Army tries resiliency training to improve soldiers' mental health

[unhappycamper]

Army tries resiliency training to improve soldiers' mental health
By Chris Vaughn | Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Posted on Wednesday, May 5, 2010

The Army is struggling to hire more mental-health professionals to treat soldiers for readjustment problems.

It is burying a record number of troops who died by their own hands. Alcohol abuse and drug use discharges are up, and chaplains are holding marriage retreats to help families deal with a worrying number of divorces and domestic violence cases.

These are a few of the unwelcome consequences of the nation's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have whipsawed soldiers and their families from one long, combat deployment to the next for most of the last decade.

"We've never done a war this way before," said Brig. Gen. Rhonda Cornum, a flight surgeon and former commander of the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.

The Army, frustrated at its inability to get ahead of problems, has adopted a new tack -- resiliency training for every single man and woman who wears green.



unhappycamper comment: "We've never done a war this way before".... Really? I seem to recall that Gulf War I veterans have been dying in droves. If suicide doesn't get ya then 'mysterious' illness probably will.

Here's a few old but interesting veterans facts:

25% of the homeless population in this country are veterans
25% of the prison population are veterans