Forgotten Sons and Daughters
Jason Seidel
The Signal
There is an epidemic going on. It claims a life every 65 minutes, 18 people a day. The event in question is the suicide rate of military veterans.
One statistic from the Veterans Administration (VA) shows: for every veteran killed by enemy combatants, 25 veterans kill themselves.
Veterans of modern wars endure multiple combat tours, up to a year in length. They get shot at, blown up, kill enemy combatants, face civilians who don’t want them in their county and watch their friends die. For many, the first funeral they attend in their life is for a fallen comrade.
Combat soldiers are trained to do two things: break things and kill people.
At some point though, soldiers come home. Their enlistment is complete, but for many, the battle has just begun.
Soldiers are asked to exchange their rifles for hammers, briefcases or clipboards and return to being productive members of society. This can be an especially difficult transition for some.
“Most supervisors, employees or fellow students have not travelled down the same road that a veteran has,” said Daniel Turner, author of “Post Traumatic Shame Disorder: A Manual for Undoing Amerika’s Torment of Vietnam Veterans” and counselor at the Texas City VA outpatient clinic. “Understandably, sometimes the veteran may feel that even his spiritual foundation has been shaken by war. All of these issues must be addressed in helping veterans become reintegrated into his community.”
Suicide among veterans isn’t a new problem. Suicide rates among veterans have been steadily increasing since 2001, when the Pentagon began to actively track the statistics. Suicides claimed 309 service members in 2009 (includes active duty), up from 267 in 2008, according to Pentagon numbers.
Today, returning combat veterans run through a psychological questionnaire within the first few months of being home to evaluate if there is any mental trauma, and if no signs are indicated, they are returned to duty.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) may not fully manifest itself for months or even years. From the National Institute for Mental Health, Symptoms of PTSD include: reliving the trauma through flashbacks and nightmares; anxiety, emotional numbness or detachment; avoiding situations that may relate to the event; and hyper-vigilance, high startle reflex, the inability to concentrate on tasks, or becoming easily irritable.
Medical research has started to turn its focus on studying PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) in an effort to help veterans facing these mental illnesses.
“Veterans’ experiences have prompted veteran-specific prevalence studies, treatment studies, and polytrauma studies,” said Rachel Chase, PhD candidate at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. “TBI, PTSD, depression, and chronic pain are often studied in some combination among vets.”
Once a veteran becomes diagnosed with a disability, they may become eligible for benefits through the VA. To help assist with the process, a student veterans office (SVO) opened on campus March 1.
“This office will provide certification of federal VA education benefits as well as state benefits,” said Trish Ruiz, veteran’s coordinator of the new SVO. “Students using any type of veteran related benefits will be processed in this office.”
Turner provided the following advice on how civilians can help a veteran on a personal level.
“It behooves civilians to learn about our military, its purpose, its branches, its missions and especially its culture,” said Turner. “The more educated a civilian becomes about the military, the more he or she can converse with the veteran and express appreciation and respect.”
The Defense Department’s toll-free military crisis number is 800-273-8255.
To read The Signal reporter Jason Seidel’s article “I Am Still Here: One Soldier’s Story” about his personal experiences in Baghdad in the Army, click here.
