| ABC's Bob Woodruff has done some of the most important work to date on the trials and tribulations of members of the military who have come home to face an indifferent bureaucracy. He could have retired, he could have shied away from the issues, and he could have simply gone back to television news. Whatever you may think of the working media, they don't come any better than Woodruff.
He recently completed a comprehensive look at what is happening to troops who are forced to redeploy to Iraq after having been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD):
Army surveys show that for those soldiers deployed once, the rate of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder is 12 percent. For those deployed three or more times, the rate is 27 percent.
"People who have psychiatric symptoms, actively symptomatic with PTSD or depression, are being sent back to the very situation that caused their PTSD and depression," Ragan said.
The Army's chief psychiatrist, Dr. Elspeth Ritchie, agrees with the Rand Corp.'s estimate that 300,000 service members have demonstrated post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. Some are returning to the battlefront, although the Army is not keeping track of how many.
Am I alone in thinking that perhaps they should? And am I alone in noting that this is an outrage as well? Again--these are soldiers who have been diagnosed. They're likely missing the ones who haven't been treated, examined, or diagnosed.
Twelve percent of soldiers in Iraq and 17 percent of those in Afghanistan reported taking antidepressants and anxiety medications or sleep medications in the Army's most recent mental health survey.
The use of psychiatric drugs on the battlefield has not been scientifically studied, and some say the practice carries risks.
"The black box on the label talks about side effects like suicide, poor judgment," retired Army psychologist Bart Billings warned. "It's really not a good idea to put people in a battle situation where the side effects of the medications they're taking could be suicide -- when they're carrying weapons."
As a psychiatrist in Kuwait during the first Gulf War, [Dr. Paul] Ragan saw a vastly different military opinion of psychiatric medications. "Clearly, in 1990, if someone was on antidepressant medication, we sent them back to the United States."
Now, those numbers are undoubtedly higher--those are the results of a survey, not an actual accounting of what is being prescribed. The article tells us that a staggering 600,000 men and women have served more than one tour in Iraq or Afghanistan.
We have a huge problem on our hands. And, after all this time, the military still can't grasp how big of a problem it is really going to become in the years ahead. |
