The Comment Factory

Edward Brabazon

As the needs for troops has strained the US military, so they’ve reenlisted and redeployed mentally ill soldiers. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is not new in the US or any other military, but sending those suffering from it back to the warzone is.

The most comprehensive report into this was published in the Hartford Courant in 2006, which documented how mentally ill soldiers had been sent back for repeated tours even though their superiors had been aware of their problems. “I’m concerned that people who are symptomatic are being sent back. That has not happened before in our country,” said Dr. Arthur S. Blank, Jr., a Yale-trained psychiatrist.

The UPI news service also obtained a report by the Army Medical Department that attested to the same thing. “Variability in predeployment screening may have resulted in some soldiers with mental health diagnoses being inappropriately deployed,” the report documents, which could “create the impression that some soldiers develop problems in the theatre, when in some cases, they actually have pre-existing conditions.”

The situation got bad enough that Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Ca) helped create a Take Force on Mental Health in the Department of Defense. “We’ve also heard reports that doctors are being encouraged not to identify mental-health illness in our troops. I am asking for a lot of answers,” she said at the time. “If people are are suffering from mental-health problems, they should not be sent on the battlefield.”

According to a recent internal Pentagon health survey, 31% of Marines, 38% of soldiers, and 49% of National Guard members reported suffering from anger, depression or alcohol abuse after returning home from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. A similar survey by the San Diego Veterans Affairs Healthcare System found that a third – 33% — of veterans from the War on Terror suffer either schizophrenia, depression and or PTSD.

The effect has been a spike in the number of suicides among US servicemembers. The Pentagon reported that in 2007, 115 US troops committed suicide, which comprised the highest number in the history of records. The rate of suicide in the US military is 30 times higher than the general US population.

To cover over the high level of mental instability the US military has turned to medication. It is officially acknowledged that 12 to 15% of military personnel are on some sort of antidepressants or sleep medication. One drug the Pentagon is apparently subscribing, Lariam, is not suitable for anyone with mental problems, and that’s according to the Food and Drug administration.

One soldier, Spec. Edward Brabazon, shot himself in the head at a palace compound in Baghdad at the age of 20-years-old. His mother said afterward, “We were surprised they took him with the kind of mental problems he had, but we figure the Army must know what they’re doing. We didn’t think they’d send him into combat. Her surprise was legitimate – Brabazon had been diagnosed with both bipolar and attention-deficit disorder by the age of 10 and spent a period of his young in psychiatric hospital and group homes for the emotionally disturbed.

Another soldier, Staff Sgt. Daniel Shannon, told CBS that his PTSD changed him completely. “I started smashing furniture, very rapidly; so I didn’t know what I was doing ‘til it happened. I’d get mad so fast, so angry fast, and just lash out.”

The Army’s top mental health expert, Col. Elspeth Ritchie, does not mince his words when discussing why the US military has taken such a disturbing attitude to mental illness. “The challenge for us,” he said, “is that the Army has a mission to fight. And, as you know, recruiting has been a challenge. And so we have to weigh the needs of the mission, with the soldiers’ personal needs.”