Posted on 09/23/2006 3:37:25 AM PDT by John Carey
More than one-third of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans seeking medical treatment from the Veterans Health Administration report symptoms of stress or other mental disorders — a tenfold increase in the last 18 months, according to an agency study.
The dramatic jump in cases — coming as more troops face multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan — has triggered concern among some veterans groups that the agency may not be able to meet the demand. They say veterans have had to deal with long waits for doctor appointments, staffing shortages and lack of equipment at medical centers run by the Veterans Affairs Department.
Contributing to the higher levels of stress are the long and often repeated tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, troops also face unpredictable daily attacks and roadside bombings as they battle the stubborn insurgency.
Veterans and Defense Department officials said the increase in soldiers complaining of stress or mental disorder symptoms also may suggest that efforts to reduce the stigma of such problems are working and that commanders and medical personnel are more adept at recognizing symptoms.
"It's definitely better than it was in past generations," said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
"Yes, I missed your point entirely".
sorry, used bad English on the last post.....
I'm not an anti-war activist. Not in any way. But I sure think we all have to be fully informed. Issues on how we care for our troops, our elderly, etc are very important to me. Anti-Communism is important to me. :ife issues are important to me.
So, I guess we might recommend we debate and talk about the issues more than we question the evil intent of the poster....
" I just want to understand the world we live in so that I am a good citizen and voter."
I'll explain it for you. Islamafacists want to kill you. Vote republican.
"I think we really need to look at the veterans without service connected disabilities using the system."
Woah, buddy. Ex-service people signed a contract with the government, including health care. The govmn't keeps customizing these contracts as years go by, in their favor, of course. Bottom line is, vets signed up for certain perks and should get them, service related or not, if that was in their sign up contract.
I've been scratching my head over that statement. Perhaps you might care to enlighten me as to where else the money would be better spent?
How war and other stresses impact man; how the brain copes and how the brain may not, are issues I am interested in understanding better. I have friends from Vietnam suffering from PTSD. Some still. I know some of the young guys in this was killed and wounded and have seen some suffering from PTSD. My Mom had alzheimer's and my best friend has it now. My wife was in the Vietnam war and a prisoner for many years: and she is happy and normal.
So the human mind is a terrific thing. When I hear people say we might spend mnore on the space progam, I like to say "let's work on understanding better the space between our ears..."
This is interesting to some I think:
The Doctor: A Civil War PTSD Casualty?
By John E. Carey
The Washington Times
July 31, 1999
During the Civil War the concept of “post traumatic stress disorder” did not exist. Physicians and family members close to disabled veterans certainly knew and understood the mental toll the carnage of battle inflicted on mind and body. Dr. William Chester Minor, himself a trained physician, suffered paranoia, uncontrolled fits of rage and severe headaches and nightmares after the Civil War. Ultimately his illness resulted in irrational behavior culminating in the murder of a complete stranger. Admitted to an asylum in 1872, he died in 1920 after making a major contribution to one of the most important books in the English language.
William Chester Minor, son of Eastman Strong Minor, had all the benefits of privilege. He enjoyed the advantages of a fine family name, wealth and education. His father, a true aristocrat, headed the seventh generation of Minors in the United States. Most of the Minors had established themselves as key members of the community dating back to Pilgrim times. Indeed, the property for Oakwood cemetery and an early Methodist Church expansion in Falls Church, Virginia, was donated to the church by a descendant of George Minor (T. Harrison) in 1818 (ironically, Union troops destroyed the church in 1861).
Eastman Minor closed his New England printing business, and with his wife Lucy, traveled to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1834 to spread the gospel of Christianity among the “brown peoples” from India through Singapore and up to Bangkok. William was born seven months after their arrival. Orphaned at the age of three, he saw his father re-married to another widowed missionary by the age of five.
William Minor’s father and other clergymen preached about the evils of sex and the damning temptations of the flesh. Yet young William witnessed first hand the local tropical girls bathing shamelessly naked (and apparently without fear of guilt or sin) in the surf – a vision and a dichotomy that would haunt him into adulthood.
A gentle soul, William took to water colors and other artistic pursuits. But his first love was a life-long admiration for great written works.
By the age of twelve, William Minor knew several languages and could ably navigate the back streets of Rangoon, Singapore, and Bangkok.
Sent back to the United States, William Minor completed a classical education and graduated from the difficult School of Medicine at Yale. He spent nine years in medical apprenticeship before he volunteered for service in the Union Army just four days before the Battle of Gettysburg.
After months of service far from the front, Dr. Minor was plunged into the horror of war. He was with the Army at the battle of the Wilderness, and heard wounded soldiers of both Armies crying out in pain as fire swept through the dry kindling of the battle ground. He amputated limbs and witnessed the terrible wounds inflicted by the large caliber lead rounds and cannon shot of the day. He saw gangrene, filth and infection frequently.
After the Wilderness, Dr. Minor was pressed into service by a court martial for a most unusual and difficult assignment. A Union Army deserter, an Irishman by birth, had been caught. This deserter was to face judgement in the field. Found guilty of a hanging offense by a hastily arranged court martial, the “merciful” court ordered the deserter branded on the face with a D, marking him forever after as an army deserter.
This fairly common punishment permanently marked former soldiers for shame. For an Irishman, this was a particularly heinous sentence, for it barred a man from returning to participate in the covert war against the English monarchy. The face scarred with the D alerted law officers who would watch or apprehend the wearer.
Dr. Minor was ordered to mete out the punishment of the court martial. Using a red-hot branding iron, the hesitant doctor carried out his assignment. But the sight and sound of searing flesh and the conflict with the physician’s Hippocratic oath haunted Minor for the rest of his life.
At war’s end, Dr. Minor was performing autopsies at the military hospital in Alexandria, Virginia. As he moved from posting to posting after the war, he began to exhibit unusual behavior. Irishmen, he believed, entered his quarters to molest him while he slept. He began to frequent the most unseemly establishments in the slums of New York. He complained of headaches.
Minor spent time in the government insane asylum that we now know as Saint Elizabeth’s in Washington, D. C. But doctors were unable to conclusively diagnose his illness. Then, at the urging of his family, Dr. Minor went to Europe, where, it was hoped, he could rid his mind of torment. Dr. Minor expected to read, read and paint.
But there was no escaping these post-war demons. Waking in the dark of night while living in London, Dr. Minor went into the street and shot to death a man on his way to work at the local brewery. Dr. Minor believed he had chased one of his Irish tormentors out of his apartment, but at his trial, the landlady proved that no one could have entered his locked chambers.
Convicted of murder and found to be insane, Dr. Minor was sent away to the Broadmoor insane asylum in England in 1872. While Grant became President of the United States and Chamberlain became Governor of Maine, William Chester Minor faced incarceration for the rest of his life.
But the story doesn’t end here. Dr. Minor, an educated man who became a physician because of his dogged determination and dedication to good study habits, used his Army pension to start his own library. He collected the best titles and authors of the English language. Ultimately he contributed twenty years of nearly continuous study effort to the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary.
William Chester Minor: student, physician, artist, Civil War veteran, murderer and lexicographer. Dr. Minor’s story has recently been illuminated by Simon Winchester in his book The Professor and the Madman, which sheds light upon the Civil War, the nature of man, and the roots of the English language.
On Alzheimer's:
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20060920-090610-2909r.htm
A lot to think about and a lot of research still to be done....
What probably bothers people is the focus on the minority of soldiers that require attention, rather than the vast majority who do not. It seems to many to mirror the focus of the media, and most people get enough of that.
This anger that people like me feel when they see a plethora of articles like this one has NOTHING to do with the fact that real professional help is needed by some soldiers returning from a war zone where the sight of human bodies transformed into horrible apparitions by the violence of war, or the constant threat (or actual witness) of death or dismemberment is a constant comapanion.
Remember the Maryland Snipers? John Allen Muhammed and Lee Malvo? For a period of time, the media refused to include the "Muhammed" in his name, even though that is what he had gone by for 10 or more years. But, most damningly in my mind, is that they focused on his military service in the First Gulf War. You could not hear a single reference without "Gulf War Veteran".
This hits a sore spot, not just with me, but with a lot of other readers, and it really hits a sore spot with a lot of Vietnam Vets that I have spoken with.
They are good people, did their job, came home, and saw them and their comrades painted as psychotic, enraged, bitter lunatics teetering on the urge to get a gun and climb into a bell tower somewhere.
And this was done by people with a specific agenda, and those same people, with the same agenda, exist today, and are trying to do the same thing.
That is what angers people like me when they see the focus on articles like this one. To our shame, many of us sat back passively and let it happen to Vietnam Veterans, but we are not going to let it happen to these men.
battlegearboat, thanks for your service. I did not see your reply before I posted, but read mine at #27.
YOU and men like you are one of the reasons the fixation with this type of thing really makes us angry.
And it has nothing to do with the fact that some people DO need help.
"Woah, buddy. Ex-service people signed a contract with the government, including health care. The govmn't keeps customizing these contracts as years go by, in their favor, of course. Bottom line is, vets signed up for certain perks and should get them, service related or not, if that was in their sign up contract."
No they didn't! They signed a contract stating they would earn medical benefits at the end of twenty years of service. If they did less than twenty a got out with a clean bill of health...they earned certain VA benefits( home garantees, tuition assistances)...not lifelong medical care. That is made clear at every pre seperation briefing.
Trust me ...at certain points of my career, fitrep grades included how well you retained your people. Clinton opened the VA to the nonservice connected in the 90's and didn't provide a corresponding funding increase. Thats a de facto "Cut".
As I pointed out, you are honest on your home page of what you are all about. So all anyone has to do is go to your home page and read a number of your published opinions and leave it up to the reader to determine where you are coming from.
By the way are you implying that peace activists have evil intent? I didn't write anything about you being evil, I just wondered what your agenda was, and after reading your homepage, I found out.
Of course, you can post and debate all you want. I will wait with anticipation for all the good articles you are going to post about how the troops are cared for in Iraq and about the abilities and accomplishments of the military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We've nearly doubled the budget and the waiting times are still unsat. The VA has some systemic, dysfunctional problems which must be addressed. Like education, increased funding alone won't solve them.
Frankly, I happily surprised that five years of war has only produced 184,000 more enrollees. I thought it would be much worse. These folks should get priority even if it means VA employees have to work 12 hour shifts to get them taken care of.
Yes, the stress faced by vets is real and painful. On the other hand, the VA's screen for Post-traumatic Stress Disorder is so simple it would make my dog look like he has PTSD.
"No they didn't! They signed a contract stating they would earn medical benefits at the end of twenty years of service"
My bad. I was equating ex-service with retired service.
They're not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but by God, they're making the effort and showing results.
I've been dealing with the VA for 34 years and the turnaround in the services they provide has been amazing.
A troll is a troll is a troll. I predict his stay here will be short.
Aussiebabe is right about you.
Go pimp your agenda wherever you were before you came to FR 2 months ago. I'm sick of endless articles of the type Aussiebabe referenced that contain your "byline".
FR is not your personal blog.
Thanks. Good discussion.
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