Combat Veterans, PTSD, Drugs And Suicide

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By Allen L Roland (about the author)

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For OpEdNews: Allen L Roland - Writer

Three Dead and severely wounded American soldiers in Iraq who are not being accounted for correctly.

We know that the 'reported' death tally in combat is more than 4,000. What we do not know is that these do not include suicides or post evacuation deaths induced by lethal wounds received in combat, nor even the deaths of over 1,000 private contractors. If we include all the wounded, the injured and the medically ill, we have a total of over 70,000: Dr. Evan Kanter, the president elect of Physicians for Social Responsibility.

A U.S. soldier shot and killed five of his fellow soldiers yesterday at a counseling center at a base outside Baghdad in "the worst such attack" of the six-year Iraq war. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that "such a tragic loss of life at the hands of our own forces is a cause for great and urgent concern."

Gates is right about the urgent concern about our combat forces but the American public needs to know the full truth regarding PTSD, drugs, the stress of multiple deployments, the rising rate of suicide and the TRUE casualty numbers. That soldier who killed five of his fellow soldiers, by the way, was on his third deployment.

This truth will not come from the Pentagon but Dahr Jamail comes very close to it in his must read May 12th article in Truthout entitled UNFIT FOR COMBAT where he writes ~ " The shocking story of a soldier killing five of his comrades does not come as a surprise when we consider that the military has, for years now, been sending troops with untreated PTSD back into the US occupation of Iraq... War is an atrocity. War is bilateral psychosis. War brings nothing but destruction and suffering to everyone involved in it, whether they be Iraqi civilians or US soldiers occupying Iraq... Complicating things is that the US military has been medicating soldiers before they are redeployed to Iraq, in order to keep enough boots on the ground. An anonymous survey of US troops taken during Fall 2007, used as part of the data in the Army's fifth Mental Health Advisory Team report, found that 12 percent of combat troops in Iraq and 17 percent in Afghanistan were on prescription drugs that were mostly antidepressants or sleeping pills."
http://www.truthout.org/051209J

Dahl further comments that two out of five suicide victims among troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have been found to be on antidepressants and then shared a Gregg Zorova report for USA Today on May 8, 2008, that over 43,000 troops declared medically unfit for combat in weeks prior to their scheduled departure to Iraq or Afghanistan were redeployed anyway ~ " Army psychiatrist Col. Charles Hoge told Congress in March 2008, that nearly 30 percent of troops on their third deployment are mental wrecks."

Here's a must view short video about psychotropic drugs in the active-duty military. http://abcnews.go.com/International/WoodruffReports/Story?id=6095812&;page=1

But the highlight of Jamail's article was the comments from Dr. Evan Kanter, the president elect of Physicians for Social Responsibility, a psychiatrist who specializes in treating vets with PTSD. Kanter spoke on behalf of those that he treats and he did not pull any punches ~ " As a doctor I want to talk about these hidden wounds and hidden costs, many of which are intentionally hidden because if people knew the extent of the costs, maybe they would be less prepared to go to war.. We know that the death tally in combat is more than 4,000, represented by the headstones we see around this hall. What we do not know is that these do not include suicides or post evacuation deaths induced by lethal wounds received in combat, nor even the deaths of over 1,000 private contractors. If we include all the wounded, the injured and the medically ill, we have a total of over 70,000, but the military intentionally camouflages and segregates the numbers in three categories that are extremely difficult to access. "

This confirms my post of July 11, 2007 PENTAGON STILL LOWBALLING U.S.DEATHS & CASUALTIES where I wrote that there has always been the strong rumor that the Pentagon only counts those killed in combat in its daily death totals. So if a soldier was wounded and died in transit to a hospital or in that hospital ~ he would not be counted in that daily death or wounded report. Now we have more evidence according to Veterans For Common Sense that the Pentagon is intentionally underreporting casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2007/07/11.html

Kanter goes on to explain ~ " The huge and growing number of cases of PTSD and major depression among returning soldiers has a direct link with the high suicide rates in the military ... PTSD is no less a war wound than a shrapnel injury. It can be tremendously debilitating. Symptoms include nightmares and flashbacks, triggered physiological and psychological stress, social withdrawal, isolation, avoidance of any kind of reminders of the trauma, emotional numbing, uncontrolled outbursts of anger or rage, difficulty concentrating and focusing and a state of hyper vigilance, which the military calls the 'battle mind.' All these are symptoms that would make it impossible for a vet with severe PTSD to be in the room with us today."

http://www.truthout.org/051209J

This moral outrage starts with the fact that the Pentagon is still intentionally underreporting US casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to a report by veterans' advocacy group Veterans for Common Sense ~ They attribute the discrepancy to the Pentagon's refusal to include medically evacuated troops for injuries and illnesses in its "wounded" reports.

" The purpose of this new distinction is to lower the numbers in Pentagon casualties reports in order to give the impression that "progress" in the war is being made and that harm to US forces inflicted in the war zone is far lower than reality," states Veterans for Common Sense.

http://politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/5530/1/32/

It's time for the full truth about the combat casualties of our illegal occupations of both Iraq and Afghanistan and then its time to pull them out of harms way.

Allen L Roland

http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2009/05/13.html

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Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website more...)

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