On December 4th NPR aired a story featuring a number of soldiers at Fort Carson suffering from PTSD who have been disciplined and in some cases driven from the Army for "patterns of misconduct" for behavior such as drug and alcohol usage, work problems, and other adjustment problems. On December 28th NPR reported that Senators Boxer, Bond, and Obama have asked the Pentagon to investigate whether soldiers at Fort Carson are receiving adequate mental health care.
Details follow
The report is posted on NPR's website. NPR: Army to Court-Martial Soldier Featured in PTSD Story
Highlights:
All Things Considered, December 4, 2006. Army studies show that at least 20 percent to 25 percent of the soldiers who have served in Iraq display symptoms of serious mental-health problems, including depression, substance abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) ...... even those who feel desperate can have trouble getting the help they need. In fact, evidence suggests that officers at Ft. Carson punish soldiers who need help, and even kick them out of the Army.
Soldier Tyler Jennings ... felt so depressed and desperate that he decided to kill himself ...
Five months before, Jennings had gone to the medical center at Ft. Carson ... when the sergeants who ran his platoon found out he was having a breakdown and taking drugs, they started to haze him. He decided to attempt suicide when they said that they would eject him from the Army ...
... Other soldiers who've returned to Ft. Carson from Iraq say they feel betrayed by the way officials have treated them ...
The Army boasts of having great programs ... at Army bases in the United States, mental-health units offer individual and group therapy, and counseling for substance abuse. But soldiers say that in practice, the mental-health programs at Ft. Carson donGÇÖt work the way they should.
... soldiers fill out questionnaires when they return from Iraq that are supposed to warn officials if they might be getting depressed, or suffering from PTSD, or abusing alcohol or drugs. But ... nobody at the base followed up to make sure they got appropriate support ... it's a national problem: GAO found that about 80 percent of the soldiers who showed potential signs of PTSD were not referred for mental health follow-ups ...
Soldiers at Ft. Carson also say that even when they request support, the mental-health unit is so overwhelmed that they can't get the help they need ...
... their worst problem is that their supervisors and friends turned them into pariahs ... Supervisors said it's true ... because they don't belong in the Army.
Jennings called a supervisor at Ft. Carson to say that he had almost killed himself ... The Defense Department's clinical guidelines say that when a soldier has been planning suicide, one of the main ways to help is to put him in the hospital. Instead, officers sent a team of soldiers to his house to put him in jail, saying that Jennings was AWOL for missing work ...
Evidence suggests that officials are kicking soldiers with PTSD out of the Army in a manner that masks the problem.
... the Army has to pay special mental-health benefits to soldiers discharged due to PTSD. But soldiers discharged for breaking the rules receive fewer or even no benefits ...
Alex Orum's medical records showed that he had PTSD, but his officers expelled him from the Army earlier this year for "patterns of misconduct," repeatedly citing him on disciplinary grounds ...
Doctors diagnosed another soldier named Jason Harvey with PTSD ... Harvey slashed his wrists in a cry for help. Officials also kicked Harvey out a few months ago for "patterns of misconduct."
... Files on other soldiers suggest the same pattern: Those who seek mental-health help are repeatedly cited for misconduct, then purged from the ranks.
Most of these soldiers are leaving the Army with less than an "honorable discharge" ... In other words, the Army is pushing them out in disgrace.
This reminds me of James E. Dean, the Maryland reservist suffering from PTSD who committed suicide by cop a couple of weeks ago rather than go to Iraq. Abuse of soldiers suffering from mental health problems occasioned by their service and misuse of the process to eject these sufferers should not be tolerated.
Here's a quote from the article:
"A six-month investigation has uncovered multiple cases in which soldiers wounded in Iraq are suspiciously diagnosed as having a personality disorder, then prevented from collecting benefits. The conditions of their discharge have infuriated many in the military community, including the injured soldiers and their families, veterans' rights groups, even military officials required to process these dismissals.
"They say the military is purposely misdiagnosing soldiers like Town and that it's doing so for one reason: to cheat them out of a lifetime of disability and medical benefits, thereby saving billions in expenses. "
I could swear that I heard this guy's father call in on cspan radio this week, trying to complain to a Senator about this very case.