Military Update: The strain of eight years of war is starting to show
Daily Press
September 21, 2009
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The profound strain of eight years of war on the volunteer force permeated a daylong conference of military leaders, policymakers, health experts and family advocates as they shared ideas to address the "unseen injuries" of post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.
A theme struck by many participants, including Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was that government must seek greater involvement from communities across the country to support wounded warriors, traumatized veterans and damaged military families.
Mullen expressed concern over rising numbers of homeless veterans, slow expansion of a pilot program to streamline the disability evaluation system and a lack of solutions from medical research for timely diagnosis and treatment of PTSD and traumatic brain injury.
Mullen said he and his wife, Deborah, also are seeing more families — both spouses and children — being worn down by the strain of long and frequent deployments.
"When they go home after the parade, when they go home after the recognition ceremony, their dreams haven't changed ... to raise a family, go to school, send their kids to school, own a home. ... The only way I can see us meeting (those needs) is through a community-based connection, a broad connection, that is sustained for them over the entirety of their lives," Mullen told the 2009 Defense Forum in Alexandria. It was sponsored jointly by the U.S. Naval Institute and the Military Officers Association of America.
"When I talk about a long time, think decades," Mullen said. "These are 20-somethings who are wounded (and) these are 20-something spouses with a couple of children who have 50, 60, 70 years to live. That's where this sustained effort has got to come in."
Leslie Kammerdiener, mother of severely wounded Army Cpl. Kevin Kammerdiener, visibly moved attendees with her account of how the VA has failed to provide adequate support to her and her son on multiple occasions since Kevin was injured in Afghanistan in May 2008.
One of their worst experiences occurred Labor Day weekend last year when she and Kevin, who was severely burned and lost the left side of his brain to an explosion, arrived at the VA Polytrauma Center in Tampa, Fla., for follow-up treatment and no one knew he was coming.
"We had no medications for him. We had no bed for his burned body and we had no food for his feeding tube — for 30 hours," Kammerdiener said. "My son suffered for 30 hours because this system was not ready."
Just a week ago, she said, Kevin signaled that he wanted to take his own life by hanging. She called the VA hospital for help.
"Days went by and nobody called me." Finally, she confronted a VA doctor at a social event "and said, 'Look, you guys have to help us ... I'm not trained. I'm not a nurse. I'm not a neurosurgeon. I'm not a psychologist. I'm not a therapist. I'm just a mom. And I don't have any help with this.'"
Kammerdiener told the forum, "It's a very sad thing that this country — your Army or your VA or whatever — has let us down so incredibly. I am asking you to step up to the plate and take care of somebody who went over there and did what you asked him to do."
Forum attendees gave her a standing ovation in support for what she and her son have sacrificed and endured. Asked later to list any part of the system that has worked well, Kammerdiener praised the help she received through her advocate in VA's Federal Recovery Coordinator Program.
On the same panel with the spouse care-givers was Noel Koch, deputy undersecretary of defense for transition policy and care coordination. He said, "I'm not going to sit here and tell you what a great job we're doing."
Obviously affected by the Kammerdieners' story, Koch said with self-deprecating sarcasm, "We do some things well. Power Point. We do story boards. We have dynamite [office] conferences. ... We generate paper. The thing that we don't do very well is see anything come out of it [to] provide care for our wounded warriors."
E-mail milupdate@aol.com, write to Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA, 20120-1111 or visit: www.militaryupdate.com
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disabled veterans and their families need more than words we need help, my wife is not a nurse, but due to all of my medical problems she has been turned into one, 24/7, she is not compensated for this, I am grateful that she loves me enough to stay with me, I am sure this is not what she imagined life would be like when she married me years ago before I became totally disabled by my SC medical problems, and my PTSD worsened. She needs help to cope herself and how to help me, not a power point presentation, and more unkept promises.Sphere: Related Content
