For too many, the initials VA stand for ‘Veterans’ Adversary,’”
small portion reprinted below
Extensive article and links at:
http://www.aarpmagazine.org/family/when_wounded_vets_come_home.html
As of April 29 the Pentagon counted 31,848 wounded service members in the current conflicts. Independent experts say that is a conservative figure. They estimate the number of brain injuries alone might total 320,000, or 20 percent of the 1.64 million who have served so far—a number that S. Ward Casscells, the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, calls “plausible.” In addition to the physical injuries, there are thousands of cases of depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Last year military screeners detected psychological symptoms in 31 percent of Marines, 38 percent of soldiers, and 49 percent of National Guardsmen returning from war.
For many of the newly injured, most in their late teens and 20s, the logical direction to turn for care is toward Mom and Dad. Many of the wounded are still single. Others are married to partners who can’t or don’t want to care for gravely injured spouses. As a result, across the nation, parents end up scrubbing burn wounds, suctioning tracheostomy tubes, and bathing their adult children. They assist with physical and occupational therapy. They fight for benefits. They deal with mental health crises and help children who have brain injuries to relearn skills. They drive back and forth to Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals for outpatient appointments. In short, they put their own lives on hold.
********
Equally challenging was Cynthia’s belief that the Army was trying to rush Rory’s discharge before he was ready. If he officially left active duty, Rory would be transferred from Walter Reed, which the military runs, to the VA medical system, which falls under a different branch of government. He would, therefore, be under the jurisdiction of a different health system. Cynthia was convinced her son still needed the care of Reed’s top-notch surgeons, but the Army wanted him to sign a form initiating the discharge process. “Within days of his coming out of his coma, the colonel at Walter Reed was at Rory’s bedside, putting a pen in Rory’s hand,” she says. “Rory had no forehead. No eyesight. No hearing. Couldn’t walk. He was doped on fentanyl.” Cynthia walked over and took the pen out of the soldier’s hand. “Rory’s not signing anything today,” she recalls saying.
**************
The Price of War
Troops returning with PTSD: 13.8 percent, or 226,000
Troops returning with major depression: 13.7 percent, or 225,000
Two-year cost of treating PTSD and major depression: $4 billion to $6.2 billion
The Facts of War
Percentage of active-duty forces between 17 and 24 years of age: 47
Percentage of military personnel who are unmarried: 48
Percentage of returning troops reporting the death or serious injury of a friend: 49
Source: “Invisible Wounds of War,” Rand Center for Military Health Policy Research, 2008
"Keep on, Keepin' on"
Dan Cedusky, Champaign IL "Colonel Dan"
See my web site at: Angelfire
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
from Colonel Dan
Monday, June 16, 2008
NEWS FROM…CHAIRMAN BOB FILNER
NEWS FROM…
CHAIRMAN BOB FILNER
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 11, 2008
http://veterans.house.gov
Improving Care for America’s Wounded Warriors
Chairman Filner Calls on Pentagon and VA to Address the Need for Improved Continuum of Care Services and Programs
Washington, D.C. – On Wednesday, the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, led by Chairman Bob Filner (D-CA), held a hearing to examine the progress that has been made in implementing the wounded warrior provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 (NDAA). The hearing also explored barriers to implementation and analyzed what additional actions need to be taken by the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to enhance the care given to wounded service members and veterans.
“No matter where we stand on the war in Iraq, we all stand together in our desire to make sure that our returning service members get the seamless health care they need, and the benefits they have earned,” commented Chairman Filner. “These seriously injured veterans have a right to get on with their lives and focus on their recovery – not deal with endless paperwork and a stubborn bureaucracy. We have lost the trust of many and we have a long way to go to provide the care worthy of their service and sacrifice. We must be prepared to welcome back every soldier, sailor, airman and marine with all the compassion this grateful nation can bestow.”
In February 2007, a series of Washington Post articles detailing the poor living conditions and a general lack of coordinated care for outpatients at Walter Reed Medical Center highlighted the challenges our veterans face and illustrated a break in faith with our troops.
On March 28, 2007, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 1538, the Dignified Treatment of Wounded Warriors Act, to address the problems facing wounded service members and improve their transition from the military to the VA. This language was inserted into the NDAA which was signed by the President on January 28, 2008. Among the key provisions to improve care for veterans and their families, the NDAA:
· Provides an additional three years of access to free VA health care for returning service members from Iraq and Afghanistan;
· Improves and expands VA’s ability to care for veterans returning from Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom OEF) with traumatic brain injury (TBI), including research, screening, care coordination, and working with non-VA providers to provide the care needed by our veterans;
· Requires a comprehensive policy to address mental health conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD);
· Requires DOD and VA to streamline the records transmission process, including moving forward with fully interoperable medical records;
· Provides for a more seamless transition between active duty and veterans’ status, including a single physical exam for DOD and VA benefits;
· Creates Wounded Warrior Resource Center to serve as a single point of contact for service members, their families, and primary caregivers to report issues with facilities, obtain health care, and receive benefits information;
· Requires VA to provide age-appropriate nursing home care for our veterans;
· Allows members of the National Guard and Reserves that are eligible for Reserve Educational Assistance Program (REAP) to use their education benefits for ten years after separation;
· Requires a study on the feasibility of streamlining statutory provisions addressing GI Bill benefits for active duty and guard and reserves.
Certain provisions of the NDAA require VA and DOD to collaborate to improve the care, management, and transition of recovering service members. The hearing focused on the sections of the law which address wounded warrior matters (Title XVI) and the progress the two Departments have made in implementing these provisions.
The first panel focused on an April 2008 report from the Rand Corporation, “Invisible Wounds of the War.” Dr. Lisa Jaycox presented the key findings on psychological and cognitive injuries in her testimony:
“Our study revealed a high prevalence (18.5%) of current PTSD and depression among servicemembers who had returned from OEF or OIF, as well as significant gaps in access to and the quality of care provided to this population. Too few of those with PTSD and depression were getting help, and among those that were getting help too few were getting even minimally adequate care. If left untreated or under-treated, these conditions can have negative, cascading consequences and result in a high economic toll. Investing in evidence-based care for all of those in need can reduce the costs to society in just two years.
“With respect to TBI, we found that approximately 19% report having experienced a probable TBI during deployment but that 57% of them had not been evaluated by a physician for a head injury. While the majority of these cases were likely to be mild, similar to a concussion, the extent of impairment in this group remains unknown. At the same time, the science of treating combat-related traumatic brain injury remains in its infancy leaving many unknowns for planning and delivering high quality care to those suffering from long-term impairments associated with TBI.”
Chairman Filner responded: “The Rand study found that some 300,000 troops are suffering from PTSD or depression and 320,000 have experienced brain injuries. I personally think these already seriously troubling numbers are low estimates of the reality facing our troops and veterans. And this number is ten times higher than the official casualty statistic from the Pentagon!”
Study Co-Director Terri Tanielian offered recommendations to the Committee on how best to address the psychological and cognitive injuries among service members returning from OEF and OIF. Recommendations included increasing the number of providers, closing the quality gap by providing system-wide evidence-based treatments, and investing in research. Tanelian suggested changing health care policy to urge service members to seek care off-the-record, off-duty, and off-base before symptoms and problems grew to be unmanageable. Dr. Jaycox recommended that the military actively work to make it acceptable and seen as a sign of strength to seek mental health treatment post-deployment.
Tanielian suggested that system-level conditions for military, VA, and private sector health care must change nation-wide. In her research, she found that health care provided by the VA was superior to other options and attributed this to “investment in research as well as in training, and rolling out evidence-based practice guidelines to train providers in the delivery of evidence-based care, and well as the use of tools that they have within the system such as the electronic medical record that would enable them to monitor care.”
Chairman Filner recommended a more comprehensive evaluation process and remarked that “currently, there are no mandatory evaluations for our troops and veterans – evaluations that would entail spending one hour with a qualified mental health care professional who could interview and observe the soldier or veteran. I think the best approach is while on active duty, DOD should provide an evaluation, not a screening using a questionnaire, and the VA should provide the veteran consistent follow-up evaluations. Right now, they are leaving the military with undiagnosed TBI and PTSD, which causes enormous problems for themselves, their communities, and their families. I think we have a long way to go and the need is so great.”
Panel discussions also focused on predictors for heightened risk for PTSD and depression. According to the Rand report, the single best predictor that drives the rate of PTSD and depression among service members is the number of combat traumas experienced. Particularly in the current conflicts, it is common to be exposed to an explosion or face a life-threatening situation, regardless of whether your military occupational specialty involves combat duty.
Representatives from the DOD and VA comprised the second panel and discussions focused on details of implementation of the NDAA and responses to the Rand report. Rear Admiral Patrick Dunne (Retired), Acting Under Secretary for Benefits and Assistant Secretary for Policy and Planning, reported that VA is making “demonstrable progress in implementing the provision of the Wounded Warrior Act” of the NDAA.
Michael L. Dominguez, Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, offered testimony to update the Committee on improvements implemented and planned for the care, management, and transition of wounded, ill, and injured service members. He assured the Committee that DOD has dedicated a huge portion of energy and attention to fixing the continuum of care for wounded service members, accomplished much while realizing much more needs to be done, internalized the importance of the mission, and will sustain momentum through the end of 2008 and during the upcoming transition to the next administration.
Dominguez found that the Rand report finding that 300,000 service members have “experienced some kind of mental health stress is very consistent with our data. And those people do need to be discovered. They need to get help. Many of them will, with very little counseling or assistance, resolve those combat stress issues themselves. A few, a few, will in fact manifest a clinical diagnosis of PTSD and they’ll need much more sustained intervention by medical health care professionals.” When asked to clarify “a few,” Dominguez responded that within the DOD system less than one percent will actually have clinical PTSD that would need treatment.
Filner responded: “I think there has been a contest here between the VA and DOD to see who can suck the humanity out of this issue the best. Do military leaders really believe that less than one percent of deployed soldiers will have PTSD as a clinical diagnosis? This is absolutely unacceptable. We are talking about suicides, homelessness, a lifetime of living with brain injuries. This is most certainly a matter of life and death! Our veterans deserve increased attention and a strong investment in improving the services and programs that are available at the DOD and VA. Congressional leaders anticipate a six-month interim report on this issue by July 2008 and we expect a specific focus on PTSD, TBI, and depression, in order to bring about positive change at the VA and DOD in providing care for our soldiers and veterans.”
The opening statements of all the witnesses and a link to the webcast are available on the Committee website at http://veterans.house.gov/hearings/hearing.aspx?newsid=246.
Witnesses:
Panel 1
· Lisa H. Jaycox, Ph.D., Senior Behavioral Scientist, RAND Corporation
· Terri L. Tanielian, MA, Senior Social Research Analyst, Co-Director, Center for Military Health Policy Research, RAND Corporation
Panel 2
· Michael L. Dominguez, Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, U.S. Department of Defense
· Rear Admiral Patrick W. Dunne, USN (Ret.), Acting Under Secretary for Benefits and Assistant Secretary for Policy and Planning, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
Accompanied by
o Madhulika Agarwal, M.D., Chief Patient Care Services Officer, Veterans Health Administration
o Paul A. Tibbits, M.D., Deputy Chief Information Officer, Office of Enterprise Development
Study shows long-term 9/11 stress in lower Manhattan
Study shows long-term 9/11 stress in lower Manhattan
By Claudia Parsons
NEW YORK (Reuters) - One in eight people who lived near the World Trade Center at the time of the September 11 attacks in 2001 were still suffering post traumatic stress disorder two to three years later, a new study indicated on Friday.
The study, based on a 2003-2004 survey of 11,000 lower Manhattan residents, showed low-income and less educated people were more prone to PTSD, as were divorced people, with around one in five in those groups reporting symptoms.
Authors of the study called for further monitoring of PTSD victims from the neighborhood and the city urged them to take advantage of free mental health services.
The condition is an anxiety disorder sparked by traumatic experiences of intense fear, horror or hopelessness. Symptoms include irritability or anger, sleep difficulties, trouble concentrating, extreme vigilance, flashbacks and nightmares.
The New York City health department, which conducted the study, said it was the first to measure the attack's long-term effect on the mental health of the community.
It said it was now analyzing the results of a follow-up survey conducted six years after the 9/11 attacks and would release new health findings in the coming months.
The study published on Friday in the Journal of Traumatic Stress showed 12.6 percent of all respondents suffered PTSD in 2003-2004. Women were more likely to have PTSD, at 15 percent, compared to 10 percent of men.
One in five African Americans and nearly one in four Hispanics suffered PTSD, it showed, compared to 10.7 percent of white residents. People earning less than $25,000a year showed a rate of nearly 20 percent Residents who were injured in the attacks were most likely to be still suffering PTSD two or three years later, at 38 percent. Others most affected included those who witnessed violent deaths and those caught in the dust cloud after the towers collapsed -- around 17 percent in each case.
The study cited figures from previous studies of the general population of the city showing that 8 percent of Manhattan residents reported symptoms of PTSD at five to eight weeks after the attacks, a rate that fell to 2 percent at four months and less than 1 percent at six months.
The new study showed that residents of lower Manhattan were more likely to be dealing with psychological problems from the attacks even two or three years later than the wider population of New York at six months after the attacks.
It said one potential explanation was those living in the area had constant reminders of the attack and more disruption to their daily routine. Many may have also been evacuated from their homes immediately after the attacks.
"We therefore believe these residents require more in-depth mental health monitoring, independent of the larger metropolitan area," the authors of the study wrote.
From Colonel Dan, Tom Philpot's article
Sent: Sunday, June 15, 2008 12:21 PM
War Casualties Under Reported?
Tom Philpott | June 12, 2008
http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,169678,00.html?wh=benefits
Mental Wounds Said To Raise War Casualties Tenfold
Rep. Bob Filner (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, charged Bush administration officials Wednesday with continuing to downplay the mental trauma and brain injuries suffered by veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Filner said an April RAND Corp. study, "Invisible Wounds of War -- Psychological and Cognitive Injuries, Their Consequences, and Services to Assist Recovery," justifies a tenfold jump in the U.S. casualty count versus the figure of 33,000 American dead and wounded used by the Pentagon.
RAND researchers extrapolated from a survey they conducted of 1,965 veterans to conclude that nearly 300,000 service members and veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan wars are suffering from post-traumatic stress or major depression. Filner told the pair of researchers, who had summarized their findings for his committee, that their work probably understates the problem.
"I personally think these are low estimates, just from my own studies," Filner said. "But if you take even the 300,000, [it's] 10 times the official casualty statistics from the Pentagon. Shouldn't this 300,000 be included?"
Lisa H. Jaycox, a senior behavioral scientist and clinical psychologist who co-directed the RAND study, embraced Filner's argument.
"Well, they are [suffering] an injury condition resulting from combat deployment, and so it's a different kind of casualty," Jaycox said. "But, yes, they are very important numbers."
At the same hearing, Michael L. Dominguez, principal deputy under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said RAND had gathered solid data from its survey but then drew the wrong conclusions. The study, Dominguez said, "did not, and cannot, definitively say that there are 300,000 cases of clinically diagnosed cases" of post-traumatic stress disorder or depression among veterans who served in the two theaters of war.
Filner angrily interrupted him, telling Dominguez that RAND didn't claim to show 300,000 clinically diagnosed cases of PTSD or depression. "It was an extrapolation to the possibility" of 300,000 cases, Filner said.
With over 1.6 million U.S. service members having served in Iraq or Afghanistan, Dominguez said, a finding that 300,000 veterans "have experienced some kind of mental health stress is very consistent with our data. And those people do need to be discovered [and] to get help."
But, he continued, "many of them will, with very little counseling or assistance, resolve those combat stress issues themselves. A few -- a few – will in fact manifest a clinical diagnosis of PTSD and they'll need much more sustained intervention by medical health care professionals."
"How many is a few?" Filner snapped.
The results so far, Dominguez said, show "less than one percent will actually have clinical PTSD that will need treatment over…"
"You believe that?" said Filner, cutting him off with sarcasm. "You believe that there are less than one percent of these deployed soldiers will have PTSD as a clinical diagnosis?"
Dominguez was stunned into silence momentarily but finally managed, "So far this is the number that we are seeing."
"That shows why you don't do anything," Filner said, "because you think there's only a few."
Another purpose of the three-hour hearing, which included testimony from retired Navy Rear Adm. Patrick W. Dunne, assistant secretary for policy and planning for the Veterans Benefits Administration, was to assess progress by DoD and VA in implementing Wounded Warrior legislation passed in January in response to the Walter Reed scandal last year.
Dominguez and Dunne conceded that some congressional deadlines haven't been met, including a late April target for establishing a Wounded Warrior Resource Center to give recovering service members, their families and primary caregivers a single point of contact for assistance.
But Dr. Terri L. Tanielian, co-director of the RAND study, acknowledged to Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) that the Wounded Warrior initiatives have set the Departments of Defense and VA "on the right track" for addressing most war-related mental health challenges.
The big hurdle now to proper care for many mentally wounded veterans is clinical capacity nationwide, Tanielian said. The pipeline for training mental healthcare providers in the most effective therapies for PTSD used by VA needs widening, she said, and that requires "transformation and system-level changes across the entire U.S. health care system."
Filner, meanwhile, wants every servicemember and veteran who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan to receive a mandatory examination, which should include at least an hour with a clinician trained to detect the symptoms of PTSD, depression and even mild cases of traumatic brain injury.
In his tirade at Dominguez and Dunne, Filner said that, between the two of them, "I think there's been a contest to see who can suck the humanity out of this issue better…I mean, we're talking about our children! We're talking about life and death! We're talking about suicides...homelessness…a lifetime of dealing with brain injuries! And you guys sit there without anything to say. This is absolutely unacceptable."
He asked Dominguez if he also disagreed with RAND that 320,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have a probable traumatic brain injury.
"Again," said Dominguez, "you don't have 320,000 brain injuries. You have 320,000 people who have been in or around a concussive event. Again, it's a spectrum of experience [versus] a spectrum of need that manifests itself. So, no, there is not 320,000 people out there with brain injuries."
That attitude, Filner charged, encourages clinicians to misdiagnose conditions so veterans are denied the care they need and the compensation they deserve. Dominguez took strong exception to those remarks.
To comment, e-mail milupdate@aol.com, write to Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA, 20120-1111 or visit: militaryupdate.com.
"Keep on, Keepin' on"
Dan Cedusky, Champaign IL "Colonel Dan"
See my web site at:
http://www.angelfire.com/il2/VeteranIssues/
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
As this article shows the military and DOD are not taking PTSD seriously, they don't count PTSD as a war injury, despite the fact it has taken more men and women out of action that actual blood letting wounds, mental wounds are just as bad if not worse, because of the fact the soldier has not lost blood they feel they are inferior to Purple Heart veterans, and due to the stigma of mental health injuries, they are afraid to report them, it will lable them as weak, or have them charged as the two men descirbed in the articles below show as malingering, the military is doing everything they can to reduce the compensation and benefits these combat veterans are or should be entitled to. They are using them until they become a liability and then they are screwing up there futures and spitting them out of the military, I wonder if they keep this up, how it will affect future enlistments or re-enlistments, if they continue to shit on their own troops who is going to volunteer in the future, at this point I am praying my own son does not join the military when he turns of age in 2 years, what is happening right now is just flat wrong, and my family has served in the Army since 1776, from Barre, Mass all in the Army as enlisted men and NCO's. If I don't want my son joining with my family history, why should families with less military history want their sons or daughters to join?
DEAD MARINE'S FAMILY SAYS HE DIDN'T GET PROPER CARE
DEAD MARINE'S FAMILY SAYS HE DIDN'T GET PROPER CARE
Chad Oligschlaeger was struggling with post-traumatic stress
disorder when he was found in barracks, parents say.
Eric Oligschlaeger of Round Rock says the Marines ignored two years of his son Chad's post-traumatic stress disorder problems and calls for help before he was found dead May 20 in his room at the Twentynine Palms base in California. (photo: Ralph Barrera, AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
For more about PTSD, use the VA Watchdog search engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/sessearch.php?q=ptsd&op=and
Story here... http://www.statesman.com/ne
ws/content/news/stories/local/06/15/0615marine.html
Story below:
-------------------------
HEALTH & MEDICINE
Dead Marine's family says he didn't get proper care
Chad Oligschlaeger was struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder when he was found in barracks, parents say.
By Marty Toohey
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Cpl. Chad Oligschlaeger returned from Iraq in early 2006 haunted by the memory of a fellow Marine he thought he should have saved.
He began drinking himself to sleep to dull the flashbacks and the nightmares, friends and family say. He told them he was accused by a superior of faking to avoid his next deployment.
After a second tour in Iraq, Oligschlaeger came home to Round Rock on leave and slept for days, a shell of the McNeil High School student who had pushed his friends into every kind of mischief imaginable, giggling all the way. He told his family the dead Marine was talking to him.
In the spring, two years after the nightmares began, he told his family that doctors had diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder and put him on at least six types of medication. The Marines sent him to alcohol rehab and were arranging treatment at a mental health clinic.
But weeks before his death, Oligschlaeger declined to re-enlist, and his unit left him with no supervision and nothing to do for days on end, according to family and friends, who say he called them at all hours, slurring his speech, unable to recall what medications he had taken.
He was found dead in his room at the Twentynine Palms Marine base in California on May 20. He was 21.
First Lt. Curtis Williamson, a Marine Corps spokesman, said the Corps' policies prohibit commanders from discouraging mental health treatment or leaving physically or mentally wounded troops uncared for. He said an investigation is under way, during which details, records and the cause of death cannot be released to the family or the public. "These allegations," he said, "will be taken very seriously."
But Oligschlaeger's family is alleging that two years of obvious problems and calls for help from Oligschlaeger were ignored. Their complaints echo those of veterans' advocates, who say that even with new government policies, better treatment and increased public awareness, there are still barriers separating soldiers and Marines from proper care for conditions such as PTSD that affect mental health.
"They wouldn't give Chad the help he needed. But he was wounded, every bit as wounded as someone who lost an arm or leg," said his father, Eric Oligschlaeger of Round Rock.
Oligschlaeger was found dead at a time when studies are showing that more troops are dealing with mental health problems than previously thought. The most comprehensive independent study, published in April by the RAND Corp.'s Center for Military Health Policy Research, found that one-third of service members sent to Iraq or Afghanistan return suffering from a combination of severe depression, PTSD and brain injuries.
Only half the troops who need care seek it, often fearing stigmatization or retribution, according to the report, which also found that "only slightly more than half who receive treatment get minimally adequate care."
Moments of war left haunting memories
Chad Oligschlaeger, his family says, saw things in Iraq that he could not leave behind.
His first day in Ramadi — a densely packed city where the streets rang with gunfire — he saw a nearby Marine killed by a mortar lobbed onto the base, he told his family. A lieutenant handed him a body bag.
On Feb. 18, 2006, during a night patrol, a friend and mentor to Oligschlaeger, 2nd Lt. Almar Fitzgerald, was riding in a Humvee that was attacked. The blast from a roadside bomb left "Fitz" severely wounded, according to military releases. Eric Oligschlaeger said his son's Humvee arrived shortly after the attack and Oligschlaeger helped load Fitzgerald's stretcher into the back. But it was too wide to fit, momentarily delaying their departure, Eric Oligschlaeger said.
Fitzgerald died three days later at a U.S. military hospital in Germany, according to the releases.
Eric Oligschlaeger said his son described a delay that lasted at most a few moments, but Chad was dwelling on those seconds. When Oligschlaeger came home on leave that April, his friends say they noticed subtle changes.
At age 10, he'd met Brad Blackaller, and it took only a day for him to ask, "Are we best friends yet?" When Blackaller said he already had one, Oligschlaeger replied, "Why can't you have more than one?" After Ramadi, Blackaller said, the burly, brown-haired hockey player with the sly smile and more best friends than he could count was jittery about standing in a grocery line.
Oligschlaeger's mother, Julie Oligschlaeger, who lives in Phoenix, says her son made the 275-mile trip from Twentynine Palms most weekends with a few Marine buddies. Sunday mornings, mother and son had breakfast together. She and Oligschlaeger's fiancée, Adrianna Avena, who also lives in Phoenix, say he spent months brushing aside questions about Iraq.
Then, six months after returning from Ramadi, he learned he was being sent back.
He started having flashbacks. He drank Seagram's Seven whiskey until he passed out. He thrashed violently in his sleep, crying out about Fitzgerald. Avena learned the safest way to wake him was a light touch on the heel.
"Chad told (the Marines) he couldn't go back in his condition," she said.
Oligschlaeger told his family that he saw a military psychiatrist and laid out the drinking and the nightmares. But later that day, Oligschlaeger told his family, he was called in by a superior and accused of making up problems to avoid deployment. Julie Oligschlaeger said her son worried about a dishonorable discharge — and that no decent employer would hire him.
Williamson, the Marine spokesman, confirmed the identities of superiors accused by the family of discouraging Oligschlaeger from seeking help. But they are not allowed to give interviews during the investigation, he said. Their names are being withheld from this article because they did not have the opportunity to comment.
Williamson would not comment on Oligschlaeger's case specifically but said any attempts to discourage him from seeking mental health treatment, as is being alleged, would be "not acceptable or condonable under Marine Corps standards."
Stigma inhibits mental health treatment
Across the military, standards are changing. The Defense Department has been scrambling to hire psychiatrists in the wake of a yearlong Pentagon study, which concluded in May 2007 that the number of mental health professionals in the military is "woefully inadequate." Last month, as part of a larger initiative to eliminate the stigma associated with mental health care, Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited a new PTSD treatment center near El Paso and declared that security clearances could no longer be denied to troops seeking treatment. Some commanders have also been encouraging their troops to think of the mind like a piece of equipment, something that may need maintenance when used in harsh conditions.
But change takes time. In February, during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing about soldiers allegedly deployed against doctors' orders, Army Secretary Pete Geren testified that troops unfit for duty shouldn't be sent to war zones but couldn't be sure they weren't. Meanwhile, troop surveys consistently find the main barrier to treatment is fear that careers will suffer.
"There's more help available," said Paul Sullivan, the executive director of the advocacy group Veterans for Common Sense. "But it's got to get a lot better, quickly, or we're going to have a social catastrophe among returning veterans."
After diagnosis, a host of medications
In April 2007, Oligschlaeger and Ramadi had changed. The city had calmed. Amid the pace of life there, Oligschlaeger seemed stable to family members during phone calls home, they say.
He returned on Thanksgiving from his seven-month tour in Iraq optimistic about his post-military life, his family says. While visiting Avena in Phoenix, he proposed at P. T. Cook's restaurant, so nervous that he got on his knees and almost forgot to pop the question. Oligschlaeger toured the firefighters' academy in Phoenix. Avena bought a house in nearby Scottsdale.
But when Oligschlaeger went home on leave to Round Rock, he would not leave the house. He told his father that he didn't like how people stared at him.
In February, Oligschlaeger told his family that he was having hallucinations of Fitzgerald sitting next to his bed in the evenings, talking to him. He began to dream about killing Adrianna in anger.
At some point, he was diagnosed with PTSD, according to the family. But without medical records, determining when is difficult. The family says that he saw several psychiatrists in February but did not mention being diagnosed with PTSD until early May.
Julie Oligschlaeger said that during a brief visit in March, her son left behind an empty bottle of zolpidem, a prescription sleep aid, dated March 7, as well as bottles of trazodone and fluoxetine (both prescription antidepressants) dated March 20. His family says he later told them he was also taking lorazepam (a panic-reducing sedative) and seroquel (an antipsychotic).
In early April, the Marines sent Oligschlaeger to an alcohol rehabilitation center in Point Loma, Calif., his family says. He spent nearly a month there, but he complained of flashbacks so vivid that he would run terrified from the room. He thought the sergeant picking him up from treatment accused him of faking symptoms.
But, he told his family, the Marines were planning additional treatment: a stay in a mental health facility in Napa Valley. They were waiting until a bed opened up.
The medications mentioned by Oligschlaeger's family are nothing to be alarmed about, said Dr. Erin Silvertooth, an Austin psychiatrist who has counseled PTSD patients. Silvertooth said PTSD medications are often used in concert to target specific symptoms, because "there is no magic PTSD pill."
But she and Dr. Arthur Blank Jr., one of the nation's leading authorities on PTSD, said patients on that many medications must be monitored closely. Blank said doctors often rely primarily on pills to deal with PTSD, but he said they should only supplement regular private counseling. Silvertooth and Blank, who had no involvement in Oligschlaeger's case and could speak only in general terms, also said alcohol can amplify or interfere with PTSD medications, creating a dangerous combination.
Mixing alcohol, pills
On May 10, Oligschlaeger's older brother, Chris, and his girlfriend, Sara Pawlowski, visited Phoenix. Chad Oligschlaeger, obviously drunk, complained he couldn't find his pills.
"I just saw you take them," Pawlowski recalls telling Chad Oligschlaeger.
The family's worries deepened. Eric Oligschlaeger, who paints houses for a living, took a job delivering newspapers in Oak Hill in anticipation of paying for the post-military treatment.
The Marines encouraged Chad Oligschlaeger to renew his contract. He said no.
In the days after that, the family says, Oligschlaeger would call from different points on the base, wandering in a haze. He told his mother no one asked or cared why he wasn't going to work. His new roommate in the barracks was house-sitting off base.
On Friday, May 16, Oligschlaeger told his father Napa Valley was still full. He then called Blackaller and said he wasn't visiting Avena in Phoenix to save on gas.
On Monday, Avena bought her wedding dress. Her call went to Oligschlaeger's voice mail.
On Tuesday, voice mail again. In a panic, she called her fiancé's old roommate and asked, "Can you check on Chad?"
Hours passed.
At 11:30 p.m. in Round Rock, Eric Oligschlaeger's doorbell rang.
"By then," he said, "I knew what it was about."
The Marine told Eric Oligschlaeger his son was dead but said he could not give any details.
Two days later, on a breezy desert morning, the Marines held a memorial service for Oligschlaeger at Twentynine Palms. There, Julie Oligschlaeger says, she asked the lieutenant colonel commanding her son's battalion, "What happened to eyes on your Marines?"
Oligschlaeger's funeral was May 31 in Austin. At it, the family played Johnny Cash's rendition of "The Ballad of Ira Hayes," a song about a disillusioned Pima Indian who helped raise the U.S. flag at Iwo Jima. In the song, Hayes turns to whiskey after the war, hoping to dull the nightmares and survivor's guilt. He died at 32.
Eric Oligschlaeger knew it was an unusual choice for a funeral. But, he said, during the first deployment, his son's unit had listened to it every morning.
To the family, it seemed a fitting choice.
mtoohey@statesman.com ; 445-3673
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posted by Larry Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org
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As I stated below the Marines are as bad as the Army when it comes to actually dealing with PTSD the difference here is this young man did kill himself, why did this have to happen? Where is the accountability?
MENTAL HEALTH AND THE MILITARY MIND-SET
MENTAL HEALTH AND THE MILITARY MIND-SET
-- A young sergeant's case illustrates the difficulty of balancing sensitive treatment against Army needs.
For more about veterans and mental health issues, use the VA Watchdog search engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/sessearch.php?q=mental+health&op=ph
Story here... http://www.latimes.com/news/nation
world/nation/la-na-gisuicide15-2008jun15,0,4012826.story
Story below:
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Mental health and the military mind-set
A young sergeant's case illustrates the difficulty of balancing sensitive treatment against Army needs.
By Aamer Madhani, Chicago Tribune
BELLMORE, N.Y -- . -- Kristofer Goldsmith was so distressed about the prospect of returning to Iraq that he decided he was willing to kill himself to avoid serving a second tour.
The Army had mandated an extension of his three-year contract, which had been set to expire, as his unit was set to deploy to Baghdad as part of the troop surge. The day before he was to ship out in May 2007, he washed down a dozen Percoset with more than a liter of vodka.
Soon after he was admitted to the Winn Army Community Hospital at Ft. Stewart, Ga., a top noncommissioned officer from his brigade's rear detachment visited the young sergeant, along with an Army psychologist, to discuss discharging him from the military.
"We all agreed that it was for the best that my Army career come to an end then," said Goldsmith, who added that he'd scrawled the words "stop-loss killed me" in marker on his body before his suicide attempt. "It was a few days later when they told me that they were going to come at me for faking a mental lapse."
The rear commander of his unit, Maj. Douglas Wesner of the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, quickly initiated an administrative punishment known as an Article 15 against Goldsmith for malingering -- that is, feigning a mental lapse or derangement or purposely injuring oneself -- in order to avoid being deployed to Iraq.
Eventually, his commanders dropped the Article 15, but not before removing the 22-year-old from the service on a general discharge. Because he did not receive an honorable discharge, Goldsmith was stripped of his Montgomery GI Bill benefits, which he'd been counting on to help pay for his college education.
Goldsmith's treatment is hardly unheard of. In fact, 21 Iraq soldiers have been punitively discharged since 2003 after being convicted of malingering, said U.S. Army spokesman Paul Boyce.
Goldsmith's case illustrates the complex decisions facing the U.S. military, which says it is eager to address the mental health problems plaguing its troops but at the same time must maintain its warrior ethos and respect for the chain of command.
Goldsmith remains adamant that he did not fake a mental illness. A Department of Veterans Affairs psychologist later diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Wesner declined to comment. A 3rd Infantry Division spokesman said that Goldsmith was provided legal counsel and received a medical evaluation before his discharge, but he declined to speak further about the case.
Sitting in his parents' home in this working-class suburb on Long Island, Goldsmith said his mental unraveling began when he returned from his first tour in Iraq in 2005.
The collapse accelerated after he learned he would be subject to "stop-loss": The Army was involuntarily extending his three-year contract so that it could return him to Baghdad.
Goldsmith, now an active member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, is part of a growing population of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who have suffered from PTSD. .
Pentagon officials recently disclosed that at least 40,000 U.S. troops had been diagnosed with PTSD after returning from Iraq or Afghanistan. But those figures accounted only for those who had sought help; a recent study by Rand Corp. put the number closer to 300,000.
Last month, the Defense Department announced that 115 U.S. troops had committed suicide in 2007, the highest annual toll since the military began tracking the figures. And the Pentagon acknowledges that 12% to 15% of war-zone soldiers are taking antidepressants or sleep medication.
Goldsmith served much of his yearlong deployment in the Shiite slums of Sadr City. On patrols, his unit took potshots from insurgents and was attacked by brick-throwing adolescents.
Sadr City was plagued by sectarian fighting, and U.S. troops regularly found the tortured corpses of Sunni men. Goldsmith's duties included photographing them.
When he got back to Ft. Stewart in late 2005, Goldsmith said, he suffered deep bouts of depression and drank so much that he would often black out.
At first he refused to seek help.
"Before we were heading back to Iraq, [a senior noncommissioned officer] said that if we tried to use mental stress as a way to get out of going, he would see to it that we'd become his personal IED kicker," Goldsmith said. "No one wanted to be stigmatized. . . . You also feared that there would be career consequences."
One night Goldsmith became so irritated by a man at a party that he choked him until he was unconscious. He realized that he had to tell his commanders he needed help.
Goldsmith is fighting for an upgrade to an honorable discharge so he can regain his eligibility for GI Bill benefits.
Some of the soldiers who worked most closely with him have written letters to the 3rd Infantry Division brass on his behalf.
His company commander and platoon leader had recommended him for a Bronze Star at the end of his tour.
"If I were to go to war tomorrow, I would want Kris Goldsmith to go with me," Capt. Edward McMichael, who was Goldsmith's company commander in Iraq, said in an interview. "I don't think Kris would fake it."
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posted by Larry Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org
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I can't tell you on how many levels the treatment of this young man is wrong, very wrong. It appears obvious this man has PTSD yet the Army chose to charge him with "malingering" and attempted to prosecute him for deliberately avoiding movement to Iraq, and they want soldiers to be open and honest about having PTSD and seek treatment, this just shows them to shut up, drink, do drugs whatever to make it past the demons, but the last thing you want to do is to seek treatment, you will be punished, so much for DOD telling the Army and Marines to "help" the soldiers dealing with mental health issues. This is just like Vietnam all over again but on a much more public scale, knowing that the media is all over this, the Army continues to punish soldiers for having PTSD rather than treating them.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Veterans of secret Cold War-era chemical and germ tests
News Day.com
Veterans of secret Cold War-era chemical and germ tests on military personnel demanded help from the Bush administration yesterday, but they got no satisfaction. Pentagon and Veterans Affairs Department officials said there was no need for legislation to guarantee health care and benefits to the veterans. Thousands were exposed, sometimes without their knowledge, to biological agents, including sarin and VX. The tests, conducted at sea and above a half-dozen U.S. states in 1962-1973, were to see how ships would withstand chemical assaults. Veterans who tried to get help from the VA were "shown the door," retired Navy Reserve Lt. Cmdr. Jack Alderson told the House Veterans Affairs subcommittee on disability assistance, his voice choked with emotion. Administration officials said there was no definitive link between the tests and illnesses, including cancer, now afflicting Alderson and others.
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There are tens of thousands of veterans used in Cold War era experiments, 2100 men at Fort Detrick in Operation White Coat the Army did biological experiments from 1953 - 1972 when the US signed the BWTC Treaty after Congress ratified it, the other large scale classified program was run at Edgewood Arsenal and used 7120 enlisted men in chemical weapons, BZ, Sarin and Mustard agents, LSD, PCP, Ecstacy, and many other substances 254 in all, there were many double blind experiments done so that no one will ever know who was used in what experiments and who was exposed to what specifically, the last study done on the Edgewood volunteers in FY 2000 shows a 75% death and disability rate, 3098 presumed dead and 2200 disabled, an excessively high rate for men aged 45 - 65. It is time for the VA to care for these men and their widows.
