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The Big Battle of Iraq Has Yet to Begin - At
Home, Not Abroad The number of dead soldiers
in Iraq continues to climb. Others lose their
limbs when yet another IED blast blows up their
transport vehicles as they move in and out of
war-torn Baghdad.
The potential after-effects that soldiers may
suffer from this war, however, has become one
big ticking time-bomb that could explode the
military's already fragile morale - if nothing
is ever done about it.
And post-traumatic stress disorder has the
potential to tear apart families already
burdened by the roller-coaster ride of National
Guard soldiers being called in-and-out of duty
that they thought would simply help pay their
college tuition.
Already, this PTSD enemy looks firmly
entrenched: A recent report showed that 32
soldiers killed themselves in the war zone last
year - a record high since the war began five
years ago, according to The Hartford Courant.
The number of suicides in Iraq in 2007 climbed
18 percent from 2006, despite efforts by
military officials to improve training and
education in suicide prevention and mental
health, The Courant reported.
The number of Army troops suffering from
severe combat stress is "skyrocketing," rising
from just over 1,000 new cases in 2003 to more
than 28,000 soldiers today diagnosed with PTSD,
according to The Baltimore Sun.
Yet, no one who has, or may have the power to
do something - that being Congress, the
Pentagon, Barack Obama, John McCain, President
Bush and on and on - has come out with a
clear-cut battle-plan for tackling
post-traumatic stress disorder on a large scale.
On his website, Obama talks about recruiting
more health professionals, improving screening,
offering more support to families and making
PTSD benefits claims fairer.
McCain, a former Vietnam POW, has advocated
for disability benefits to veterans with cancer
and other health problems caused by Agent
Orange, and also treatment for tobacco-related
illnesses and substance abuse problems. He's
sponsored legislation to cover mental health
care in military retiree health plans, according
to his website.
But all those ideas lacks specifics. Finding
out how they stand is also difficult; each
candidate addresses PTSD only in hard-to-find
places that are buried in their websites. PTSD
is missing from their bombastic, speech-driven
rhetoric.
On the Pentagon's website, there is
little-to-no talk of casulties of the
psychological kind - perhaps sending the message
that the only way a soldier can be wounded is
either by a bullet or a bomb.
Even the Army seems to recognize the obvious
omission. Lt. Gen. Eric B. Schoomaker, the
Army's top medical officer, has said he does not
know how many additional soldiers suffer from
symptoms of combat stress - such as
hyper-vigilance, sleeplessness and irrational
anger - and he does not know how many of these
soldiers are receiving treatment, according to
The Baltimore Sun.
"As a nation, our mental health capability is
not adequate to the need," and the Army suffers
from the same problem, Schoomaker recently told
defense reporters.
He also said the Army needs 300 more top
mental health professionals to care for the
growing numbers of soldiers suffering from
severe stress, according to the Sun. But the
Army has filled only 180 of those positions.
Anyone who is familiar with the tragedy of
the Vietnam era or, at the very least, how it
was portrayed in history books, newspaper
reports and movies, should know that PTSD has
the next potential to be the wound that, for
many soldiers, never goes away.
Indeed, symptoms of PTSD often don't show up
right away, according to the National Institute
of Mental Health. Many Vietnam veterans, in
fact, didn't report signs of illness until 10,
or even 20 years after they served.
What's amazing is that signs of Iraq-related
PTSD were first reported by The Associated Press
four years ago, when the Army's first study of
the mental health of troops who fought in Iraq
found that about one in eight reported symptoms
of post-traumatic stress disorder.
This was long before troop divisions that
were shuffled out after the fall of Baghdad were
forced to return and then, quite possibly,
return again. Families who waited months for
their loved ones to return were forced to, yet
again, wait.
This was before the public really began to
lose faith in the war, and then started to lose
faith in President Bush, whose popular rating
has fallen to Richard Nixon levels.
Whether troops leave Iraq sooner or later,
managing PTSD is the battle that, for many,
needs to begin now. |
