 Ed
Offley, Editor of DefenseWatch magazine, has
been a military reporter and defense specialist
for 22 years in a variety of journalism assignments
throughout the United States. DefenseWatch
is an online magazine that addresses military
and security issues from the viewpoint of
active-duty and reservist component personnel
and veterans.
Offley previously served as Editor-in-Chief
of The Stars and Stripes after the civilian-owned
newspaper was acquired by Stars and Stripes
Omnimedia Inc. in March 2000. A 1969 graduate
of the University of Virginia, Offley served
in the U.S. Navy in Vietnam before joining
The Virginia Gazette, Williamsburg, Va., as
a reporter in 1972. He worked as an editorial
writer at three newspapers in Virginia during
1977-85 before joining The Seattle Post Intelligencer
as an editorial writer in 1986.
Offley, 55, lives in Panama City Beach, Fla.,
with his wife, Karen, and daughter, Andrea.
Contact: dweditor@yahoo.com.
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April 4, 2005
[Have an opinion about the views expressed in this article? Sound
off in the Hot Issues with Defensewatch Forum.]
By Ed Offley
He's coming back again: The guilt-ridden, stressed-out, insomniac,
enraged, potentially murderous, unemployable and homeless combat
veteran.
That's the gist of several controversial studies and dozens of news
media reports based on those studies over the past year that purport
to diagnose the mental health of combat veterans of Iraq
and Afghanistan.
Since currently there are 150,000 troops currently serving in Iraq
and 16,000 in Afghanistan, with hundreds of thousands of other troops
who have already returned home, the implication is clear" We will
soon see a replay of the post-Vietnam era when bedraggled veterans
in tattered fatigues - desert cammies rather than Woodland BDUs
this time - will soon haunt the streets of our cities.
Here's how USA Today described it last month:
"As the United States nears the two-year mark in its military
presence in Iraq still fighting a violent insurgency, it is also
coming to grips with one of the products of war at home: a new
generation of veterans, some of them scarred in ways seen and
unseen. While military hospitals mend the physical wounds, the
VA is attempting to focus its massive health and benefits bureaucracy
on the long-term needs of combat veterans after they leave military
service. Some suffer from wounds of flesh and bone, others of
emotions and psyche."
While acknowledging that the actual numbers are still "small,"
The Christian Science Monitor warns that a new wave of emotionally-disturbed
Iraq veterans may soon swell the ranks of the unemployed and homeless:
"The concern is that these returning veterans - some of whom
can't find jobs after leaving the military, others of whom are
still struggling psychologically with the war - may be just the
beginning of an influx of new veterans in need. … After the Vietnam
War, tens of thousands of veterans came home to a hostile
culture that offered little gratitude and inadequate services,
particularly to deal with the stresses of war. As a result, tens
of thousands of Vietnam veterans still struggle with homelessness
and drug addiction."
Never mind, as the Monitor noted, that unlike Vietnam, there
is "almost unanimous support for the soldiers overseas" from the
American people. As one activist told the newspaper, "You can have
all of the yellow
ribbons on cars that say 'Support Our Troops' that you want,
but it's when they take off the uniform and transition back to civilian
life that they need support the most."
So what's going on here?
The apparent spark for a lot of the coverage has apparently been
two studies published by the New England Journal of Medicine
on homecoming Iraq veterans - one last July and a new report released
today.
The July 2004 study posted in the Journal, "Combat Duty in
Iraq and Afghanistan, Medical Health Problems, and Barriers to Care,"
found that between 15-17 percent of Iraq veterans meet "the screening
criteria for major depression, generalized anxiety, or PTSD." Of
those, only 23 to 40 percent are seeking help - in part because
so many others fear the stigma of having a mental disorder.
Then, a newer study published by the New England Journal of Medicine
today "Mental Health Care Needs among Recent War Veterans," concludes
- based on "tentative diagnoses" of those surveyed - that a many
as one out of four veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq treated at Veterans
Affairs hospitals in the past 16 months have been diagnosed with
mental disorders. USA Today reported that this is "a number that
has been steadily rising."
Adding to the controversy was a General Accountability Office report
last fall criticizing the Department of Veterans Affairs for not
having "enough information to know if it could meet the increased
demand" for treating mentally-ill Iraqi veterans, a Los Angeles
Times report noted: "[V]eterans' advocates and even some VA psychiatrists
say the hospitals, including the massive Veterans Affairs Greater
Los Angeles Healthcare System, are flirting with disaster. They
say the facilities are ill-equipped to deal with veterans who need
the most extensive help for psychosis, substance abuse, suicidal
impulses and post-traumatic stress disorder."
No one doubts that many of our military personnel ordered to Iraq
and Afghanistan have endured extremely stressful situations both
in combat and daily life. Terror tactics by the enemy, from roadside
bombs to kidnapping victims beheaded and shown on the internet,
have created a climate of anxiety and fear that no one should underestimate.
What the Marines went through in the savage street fighting in Fallujah
four months ago rivaled the harshest conditions faced by their fathers
in Hue and Khe Sanh and their grandfathers at Tarawa and Okinawa.
Testifying to Congress earlier this month, Central Command CINC
Gen. John P. Abizaid acknowledged, "We know that a casualty of war
can as much be a psychological patient as a young man or woman that
has lost their arm or leg."
In truth, in all wars both soldiers and civilians have been susceptible
to the psychological stresses of combat. Writer Steve Bentley in
1991 noted the recollections of an Egyptian soldier from 3,000 years
ago named Hori, who spoke of the fear he experienced in battle:
"You determine to go forward. Shuddering seizes you, the hair on
your head stands on end, your soul lies in your hand."
The tragic string of murders and suicides among a group of Fort
Bragg soldiers back from Afghanistan two years ago clearly showed
that combat experience had left a deep psychological mark on some
soldiers.
No one with even the slightest sliver of a conscience would begrudge
our combat veterans the finest in medical and psychiatric care for
any stress disorders they might subsequently suffer as a result
of their wartime service.
The armed services themselves after years of passivity toward this
problem have introduced new screening and review programs aimed
at identifying and helping personnel who need it. For example, the
Army
has established an outreach program that starts before soldiers
deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan return home and continues with
two weeks of mandatory classes and a month of voluntary counseling
for issues ranging from stress and anger management to marriage
enrichment. Three to four months after their deployment, the Army
formally surveys how the troops are faring.
Even more importantly, it appears that the military is strongly
encouraging its warriors not to be ashamed to speak of combat stresses
and their own struggles to cope with what they have experienced
- a major cultural shift that cannot but help those who do suffer
genuine psychological scars from combat.
But that also does not mean we should automatically accept the dire
predictions that an entire generation of American soldiers and Marines
has been mentally crippled by their experiences in war since the
9/11 terrorist attacks.
A senior Marine Corps commander this week dismissed The New England
Journal of Medicine study - the one that estimated 17 percent
of Iraq combat veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder
- as an exaggeration that does not match what Marine medical organizations
themselves have found. "I would reject the study," said Brig. Gen.
Joseph Dunford, assistant commander of 1st Marine Division. "In
no way are we seeing 17 percent." Officials say only several hundred
cases of PTSD have been diagnosed in the Division, which has 45,000
Marines.
Similarly, DVA officials strongly disagree with charges that reallocation
of the department's budget for helping veterans with psychological
problems - more money is now being used for outpatient care as opposed
to in-hospital treatment - is leaving the veterans high and dry.
Dr. Robert Rosenheck, director of the VA's Northeast Program Evaluation
Center, told The Los Angeles Times this week that changes
in the VA system have not produced dire results predicted by veterans'
advocates. Recent studies have not shown an increase in jailed veterans
after inpatient psychiatric beds have been cut. Nor, Rosenheck added,
have there been significant increases in suicides or veterans showing
up at non-VA hospitals for care.
What we may be seeing here is not a predicted epidemic of mentally
unbalanced veterans, but instead a replay of what I call the Lifton
Maneuver.
As revealed by author B.J. "Jug" Burkett in his book on Vietnam
veterans, Stolen Valor, a loose confederation of antiwar psychiatrists
during the 1960s and 1970s led by psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton
predicted that Vietnam would create, in Lifton's words, "a very
large pool of young, embittered veterans … [whose] inability to
find significance or meaning in their extreme experience leaves
many … with a terrible burden of survivor guilt." Burkett added:
"Lifton would later admit that his information [on veterans'
disorders] did not come from a random sample of Vietnam vets.
'Almost all of them belong[ed] to the minority of Vietnam veterans
who emerge with an articulate antiwar position,' he wrote. 'I
made no attempt to gather data from a "representative" group of
veterans.' Lifton wanted the ones with an antiwar position, men
who could be public advocates by horrifying the American public,
who would then urge the politicians to end the war."
Passionately working within the antiwar movement and later within
the VA bureaucracy, Burkett charges, Lifton and other like-minded
psychiatrists employed selective, anecdotal evidence to portray
all veterans as "ticking time bombs" and "sinister, disturbing,
frightening" men who posed a danger to society and to themselves.
They trashed an entire generation of veterans as psychopaths and
victims as a ploy to turn American public opinion against the war.
As the Defense Department, military services and DVA continue to
refine their screening and diagnostic programs to help those unfortunate
combat veterans who really need help, we should raise this question:
Is the Big Lie about combat veterans being told again?
Ed
Offley is Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at dweditor@yahoo.com.
©2005 DefenseWatch. All opinions expressed in this article are the
author's and do not necessarily reflect those of Military.com.
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