Suicide try emblematic of post-war difficulties
Saturday, November 15, 2008 4:05 PM EST
By PATRICIA DOXSEY
Freeman staff
KINGSTON — A former Marine who served two tours of duty in Iraq is alive today, thanks in large part to another Marine, who, in his job as a Kingston police detective, was able to dissuade the distraught war veteran from committing suicide.
The incident, which occurred on Monday — the day before America paused to recognize the service of that Marine and all other U.S. military personnel and veterans — highlighted the struggle that returning warriors face as they try to come to grips with the psychological ramifications of combat.
DAYS EARLIER, the American Forces Press Service reported that Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that although the country has made great improvements in delivering health care to its returning military men and women, much more needs to be done.
“Recent studies suggest that as many as 20 percent of today’s troops may suffer from post-traumatic stress brought on by combat in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Mullen said at Soldiers’ Angels annual benefit gala held on Nov. 7 in Washington, D.C. “It can be difficult to diagnose. Many are, understandably, wary of the stigma attached to mental health — a problem I believe we can alleviate through active early detection for everyone, so no one ever has to raise his or her hand.”
IT ISN’T known what drove the suicidal ex-Marine in Kingston to try to take his own life. Police responding to several calls about a man carrying a handgun discovered the veteran on Dock Street, beneath the Rondout Creek Bridge, where he was wielding a gun and threatening suicide.
About 15 officers from the Kingston Police Department responded to the incident, along with members of the Ulster County Sheriff’s Office and the Kingston Fire Department.
Police Detective Lt. Timothy Matthews said one of the first to respond was a Kingston detective, himself a former Marine, who was able to find common ground with the distraught man and begin to talk him out of his decision to kill himself.
Matthews said it took almost 90 minutes of talking before the man relented and turned his weapon over to police. He then was taken to Benedictine Hospital for treatment.
Neither the suicidal man nor the detective who helped him have been identified by authorities.
TODD Crevier, chief communications officer of the Iraq War Veterans Organization, said many troops returning from Iraq suffer from undiagnosed or untreated mental health issues because of the difficulty navigating the government health-care system for veterans.
“The problem is the government is still way behind the eight ball in trying to make the services available and easy to access and obtain,” Crevier said.
ACCORDING to a 2007 report by the Department of Defense’s Task Force on Mental Health, 38 percent of soldiers and 31 percent of Marines reported psychological problems such as traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder after returning from deployment. Among returning National Guard members, the number was 49 percent.
A Rand Corp. report released in April showed about 300,000 of the 1 million U.S. service members who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or depression. But a 2007 investigation by the Government Accountability Office concluded that just 22 percent of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who showed signs of post-traumatic stress disorder were being referred by Pentagon health-care providers for mental health matters.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has estimated there are up to 1,000 suicides per year among veterans within the VA system and as many as 5,000 per year among all veterans.
“I question whether or not they’re so difficult to navigate to frustrate people to get them to give up trying,” Crevier said of VA health services. “I think there are a lot of soldiers who find the process so cumbersome that, lots of times, they drop their cases and they end up self-medicating through alcohol or drugs.”
DUTCHESS County Veterans Service Director Nelson Rivera said requests to his office for assistance in dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder are rare and that local veterans always are referred to the Castle Point VA hospital, which, he said, has developed a program specifically for veterans suffering from the disorder and other combat-related mental health issues.
Castle Point officials could not be reached for comment on Friday.
Ulster County Department of Mental Health Director Marshall Beckman said his agency also has been underwhelmed by requests for aid.
“My impression is that a lot of the vets wind up getting these types of services through the VA,” Beckman said. “Also, an issue for us is that what veterans tend to want is someone who can really relate to their experience in the field, and we don’t have a lot of people who are trained therapists who can offer that.”
ON THE SAME day the Marine in Kingston tried to kill himself, the American Forces Press Service reported that four major U.S. mental health groups joined “Give an Hour,” a network of mental health professionals who donate an hour of their time each week to provide free mental health services to service members and their families.
The American Association of Pastoral Counselors, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association and the National Association of Social Workers are not part of that nonprofit organization.
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“I question whether or not they’re so difficult to navigate to frustrate people to get them to give up trying,” Crevier said of VA health services. “I think there are a lot of soldiers who find the process so cumbersome that, lots of times, they drop their cases and they end up self-medicating through alcohol or drugs.”
In many cases the veterans are already using drugs and alcohol to self medicate long before they ever reach out to the VA for help, many have DUI's and drug convictions before they finally admit they have mental health issues, then the VA attempts to get the veterans to admit they had problems in their childhoods in order to blame their mental health issues as Personality disorders in order to avoid financial responsibility for these veterans, if the veterans admit to fighting with their parents, or their brothers and sisters in their youth, trouble at school, detentions, etc or a record with police as a juvenile then the veteran is told sorry your problems are from before you joined the military and your PTSD is not the reason you are having problems now, they deny PTSD claims regardless of what problems the veteran had in service, instead of accepting any responsibility for what the war experiences have had on the veterans the VA passes the buck and denies the compensation claim and in many cases make it hard for the veterans to even get reasonable mental health care, they are told there are no beds available in inpatient programs to help them learn how to cope with their issues. They are basically turned away from the inn.
Veterans need help not hassles from the VA medical care should be the priority for these combat veterans, not for the VA to deny compensation.Sphere: Related Content
