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EDITORIAL: THE NATION IS FAILING ITS MENTALLY
WOUNDED VETERANS -- From the Star-Tribune
of
Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota.
Story here...
http://www.startribune.com/
561/story/970231.html
Story below:
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Editorial: The nation is failing its mentally
wounded
It sends them into emotional danger, then
disdains their injuries.
There is something truly grotesque about urging that the United States
take better care of the mentally wounded men and women who come home
from Iraq. Mental wounds are a given of any war, which is why Americans
should be absolutely sure war is necessary before they ever agree to put
the lives of U.S. troops on the line. The extreme anguish that can come
from killing others, risking death and seeing friends die is a wound
that relentlessly keeps on wounding.
When you compound the ordinary mental risks of any war with the
confusion of purpose, repeat deployments and guerrilla nature of the war
in Iraq, you have a situation guaranteed to twist the emotions of many
soldiers in ways so painful and hopeless that some choose death instead,
the choice made by Marine veteran Jonathan Schulze of New Prague, who
recently hanged himself.
This is anticipated mental illness, and the honest solution is to quit
sending Americans into the maw of Iraq. As a nation, however, we are
incapable of doing that yet, so we are left with a solemn responsibility
for fixing, as best anyone can, the emotional wounds that veterans
present. And we're failing. Jonathan Schulze is proof of that.
Knowing with certainty what happened with Schulze is impossible, given
the privacy restrictions on the Department of Veterans Affairs and a
bureaucracy's instinctive desire to cover its backside. Perhaps he did
not clearly mention the magical words "feeling suicidal." But no one
disputes this much: Schulze took his life after he was turned away from
two VA hospitals -- in Minneapolis and St. Cloud -- because their
psychiatric units were full.
Imagine what this means. A Marine, trained to suck it up and be manly in
his own eyes and those of his peers, finally is in such overwhelming
pain that he can admit to himself and, most difficult, to others, that
he needs psychiatric help. Having made that extraordinarily difficult
decision, he is told to come back in a few months when the hospital has
an opening. That is akin to telling a heart attack victim to check back
when the emergency room doctor's not busy or a drowning person to wait
until a life preserver is available. In military and VA hospitals, there
should be no waiting list for psychiatric beds. The very idea is
obscene.
To make those lists disappear, we need to learn a couple of things. The
first is that mental injuries are real and hurt like hell; they deserve,
as the late Sen. Paul Wellstone knew well, the same attention and care
as life-endangering physical wounds. The second is that the requirements
of military life -- physical and mental strength, discipline and courage
-- can be reconciled with emotional vulnerability and good mental health
care, including recuperation from the wounds many will inevitably suffer
while waging war.
On the second issue, Daniel Zwerdling of National Public Radio reported
two months ago with devastating illumination on just how far the U.S.
Army has to go. Zwerdling's report focused on Fort Carson, Colo., but
anecdotal responses to his story suggest the problems are widespread.
Zwerdling told of soldiers with strong military records who sought
mental health assistance and were, like Schulze, told to come back
later, were ridiculed and hazed by superiors and peers, and in some
cases were drummed out of the service for behaviors that were obvious
symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Zwerdling's reporting and Schulze's tragic story make you wonder: What
kind of nation would put men and women in the Iraq hellhole and then
treat them with such disdain when they come home wounded? The answers
that come to mind aren't very nice.
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Larry Scott
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