Troops Serving In Iraq Suffering from PTSD on Scale Not Seen Since Vietnam

[kpete]

Hidden Combat Wounds: Extensive, Deadly, Costly
By Arline Kaplan
Psychiatric Times January 2006 Vol. XXV Issue 1


No Purple Hearts are awarded for the often hidden wounds of posttraumatic stress disorder, but ultimately those wounds can be deadly--linked to suicides, accidents and, over the long term, increased risk of death from cardiovascular diseases and cancer (Boscarino, 2005). Aware of the risks, government agencies, veterans groups and the U.S. Congress in recent months have grabbled with identification, treatment and benefit issues for the growing number of troops and veterans afflicted with PTSD.


"Studies indicate that troops who serve in Iraq are suffering from and other problems brought on by their experiences on a scale not seen since Vietnam," according to one report (Robinson, 2004). The National Vietnam Veterans' Readjustment Survey (from 1986 to 1988) found that 15.2% of male and 8.5% of female Vietnam War veterans suffered from current PTSD (Schlenger et al., 1992).


In Iraq and Afghanistan, the visible manifestations of the mental health toll of U.S. combat operations include suicides and medical evacuations. Official Army statistics from March 19, 2003, through July 31, 2005, indicated that 6.4% of the 19,801 soldiers evacuated from Iraq and 7.2% of the 1,733 evacuated from Afghanistan had psychiatric problems. Among the 1,275 psychiatric disorder evacuations from Iraq, 596 were for depression, 109 for suicidal ideation and 91 for PTSD. There have been 53 suicides among service members fighting in Iraq and nine among those fighting in Afghanistan, as reported in a review of suicide data from 2003 to July 19, 2005 (Ireland, 2005).


Yet most suicides, according to veteran groups and media accounts, occur after troops return home. One highly publicized case was that of Marine reservist Jeffrey Lucey, deployed to Iraq for five months. When he returned home to Belchertown, Mass., he began drinking heavily and suffering from insomnia, night sweats, hallucinations and panic attacks. He received treatment at a Veterans Affairs facility, where he was described by one physician as having PTSD, depression with psychotic features, suicidal ideation and acute alcohol intoxication. One day, Lucey's father came home to find his son had hung himself in the cellar. On Lucey's bed were the dog tags of two unarmed Iraqi prisoners he said he had been forced to shoot (Srivastava, 2004). A recent Associated Press story (2005) reported that three men who had served with the Army's 10th Special Forces in Iraq returned home and committed suicide shortly thereafter.

http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=177101052

[Dunvegan]

1. Post-service deaths arising from service...

...are not counted in the casualty figures.

Figure those in and we may be rapidly reaching a number of American fatalities that will top the losses on 911.

Edited to say: Then again, there are the death that will come from Ground Zero workers, volunteers, and residents that are partly due to the EPA stating that NYC air was not dangerous (even with the clouds of burning asbestos and other toxins from the site of the Towers.)

[Burried News]

2. The mission is a fraud - the unconcious mind knows it and will not

support it. The collective unconcious knows it and so does the individual unconcious. One way or another these lies will be evidenced, outed and reversed - the only question is how much blood it will take and whose?

[fasttense]

3. If our military were being run by sane and moral men, soldiers like this

wouldn't be haunted by their Iraq experiences. Don't get me wrong they will get some symptoms of PTSD but this is a clear case of a guilty conscious that just couldn't take it anymore.

I'm so sorry for the family and this soldier.