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Thursday, July 30, 2009
Our country has been at war in Afghanistan and Iraq for over eight years. Opinions vary powerfully about our entry into these wars and our exit strategies. But we are learning to separate our feelings about recent wars from its warriors. Support for American soldiers is strong, though I have heard from military personnel that there are still moments when war returnees are vilified as soldiers, their being mistaken for war itself.
War is hard on those who serve -- marines, soldiers, air force and navy -- and their families -- ask them and they will say it is "hard". While Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is seen in 3-4% of the general population, Vietnam veterans have rates of 15%. The near to 300,000 men and women who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq on whom the Veteran's Administration has records from 2002-2006 are experiencing rates of 37%. Suicide among veterans is at the highest it has been in the almost three decades since this data has been kept; deaths from suicide among Afghan and Iraqi veterans are, remarkably, expected to exceed the combat death toll. PTSD is only the tip of problems that include depression, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence, separation and divorce, especially prominent among National Guard and Reserve who are over 50% of those deployed today.
In all, about one third of returning veterans will need mental health and substance use services, without counting their families. This is excluding great number of soldiers who return with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Of those in need of care, so few will receive it: estimates are that only one in four veterans who report problems are served. Untreated, their conditions do not improve, nor do the lives of their families.
Why do some veterans develop PTSD or depression, or abuse alcohol and drugs, and others do not -- even when exposed to the same life threatening duty? I recently met a veteran, a marine who had completed three extended tours in Iraq. She said that while she felt badly for her fellow soldiers with these conditions she -- heavily engaged in combat -- had suffered no post-deployment mental distress. I conclude she did not have any genetic or acquired (from early trauma) vulnerability to these conditions, which is to say that the stresses of war did not find in her an overly reactive nervous system. Many, if not most illnesses result when environmental stresses ignite a latent but ready disease disposition. Not everyone with genes for diabetes will develop it but if you consume a lot of sugar, live a sedentary life and become obese you are very likely to become diabetic. The same applies to heart disease and many cancers - as well as mental and substance use disorders. Scientists call this the "stress-diathesis" theory of illness. Diathesis means a tendency to something and stress is what ignites it. Imagine endless months where your life is in peril not knowing from whom, where or when -- coupled with witnessing horror that sears your consciousness: that is military life in Iraq and Afghanistan. These are the conditions that generate the psychological wounds of war.
Veterans with stress induced disorders can be helped to regain normal lives with their families and in their communities. The Defense Department and Veterans' Administration have begun to require regular screening of returning veterans for these internal wounds. Effective treatments exist: veterans are educated about the effects of trauma, learn relaxation or other calming techniques, and undergo progressive re-exposure to trauma through imagery or directly by entering situations that would excite a traumatic response. Individual stress triggers can be identified and managed and excessive use of alcohol or drugs controlled since they only worsen matters over time. Medications, including beta blockers (used to control the fight-flight response) and antidepressants can be very helpful. Spouses and children need to know they also may need someone to turn to, whether family, friends, or counselors.
"War is a force that gives us meaning" Chris Hedges entitled his 2002 book. We know how to make warriors but we know too little about how to make ex-warriors. To leave war and its wounds behind requires a sense of purpose - an alternate path that engages the soul and gives it meaning. Veterans -- and their families too -- need not only to be helped to access mental health and substance use treatments they also need job retraining, education, family counseling and assistance with child care and benefits due them for their service. They need hope, faith and community. We owe the same commitment to our veterans, and their families, that they have given to us.
For more resources on PTSD Click Here
Face of Defense: High School Teacher Leads Marines in IraqBy Marine Corps 1st Lt. Michele Perez
McKinley is serving her first deployment to Iraq as the communications operations officer for the 2nd Marine Logistics Group here. However,just a few years ago, she was in a classroom teaching at the Winchendon School in Winchendon, Mass. The school was not your typical high school. It held classes from 9th grade through post graduate school, and students ranged anywhere from a star athlete destined to be drafted by the National Basketball Association to international students who would return to their native country to serve in their nation’s military. McKinley said she loved teaching, the impact she made on the students and the remarkable progress she would see them make. Yet, she added, she reached a point where she felt as if she was coming up short. “I needed to be able to do more,” she said. “I owed my students more; I wanted to get out and get [credibility]. … I felt like I hadn’t lived.” In hopes offinding that “something more,” McKinley left the school in 2003 to pursue her master’s degree in English literature at Middlebury Collegein Middlebury, Vt., assuming that furthering her education was the answer. But in an unexpected, but welcome, turn of events, she found an opportunity to play on a professional soccer team, the Vermont Voltage,where she competed against teams from Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts and Canada. Having played soccer since she was old enough to walk, McKinley said, she remembers the offer as an opportunity she could not pass up, though it was for the love of the game and not the money; she had to hold a few jobs to make ends meet.She coached soccer at the local high school, managed a back country ski center, and if that wasn’t enough, she also became a firefighter in The Ripton, Vt., fire department. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime shot to train and play at that level,” McKinley said. “The best part of it was to have all the young kids come out to the games and see us play, and to see a light in their eyes because they know there are opportunities out there.” But as much as she loved to play soccer, McKinley said, the rush of adrenaline in being a firefighter and being part of an organization where she possibly would be able to take part in saving someone’s life started to draw her into firefighting. But the day came when McKinley and her squad couldn’t get to a victim in time. She still vividly remembers when she and a fellow squad member went into the building to retrieve the body.She had trained for something like this, but when they got to the scene, they found that there was a second victim -- the woman’s pet Rottweiler had never left his owner’s side. That was the tipping point that caused her to search for a way where she would be able to firefight full-time, McKinley said. “Once you experience something like that, you can’t just do it part time. … I wanted all of it,” she said. “When the pager goes off, everything stops. The world stops spinning, and someone needs help. The only thing that matters is to get from A to B to get to that person.” Her first step was to attempt to enter the Air National Guard to serve in crash and fire rescue, where she would be able to make firefighting a career. But after beginning the process and going through the physical,she was placed on a waiting list. Discouraged by the waiting process,McKinley was talked into going to see a Marine Corps officer selection officer. After discussing the training regimen and what she would be tested to do -- combined with the leadership, physical training and the opportunity to serve her country -- she she knew she was hooked. “This is what I was meant to do,” she said. “This is it, because I still have those kids looking at me, but they’re not in my English class. They’re Marines.” McKinley said she finds that many of the attributes that helped her to succeed as a teacher are transferrable to her new role as a Marine Corps officer. It requires patience, honesty and being OK with not being liked all of the time, she noted. But most importantly, she added, it requires the ability to listen. She said she has the utmost respect for each of the Marines with whom she has the pleasure of serving, noting “the utter gratitude I have for them at their age to make the sacrifice.” “I can’t imagine at 18, 19 joining the Marine Corps,” she said, “but here these Marines are doing such an enormous service for themselves and their country.” Although she has no definite plan for what her future holds, McKinley said, she does know she eventually plans to return to teaching now that she has earned the knowledge and credibility she yearned for when she was teaching in that 9th grade classroom. (Marine Corps 1st Lt. Michele Perez serves with the 2nd Marine Logistics Group.) | ||
| Related Sites: Multinational Force Iraq |
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
