the tragedy here. The problem can be fixed by going to war fully when we decide fighting is our only choice…and staying home when it’s not.
If you are a Democrat and against GWB — just say so. Try to be honest. Do not use the U.S. military to further your political goals. (And BTW: a lot of Republicans don’t like GWB, either, as well as Hillary and Barack. So there.)
My graduate school roommate is from a military family. His father was killed in action in Vietnam. He is a graduate of West Point and commanded a battle tank group in the Middle East.
Iraq has been a strain on him and his family. They also do not want to surrender to the USA’s enemies, if only for themselves, and not the Democrat “America is always wrong” crowd.
For those who cannot understand history — the military draft was proven to be a FAILURE in Vietnam. It let LBJ’s government waste enormous resources. That is ALWAYS the case when government gets involved — waste, waste, waste.
If CF wants to stop wasteful government spending — start looking at MDs and hospitals that buy every new whiz-bang thing. With medical-malpractice lawyer-sharks in the water. Spending more only masks authentic errors.
All,
The following is a comment sent to Health Beat from a reader who wanted to remain anonymous. I am posting this on said persons’ behalf.
Niko
——————-
I served as an ARMY doctor at Ft. Drum before the war.The cold winter weather is extremely dreary and probably contributes to soldier depression. The alliance with Samaritan Medical Center has the potential to be “unholy” or corrupt because in Watertown, New York the Fort and the Hospital represent most of the economy. How do you fix that short of “discovering oil” in Watertown and/or removing the profit motive from non-military hospitals?
As far as the ARMY addressing psychiatric issues I honestly believe the ARMY is doing their best to recruit more mental health professionals and to utilize them effectively.The Washington Post who broke the Walter Reed story by Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Dana Priest continues to stimulate the ARMY to do what is right. Senior Mental Health professionals in the ARMY Medical Command are finally being heard as witness the recent emphasis of PTSD, depression and ARMY suicides.One could argue that this is “too little-too late” but I think not.Soldier trust also needs to be rebuilt as your article implies.
The dilemma is that this is a major and huge enterprise to fix and it is not going to happen overnight. But the current leaders I personally believe are listening.
As a physician my heart goes out to all who continue to suffer.
Hi–
This post was reprinted on Alternet (www.Alternet.org) where a
reader who identifies himself as a Vietnam Vet
sent in this excerpt from a speech:
“The facts are stark and the facts are real…Our men and women in
uniform love their country more than their comfort. They have never failed
us, and we must not fail them. But the best intentions and the highest
morale are undermined by back-to-back deployments, poor pay, shortages
of spare parts and equipment, and rapidly declining readiness.”
“…these are signs of a military in decline and we must do something
about it. The reasons are clear. Lack of equipment and material.
Undermaning of units. Overdeployment. Not enough time for family. Soldiers who
are on food stamps, and soldiers who are poorly housed. Dick Cheney
and I have a simple message today for our men and women in uniform, their
parents, their loved ones, their supporters: Help is on the way!”
“A generation shaped by Vietnam must remember the lessons of Vietnam.
When America uses force in the world, the cause must be just, the goal
must be clear, and the victory must be overwhelming.”
“To build morale in today’s United States military we must keep faith
with those who have worn the uniform in the past. We must keep faith
with America’s veterans. . .And keeping faith also means giving our
veterans first-rate health care and treating the veterans with dignity. . .So
chaotic is the process there is now a backlog of nearly one
half-million claims. This is no way to treat any citizen, much less a veteran of
our armed forces. The veterans health-care system and the claims
process will be modernized, so that claims are handled in a fair and friendly
way.”
“In my Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs will act as
an advocate for veterans seeking benefit claims, not act as an
adversary. Veterans who once stood in the line of fire to protect our freedom
should not have to stand in the line of a bureaucracy that is unwilling
to help them in their claims.”
—George W. Bush VFW Speech – August 21, 2000
Maggie,
I disagree with you on the draft. I was drafted into the army in 1967 after graduating from college and went on to serve in Viet Nam. The problem with the draft, which is basically a tax on young people, at that time was that we did not need everyone for the military effort. It seemed that virtually every middle class kid had an angle of some sort – stay in graduate school, become a teacher, get into a reserve unit or the National Guard, etc. As a result, the people serving in Viet Nam, at least at the enlisted level, were overwhelming black or working class and poor white (I was one of relatively few exceptions). I found out years later that out of my high school graduating class of 165, of which about half were guys, only two of us served in Viet Nam.
I would support national service that required everyone to serve their country in some capacity, but a draft that cannot utilize everyone is simply unfair.
Barry–
When I
spoke of a draft–without exceptions–I meant a draft that would not provide exemptions if you were in grad school, joined the National Guard, etc.
As I’m sure you remember, toward the end of the Vietnam war, the government decided to have a lottery–and any male who drew a low lottery number would be drafted.
With the lottery, it was supposed to be virtually impossible to get out of the draft. Rich and poor, well-educated and not-so-well-educated, black and white–all were going to be on an equal footing.
What happened? The pressure to end the war was enormous. Many Americans who had supported the war had become disillusioned–especially if they ahd lost a family member.
Others, when faced with the possibility that their sons might be drafted, insisted that the war must come to an end.
And so it did.
I believe that if we had a draft that put everyone’s children at equal risk, we would engage in far fewer wars. We would have to have an absolutely compelling reason to go to war. And we would think carefully and realistically about how long it would be likely to last–and how many lives might be lost.
Most people agree that WW II was a necessary war. And in that war, people of all classes did sign up.
By the time Vietnam came along, you’re right—most of those who fought that war came from the bottom of the economic ladder.
And I just don’t think that’s fair. You’re right we don’t need all able-bodied young men and women in Iraq, but who goes should be a matter of blind luck.
If we had a lottery tomorrow, I could almost guarantee that the war would be over within six months.
Barry–
When I
spoke of a draft–without exceptions–I meant a draft that would not provide exemptions if you were in grad school, joined the National Guard, etc.
As I’m sure you remember, toward the end of the Vietnam war, the government decided to have a lottery–and any male who drew a low lottery number would be drafted.
With the lottery, it was supposed to be virtually impossible to get out of the draft. Rich and poor, well-educated and not-so-well-educated, black and white–all were going to be on an equal footing.
What happened? The pressure to end the war was enormous. Many Americans who had supported the war had become disillusioned–especially if they ahd lost a family member.
Others, when faced with the possibility that their sons might be drafted, insisted that the war must come to an end.
And so it did.
I believe that if we had a draft that put everyone’s children at equal risk, we would engage in far fewer wars. We would have to have an absolutely compelling reason to go to war. And we would think carefully and realistically about how long it would be likely to last–and how many lives might be lost.
Most people agree that WW II was a necessary war. And in that war, people of all classes did sign up.
By the time Vietnam came along, you’re right—most of those who fought that war came from the bottom of the economic ladder.
And I just don’t think that’s fair. You’re right we don’t need all able-bodied young men and women in Iraq, but who goes should be a matter of blind luck.
If we had a lottery tomorrow, I could almost guarantee that the war would be over within six months.
If we had a lottery tomorrow, I could almost guarantee that the war would be over within six months.
—
For those avoiding reading history books — do the phrases “fragging” and “flight to Canada” mean anything?
The draft failed. And wishing upon stars for something to happen is like thinking there isn’t waste and fraud in Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. Pure, unmitigated fantasy, spiced by counter-factual day-dreaming. Like Michael Moore, pretending his MD degree from the University of Google actually helps people.
If you don’t like capitalism and others achieving more — have the courage to say so. It is more honest.
I vote that the people who decide when and where we go to war send thier family first. That would pretty much guarantee no unnecessary war. you would not vote to sacrafice your own family unless not doing so actually put them at risk!!!
I mentioned that this post was reprinted on alternet
(www.Alternet.org).
It’s interesting that while this thread has become a dicussion about the draft, many/most of the comments there are coming from soliders, veterans and people involved in military medicine.
Most are confirming what the report said: our soldiers are suffering serious mental health prob lems, in part because too few people are begin sent back, and the military isn’t doing enough to help them.
You might find some of the comments interesting.