Suicide....PTSD....WAR

[danausmc]

I received this response to an e-mail about a young Sgt. that did several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and came home and took his own life. This is an area we need to talk about....the lady that wrote has asked for a response...


Here is her letter:


Hello Dana,
This is a sad story, and I'm afraid there will be many more.

Unfortunately, we can't "predict" suicide although we have guidlines about possible risk factors. There is a vast body of research on suicide and we still don't know how to prevent it. We have people who are psychiatric inpatients who still attempt suicide. We do everything we can to ensure patient's safety.

We need to learn much more about possible ways of reaching those who feel death is preferable to the suffering they experience in life.

I personally think that spirituality can play a major role.

Believing that suicide is against God's wishes and may lead to eternal damnation is one belief that helps some people endure their suffering. This soldier's guilt was too much for him to bear. I wonder if he had any spiritual support?

I don't think soldiers are adequately prepared for the realities of combat, nor are they adequately treated prior to returning to civilian life. I'm reading two books about warrior codes. Some civilizations allowed warriors to run off the battlefield without fear of pursuit. Not much is said about the "average" warrior. Warfare involves the ability to "dehumanize" the enemy. Don't most warriors feel enraged when their comrades are killed, especially close friends?

Dana, please reply to this:

I'm wondering if the nature of warfare today contributes to PTSD. Correct me if I'm wrong, but prior to the advent of explosives, weren't wounds less gruesome? For example, knives, axes, and swords made puncture wounds and relatively cleaner albeit fatal wounds. With explosives people are ripped apart, which is terrifying. I'm getting personal here, but I can't stand to watch gruesome horror movies (blood and guts, etc.) or similar war movies.
I think that people go to war with an idealized view of killing and death that is profoundly shattered.

[Pointman69]

I agree whole heartedly "that people go to war with an idealized view of killing and death that is profoundly shattered." I've heard, and said it myself, that nothing in our society prepared us for what we faced in Vietnam. We played war as kids. Basic and AIT seemed to focus on killing the enemy.

As a draftee, and with limited training, I discovered real, final, ugly death on my first morning in the jungle. The other kid who came to the company the same day I did was put on point and walked right up to a bunker without realizing it. As his body was drug by, I didn't know what to do - I stammerd out, "you'll be OK Woods."

He had a bullet hole in his chest and his forehead. I wasn't ready for the finality of it. I was embarrased at how inappropriate my comment was. Within a week I was filled with terror, walking point, having no idea what I was doing. How could anything back home prepare you for that?

I wounder if more training would have helped. Did young Marines or Rangers go through a similar shock of reality?

When I came home, everone back in the World seemed so shallow, so concerned about things that didn't even register on my radar. The ideals of my youth, the person I was before I left for Vietnam, was gone and I still have nighmares about getting lost and not finding my way back home, plus I forget what I was supposed to be doing.

I had tramendous survivors guilt for the first few years. That was slowly replaced with feelings that nothing would ever change, even though I was a Christain. Somehow, belief in God worked for others, but didn't provide hope in the future for me. I was dragging around too much stuff that I couldn't get rid of. There were too many questions that I couldn't answer. I couldn't speak a full sentence about Vietnam so I it became easy to bury, then deny that Vietnam bothered me at all.

When everything crashed a few years ago - then I was ready to try anything God wanted. I didn't have anything else to loose (I tried my best and lost it all). That was the point that all I had left to believe was that somehow, God would take care of eveything - in His way, not mine. Reaching that point where I had to give up control on my life to God was the point that He could start changing things in me.

It's a frustrating, scarry, helpless and even hopeless place to be, but God can turn it for good. The good continues today, and there's hope.

[Pointman69]

After thinking a while about the brutality of modern warfare, I agree it's shocking, but it's also less personnal. I can't imagine the stress of facing thousands of the enemy with only swards, shields and spears. Eyeball to eyeball, kill or be killed would be more terrifying to me than Vietnam.

I shot it out with a VC in a spider hole three feet in front of me. He shot the new point man. I was walking second to help teach him what to look for. We hit the ground on a small trail in the middle of grass and brush so thick that all I could see were flashes of green tracers coming up through the grass and and passing just over my head. All he had to do was lay his AK on the ground and rotate it down the trail. He would have killed or wounded the first five or six of us. I witnessed that happening before.

Adrendaline redlined as I emptied magazines trying to keep him huntched down in his hole and hit his rifle or hands or arms - anything to make him stop shooting. I was terrified but I never saw his face.

There were other incidents were I did look into faces and eyes of VC before I killed them, but it wasn't hand to hand. God chose to bless me beyond anything I could imagine. I don't know that the horror of modern warfare is the issue. Maybe the mind can only handle so much, no matter what the situation, before parts of it just shut down to survive.

I think the continuous fear and never feeling safe did as much damage as the seperate incidents of stark terror. That may be a contributing factor in why there seems to be so many nstances of PTSD from Vietnam. The kids in Iraq may have similar issues - not knowing who the enemy is, where or when he will hit, and there's no "safe" place for many of our kids.

[Pointman69]

"We need to learn much more about the possible ways of reaching those who feel death is preferable to the suffering they experience in life."

You are absolutely correct. There are ways to reach those who have come to the end of themselves and find nothing there to hang onto. Religion can certainly open doors to life that's larger than our pain.

Introduce them to God's reality, His view of life. His reality is so much bigger than our limited vision allows. He is not bound by time and sees everything He is bringing and allowing in our future. He wants the very best for us and His promises will never go away. He will not deny Himself. He has done everything it takes to connect with Him. Jesus let go of all His rightness and stole our punishment so we can once more walk before God in peace.

There's nothing left for us to do but accept it. We don't have to understand, we don't have to change using our strength, He even gives us the faith we require to believe. The only thing we can screw up is contine trying to do things "our way." He tells us outright not to lean on our understanding. He gives us His spirit which is our connection to His bigger reality that we can't see. Religion is a re-kindling and growing relationship to the one who created us to live "rightly"with Him in the first place.

In our understanding, it's so easy to project our past into the future. Seeing nothing in our lives that could possibly change that picture, we give up hope and accept depression, anger and dispare as something we must deserve for all the bad things we've done. The sad part is, it's true. Left to ourselves, overcome by weaknesses and not knowing what's right (because we're no longer connected to Him who is all that's right), we can't change. Life is full of misery. There has to be a change in perspective. That's where connecting to a larger reality, where we can trust that good really is overcomming evil, produces hope for the future and makes life on earth something to look forward to.

It doen't happen in one big paradime shift. We see Him change us a little at a time but It's OK because we do see change and there is the hope that what He has started in us, He will continue until the day His son returns.

There are probably as many different views and variations of God as there are people, and that's OK, as long as we don't forget that life is not centered around us, it's about Him and what He has accomplished knowing everthing about us. He doesn't want us to be miserable and depressed. He has provided a way for us to return to that unconditional, loving relationship He made us for.

This is how I see "religion" helping those of us, myself inculded, who have fallen into dispare from the natural limitations of our perspective.

[Stickthrower]

I'm back and I totally agree. Take it from someone who made that very bad decission on 2/3/05. However, God sent a guardian angel to me in the form of a very close friend Bill, who is also a Chaplin. He arrived bringing me two books on dealing with PTSD that were written by a DR. Bobby Smith. Smith was a LA State Trooper who was shot in the face with a 12ga in 1986. He is now the leading person in the Law Enforcement community that deals with PTSD.



Anyway, Bill came by just when I needed him most. I spent 15 days in the hospital and am now on my way to recovery! Thanks to the Lord, my saviour!

[ajusmc]

Stickthrower, welcome back home.

[Pointman69]

Stickthrower - So glad you're back. You are truely a witness of God's intervention in your life. He can be counted on to continue that work.

[Don Dodson]

I agree with what I have been reading here. For me, the saddest part of suicide is imagining the sense of hopelessness and crushing loneliness. That is why I support even secular suicide help lines, but especially Christian based ones like New Hope in Garden Grove (714.639.4673). I'll have to check their website since I recall they have 24/7 helpers ready to respond to e-mail, also.

My uncle killed himself in the early 1930's. He was an Resident Medical Doctor (MD) and contracted T.B, before antibiotics. So the family story goes, he couldn't see how his life was going to continue and I guess his proposed marriage was off, too. I saw the emotional toll it took on my father. I have e-mailed fellow veterans who are at the end of their ropes, too. What seems to me to be crucial is be able to access to God through the fog of despair.

I also think we must develop a network for each other when we are feeling OK, that will be there when we are overshadowed with evil intentions. Everyone of us needs a buddy in whom we can confide and who will drag us back behind the wire (e.g. safety) when we're hit. Maybe it is like getting somekind of vaccine: we need periodic doses of God's love and assurances, so we can fight off the 'infection' of suicide when the devil attacks.

When everything seems to be lost, and there is no point in going on, remember what Christ Himself told the Apostle John: "The people I love, I call to account - prod and correct and guide so that they'll live at their best. Up on your feet, then! About face! Run after God!" (Revelations 3:19, The Message). We need to "innoculate" those going to war with the faith that God means everything in their lives for His purposes, even despair and depression.

WELCOME HOME!

Don "Oboeman" Dodson

[Abn_Rgr]

I am not proud to say it, but I have two suicide attempts under my belt. Obviousely I am here for a reason, because the only reason I live and breath is because God has made it so. Going to combat didn't seem like a big deal at the time. Even pulling the trigger was just numbing for awhile. Then I came home and had time to sit on the front steps and think about it. I know what I did on the field of battle was my job, and was what was expected, I also know the Lord has forgiven me for the life I have taken. The problem for me is the constant nightmares, intrusive thoughts, and my own inability to forgive myself. I constantly pray for guidance and healing, but when it doesn't come, I start to question my faith and when that happens, I once again find myself all alone and feeling worthless. I know God loves me, and I know there are alot of Brothers out there that would help, but for some reason, if your not paying close attention, that feeling of impending doom sneaks back in there and spanks that hieny

[Shawn Powell]

What's up, baby-

"Bornagainvet" to "Abn Rgr"... THAT'S why I didn't make the connection! I remembered Boise, though....

Know what you mean about intrusive thoughts... how is everything going?

Shawn.

[Don Dodson]

Abn Ranger:

Do you write down your thoughts? My counselors call it "journalling." I thought it was stupid, until I tried it about 7 years ago. When I am spiraling downward, thankfully, my wife asks, "Have you been journaling?" I get back to it for a while and it helps. As powerful as prayer is, and I do believe it is our 'clear channel' to and from God, I think journalling helps the brain process war by writing down what is bothering us. Make sure it is a secure format or locked up so that you can be really honest with yourself. I go back sometimes and read my fears and see how God has brought people into my life or a new circumstance that blesses me (like Point Man!) and helps reduce the PTSD symptoms.

Forgiving ourselves, for example, does seem to be hard. I wonder if that is good old father-of-lies the devil, our adversary and enemy, trying to keep us from accepting God's unconditional love and forgiveness. Early Christians struggled with this and the Apostle Paul wrote to his flock encouraging them to cast off old ways and thinking. False messages like, "God can't love you!" or "What I've done is too awful for me to stand before a Holy God and explain my actions." BS! Christ paid it all and is offering us His pardon, our "boarding pass" to Heaven. And when we are called to account for our lives, He will step before God and say, "Dad, this is one of my squad. He had to do some crappy stuff and he has tortured himself ever since. I love him, and I wrap him in my arms and have already paid the price for his freedom and full access to Your presence."

Brother, we are praying for you and your journey. Remember what the Apostle John wrote late in his life found in 1 John 45:4 "You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them [the spirits that do not acknowledge Jesus, e.g. from the antichrist], because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world." (NIV)

WELCOME HOME!

Don "Oboeman"Dodson
DodsonOboeVet@NorthernTrail.net

[Pointman69]

The problem for me is the constant nightmares, intrusive thoughts, and my own inability to forgive myself. I constantly pray for guidance and healing, but when it doesn't come, I start to question my faith and when that happens, I once again find myself all alone and feeling worthless. I know God loves me, and I know there are alot of Brothers out there that would help, but for some reason, if your not paying close attention, that feeling of impending doom sneaks back in there and spanks that hieny

You've pinpointed the battle we all face. If anyone has a quick easy answer, now's the time to share. If I had one, I could be counting millions paid by desperate vets yerning for peace.

So far, I've found the answer is a contining process. Many of us have gone through enough failure that we want to believe and are willing to try trusting God for direction and healing. Our old habits and misunderstandings are always present in our minds. Stress causes us to fall back on our understanding (because it's familier and quick). But, our understanding of things is what got us into trouble in the first place.

The process, as I see it after accepting Christ, involves learning to see God's unending faithfullness in giving grace and mercy. Deciding that He really loves us in a way that's beyond our limited knowledge of love. Trusting that He really has made us new creations (even though we don't deserve it). Resolving the schizophrenia between our old nature and God's new creation. After that, it's all down hill to heaven.

Trouble is, all of these concepts must be uncovered by God's spirit in us. Our understanding fights, kicking and screeming all the way. It doesn't want to die and be replaced by total trust in another being. But, God wins.

That's all I can give you for now. Keeping each other updated on what God is doing in us helps identify the direction He wants us to go. Nightmares, intrusive thoughts and not forgiving ourselves are all delt with in the process He has prepared for you. He sees it already done (He's not constrained by time). We can't see into the future, so we must trust the one who can - that's faith. He's given each of us the measure of faith needed to accomplish what He's doing in our lives.

[Pointman69]

Ranger - sometimes it helps to speak directly or write an e-mail. It would be a privilage to hear your story. dwright32162@msn.com (541) 862-2040

[Stickthrower]

ABN Ranger,

I have one suicide attempt under my belt and it scared me! The shear violence and anger I displayed were frightening to my close friends and family who had never seen me lose my self control like that!

Thank God for sending my guardian angel to me when I needed it most, as well as sending a combat vet Deputy who is a very close friend of mine. Had anyone else shown up-Lord knows I would have probably killed someone besides just myself! Brother that is from the heart!!!

I understand about nightmares & intrusive thoughts. I have the nightmares (which are getting further apart-Thank God), and as far as the intrusive thoughts, I have those all the time!

My way of dealing with the thoughts is to grab my Bible and read some. Usually I go to where ever it falls open and just read. You would be surprised just how many times God has opened the book to a scripture that deals with my specific issue at that time.

I also have a Study Bible "THE BIBLE PROMISE BOOK". It has just about everything covered so you can reference scripture that deals with your specific problem or concern. I have found that a great help.

I also keep reminding myself that the intrusive thoughts are Satan's way of trying to Unseat God from your heart. After all, Satan is the Undisputed King of Liars! I refuse to let Satan regain ground that I have fought for to give to the Lord. I will not let Satan take back over control of my life!


Also if possible find a good support person close by that can either come by or you can call when you have issues! Just having someone who understands and will listen without judement is a great help!

I also second Pointman69 about direct e-mail stickthrower@elltel.net and I will send you my phone number!

[Trooper]

Question:

I've heard about the Veterans Bible, but I can't find any in the book stores. Can someone please direct my search.

[danausmc]

Question:

I've heard about the Veterans Bible, but I can't find any in the book stores. Can someone please direct my search.

Jack, send me your address and I will mail you one ....FREE....its not available in bookstores.

Dana

[Abn_Rgr]

I hope i'm not posting this in the wrong spot. For quite sometime now, I have not been able to work, not just because of PTSD. I also have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Advance Degenerative Disk Disorder. It has of course made life a financial bear. With only 50% service connected, it doesn't go very far and I would be lying if I said I haven't gone to bed hungry more than once. Long story short, I have spent alot of time on my face praying for guidance and asking the Lord to only provide what is due to me. I have hang-ups about drawing disability, but cannot survive without it. How is that for confused? Yesterday I was informed Social Security was aproved first time, and the C&P board is looking into raising my % due to inability to work. Thank you Jesus. Money has never been a big deal to me but I have to admit I feel a sense of freedom and even a little security. I don't think there is anything wrong with that? I have prayed long and hard about it and I didn't seem to be able to accomplish anything to do with finances prior to prayer, and still there is a little guilt hiding in the corner. I know prayer is key, but will I ever be able to shake the guilt? Guilt in spite of prayer is part of what often makes me question my faith. I know the Lord has forgiven me, why do I have such a hard time feeling it?

[Pointman69]

I have a hard time believing God has forgiven me because I know I don't deserve it. My mind can't comprehend the fact that His forgivness is a free gift because He loves me that much. In my mind, I don't love myself or anyone else like that - I have nothing to compare His nature to that I understand.

That's where He's beginning to show me, "don't lean on your understanding." My mind will never get it, there's nothing I can taste, touch, feel, see or hear that is anywhere close to His reality. So God, how do I believe?

The only other sensor I have is the spirit, and He gave me one when I accepted Christ. That's my connection with God's reality! I have to believe through the spirit in something that I can't see. That happens with faith, another gift from God. Unlike nonbelievers, we see spiritually what God has done, we can "see" His continued faithfullness, we can "see" His trustworthyness, we can "see" His love is different and higher from that of the world.

I've been impressed the last few days that I might be calling God a lier when I continue to reserve my "right" to make my own judgements based on the circumstances I currently see - as opposed to trusting the One who sees without time and will use all things for our good, not because we deserve it, but because He promised to. He can not lie, everthing He says comes into being - that's how the world. and we were created. He can't deny Himself, He wouldn't exist, nothing He does can be a lie.

It may not be exactly that way but it seems consistant with what little I do see of Him. Anyway, I'm finding out that He is worth trusting, not for a little, but for everything.

I may never "understand" why Jesus let go of all the crys of His flesh to live, and let His innocent blood be spilled so I can be forgiven. But in my spirit, I know it had to be that way, I'd never be able to make up for my sins in my understanding. Without being connected (by His spirit) to the only one who is right - I would just continue stumbling through life missing the mark.

Sorry for the rather long answer to a simple question.

[Dean Black]

Abn Rgr, You are in the right group feeling as you do. Anyone who has proven themselves as doers and hard chargers have a lot of needless guilt build up when we become disabled. We start to feel useless and feel we can't pull our share of the load. That's what the Devil wants you to think.You have done more than your share. When we step up and volunteer for Service and Combat we have paid our dues. But the Devil makes us think that we are useless and as long as he can do it, he has control over us. We have to pray and ask God to free us from discouragement, despair, and depression. Ask Him to set you free from worry and anxiety. If we trust Him to set us free He will do it. 1 Cor 13:13 Faith, Hope, and Love are the three great spiritual gifts of God. God is our Rock, our firm Foundation; He is our Mighty Fortress. I feel that trust each time I visit this forum and theres a lot of love here too. God bles you Ranger, I am praying for you.
Dean

[Don Dodson]

AMEN! Good words. If it helps, I look at my VA benefits as deferred compensation. When I was in Vietnam I figured out my pay was about 25 cents per hour, and that was as an E-5 with Hostile Fire Pay. My younger brother was a Teamster working at the San Diego Zoo. He grossed more money during the summer of 1970 then I did! So I don't feel guilty, any more. Uncle Sam has a system of paying back-pay, called VA.

WELCOME HOME!

Don "Oboeman" Dodson
Vietnam 9 Sep 1969 - 9 Sep 1970

[Abn_Rgr]

I appreciate the good words. I am very thankful for what I have. I have stepped up my prayers and I know that drawing disability is the only way I can survive at this point. I sure appreciate having this spot, and everyone involved to bounce my feelings off of, and even get some answers I so often miss. God Bless you all -Jeff-

[Stickthrower]

ABN_RGR,
I know what you mean about having the people here to bounce things off of. I know I certinally do not have all the answers, but with the Lord walking point and our brothers pulling rear and flank, together we will survive!

Every day I thank the Lord for directing me to Pointman. I have discovered a lot of answers that should have been easy to see, but you see, that is Satan lying to us and blocking our view!

Just when something good happens Satan comes back to try to corrupt us with his lies. When you think about it, all of the good things that have happened to us were provided by the Lord. The only thing Satan ever gave us was torment, lies, temptation, pain, depression, and GUILT!

God will forgive us, if we ask. He will take our guilt and pain, if we give him control of our lives. When He is in control, good things happen. When He is in control we are positive. With Him in control we can benefit from his guidance, gain strength from his loving embrace, regain our self esteme, and best of all, peace of mind! And the best part is we can start giving love back to our loved ones, because He has shown us what real love is!

I have yet to have Satan give me anything I wanted. But I know Satan will give me a lot of pain, anger, depression, fear, as well as about a million other things I do not want ever again.

Just remember, when things get bad WE ARE HERE FOR YOU, FOR YOU ARE OUR BROTHER!

[Frank Vozenilek]

Hey Brothers,

I see some very valid issues in this message. However in my own research I haven't found that much difference in the gruesomeness of warfare.

Oh yes we've advanced in our abilities to inflict damage to the human body...point in case...explosives. According to some of my history Europeans who saw the use of explosives in China, saw the "ultimate weapon," so to speak.

What happens with an ultimate weapon though is some spy or more likely someone who has an alterante agenda or is just plain greedy and who has access to the secrets of the weapon will compromise those secrets.

Look at Samson as an example. Not only was he a judge over Israel, but with his strength and supposed wisdom, he was a "secret weapon" of sorts. However, due to Samson's self-serving nature, arrogance and greed the Phillistine "spy" (may I call her a secret agent or a Mata Hari) was used to weasel out his secret and overcome him. A fine example of espionage.

Having been a medic and curious I looked at the weapons and wounds of ancient warfare. When you take into consideration what each individual weapon was meant to do, you can see at some points they were as devestating as a booby trapped 500 pound bomb, or a reversed Claymore.

For example, a Claymore Sword was not just a fighting sword. It was a heavy instrument meant to cut through armor and gash into whatever body part it struck. As it cleaved the armor, and chainmale underneath, it would drive those pieces insto the wound along with the clothing shards, thus HOLDING the gaping wound open CAUSING blood to flow freely. If the body part was hackd off so much the better. Maces were not only spiked but were heavy instrumente meant to inflict crushing injury and not just to an opponent's head. Maces were designed to attack men and horses.

Various lances and spears ere desined for close in combat as well as throwing and long reach fighting. Some spears were designed to anchor or bolster into the ground and thus stab into the chest or other exposed body part of a charging horse. Sometimes those spears were long enough to actually penetrate the animal and stab the rider. (An interesting side bar: The leaping side kicks in Karate were actually developed to knock mounted Samurai or other cavalry type warriors from their horses and make them vulnerable to infantry attack.)

A last weapon that many people don't know as a weapon was in fact the scourge. Yes, I'm referring to the whip used on our Lord. It was meant as weapon to be used against cavalry forces...against both horse and rider. Thus it's length and number of "tails". (It was NOT a cat-o-nine-tails,) The scourge was designed with pieces of bone, sharp rock, sticks, metal and a type of Egyptian glass from that era woven into the braid. The tails ranged from 3 to 4 feet long and the man who used it was trained in its use. That warrior used it as a way to trip a horse, unseat a rider or both. And it was meant to do damage.

Medical professionals did not begin actually RECORDING the effects of combat trauma on soldiers until around the mid 19th century. According to Medical Hisotry at Ft. Sam Houston, TX, there are supposed to be some records before that, but they are very sketchy and unclear. Medical history also refers to any soldiers suffereing what we know as trauma today were assumed by doctors then to have been turned out of their families, locked away by their families or put into what amounted to sanitariums...basically to die.

The study I have made has demonstrated to me such a deep spiritual link to combat trauma that I have trouble getting it organized to write about it. Even in my opinion as I continue to try to organize my thoughts, it appears as someone being "hyper-spiritual." (Basically somebody who sees a demon behind every bush.) I'm trying to get this together so it's practicle and not "ookey-spookey." But as you all know, our issues with PTSD are not only real, they are, deeply more spirit driven and related than (I believe) we ever realized.

I hope this all makes sense.

Many blessings to you all and keep up the wonderful work I hear so much about.

Frank
Cedar Valley Point Man

[danausmc]

This is a new study....






120 War Vets Commit Suicide Each Week
By Penny Coleman, AlterNet
Posted on November 26, 2007, Printed on November 26, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/68713/
Earlier this year, using the clout that only major broadcast networks seem capable of mustering, CBS News contacted the governments of all 50 states requesting their official records of death by suicide going back 12 years. They heard back from 45 of the 50. From the mountains of gathered information, they sifted out the suicides of those Americans who had served in the armed forces. What they discovered is that in 2005 alone -- and remember, this is just in 45 states -- there were at least 6,256 veteran suicides, 120 every week for a year and an average of 17 every day.

As the widow of a Vietnam vet who killed himself after coming home, and as the author of a book for which I interviewed dozens of other women who had also lost husbands (or sons or fathers) to PTSD and suicide in the aftermath of the war in Vietnam, I am deeply grateful to CBS for undertaking this long overdue investigation. I am also heartbroken that the numbers are so astonishingly high and tentatively optimistic that perhaps now that there are hard numbers to attest to the magnitude of the problem, it will finally be taken seriously. I say tentatively because this is an administration that melts hard numbers on their tongues like communion wafers.

Since these new wars began, and in spite of a continuous flood of alarming reports, the Department of Defense has managed to keep what has clearly become an epidemic of death beneath the radar of public awareness by systematically concealing statistics about soldier suicides. They have done everything from burying them on official casualty lists in a category they call "accidental noncombat deaths" to outright lying to the parents of dead soldiers. And the Department of Veterans Affairs has rubber-stamped their disinformation, continuing to insist that their studies indicate that soldiers are killing themselves, not because of their combat experiences, but because they have "personal problems."

Active-duty soldiers, however, are only part of the story. One of the well-known characteristics of post-traumatic stress injuries is that the onset of symptoms is often delayed, sometimes for decades. Veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam are still taking their own lives because new PTSD symptoms have been triggered, or old ones retriggered, by stories and images from these new wars. Their deaths, like the deaths of more recent veterans, are written up in hometown newspapers; they are locally mourned, but officially ignored. The VA doesn't track or count them. It never has. Both the VA and the Pentagon deny that the problem exists and sanctimoniously point to a lack of evidence they have refused to gather.

They have managed this smoke and mirrors trick for decades in large part because suicide makes people so uncomfortable. It has often been called "that most secret death" because no one wants to talk about it. Over time, in different parts of the world, attitudes have fluctuated between the belief that the act is a sin, a right, a crime, a romantic gesture, an act of consummate bravery or a symptom of mental illness. It has never, however, been an emotionally neutral issue. In the United States, the rationalism of our legal system has acknowledged for 300 years that the act is almost always symptomatic of a mental illness. For those same 300 years, organized religions have stubbornly maintained that it's a sin. In fact, the very worst sin. The one that is never forgiven because it's too late to say you're sorry.

The contradiction between religious doctrine and secular law has left suicide in some kind of nether space in which the fundamentals of our systems of justice and belief are disrupted. A terrible crime has been committed, a murder, and yet there can be no restitution, no punishment. As sin or as mental illness, the origins of suicide live in the mind, illusive, invisible, associated with the mysterious, the secretive and the undisciplined, a kind of omnipresent Orange Alert. Beware the abnormal. Beware the Other.

For years now, this administration has been blasting us with high-decibel, righteous posturing about suicide bombers, those subhuman dastards who do the unthinkable, using their own bodies as lethal weapons. "Those people, they aren't like us; they don't value life the way we do," runs the familiar xenophobic subtext: And sometimes the text isn't even sub-: "Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women, and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York, in Washington and Pennsylvania," proclaimed W, glibly conflating Sept. 11, the invasion of Iraq, Islam, fanatic fundamentalism and human bombs.

Bush has also expressed the opinion that suicide bombers are motivated by despair, neglect and poverty. The demographic statistics on suicide bombers suggest that this isn't the necessarily the case. Most of the Sept. 11 terrorists came from comfortable middle- to upper-middle-class families and were well-educated. Ironically, despair, neglect and poverty may be far more significant factors in the deaths of American soldiers and veterans who are taking their own lives.

Consider the 25 percent of enlistees and the 50 percent of reservists who have come back from the war with serious mental health issues. Despair seems an entirely appropriate response to the realization that the nightmares and flashbacks may never go away, that your ability to function in society and to manage relationships, work schedules or crowds will never be reliable. How not to despair if your prognosis is: Suck it up, soldier. This may never stop!

Neglect? The VA's current backlog is 800,000 cases. Aside from the appalling conditions in many VA hospitals, in 2004, the last year for which statistics are available, almost 6 million veterans and their families were without any healthcare at all. Most of them are working people -- too poor to afford private coverage, but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid or means-tested VA care. Soldiers and veterans need help now, the help isn't there, and the conversations about what needs to be done are only just now beginning.

Poverty? The symptoms of post-traumatic stress injuries or traumatic brain injuries often make getting and keeping a job an insurmountable challenge. The New York Times reported last week that though veterans make up only 11 percent of the adult population, they make up 26 percent of the homeless. If that doesn't translate into despair, neglect and poverty, well, I'm not sure the distinction is one worth quibbling about.

There is a particularly terrible irony in the relationship between suicide bombers and the suicides of American soldiers and veterans. With the possible exception of some few sadists and psychopaths, Americans don't enlist in the military because they want to kill civilians. And they don't sign up with the expectation of killing themselves. How incredibly sad that so many end up dying of remorse for having performed acts that so disturb their sense of moral selfhood that they sentence themselves to death.

There is something so smugly superior in the way we talk about suicide bombers and the cultures that produce them. But here is an unsettling thought. In 2005, 6,256 American veterans took their own lives. That same year, there were about 130 documented deaths of suicide bombers in Iraq.* Do the math. That's a ratio of 50-to-1. So who is it that is most effectively creating a culture of suicide and martyrdom? If George Bush is right, that it is despair, neglect and poverty that drive people to such acts, then isn't it worth pointing out that we are doing a far better job?

*I say "about" because in the aftermath of a suicide bombing, it is often very difficult for observers to determine how many individual bodies have been blown to pieces.

Penny Coleman is the widow of a Vietnam veteran who took his own life after coming home. Her latest book, Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide and the Lessons of War, was released on Memorial Day, 2006. Her blog is Flashback.

[danausmc]

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/03/12/army-suicides-grow-but-this-sold
ier-was-saved/

I strongly suggest you all read this. Do not delete it.
Army Suicides Grow, but This Soldier Was Saved

Posted:
03/12/10

On a dusty afternoon in a squalid U.S. Army base in eastern Baghdad, the world seemed to cave in on Spec. Joe Sanders. On daily patrols, soldiers around him were being killed and grievously wounded by improvised roadside bombs. The sweltering August heat and stink of Baghdad were oppressive. He was thousands of miles from home. And he had just learned that his wife -- his lifeline to the sane, normal world -- wanted a divorce.

Alone in his barracks room at Forward Operating Base Rustamiyah, Sanders, a soft-spoken young man with a pleasant demeanor, seized his
M-4 carbine, put the barrel under his chin, squeezed his eyes shut and pulled the trigger. It was August, 2008. Sanders was 26 years old.

Data <http://www.defense.gov/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=13368>
released by the Army this week show what seems to be a steadily increasing number of suicides among soldiers, from 128 in 2008 to 160 last year, an average of about 13 suicides each month.

Last month, despite a strenuous effort by the Army <http://www.armyg1.army.mil/hr/suicide/media.asp> and the other military services, 14 active-duty soldiers took their own lives. The Army cites "relationship difficulties'' as a key factor in causing soldiers to consider suicide.
A powerful factor in preventing suicides, officers say, is the active intervention of a close friend who sees the warning signs and steps in to help.

When Sanders pulled the trigger of his loaded carbine, there was only a light click. Horrified both at what he had done and what he had failed to do, Sanders tore open his weapon, searching frantically to find why it hadn't fired. He quickly identified the reason: no firing pin.

At that moment his roommate, Spec. Albert Godding, walked in. "Where's my firing pin -- I don't have a firing pin!'' Sanders yelled, terrified that he'd misplaced that critical piece and would get in trouble for losing it.

"And how,'' Godding asked gently, "did you discover it was missing?''
When Sanders realized what had happened -- that Godding was worried enough that he'd removed the firing pin -- Sanders broke down in great, wracking sobs. "Okay, let's go get you some help,'' his buddy told him, putting a hand on Sanders' heaving shoulder.

The signs, in retrospect, were obvious. After his wife had called demanding a divorce, Sanders knew he had fallen into a very dark place.
He felt alone, with no one to talk to. The Army had provided combat stress counselors at FOB Rustamiyah, but Sanders didn't feel he had combat stress.

"I'd been through break-ups before, no big deal,'' he told me last week.
"I'd seen a lot of bad (combat) stuff in Iraq, no big deal.'' Sanders and his wife were newlyweds, unprepared for the intense stress of a 14-month combat deployment. "When she told me she couldn't take it and was leaving me it was ... she was really all I had to ... my therapy.
She left, the woman I loved. Everything we had planned for, just -- gone. I was stuck in Iraq, everybody was trying to kill me, and I had no one to talk to.''

"I just didn't think it qualified me'' to see the combat stress counselor, he said.
But he confided to Godding that he was thinking of killing himself, pondering how it might be done most cleanly, in a place where the blood could be washed away.
"I noticed he wasn't talking to anybody,'' Godding told me in a phone conversation from Fort Carson, Colo.

"He said it had been a real bad week, that he was thinking of bad things like killing himself. I'd heard other guys talking about killing themselves, but when he (Sanders) said it, I knew he was serious about the whole situation. When he went off to check his e-mail, I took the firing pin out and hid it in my locker.''

Sanders went to see the combat stress counselor at Rustamiyah. "She was excellent; every time I talked with her it lifted a weight off my chest,'' Sanders said. They gave him some ideas on how to stave off depression -- by taking up a hobby, for example.

Sanders bought a guitar and "played my a-- off. Also writing, just writing down your thoughts, working out the aggression, that helped,''
he said.
"The thing I learned is, don't be afraid to seek help. A lot of guys are scared of what their leaders will think, that they're weak.''

Sanders, now 28, had always wanted to be a soldier. Growing up in the Atlantic coastal town of Sebastian, Fla., he saw honor and glory in military service. His grandfather had served in Korea, but would never talk about his experiences, until Sanders enlisted and they shared the common bond of soldiering.

Today, Sanders is an artillery gunner. He serves with the 5th Battalion, 25th Field Artillery based at Fort Polk, La., and is scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan this fall. His sergeants think highly of him as a soldier.

But when his four-year enlistment is up in the middle of what is scheduled to be a 12-month combat tour, Sanders is going home -- despite the Army's efforts to convince him to stay.
He has found a new love and is engaged to be married, looking forward to a calm, civilian life.

"I chose to get out because this is a very, very hard life for your family,'' Sanders said. "I want a family and I don't want to be away from them. A lot of guys in the Army miss what goes on in their families at home.
"I am about to get married, and she understands I have to go to Afghanistan. But we just want to have a family, settle down. We just want to have a normal, nine-to-five existence.''

[gsardokla]

http://www.militaryministry.org/families/bthm-2/ptsd/