A Pittance For The Warriors

  I listened intently to the newscaster as she described the recent killing of 16 Afghan civilians by a 38 year old Army sergeant stationed in Afghanistan with his Army unit.  PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) immediately came to mind and as I researched more into the incident I learned a troubling fact concerning the soldier: He had already served three tours in Iraq, where he suffered a traumatic brain injury, according to news reports.  There is a military base in Washington State known as Lewis-McChord. Not only is the soldier who allegedly committed these killings from Lewis-McChord, but there seems to be a string of other incidents which have emanated from this now infamous Army base:

•  A 28-year-old Army specialist from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, recently home from Afghanistan, had walked into a parking garage in Salt Lake City with a full set of body armor, ammunition clips and his AR-15 rifle.
• Spc. Brandon Barrett had gone absent without leave after a drunken-driving arrest near the sprawling military base in Washington state and had begun sending ominous messages to friends. “About to show the world they shouldn’t (mess) with soldiers back from a deployment,” he said in one. Barrett died after firing at a police officer, and Lewis-McChord was rocked by questions about how a soldier so angry had been able to go AWOL in plain sight for weeks.
• This week, accusations that a Lewis-McChord sergeant in southern Afghanistan shot to death at least 16 civilians were added to the dozens of cases of murders, suicides, assaults and other crimes linked to soldiers from the base.
• Lewis-McChord is one of the main infantry engines for Iraq and Afghanistan. Lately, the base has earned a reputation for a series of horrific crimes emanating from there, including those by a “kill team” of Stryker brigade soldiers accused of murdering Afghan civilians for sport, a father accused of water-boarding his child and a soldier accused of dousing his wife’s legs with lighter fluid and setting her on fire.
• Twelve suicides were reported last year among Lewis-McChord soldiers, and earlier this year, a 24-year-old Iraq war veteran shot and killed a park ranger at Mount Rainier National Park.
• In February, the head of the base’s Madigan medical center was temporarily removed from duty after reports that diagnoses were overturned for hundreds of soldiers scheduled to receive help for post-traumatic stress disorder, allegedly in some cases in an attempt to save money.
• Service members and their families have long complained about the difficulty of getting good mental health services at Lewis-McChord, saying that soldiers are discouraged by their local sergeants or face stigma among peers. Many say they are handed prescriptions for an anti-anxiety or sleeping medication and dismissed.

    As I read about the above incidents at Lewis-McChord as reported by the Los Angeles Times, I was both angry and personally troubled. My brother, Victor, and I recently had a lengthy conversation about our tour in Operation Desert Storm/Shield and the anxieties it brought upon us both during and after the conflict. However; this blog is not about that, but instead it concerns my ongoing lamentations for troubled soldiers who society will never be able to understand unless they have actually experienced their plight. Sympathy does not score any points when it comes to the needs of a soldier suffering from PTSD.

   It is largely because of the numerous accounts of "soldiers gone wild" at bases such as Lewis-McChord and many others, that a renewed focus has been placed on the treatment of returning war-time soldiers. Unfortunately, the military has not done very well in recognizing that these men and women need more than an annual or bi-annual visit with their primary care physician and certainly more than a 30 minute session with one of the many understaffed psychiatric clinics within the Veterans Hospitals.

  What is the answer? Heaven knows. It seems that many soldiers suffering from PTSD are handling their demons via self-medication and sometimes by partaking in risky behaviors.  I have also learned that because PTSD is an ongoing disorder, oftentimes a Veteran's family and friends will begin to dismiss their symptoms and confuse their behavior/mood/attitude/irritability as them simply being difficult. 
  I am mindful of the phrase spoken by the English evangelical preacher and martyr, John Bradford; "There but for the grace of God, go I." May God and His angels, both heavenly and here on earth, watch over soldiers and Veterans everywhere.

Dennis