Combat's Hidden Toll: 1 in 10 Soldiers Report Mental Health Problems

[unhappycamper]

Combat's Hidden Toll: 1 in 10 Soldiers Report Mental Health Problems
By KIM CAROLLO
ABCNews Medical Unit
June 9, 2010

Even though he's retired from active military duty, CSM Samuel Rhodes still suffers from deep emotional wounds.

"I had to take this afternoon off from work today because of anxiety," he said. "And sometimes, if I'm going through a really tough time, I think about suicide."

He spent nearly 30 years in the Army and recently spent 30 straight months deployed in Iraq where he, like many soldiers, witnessed some of the horrors of war.

"In April 2005, it started to eat me up because I started losing one soldier after another," Rhodes said. "We lost 37 soldiers that were in my unit."

He was command sergeant major of his brigade, and over the 30 months he was there, he lost 37 of his soldiers. As time wore on, the loss of life wore him down.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

1. 1 in 10 people in the USA also have mental health problems.

So it's not just the military, but I would guess that military personal mental health problems are much higher then reported.

[pinboy3niner]

3. By a different measure in this study, they found 20-30 percent

The 10 percent figure seemed low, because previous studies had found 20-30 percent. The article indicates the 10 percent figure resulted when researchers used more-stringent criteria for PTSD.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

4. So they are just targeting PTSD.

[pinboy3niner]

5. No, but the 20-30 percent was for PTSD

"The surveys screened soldiers for PTSD, depression, alcohol misuse and aggressive behavior...."

The article could have been clearer on some points, but there's this:

"But by using a less stringent definition of PTSD, they found between 20 and 30 percent of soldiers showed symptoms of PTSD, while they found between 11.5 to 16 percent of them were depressed."

[Arctic Dave]

2. I would feel sorry for him but if I did that then I would have to give a shit about all the

people he terrorized and their mental health problems. Which, if I had to guess, don't get any type of sympathy or treatment.

[pinboy3niner]

6. Confusing the war with the warrior is a mistake

An individual should not be judged on the basis of unwarranted assumptions.

(Ed. for typo)

[Arctic Dave]

7. You cannot separate the war from the warrior. That is a myth in todays military.

He wasn't dragged off the street and conscripted, he volunteered all on his own.

[pinboy3niner]

8. So joining 30-some years ago makes him responsible for current war policy?

[Arctic Dave]

9. If he didn't approve, why is he still doing it?

He could have taken his retirement and left already. Policy is only effective when people willing follow it, which he obviously does.

[USArmyParatrooper]

So are you for having no military?

[Arctic Dave]

11. I am for an extremely minimalist military for defensive security only.

What we have now is a monstrosity that is only interested in its own perpetuation.

[USArmyParatrooper]

15. OK, so you admit you *need* Soldiers willing to serve

The fact that you think there should be less of them doesn't change a thing. You still admit that you depend on people willing to step up to the plate to fulfill an occupation you claim to deplore. Quite the irony.

Also, no military can function if its members can pick and choose which wars they fight based on ideology.

Below is how the Taliban deals with women who wear nail polish.



I frankly don't care if I or someone else lowers his body temperature to ambient, or if he has PTSD.

[Arctic Dave]

17. And this what to do with Iraq?

As for this, what does it have to do with our national security? Answer: Absolutely nothing. So leave your lame arguments at the door.

If what to go play moral avenger do it on your own time. I also imagine you will be heading to Sudan and every other dysfunctional state in the world. Or just the ones that are in our economical interest.

Also, this photo was taken BEFORE 9/11, where was your outrage then.

[USArmyParatrooper]

21. You're mising the point and dodging another

But again, I'm glad you admit depending on people to fill an occupation you denounce.

What I was addressing was your comment about "feeling sorry" for the people we whack. I don't feel sorry for them at all, and this is just one example of why.

As for what the Taliban's barbaric theological rule had to do with national security, nothing. But their marriage with al-Qaeda was a national security threat, and their marriage was actually quite literal. One of Bin Laden's sons married Mohammed Omar's daughter, creating family bonds that run deep in Pashtun culture. It would literally be impossible to go after al-Qaeda without going after the Taliban. You're President on September 11th, 2001. What would your response have been?

I agree that we can't be the entire world's police, but I am OK with limited interventionism in special cases. I think we should have gone into Rawanda, for example.

I don't believe we should have gone into Iraq.

[Arctic Dave]

22. It seems you wrongly assume I have never worn a military uniform.

I am aware of fools errands, which what the entire ME invasion and occupation is.

So the marriage of one persons daughter is legitimate reason to invade and occupy a country? I'm not quite sure what your point is on this one. As for 911 being reason for the boondoggle we have going on I'll call bullshit right now. Tomahawks and special forces would have accomplished the same goals with much less blowback.

[USArmyParatrooper]

24. Well hopefully

You didn't come out with PTDS, or a missing limb, or some other infliction that (according to you) is unworthy of sympathetic consideration.

Here's what I said:

"But their marriage with al-Qaeda was a national security threat, and their marriage was actually quite literal. One of Bin Laden's sons married Mohammed Omar's daughter, creating family bonds that run deep in Pashtun culture.It would literally be impossible to go after al-Qaeda without going after the Taliban. You're President on September 11th, 2001. What would your response have been?"

You focused on the marriage aspect.... and felt the part in bold was a trivial side note?

It's interesting you said, "Tomahawks and special forces would have accomplished the same goals with much less blowback." For the first couple years that pretty much all we had in Afghanistan. So what would your response to 9-11 have been?

[Arctic Dave]

25. We should have never put a standing army in Afghanistan.

Holding ground against a hodgepodge of radicals is completely unnecessary and counter productive. If president bozo would have used intelligence resources to take out OBL and his inner circle instead of going on the Iraq boondoggle this self perpetuating cluster fuck would not be happening.

[USArmyParatrooper]

26. Is that your professional assessment?

Can you produce a five paragraph OPORD (Operation Order) to carry out such a mission successfully? Intelligence resources and what else?

[Arctic Dave]

27. No need for me to write it up, its already in play.

Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Eritrea to name a few.

No big dick showing spectacle like bush started, just dead assholes.

[USArmyParatrooper]

29. Can you elaborate

on what's in play in those countries?

Which dead assholes do you speak of?

[Posteritatis]

30. AD's one of those "all soldiers are intrinsically evil" drones, methinks. (nt)

[pinboy3niner]

31. Not necessarily

I give him--and everyone--the benefit of the doubt

We've been able to have a civil discussion, and you have to give him credit for that. And he's not an absolutist--he recognizes the need for the military, at least to defend the country.

I believe that sharing our views and insights, civilly and gently, can at least lead to some understanding and appreciation of our perspective. And there appear to be some OTHER things that I haven't discussed here, where I would agree with HIM.

[pinboy3niner]

13. He's retired.

Did you read the article? He could have stayed in, but he retired when he qualified for his 30-year pension.

Without knowing anything about him, it's unfair to assume he is guilty of something or refer to "the people he terrorized."

That sounds like some kind of "military profiling," judging all based on a perceived stereotype.

(ETA: My mistake--he served "nearly" 30 years. Which makes me wonder why he didn't hold on just a little longer for the higher retirement benefits he could have gotten at 30 years?)

[Arctic Dave]

14. Invade and occupy another country sounds like terrorism to me.

Dropping bombs and launching missiles into another country sounds like terrorism to me.

Breaking down doors and mass detentions sounds like terrorism to me.

No profiling involved on my part, just watching the news.

[pinboy3niner]

16. He wasn't breaking down doors

He was a Command Sergeant Major--the highest enlisted rank in the Army. He held an administrative, managerial job at the headquarters of a brigade. Not a combat grunt out in the field.

Do you have evidence that he "terrorized" anyone?

[Arctic Dave]

19. If you are part of the structure, you are part of the problem.

Was he speaking out against what was going on in Iraq. Being removed from the actual hands on part of the operations doesn't in any way absolve the person of guilt.

[pinboy3niner]

20. Seems inconsistent to support having the structure, yet condemn...

anyone serving in it. You imply that if he was "speaking out against what was going on in Iraq," THAT would make him OK in your judgement.

But you've already accused him of "terrorizing" people (with absolutely no basis for that accusation), with absolutely NO idea whether or not he was "speaking out."

This retired NCO is suffering, traumatized by the horror of war and the loss of dozens of people he knew and cared about. What he deserves is compassion, not unfounded accusations.

[Arctic Dave]

23. I do support national defense, no inconstancy there.

What is inconstant is that this guy should special recognition and not the people who's country he helped destroy and people he helped kill. Where is the compassion for them?

[pinboy3niner]

28. He's being treated for war trauma, not getting "special recognition"

Unless being quoted by ABC News counts as special recognition, or one reads into the story something that is not there.

The story reports on a study of war trauma among U.S. servicemembers and recent veterans. The exclusion of other war victims beyond the scope of the study and the story cannot, in fairness, be taken as evidence of a lack of compassion for them.

[kgnu_fan]

10. I think human is only specie that plans war against its own kind, kills its own kind en masse

[kgnu_fan]

12. I think it is unnatural to kill own kind, it is natural to get sick from it

And humanity has repeated this horrible act for a long long time, except for occasional and rare period of time called "civilization" when people got wiser and learned from the past and tried to behave as a higher specie. At least for now the USA is a savage country with a huge killing machine.

[kgnu_fan]

18. I recommend all to read "Winter Soldier - Iraq and Afghanistan"

-Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations-
by Iraq Veterans Against the War and Aaron Glantz
Foreword by Anthony Swofford

www.haymarketbooks.org
www.ivaw.org