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1 In 5 vets reports mental problems


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The Army has stepped up mental health screening at the end of tours, but the Rand study says many soldiers are still undiagnosed. Less than half of the 300,000 affected veterans have been treated.

Nearly one in five veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is currently suffering from depression or stress disorders, according to the latest and most comprehensive study of current and former military service members, released today.

Less than half of those 300,000 veterans have received care for depression or post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to the study, signaling significant problems with the U.S. mental healthcare system.


Video:
http://current.com/items/88858732_america_wake_up#respo...
jcwelker

27 responses // 1 In 5 vets reports mental problems

  • And guess what they are all coming back to be COPS! Well with the way U.S. treats its soldiers it's the only job they can get when they get back home. Not to mention the gop is going to take your benefits too! Good ol USA for ya! Man Im moving to Canada!
    ROONEWS
  • TO CANADA, TALLY HO!!!
    iknew
  • watch this comment being used here, here, here, here, here, and here
    How is it that we have $3 trillion dollars to continue this wretched war but not a penny to take care of our troops? Impeach Bush & Cheney now.

    Enough is enough! Time for a change. Obama 08!
    phoenix_fire999
  • They talk about supporting the troops when they mean to distract from supporting the political decisions but they never show any support for the troops when they deny them the care they need.
    Argon18
  • i've experienced first hand a mentally ill service member. what is sad is that in the moment, I had no idea how to help her. she used to lay in bed wide awake all night. she'd see herself being impailed by things on the road...see us crash while driving. what is worse is that she fought the war from the US. she never left the country. never saw combat. sat in a room with others listening to death for hours. i truly worry about her and others. it's obvious our gov't isn't going to help them. breaks my heart. what can we as civilians do to help??
    contingent_reality
  • Xanax , Klonopin , etc. are already available in generics - now it's up to the docs to prescribe the stuff - that simple .
    malathion
  • As the child of two Marines, this is so sad to me. These cats are giving life and limb for a purpose that is still under investigation. And then you don't even want to give them the benefits they were promised. Hm, does this remind anyone of something else? It seems we still haven't learned. For real... we can do better than this, folks...
    AreOh
  • You all should check out the testimonies of hundreds of ex-soldiers from the vietnam war gulf war and the current disaster war, ''The Iraq War'' in a documentary titled ''Winter Soldier''. In this documentary ex-soldiers give harrowing accounts concerning issues like the rules of engagement to post war life as civilians, their experiences with the VA and much more. We couldn't possibly understand how much these young soldiers are suffering during and after war. Please, if you care, you'll visit the website and listen to the testimonies of these young and abandoned soldiers our Sons, our daughters, Our Heroes.

    http://www.ivaw.org/wintersoldier
    Mobius2012
  • Mobius... on point as always. Yo, and this is just THIS war. Harrowing, man...
    AreOh
  • You have a point roonews, a lot of the militarization of police forces, as well as the rise in police brutality, followed the influx of vets into police brass positions following the Vietnam war...

    Career cops in my family have described the effect that that had on the services that they were in and uniformally felt that a "war mentality" came home and continues to live among us today...
    critter
  • More soldiers committed suicide as a result of Vietnam than who were actually killed during the war.
    AceHardchester
  • Thanks for the link Moblus. I cannot believe what we ask these guys to do, or that they do it. Regardless of opinions on this war, we all owe these guys more than we can give them when they get back home.
    abbo
  • I would love to see Current run an assignment for interviews with veterans of the Iraq war who saw action!
    Ando_SB
  • With war things like PTSD are expected, but it is sad that the government tries to avoid the blame and bad publicity...especially since it's a war that many Americans don't feel like we should even be in. Therefore seeing our children come back scarred when we didn't even want them there in the first place, bad mix.
    Greg_Bunker
  • IM SICK OF THE ARMYS TRYING TO MAKE IT LOOK AS COOL AND AMAZING AS PSOIBLE TO JOIN THE ARMY WHEN U GET OUT OF THE ARMY U HAVE MENTAL PROBLEMS IF U.S SLOWED DOWN ON WHO HAS THE MOST BOMBS AND CONECENTRATED ON LIVING CONDITIONS IN U.S IT WOULD BE BETTER LIFSTYLE IN AMERICA
    CroatianPimp
  • I am a returning Vet from the Iraqi experience, i served as a combat Infantryman, and I must say that Iraq/Afghanistan War was an eye opener, and those times will forever remain etched in my spirit. My approach has been to see it as a threshold through which I had to pass in order to become more mature and engaged in life. To view the world as a place of players and those who get played on. On what side of the gun barrel do you want to be on? Will this generation grab the time and reshape the political landscape? Or will it be the way it always has been?
    CIPHERBEY1
  • Hopefully the former Cipherbey. Not the latter.
    mattbrawn
  • malathion, presript drugs are just, drugs!! What a great answer! pppfff
    iknew
  • My grandfather was in the vietnam war and according to my grandma he still has horrible dreams at night with shouting fits. War is traumatic. All those affected-be them soldiers or civilians-face hardship. While1 in 5 are diagnosed, more are affected.

    --jade
    addctd2whticnsay
  • The thing that a vet has to realize is that with the war being commercial for economy the way the wars are often started, to drum up production - the very vehicle of objective care does not exist. First, the soldier is to recognize on his own that his life has been abstracted for a consumer war - not really a high act of God. The business of getting well is not going to come from the government that makes the war due to the liability issue of being legally more responsible.
    The soldier needs to realize though his experience is tremendous to his own life, the world he comes home to is only on its next table talk issue and the experiences have nothing to do with it. Small talk does not do well with huge experience. Since this war is almost a leisure class war using another part of the population, the soldier needs to realize that it is production loss - production replenishment in production caused jobs and the loss of life is a special contract space that doing your job in that is all the world could expect. The real issue of prevention etc were known to begin with - a Jurassic Park condition that supplied the diplomacy its meaning and brought jobs to America that the waste of production was a way a few people made immense money and simply considered the soldier would die in peace or war and gave a limited experience that is contained by the soldier or they will blame your mother and ask you why you were born.

    Love is a chemical reaction - psychiatry takes care of its own.
    I_Tank_Reservoir
  • iknew , i am very familiar with PTSD my friend , intimately as a matter of fact - in the wake of psychologically traumatic experiences the mind is in a state of paranoia , extreme anxiety - i could go on and list the physiological symptoms - anti-anxiety medications and sedatives , as an immediate measure to calm the mind down , are enormously beneficial - and combined with counseling , etc. , regenerate a persons sense of well being far more quickly than counseling alone - in the longer term , dosages can be reduced and then the meds can be dropped altogether . the mentality this country has about "drugs" of any kind is ridiculous - while every other person is on some mood stabilizer , etc. , there are people who need proper meds - now . to have the "they're just drugs " mentality is sort of like denying heart patients their meds because they should be strong enough to deal with it - it's an uninformed , if not dangerous opinion . ( if you weren't being serious , then this was a response to all the real morons in this country )
    malathion
  • My father was in WWII in the South Pacific. He didn't talk much about the war, mostly humorous stories if pressed. When I was older; I asked him why he didn't give more answers because I was curious about all my family history. He simply said "Why talk about men who were standing next to you one moment and the next they were in pieces all over the deck.They were friends who died horribly" I am sure now, as I am older than even then, that war is immensely traumatic to the ones who survived. And how can a man go through something as life altering as that not be changed? The mind is an exceptional thing that can either tolerate such atrocities and deal with it or it cannot. The only ones who can really appreciate this truth are the ones who have been there.
    cibalin
  • Life is about self transformation and for whatever reasons we soldiers have been changed emotionally, and psychologically. Most importantly how we deal with the issues at home and abroad, as civilians, soldiers, politicians, or officials is the bottom line in human relationships. Conspiracies make for great stories in the historical perspectives parlayed in blogs, or books..cafe's and ice cream parlors.
    The Iraqi's are living their lives at an epochal point in their history amid the ruckus of combat and economical pressures, some self inflicted others influenced and directed by US military operations..
    CIPHERBEY1
  • http://current.com/items/76348642_elliott_s_war
    Lauren Cerre and I made a pod about PTSD among Iraq vets two years ago. It's one of the best we've ever produced. Check it here -->
    Christof
  • "I don't think young voters they will vote for John McCain "
    yai
    • yai
    • 4 months ago
  • i saw your pod , Christof , when it first aired mate - and it really is one of the best - cheers
    malathion
  • I go mentally insane looking at road kill. I wonder how they feel.
    ipodrulz

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