Issue of the Day

From 5.11.09

Fragging!!

Another Deja-Vu 'Nam Hits the Present Occupations!!!

U.S. service member kills 4 fellow troops in Iraq - GI in custody after killing 5 at Iraq ‘stress clinic’
Contrary to earlier reports, military says soldier did not kill self after attack



With a Report from McClatchy on the shooting

From 5.12.09

Baghdad killings reflect U.S. Army stress crisis

The tragedy at Camp Liberty, near Baghdad, where an American soldier shot and killed five U.S. personnel and wounded three others, has been at least six years in the making.......

This, video below, accompanies the above report from UPI and really shows that though the citizens of this country like to cheer on Wars of Choice they still haven't a clue as to how War affects those sent and those living in occupations. As well as traumatic experiences they themselves may live and how that affects them and others. The video is also at site page.



Also From 5.12.09

Father of Soldier in Iraq 'Fratricide' Case Speaks, Reveals Key Details

Referring to the treatment of his son at the stress clinic where the shootings took place, Russell said, “They don’t do the best job of taking care of the soldiers, both in the service and when they get out of the service, we know that. They use them.” He added: “They broke him. He thought his life was over.”

He also confirmed a report that his son was disarmed and sent away from the stress clinic after a “rhubarb” with others there, only to take a gun from a minder and return for the deadly shootout.

The father, of Grayson County, Texas, told KTEN TV, in the raw video posted at the station’s web site, that after the “rhubarb” they put Sgt. Russell “in a vehicle with a guy with a gun, and, well -- they'd trained him to kill -- and he took a gun” and returned to the clinic..........

Watch the Video

Some may find these books very helpful, others should find to be useful in the educational quality of understanding and research, and not only for combat veterans but civilian suffers of:

I Can Still Hear Their Cries, Even In My Sleep: A Journey Into PTSD

Veterans's PTSD Handbook: How to File and Collect on Claims for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

The War Comes Home: Washington's Battle against America's Veterans

Vets Under Siege: How America Deceives and Dishonors Those Who Fight Our Battles

After the War Zone: A Practical Guide for Returning Troops and Their Families

Life After Deployment: Military families share reunion stories and advice

Moving A Nation to Care: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and America's Returning Troops

A Short List of Reading

That some may find very helpful, others should find to be useful in the educational quality of understanding and research, and not only for combat veterans but civilian suffers of:

I Can Still Hear Their Cries, Even In My Sleep: A Journey Into PTSD

Veterans's PTSD Handbook: How to File and Collect on Claims for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

The War Comes Home: Washington's Battle against America's Veterans

Vets Under Siege: How America Deceives and Dishonors Those Who Fight Our Battles

After the War Zone: A Practical Guide for Returning Troops and Their Families

Life After Deployment: Military families share reunion stories and advice

Moving A Nation to Care: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and America's Returning Troops

Post Traumatic Stress Research

PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder): An anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened. People with PTSD have persistent frightening thoughts and memories of their ordeal. They may experience sleep problems, feel detached or numb, or be easily startled.


TBI (traumatic brain injury): Also called a concussion.


ASR (acute stress reaction): The immediate aftermath of a traumatic incident in a combat zone. The military describes it as normal reactions among troops confronted by abnormal situations.


CID (critical incident debrief): The Army's term for a mandatory session that takes place 24 to 72 hours after an event that may be sapping a soldier's will to fight.


National Institute Of Mental Health

At a recent conference for some of the area's leading neurologists, San Francisco physicist Norbert Schuff captured his colleagues' attention when he presented colorful brain images of U.S. soldiers who had returned from Iraq and Afghanistan and were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

That conference is covered in this article PTSD leaves physical footprints on the brain in the San Francisco Gate.

The yellow areas, Schuff explained during his presentation at the city's Veterans Affairs Medical Center, showed where the hippocampus, which plays major roles in short-term memory and emotions, had atrophied. The red swatches marked hyperfusion - increased blood flow - in the prefrontal cortex, the region responsible for conflict resolution and decision-making. Compared with a soldier without the affliction, the PTSD brain had lost 5 to 10 percent of its gray matter volume, indicating yet more neuron damage.

The hippocampus is located in the medial temporal lobe of the brain. (In this illustration of the inferior surface (underside) of the brain, the frontal lobe of the brain is at the top, while the occipital lobe is at the bottom.)


Norbert Schuff, PhD, is Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Radiology, University of California San Francisco. Who gives this observation and asks these questions.

"But we're still in the infancy of neuroimaging," Schuff cautioned later in his office. "Do you get PTSD because you have a small hippocampus? Or does a small hippocampus mean you'll develop PTSD? That, we still don't know."

Many seem to be joining into the research and care, know of some youngsters in or entering college with a focus on psychiatry and particularly interested in PTSD, combat and in the civilian population, for it's finally being understood many suffer from PTSD from traumatic experiences in their lives, one is a niece of mine who is closing out her college years.

Schuff's research is at the forefront of a bold push by the Department of Defense to address PTSD, the psychological disorder that will haunt an estimated 30 percent of the veterans returning from the current two wars, according to the Pentagon. Forty thousand veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, Pentagon officials say, have already been diagnosed with PTSD, which is defined as an anxiety disorder triggered by exposure to traumatic events; symptoms can include nightmares, flashbacks and panic attacks.

Left untreated, clinicians say, patients with PTSD are more likely to engage in anti-social behaviors such as alcohol and drug abuse. The disorder, neurologists are now learning, can also lead to long-term maladies, such as Alzheimer's and dementia.

Better late than never but this country should have started the research, not just the few who had and the veterans who understood, extensively after it was finally recognized. For combat PTSD has always been there, not only in military troops but civilians in the countries and area's of the many conflicts man wages on man.


They break the article up into a few subtitles, such as this,


Manhattan Project urgency

The quest is to understand how the disorder begins inside the brain. The Defense Department has invested $78 million in San Francisco's Northern California Institute for Research and Education at the VA center in the past four years, making it the largest VA research institute in the country and the only one that specializes in neuroscience. With 200 researchers on staff, and an estimated 40 ongoing studies that rely on 60 to 80 veterans as research participants, the center has the urgency of a Manhattan Project site, this time searching for a way to end a mental health crisis.

The Department of Defense "has such a compelling need for these answers," said Dr. Thomas Neylan, an associate professor of psychiatry at UCSF and director of the post-traumatic stress disorder program at the VA center. "They want to know these answers now, which is the right approach. We want the answers now; people are still going off to the war, coming back, and a lot of them are suffering for a long time."

There's more under this heading but they close it out with this:

"We're using this opportunity to also see why some people are able to walk away from these situations and live healthy lives," he said, "and why others are not."

They go into:


The effects of IEDs

The link between mild brain trauma and PTSD is being studied at the VA center in San Francisco by Dr. Gary Abrams, whose preliminary studies show that the overlap between PTSD patients and sufferers of mild brain trauma injury "is tremendous." Abrams has yet to release definitive numbers.

And you will find a paragraph under this next subtitle that one might find interesting and can be viewed at the title link.


Recent attempts to estimate frequency


Under this next one they give a brief description of four experiments now being taken in attempts to ease the burden some have from the stress and trauma of Conflicts and Occupations


Experiments probe further into post-traumatic stress disorder

Nasal spray: Scott Panter is developing a battlefield-ready nasal spray for troops who suffer brain trauma. After the trauma occurs, the brain swells, causing tissue damage. Panter's nasal spray, applied within 20 minutes of a trauma, would aim to stop the swelling process. Troops could carry the spray in their packs and self-apply or administer to others.

D-cycloserine: Dr. Charles Marmar is conducting trials on PTSD patients using D-cycloserine. The drug, which was originally used as an antibiotic for tuberculosis, has also proved to help lab animals "unlearn fear responses." Given in small doses 30 minutes before a therapy session, D-cyclo is meant to help PTSD patients open up about their traumatic experiences and become more willing to engage in therapy. The hypothesis is that the group taking D-cyclo will make more and faster progress in therapy.

Blood/gene test: Dr. Lynn Pulliam is trying to establish a blood profile to diagnose PTSD. Using gene array technology, researchers will be able to take an RNA test, much like a DNA test, to determine whether a patient "tests positive" for PTSD.

Sleep experiment: Dr. Thomas Neylan is conducting a study on improving veterans' sleep habits without drugs. Neylan said PTSD patients often feel anxious about sleeping, in part because they anticipate insomnia but also because they worry about nightmares. Subjects are coached to avoid substances that interfere with their sleep. "If we get them to sleep better at night," Neylan said, "they'll have fewer nightmares and feel better during the day."

There is another recent report out hitting on what the military is doing for those who may be coming under the stress and trauma of the conflicts In - Theater.



Army treats combat stress in the field

Sgt. Seth "Doc" Musikant could be a recruiting poster for the Army's new approach to PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder.

In April, Musikant and his team were driving around a traffic circle in the city of Tuz. It was their second time through the roundabout that day, and between trips somebody had planted a homemade bomb. It blew up their Humvee.

Sgt. Musikant had this to say firther down:

"It's like there's an invisible wall," Musikant said about the anxiety that temporarily troubled him.

For one thing, it's cheaper to treat PTSD than it is to train a new recruit. For another, Bourque said, "the healthier their personnel, the better off the Army is."

Now the Army identifies a condition called acute stress reaction, or ASR -- the immediate aftermath of a traumatic incident in a combat zone. Since PTSD takes months, sometimes years, to manifest itself, military doctors and counselors prefer the new term to describe what they regard as normal reactions among troops confronted by abnormal situations.

You can read the whole report here, it isn't that long.


I'm been an advocate of PTSD, among other causes, since returning from Vietnam and knowing many who suffered from as well as the many of my brother Vets who took it on as a profession to help their brothers and others. It's once again one of the many extremely important causes that the society shuns, they don't want to spend the needed funds to research and help, yet it costs them more as time passes. They don't want to hear about those suffering who finally just break and cause problems, some extreme, within the communities, because they weren't receiving the help they were asking for, nor are there enough who understand to give the help needed.


For me, PTSD should be right up there along side 'War as a Last Resort' before this country sends it's Military into another's to invade, destroy than occupy. For the aftereffects of War on many as to PTSD are like the unexploded ordinance found throughout the many lands man wages conflicts, it keeps the continuation of War long after they supposedly end for the greater majority!


And in todays World the enemies we the so called powerful make leads to the less powerful to continue and intensify the Criminal Terror that has been occurring with rapid growth for a number of years!

Fighting the Army - "NOW"

On PBS NOW Tonight 6-13-08

Of the thousands of U.S. troops getting discharged from the Army each year, many who are suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and brain injuries aren't getting the vital care they need. The Army claims these soldiers have pre-existing mental illnesses or are guilty of misconduct. But advocates say this is a way for the Army to get rid of "problem" soldiers quickly, without giving them the treatment and benefits to which they're entitled.

This week, NOW travels to Fort Hood in Texas to meet traumatized soldiers fighting a new battle, this one against the army they served. Are soldiers being wrongfully discharged for honorable service?

You can find your Local Viewing Listing here

Visit the site link above to view a few related stories you'll find in a box on the right, if you have the time before tonights airing. If time is limited visit at your leasure, information and incidents that need the public viewing to better understand and educate to the seriousness of what you may not know and aren't told!

Because this is taking place at Ft Hood Tx. it will be Carissa Picard, of Military Spouses for Change, who's husband has either left already or will shortly for a tour in Iraq, who will be discussing the personality disorder discharges and PTSD/misconduct discharges and the cases MSC has been involved in ion this weeks show.

The following comes from Medill Reports: Washington { Northwestern.edu }

Helping warriors find peace of mind

It's about a program started by psychiatrists called Give An Hour

http://www.livevideo.com

"Give an Hour" is a network of psychiatrists hoping to change the way troops receive mental health care upon their return home

Much more is needed, and has been for a long time, but this is a good start, especially for the civilian professional, there have been some in the past but not enough , to not only try to help the soldier but to gain a better knowledge of PTSD themselves. That would help greatly in their profession in helping the civilian population that suffer through their own traumatic life experiances and develope PTSD usually suffering in silence not knowing how to explain what they've been through and how it has changed their lives forever, or being diagnosed with other trauma disorders.

And while many learn more about PTSD, Combat and Civilian, don't forget the Never Mentioned, the Trauma to those of Invasion and Occupation of their countries and what happens from those. Combat PTSD is not only suffered in the military ranks but also in those who fight the invasions and occupations of their countries, and Especially in the civilian populations of those countries!

These people Need as much Help, or more, not only in attempting to releave their suffering as well but for some how they handle what they are going through, will they lash out in retaliation, further, for what they've been forced to live through, on their own people or others, will they become radicalized beyond the extreme and create terror on others, anyone!

Think how you would feel if placed into the same hell those others are living in!

Also found at the Medill Report site is a series dedicated to the forgotten soldiers, serving their country. When we, the press, and others talk about the occupations, the fallen, the maimed, and wars, a group of this countries soldiers are rarely mention, we talk about the boys and men who serve, describing the military troops in that manner as well, rarely mentioning the Women who serve in uniform and as Honorably.

Women at War
by Melissa Schmitt

This series offers a glimpse into the lives of several women who served in the United States military -- their personal experiences of combat, of returning to civilian life, their dual roles as service member and mother, and some of the more difficult issues that women veterans face -- military sexual trauma and homelessness.

Women in our military today: an overview
by Melissa Schmitt

Women now represent 14 percent of the U.S. military, and they are playing new roles in the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet little is known about the long-term effects of combat on women, and some say more services are needed for the increasing amount of women veterans who are expected to use Veterans Affairs facilites.

Wounded women warriors return home to frustration
by Melissa Schmitt

The last thing she remembers is an explosion. Years later, she's fighting other battles back at home. In a war with no true front lines, women are in the line of fire now more than ever before. But should they be there? What is military policy? And what happens to these wounded women when they get back?

Military mom takes it 'day by day' on long tour in Iraq
by Melissa Schmitt

When this Army nurse left home for a long tour as a nurse in a Green Zone hospital, the youngest of her three children wasn't even walking. When she gets back, they will be close to two years older.

Homelessness a problem for women veterans
by Melissa Schmitt

Debra Filter was looking to escape a difficult childhood, get an education and see the world when she signed up for the military. But things didn't go as planned.

A heart of gold, and purple
by Nikki Gamer

Michelle Saunders, a 34-year-old Iraq war veteran, was among the first American women to fight on the front lines. Now that she's back home, she's helping others get back on their feet and back into the workforce.

And this from CBS News

Women Vets Get Worse Care, Review Finds

Women veterans aren't receiving the same quality of outpatient care as men at many Department of Veterans Affairs' facilities, according to an agency review obtained exclusively by The Associated Press.

The review appears to validate the complaints of advocates and some members of Congress who have said the health care system needs to focus more on women's health.

Women in todays military have many more rolls than in any previous time before, many serving in Combat Situations, chopper pilots, jet pilots, participating in combat patrols........................., they are killed, wounded, develope the same mental trauma of their male counterparts and in my thinking probably more so, for women bring life into this world after carrying that life within, than are placed into the situation of war and occupation sometimes taking life to save their own and their fellow soldiers.

Visit the links above to better educate yourselves, especially you in the great majority that haven't served in the military.

And by All Means, if you receive the PBS NOW series on your local schedule, Watch Tonights Series