Happy Labor Day Weekend!
My greatly-anticipated Atlanta Journal Constitution Decatur Book Festival stint is this weekend. Yeah!
Tomorrow (Sept 1), at 3pm in Fellowship Hall at Decatur Presbyterian I have a signing. Sunday (Sept 2), I give a brief Moving a Nation to Care presentation and signing at 12pm on the City Hall Stage.
If you're in the Atlanta area, please come out if you can. [Directions/parking]
And without further delay, this month's PTSD Combat News Roundup:
Click on headline (if linked) to read more..
From the Air Force Times:
About 20 percent of Air Force women who have deployed since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 are experiencing at least one major symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a survey of 1,114 service women conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan.
The study, by the university’s Institute for Social Research, found that in the Air Force women surveyed, work-family conflict is a significant predictor of PTSD, according to a news release posted on the American Psychological Association’s Web site.
"This finding is important because there are things we can do to help minimize work-family stress and the toll it is taking on women in the military," Col. Penny Pierce, a reservist who is running the study, said at the association’s annual meeting. The findings are preliminary and have not yet been published in a scientific journal.
ABC World News Looks at Combat Stress Care
Those helping our soldiers cope with what they see and do on the front lines are performing some of the most vital -- and challenging -- work with troops being deployed as long as they have been. In 'The Mental Battlefield,' ABC World News with Charles Gibson features the reflections of Jay White, a counselor who served in Iraq on a combat stress control team. h/t to Jim.
The following is from the Marine Corps News:
Understanding stress in a combat environment
Submitted by: 13th MEU
Story by: Sgt. Andy Hurt
Story Identification #: 200781444025
NEAR KARMAH, Iraq (Aug. 14, 2007) -- We live in the electronic age. The added comfort of phone and internet capabilities in forward areas can ease strain on personal relationships and business matters "back home." During the brief contact service members have with their loved ones, generally only the most important words are exchanged: "How’s the baby? Really, her first tooth?" or "I’m safe, I love you."
Our phone calls "back home" are a great break from the reality of everyday life here. Rest assured, when a Marine hangs up the phone, he goes right back to scratching heat rash. He can smell his dirty body, feel his sore shoulders and hear IEDs in the distant night. While making a phone call can be the best part of the week, hanging up is the worst.
Stress is a big factor in a combat environment.
Jonathan Schulze "I Can't Hear You" Foundation Established in Honor of Minnesota Veteran
From the Associated Press:
Robert Herubin knew his friend Jonathan Schulze [in the bottom front photo of the three to the left; Joshua Omvig is in the middle, Jeffrey Lucey at top], after a tour of combat duty in Iraq, was on a downward spiral. Depressed, drinking heavily and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, nobody was able to reach the troubled Marine before he killed himself in January.
Herubin and others close to the Purple Heart recipient wondered what more could have been done. An answer has since emerged in the form of the Jonathan Schulze "I Can't Hear You" Foundation, which aims to pair veterans returning from combat with other veterans who have experienced war. ...
The group is launching its first chapter at a VFW post in suburban Prior Lake, where Herubin first met Schulze after he returned from Iraq and a grueling tour that included door-to-door combat in the city of Fallujah.
Schulze died at his New Prague home, at the age of 25, on Jan. 16, about two years after he came home. His family has said that in the days prior to his death, Schulze was placed on a waiting list after telling workers at the St. Cloud Veterans Administration Medical Center that he was suicidal, a claim the VA denied after an investigation.
From the foundation's website:
Through charitable donations and various support organizations, we will move forward to establish this mentoring program with veterans service organizations. We will continue to explore partnerships with other organizations to serve our veterans and active and reserve service members. ...
The Jonny's Lounge Mentoring Program [pdf] will be part of the process.
Jonny's Lounge will be a discreet place that combat veterans and active duty service members may go for support, without any duty of disclosure. Mentors will also provide a comprehensive listing of viable options: private and public sector assistance programs.
Contact "I Can't Hear You" to offer or receive support. h/t kfred.
CBS Evening News Reports on Virtual Reality Therapy for Combat PTSD
CBS News' Katie Couric recently discussed one new treatment, virtual reality therapy, that may help many veterans returning home from Iraq.
Related Posts
Texas A&M Researchers Set to Study Biological Components of PTSD
From the Bryan-College Station [TX] Eagle:
Over the next year and a half, a team of Texas A&M professors and other researchers are expected to follow troops who recently returned from Iraq and Afghanistan - trying to gain insight into why some people seem to be more susceptible to post-traumatic stress disorder than others.
The team, led by associate professor Keith Young, received $3 million from Congress earlier this year to start the study. And if the current incarnation of the 2008 fiscal year budget is approved by the Senate, the group will receive an additional $3.4 million.
The idea for the project - which will include ongoing interviews with 1,400 troops from Fort Hood set to begin this winter - was sparked by research Young completed in 2004. During that study, researchers were surprised to find that the brain's thalamus was abnormally large in people who had experienced major depression, he said.
They then detected a gene variant that caused the enlargement in some people.
The thalamus is used by the body to interpret threatening visual stimuli, facial expressions and fearful emotions, Young said. So those with the heightened "automatic threat detection system" could be more vulnerable when dealing with stressors that lead to PTSD, the team has theorized.
Chicagoans Discuss 'In the Valley of Elah' and the Plight of Our Returning Troops
"The kind of great movie that rivets you as entertainment at the same time it carefully sets about saying something deeper about the present time...a brave risk." -- Gregory Kirschling, EW.com
Defying intense thunderstorms, micro bursts and even an area tornado or two, Chicagoans trekked out to AMC River East Thursday night to catch a special screening of the new Paul Haggis ("Crash") film starring Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron.
As hinted at in the quote above, 'In the Valley of Elah' (visit the film's website, and/or read its production notes) drills down to how our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq affect the warriors who deploy, the families who hold down the fort while they're away, and the society undoubtedly intertwined -- no matter how little they may know it or own up to it -- in it all.
From a May 1956 report on vets' benefits by the 84th Congress:
The Government's obligation is to help veterans overcome special, significant handicaps incurred as a consequence of their military service. The objective should be to return the veterans as nearly as possible to the status they would have achieved had they not been in military service...
Particular emphasis should be placed on rehabilitating the service-disabled and maintaining them and their survivors in circumstances as favorable as those of the rest of the people...War sacrifices should be distributed as equally as possible within our society. This is the basic function of the veterans' programs.
With physical injuries, it's clear to see where our obligations lie.
With psychological injuries, however, we are more hesitant when providing care -- and sometimes even outright neglectful. In the opening years of war especially, this lack of clarity coupled with a failure to plan for the post-war period across-the-board led to a lack of necessary supports and resources. We -- military, government, society -- were not adequately responding to something that should have been expected: PTSD episodes of returning troops.
We would do well as a society to use lessons found in vehicles such as 'In the Valley of Elah' or the PTSD Timeline or any number of stories shared in Moving a Nation to Care to help shape the way we prepare our troops for war and help them navigate home.
Is the Army 'Spinning' its Increase in Suicides?
From the Army Times:
Some veterans organizations, soldiers’ relatives and psychiatrists are raising questions about an Army report that says no direction connection has been found between long troop deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and the army’s highest suicide rate since the first Gulf War.
The Army report, released Aug. 16, said love and marriage problems were the main reasons for the highest rate of suicides since 1991. Nearly a third of the 99 who committed suicide in 2006 were in Iraq or Afghanistan.
"This is yet another example of the administration hiding the true costs of this war," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a member of the Veterans Affairs Committee. "From our troops to their spouses to family advocates — everyone agrees that extended deployments put added strain on families," Murray said. "To say that the strain of deployment is not a cause of (post-traumatic stress disorder) and suicide is the same kind of head-in-the-sand logic we’ve seen from this administration since the war began."
Army spokesman John Boyce said that researchers "could not document that long deployments" were directly behind the suicide rate. Col. Elspeth Ritchie, psychiatry consultant to the Army surgeon general, did tell a Pentagon news conference when the report was released that although the military is worried about the stress caused by repeat deployments and tours of duty that have been stretched to 15 months, it has not found a direct relationship between suicides and combat or deployments
'Moving a Nation to Care' Featured in Northern Today
Northern Illinois University runs a blush-worthy piece on the journey I've been on since Moving a Nation to Care published last May.
Photos, credited to NIU/ Scott Walstrom, were taken on campus last Wednesday -- in front of the Castle above and the lagoon below -- on the wilting-in-the-heat summer afternoon just before Thursday's storms and Friday's flooding. From Northern Today:
Summer didn’t exactly provide a break for NIU’s Ilona Meagher.
Since the spring semester closed, Meagher published a new book, embarked on a cross-country speaking tour and cemented her reputation as a leading voice for combat veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Meagher has been quoted widely in the media, ranging from The New York Times to Pat Buchanan’s magazine, The American Conservative. In August, she served as a panel member, along with Gen. Wesley Clark, at the annual convention of the popular liberal blog, the Daily Kos. She even received a phone call one morning recently from presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, who said he was moved by her book.
These would be heady accomplishments for any faculty member. But Meagher isn’t a professor, she’s a student at NIU – a junior studying journalism. "It’s been an incredible journey," Meagher says from her home office in small-town Caledonia, northeast of Rockford. A 41-year-old former flight attendant, Meagher is not a traditional student nor is she a traditional journalist.
Her work would best be described as "citizen journalism" – the use of blogs and new media by people at the grassroots level to collect, report, analyze and disseminate news and information. ...
In the spring of 2006, her work drew the attention of Ig Publishing in New York, which asked her to write a book on the plight of returning veterans. Meagher devoted herself to the project, reading all she could on PTSD and interviewing veterans, their family members, veterans’ advocates and medical experts.
"Moving a Nation to Care" was published in late May 2007.
Returning Vets, Families Must Have Access to Critical PTSD Treatment
Caution and advice in a San Antonio Express-News opinion piece submitted by a former Army Medical Corps major and psychiatric physician at Brooke Army Medical Center:
Over the past few years I have talked with nearly 2,000 Vietnam-era and Iraqi veterans about their experiences in combat and the problems they face at home. Surveys confirm what I have seen and diagnosed. One in six veterans returns with combat- related stress problems, and yet less than one-third report their symptoms. Fewer still receive necessary treatment, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Many do not report their symptoms because they fear it may impact their employment or chance for promotion. They fear loss of high-level security clearances or the stigma of being thought of as crazy, imbalanced, weak or incompetent. And, sadly, they are probably right.
As a result, many veterans suffer in silence as they experience difficulties at home and work and in day-to-day activities. Many are confused about their conflicting emotions and turn to alcohol and/or drugs. They self-medicate, and self-medication can lead to even greater disaster. Family relationships suffer, friends are lost, and self-esteem plummets, sometimes leading to suicide. Indeed, according to a recently released Department of Defense report, suicide rates are 35 percent higher in veterans of Iraq than in the general population.
Issue Forum w/Frank Avila: YearlyKos, ePluribus Media and Citizen Journalism
Coming together in Chicago for the YearlyKos Convention earlier this month, ePluribus Media's Tanya Harned, Kay Shepherd and Ilona Meagher were invited to appear on a local cable access program, Issue Forum with Frank Avila.
Twice in September, Chicago Access Network, or CAN-TV's Channel 19 ("seen by the 400,000+ Cable-TV households in the City of Chicago"), will air the interview recorded on August 3. Avila, an Army Reserve Captain, was a super host. Thanks to the whole CAN-TV crew for showing us a good time and having us on to talk about citizen journalism and new media.
Kay scooped me by two weeks, and sets the scene:
One of the extracurricular activities we undertook at YearlyKos 2007 was a trip to Green Street and the Chicago Access Network studios, a production facility for the area's five-channel public access television network. We learned a great deal about their citizen programming as well as their outreach to at-risk youth.
Watch it online now, or see it on channel 19 next month:
Friday, September 21 at 9:30 pm CDT [streaming online]
Sunday, September 23 at 4:30 pm CDT [streaming online]
Keith Olbermann Discusses Combat PTSD with 2-Tour Afghanistan/Iraq Veteran
A clip from last week's Countdown show well worth a look.
Olbermann's guest was recent panel mate Brandon Friedman, an OEF and OIF vet, gifted blogger and author of the new book, The War I Always Wanted: The Illusion of Glory and the Reality of War -- A Screaming Eagle in Afghanistan and Iraq. A thoughtful reflection on the suicide figures recently released by the Army.