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FORT CARSON SOLDIERS SAY TREATMENT FOR MENTAL

HEALTH DISORDERS IS INADEQUATE -- As more

soldiers come forward, there are more

questions on treatment.

 

 

Background here...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/07/nf07/nfJAN07/nf010507-9.htm
and here...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/nfDEC06/nf122706-2.htm
and here...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/nfDEC06/nf122306-5.htm

Today, we have two stories on the Fort Carson situation.

First story here... http://www.rockymountainnews.com/
drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5277291,00.html

Story below:

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Treatment less than stellar, some troops say

One PTSD sufferer feels he's at mercy of superiors' whims

By Dick Foster, Rocky Mountain News

COLORADO SPRINGS - It was late March 2005 when a suicide bomber struck a combat outpost outside Ramadi where Pvt. Tyler Jennings' platoon was assigned.

The explosion hit a group of Iraqi soldiers, killing 19 and wounding 11.

Jennings and his platoon responded to help.

"There were bodies piled up to our knees. There were amputees and decapitations, people trying to hold guys' brains in their heads and pushing intestines back into their stomachs," said the 24-year-old Fort Carson soldier.

"I don't think anybody got a real clear picture of what was going on until a couple days later, when it was like, 'That was awful, it was absolutely terrible,' " he said.

Three days later, 19-year-old Pvt. Samuel Lee, one of Jennings friends in the platoon who had helped deal with the dead and wounded, committed suicide with his rifle in the platoon's barracks.

Two other members of Jennings' platoon were killed during the yearlong tour of Fort Carson's 2nd Brigade Combat Team.

Jennings, himself a Purple Heart recipient for being wounded by shrapnel in a roadside bombing in May, saw bodies "folded up like an accordion" after a roadside bomb destroyed a Humvee.

The experiences can be life-changing, and Jennings felt they were changing his.

"You know in the pit of your stomach over there that you're not going to be OK," he said. "But it doesn't hit you. You're just trying to get you and your buddies home."

Uneasy homecoming

When his brigade came home to Fort Carson in August 2005, Iraq began taking its psychic toll. Jennings believed he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Jennings said his complaints were brushed aside by his platoon sergeant and company captain.

He is not alone. As many as two dozen other Fort Carson soldiers have complained that they were not treated for PTSD symptoms.

Jennings suffered from depression, sleeplessness, anxiety and panic attacks, and eventually developed ulcers.

"I didn't have these issues prior to enlistment or prior to deployment," he said.

Jennings filled out the Army's required mental-health questionnaire - a four-question form asking if the soldier had nightmares or unwanted thoughts, felt threatened, was easily startled or felt numb and detached from others.

The questions are supposed to flag possible PTSD or other mental or emotional problems.

Affirmative answers to three or more questions are supposed to bring an immediate counseling session with a mental-health worker.

Counseling denied

Jennings said he answered some questions affirmatively, but was never given an appointment to see a mental-health worker.

Jennings began a downward emotional spiral, using drugs and alcohol. He went home that October to Rochester, N.Y., and married his sweetheart, Kate Plucknette.

"I didn't realize how bad I really felt until I got home. During most of my wedding, I hid. I would go outside and chain-smoke, and I would go up to my hotel room and sit there. I panicked."

Kate said she had noticed a change. "Everybody was aware he was being excessive.

"When he came home for the wedding, I didn't feel like he was in control," she said.

Back at Fort Carson later that month, a urinalysis detected drugs, and he was ordered into mental-health counseling.

But Jennings' platoon sergeant and his company commander refused to let him attend his mental-health counseling sessions, he said.

"Every time I had an appointment, we'd be training. On a couple of occasions, I was denied and told I couldn't go because we had training," he said.

Fort Carson officials would not comment on his case, citing privacy-act restrictions, and Jennings' superiors have since returned to Iraq.

Possible court-martial

Jennings sought a private counselor in Colorado Springs, Gerald Sandeford, who diagnosed him with PTSD and began treatments.

The Army had other ideas. It cited Jennings positive drug test as a "pattern of misconduct" and began discharge proceedings under honorable conditions last summer.

Then, last July, he voiced his criticism of Fort Carson's PTSD program on a CBS news report.

Three days later, Jennings said, he was notified that his discharge process had been halted. Instead, he would be offered a less-than-honorable discharge for "serious offenses" or court-martialed on a variety of charges, including drug use, with the possibility of up to 42 years in prison.

The Fort Carson legal office will notify him later this month whether it will still offer the option of a discharge or rescind that offer and take him to court-martial. Jennings remains in Colorado Springs awaiting his fate.

The Army has now diagnosed Jennings with insomnia, anxiety and depression, but refused to label those classic symptoms as PTSD.

"A lot of soldiers who have PTSD are still able to function effectively as soldiers and redeploy," a Fort Carson spokesperson said.

Fort Carson had diagnosed and treated 577 cases of PTSD through the first 11 months of last year, from many other platoons and companies.

But Jennings said that whether a soldier is treated for PTSD or punished can depend entirely on the whims of the sergeants and officers in their platoons and companies.

"Almost immediately after I flunked the (drug) screen, they started talking about separating me from the Army, and I thought that was so unfair," he said.

"I made a mistake coming home, and I was having problems, but I was fighting to stay in," he said.

"Now I'm just fighting for my future - any kind of veterans benefits, and my GI Bill, and a decent discharge, which I believe I earned."

Military discharges

• Honorable discharge: Appropriate when the quality of the service member's service has met the standards of acceptable conduct and performance.

• General discharge (under honorable conditions): Warranted when service has been honest and faithful, but when significant negative aspects of conduct or performance outweigh positive aspects of conduct or performance.

• Under other than honorable conditions: Warranted when the reason for separation is based on a pattern of behavior significantly below the conduct expected. Can include acts that may endanger the safety of others.

• Dishonorable dis-charges and bad-conduct discharges: Given only by a military court-martial as part of a sentence for violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the military's criminal code.Source: Usmilitary.About.Com

fosterd@RockyMountainNews.com  or 719-633-4442

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Second story here... http://www.rockymountainnews.com/
drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5277293,00.html

Story below:

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Terrors of war linger in some

Stress disorder raises questions on treatment

By Joe Garner, Rocky Mountain News

COLORADO SPRINGS - Staff Sgt. Anthony Danser has renounced violence, having seen the hell of war.

"On June 21, 2005, I had a good buddy of mine die instantly," he said. "I was the first man to treat him. I had his brains falling into my hands."

That night, two more members of his unit were killed and another three injured, Danser said.

"That was just one day," he said, replaying in his mind the calamities of metal ripping flesh. The horrors he witnessed in Iraq crushed his boyhood dream of a proud, patriotic military life.

"I wanted to be a soldier my entire life," said Danser, 23.

Now, he is awaiting discharge from the Army at Fort Carson because of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Of the more than 650,000 soldiers who have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, an estimated 20 to 30 percent of them will report symptoms such as sleep disturbance and anxiety after combat, said Army spokesman Paul Boyce.

Further, 10 to 15 percent of veterans will have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder that eventually may be diagnosed as the mental illness itself, according to the Army.

Some Fort Carson soldier who have reported symptoms of the stress disorder say they were punished and, in some cases, forced to miss treatment to keep up with training.

Those reports, carried on national news broadcasts, prompted three U.S. senators to ask the Pentagon to investigate the Army's handling of the cases.

Danser said he has been receiving the treatment he needs, though he'll never be able to return to combat.

"I spent my whole life thinking I could handle things like being shot at and seeing people shot," he said.

But, "I found out I don't want to see people hurt anymore.

"I don't want to hurt anyone else. I can't deal with violence anymore."

For a starter, Danser has pitched his TV.

Uneven treatment criticized

Post-traumatic stress disorder may not flare until months or even years after a soldier has come home from combat or a civilian has endured a natural disaster, a terrorist strike or similar trauma.

"I knew something was wrong," said Spc. David Lee, 29, evaluating his mental state after returning from Iraq. He said he has been diagnosed with symptoms of the disorder, but not with full- blown PTSD.

He knew the symptoms from growing up with a father who suffered PTSD years after service in Vietnam - sleepwalking, screaming, crouching with an imaginary weapon to attack imaginary enemy soldiers in his house and ending up "in the fetal position in the bathtub."

"I knew what to look for," Lee said.

"I was short-tempered, having a hard time readjusting to family life, readjusting to married life, readjusting to normal noncombat society."

After care through the Army, Lee said his "relationship with my wife and kids is a lot stronger. It's never going to be like before. How can it?

"The care is there," he said.

"You have to be determined to get it."

After an evaluation of mental-health care in all branches of the military, a Government Accountability Office report last year found that problems exist because treatment varies between branches.

The report said the Department of Defense "cannot provide reasonable assurance that service members . . . who need referrals for further mental health or combat/operational stress reaction evaluations receive them."

The report said the Defense Department needs to standardize care and how the military determines who needs treatment.

Fort Carson denies findings

Related to the GAO's findings, at issue is the Army's quality of mental- health care at Fort Carson, or even the reported denial of care at the post's Evans Army Community Hospital, in violation of military policy.

In response, post and hospital officials contended the Fort Carson's mental- health screening and follow-up care should be considered a model.

"We are seeing the soldiers, treating them well and providing the care they need," said Col. John Cho, a doctor who is commander of the hospital.

Cho said the hospital has passed its military inspections and also has improved its response to patients based on inspectors' recommendations. Hospital staffing has kept up with the base's growth, so doctors and other clinicians are not overwhelmed by the workload, he said.

This year, doctors have diagnosed 577 cases of PTSD, compared with 32 cases in 2002, before the invasion of Iraq, Cho said.

'Army failed me'

In contrast to Fort Carson's image of comprehensive, high-quality care, some soldiers have complained, prompting a Pentagon investigation.

In July and again in December, broadcast reports by CBS and NPR, quoting almost the same half-dozen soldiers, charged that the chain of command at Fort Carson failed to provide treatment or denied treatment to soldiers experiencing symptoms of anguishing mental- health problems after Iraq.

The soldiers described a suicide attempt, screaming nightmares and flashbacks to the suffering of war.

"I think the Army failed me in not getting me the help I needed to cope," former soldier Jason Harvey told NPR. "It's because at Fort Carson they don't care."

In addition, two former Fort Carson sergeants told NPR they often refused to allow soldiers under their command to attend mental-health treatment sessions.

The two sergeants have since returned to Iraq, but officials "are looking into the statements reported on NPR," said Lt. Col. Dave Johnson, the post public affairs officer.

"The opinions of the junior leaders in the recent NPR story are not consistent with the values and beliefs of the senior leadership stationed at Fort Carson," Johnson said in a written statement. "Seeking medical assistance from a mental health care provider is definitely not career-ending. A key part of sustaining the all-volunteer force is caring for the all-volunteer force.

"Harassment and abuse will not be tolerated in any situation, for any reason," he wrote.

Cho said the Army relies on senior sergeants, officers and military doctors to track soldiers as they prepare for Iraq, while they are in the combat theater and after they return home.

"The unfortunate fact with all of this is the NCOs (the two sergeants who allegedly blocked soldiers' access to mental-health care) were characterized as uncaring," Cho said. "That is so far from the truth as to be absurd."

From another perspective, the half-dozen soldiers' allegations to NPR of inadequate mental- health care or denied care led three senators - two Democrats and one Republican - to ask for a Pentagon investigation of treatment standards at Fort Carson.

Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.; Christopher Bond, R-Mo.; and Barack Obama, D-Ill., asked the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs a series of detailed questions in their Dec. 7 letter about soldiers' health care and discharges on emotional grounds.

The senators also requested information about what corrective action the Army has taken to guarantee that commanders and medical personnel do not give low priority to treatment for service-related emotional problems.

"We constantly realign our assets to be sure our soldiers are cared for," Cho said.

He said screening at Soldier Readiness Center, where soldiers are checked for everything from dental cavities to necessary shots to updated wills before they depart for Iraq, are routinely evaluated and refined. The soldiers also are screened for emotional problems when they return and, after a few months, in a follow-up evaluation.

Danser, the sergeant awaiting medical discharge, said returning soldiers, ecstatic to be home from Iraq, "just want to get the (mental-health) forms filled out as soon as possible." Clinicians' questions about seeing buddies killed or suffering nightmares are exactly what the returning soldiers want to put behind them as they prepare for leave.

The Army rescreens soldiers after about three months, when the elation of being home may have turned into the anguish of being home.

"Some soldiers have predisposing factors when they come into the Army that they may not even be aware of," said Lt. Col. Laurel Anderson, a psychiatric nurse.

"They thought they could do it," she said. "They thought they'd be fine. They want to be be proud of themselves as soldiers."

Accepting PTSD

Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., said no soldiers have ever brought up PTSD treatment in their private meetings with him, said his spokeswoman Laura Condeluci. "But he's going to ask about mental-health screenings at his next meeting with soldiers."

Similarly, from the Democratic side, "We haven't heard anything from soldiers or soldiers' families in Denver," said Chris Arend, spokesman for Democratic U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette. "That doesn't mean it isn't out there. We just haven't heard about it."

Sgt. Christopher Cain, 25, has come to understand he survived a duty in Iraq but fell victim to the stress of combat.

An infantryman in his third enlistment, Cain has reluctantly accepted the recommendation of doctors that he should leave the Army because of PTSD.

"In a combat situation," Cain said, "I could make a decision that would be considered irrational and could cost the lives of other soldiers."

Cain said he thought he "could suck it up and drive on," but the doctors' care led him to the conclusion that he should leave the Army for the good of his brother and sister soldiers.

"They really took their time before they made a decision," Cain said. "In essence, it will cause me to be medically retired as a soldier."

Like Cain, Sgt. John Villa, 26, served in Iraq with some of the soldiers whose complaints prompted the senators to ask the Pentagon to open the investigation into emotional care and to rectify any problems. Like Cain, Villa also said he has been diagnosed with PTSD, but his experiences have differed from the half-dozen whose allegations triggered the senators' investigation.

"I'm not here to bad-mouth anyone," Villa said about his one- time buddies and their complaints. "But my experiences are completely different, night and day."

Now married to his middle- school sweetheart, Villa has begun to accept himself as a one- time soldier with PTSD, not as tough-as-nails sergeant "Gore Hawg."

He and his wife, Laura, plan to return to New York as soon as he is medically discharged.

"If I can't be deployed with my guys, I don't want to be here (in the Army)," Villa said. "When I told them I had this, I had grown men cry in front of me."

Understanding the disorder

What is post-traumatic stress disorder?

PTSD is a recognized mental illness, such as depression or schizophrenia.

It can occur after experiencing or witnessing a life-threatening event such as military combat, a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, a serious accident or a violent personal assault such as rape.

What are the symptoms?

Biological changes, as well as psychological symptoms, accompany PTSD. The disease is complicated by the fact that it frequently occurs in conjunction with related disorders such as depression, substance abuse or other problems of mental and physical health.

As a consequence, a person diagnosed with PTSD often has trouble functioning as a family member or on the job, which can lead to marital problems, difficulties in parenting and unemployment.

Was it common in other wars?

Yes, it formerly was known as battle fatigue, combat fatigue or shell shock.

However, the disorder - characterized by flashbacks, which are vivid, involuntary recollections of the triggering incident - can occur in women and children in all socioeconomic strata and from different cultural backgrounds.Sources: U.S. Department Of Veterans Affairs, The World Book Encyclopedia

garnerj@RockyMountainNews.com  or 303-954-5421

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Larry Scott

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