I helped out a friend today. She is having a hard time because she is separating from her husband. She is extremely private about their relationship and what is going on with them, but told me that her husband is experiencing bouts of aggression and hostility. He has been deployed twice I think. Even an armchair psychiatrist could take a stab that he has some sort of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or similar combat-related issue.
When she told me that he was deploying again within the month, after depicting his current treatment as significant, I was flabbergasted. He is getting shots of some sort to medicate him and seeing a therapist three times a week. His anger and violence are so bad that she is afraid to let him spend unsupervised time with his own children. But the army is sending him back?
This is a marriage that from an outside perspective was very close and happy just a few short years ago, maybe just a deployment ago. They have a 14 month old son who was very much wanted and planned. So we know they felt their marriage was pretty good as recently as two years ago when he was conceived. In that time frame, her husband has been deployed again. Maybe that was the straw that broke the camel's back. I don't really know their marriage, but I do know that this is someone who is a danger to his own very sweet children and wife and the army is sending him back to war next month.
This is just one story of many. People are coming home from this war broken. And being asked to act as if nothing had happened. While the Army claims they want to support the personnel and make sure help is available, not enough is being done to make the help truly available. The help is never truly private. You are stigmatized and shunned for even inquiring about mental health help. Your career in the military is basically over because you will be over looked for promotion due to the black mark on your record.
So what do people do? They drink and get DWIs. They hit their wives and children because they can't diffuse the anger inside them. They self-destruct with money, drugs, women. They pull the trigger of a gun pointed at their heads. And the army throws its hands up and says, "WHY?!?!?"
Seriously? Whose head is up their ass? You can't ask people to go through over and over and over what they do and not offer them real therapy and help with TRUE PRIVACY. In fact, the help should probably be somewhat mandatory. If you've done a tour with any action, you have to attend some sort of session once a week or month to talk about what you saw, felt, missed from home, etc. It can't hurt. Then the therapists can see people who might need extra help and target them without the stigma.
The government is talking a lot about cutting military pay. But the truth is our service members are sacrificing more than just time, safety, comfort. They are sacrificing their sanity. As I found in an article by Belleruth Naparstek much earlier this deployment that almost 100% of soldiers will experience PTSD symptoms after a single combat action or stressor situation (often witnessing bomb blasts or car crashes that are not active combat scenarios). They they experience it close to every day while deployed. More needs to be done to help soldiers deal with the absolutely normal reaction of horror and self-loathing and anger and fear that follows combat. While researching this blog, I came across an article from last fall. So much of what needs to be said, of what I wanted to say is in this article. Much of this article sounded like it was coming straight from my head.
US soldier refused Afghan deployment over PTSD
I understand that if soldiers can claim to have invisible symptoms of post traumatic stress to avoid deploying, some might, a few would. The Army had many soldiers use "being gay" to get released from service commitments. So they have to err on the side of being strict about allowing soldiers to use PTSD to avoid deployments. But when a soldier shows such significant and obvious symptoms, is being treated in what in my humble lay opinion is a quite serious manner, someone needs to raise a red flag and say, "No, this isn't OK!" Deploying a soldier who is obviously so wounded that he has destroyed the one thing that once mattered to him more than his own life, just doesn't make sense.
Is this soldier going to make sound split-second decisions in the field? Is he going to be a supportive team member for his other soldiers? Is his anger going to make the life of his roommate miserable and add exponential stress on another soldier trying to cope with an unstable, hostile, and depressed roommate? My husband had a roommate like that two deployments ago, and that was harder on him than the war. He had nowhere safe to withdraw or unwind. His room was a torture chamber full of hidden land mines and violence. I didn't know if he was going to be able to stand it for the year. He called me at the end of his rope many times because he couldn't handle it and wanted to be a good friend, but the psychotic episodes were dangerous, were seeping into their work and weren't healthy.
Post Traumatic Stress is a real issue. Why are we allowing the military to treat it any less than the very serious issue it is. The service members need access to true help without stigma and without the loss of face/honor within their ranks. And why are we allowing them to send sick men to war? where their stress makes them a risk to themselves and everyone around them? I wouldn't want him standing next to my husband! You?
When she told me that he was deploying again within the month, after depicting his current treatment as significant, I was flabbergasted. He is getting shots of some sort to medicate him and seeing a therapist three times a week. His anger and violence are so bad that she is afraid to let him spend unsupervised time with his own children. But the army is sending him back?
This is a marriage that from an outside perspective was very close and happy just a few short years ago, maybe just a deployment ago. They have a 14 month old son who was very much wanted and planned. So we know they felt their marriage was pretty good as recently as two years ago when he was conceived. In that time frame, her husband has been deployed again. Maybe that was the straw that broke the camel's back. I don't really know their marriage, but I do know that this is someone who is a danger to his own very sweet children and wife and the army is sending him back to war next month.
This is just one story of many. People are coming home from this war broken. And being asked to act as if nothing had happened. While the Army claims they want to support the personnel and make sure help is available, not enough is being done to make the help truly available. The help is never truly private. You are stigmatized and shunned for even inquiring about mental health help. Your career in the military is basically over because you will be over looked for promotion due to the black mark on your record.
So what do people do? They drink and get DWIs. They hit their wives and children because they can't diffuse the anger inside them. They self-destruct with money, drugs, women. They pull the trigger of a gun pointed at their heads. And the army throws its hands up and says, "WHY?!?!?"
Seriously? Whose head is up their ass? You can't ask people to go through over and over and over what they do and not offer them real therapy and help with TRUE PRIVACY. In fact, the help should probably be somewhat mandatory. If you've done a tour with any action, you have to attend some sort of session once a week or month to talk about what you saw, felt, missed from home, etc. It can't hurt. Then the therapists can see people who might need extra help and target them without the stigma.
The government is talking a lot about cutting military pay. But the truth is our service members are sacrificing more than just time, safety, comfort. They are sacrificing their sanity. As I found in an article by Belleruth Naparstek much earlier this deployment that almost 100% of soldiers will experience PTSD symptoms after a single combat action or stressor situation (often witnessing bomb blasts or car crashes that are not active combat scenarios). They they experience it close to every day while deployed. More needs to be done to help soldiers deal with the absolutely normal reaction of horror and self-loathing and anger and fear that follows combat. While researching this blog, I came across an article from last fall. So much of what needs to be said, of what I wanted to say is in this article. Much of this article sounded like it was coming straight from my head.
US soldier refused Afghan deployment over PTSD
I understand that if soldiers can claim to have invisible symptoms of post traumatic stress to avoid deploying, some might, a few would. The Army had many soldiers use "being gay" to get released from service commitments. So they have to err on the side of being strict about allowing soldiers to use PTSD to avoid deployments. But when a soldier shows such significant and obvious symptoms, is being treated in what in my humble lay opinion is a quite serious manner, someone needs to raise a red flag and say, "No, this isn't OK!" Deploying a soldier who is obviously so wounded that he has destroyed the one thing that once mattered to him more than his own life, just doesn't make sense.
Is this soldier going to make sound split-second decisions in the field? Is he going to be a supportive team member for his other soldiers? Is his anger going to make the life of his roommate miserable and add exponential stress on another soldier trying to cope with an unstable, hostile, and depressed roommate? My husband had a roommate like that two deployments ago, and that was harder on him than the war. He had nowhere safe to withdraw or unwind. His room was a torture chamber full of hidden land mines and violence. I didn't know if he was going to be able to stand it for the year. He called me at the end of his rope many times because he couldn't handle it and wanted to be a good friend, but the psychotic episodes were dangerous, were seeping into their work and weren't healthy.
Post Traumatic Stress is a real issue. Why are we allowing the military to treat it any less than the very serious issue it is. The service members need access to true help without stigma and without the loss of face/honor within their ranks. And why are we allowing them to send sick men to war? where their stress makes them a risk to themselves and everyone around them? I wouldn't want him standing next to my husband! You?
My father-in-law has PTSD from Vietnam. It is a real issue. He is a drug addict which helps him escape from the demons within. His helicopter was shot down in the middle of a field and he is the only one who survived. When he hears a car backfire, he hits the deck. He has never met my 4 year old, and he may never meet him.
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