Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Hartford Courant
May 5, 2007
Stress Experts Urge Longer Breaks From 'Mortal Danger'
By Matthew Kauffman and Lisa Chedekel, Courant Staff Writers
Soldiers and Marines exposed to long and repeated combat deployments are suffering far higher rates of psychological problems, and those troubled troops are twice as likely to take out their aggression on Iraqi civilians, a panel of military health care experts reported Friday.
The military's Mental Health Advisory Team, which interviewed troops throughout Iraq late last year, called on the Pentagon to dramatically increase the time service members spend at home between deployments, saying troops need 18 to 36 months to "reset" their mental well-being after a combat tour. The panel also said troops in Iraq should spend a month away from the front lines for every three months of high-level combat duty.
"Being in mortal danger for hours on end, every day of the week for months at a time is at best physically exhausting and mentally draining," the panel wrote. "At no time in our military history have Soldiers and Marines been required to serve on the front line in any war for a period of 6-7 months, let alone a year, without a significant break in order to recover from the physical, psychological, and emotional demands that ensue from combat."
But the recommendations for troop relief run counter to recent military actions. Just weeks ago, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that Army combat tours in Iraq would be extended, from 12 months to 15 months, and that soldiers could expect a year at home before being sent back.
At a Pentagon news conference, Maj. Gen. Gale Pollock, the acting surgeon general of the Army, acknowledged that the force was stretched thin, and said she hoped the panel's finding would highlight the need to increase the size of the Army.
"We have authority now from Congress to grow the Army, but that doesn't happen overnight," Pollock said. She said she was confident that, once the force is expanded, the "dwell time" between deployments could be lengthened.
The advisory team found that 27 percent of troops serving repeat tours screened positive for a mental illness, compared with 17 percent of those deployed for the first time. Both numbers rose significantly from a year earlier.
The panel also called for better ethics training after finding that one in 10 soldiers and Marines admitted to unnecessarily assaulting civilians, or destroying or stealing their property. Troops who screened positive for mental problems were twice as likely to mistreat civilians, the report found.
Surveys of soldiers and Marines also found that fewer than half agreed that all non-combatants should be treated with dignity and respect. More than a third said they would support the use of torture to gather important information about insurgents.
Pollock, the acting surgeon general, said those figures reflected the stress of war.
"These men and women have been seeing their friends injured, and I think that having that thought is normal," she said. "But what it speaks to is the leadership that the military is providing, because they're not acting on those thoughts. They're not torturing the people. And I think it speaks very well to the level of training that we have in the military today."
Officials said Friday they have begun revising their ethics training for deployed troops, in response to the report.
Soldiers surveyed also complained that leaders did not allow them to participate in four-day "R&R" breaks at a special site in Qatar because of the potential "loss of combat power" that the leaves would necessitate. Only 5.2 percent of soldiers and 6.5 percent of Marines reported taking those leaves during deployment - a lapse that the team said raises the question, "What is the purpose of an R&R program if [soldiers and Marines] can't take advantage of it?"
This is the fourth time the military has sent mental health experts to assess the well-being of troops in Iraq. A panel was first sent to the war zone in 2003 after military leaders became alarmed by a spate of suicides in Iraq. The suicide rate dropped in 2004, but climbed again in 2005 and 2006.
The report found that existing training in suicide prevention was not effective because it was not designed for a combat environment. It also faulted the military for lacking a standardized reporting system to monitor and inform commanders about mental health problems that troops experience during deployment. The report notes that the military formed a suicide prevention committee in August 2006, and military officials said Friday they have already updated their training program.
After the initial advisory team report was released in 2004, the military greatly increased the number of behavioral health workers in Iraq, with one worker in the war zone for every 387 troops. But the panel reported Friday that the number of mental health workers has dropped to one on 668, a rate nearly as low as at the beginning of the war, even as troops' psychological needs have multiplied.
Soldiers and Marines reported difficulty arranging meetings with mental health workers, and among those who screened positive for mental health problems, fewer than half sought help. In increasing numbers, soldiers and Marines said they feared that mental health counseling would hurt their career or their reputation in their unit. And more than 40 percent of behavioral health workers expressed concerns that commanders would not welcome back a service member who had sought mental health care.
The panel also asked for better training for those mental health workers, reporting that fewer than 5 percent of the mental-health and combat-stress workers in Iraq had taken the Army's specialized combat stress control training. Since February, the course has been required for all deploying behavior health workers.
May 5, 2007
Stress Experts Urge Longer Breaks From 'Mortal Danger'
By Matthew Kauffman and Lisa Chedekel, Courant Staff Writers
Soldiers and Marines exposed to long and repeated combat deployments are suffering far higher rates of psychological problems, and those troubled troops are twice as likely to take out their aggression on Iraqi civilians, a panel of military health care experts reported Friday.
The military's Mental Health Advisory Team, which interviewed troops throughout Iraq late last year, called on the Pentagon to dramatically increase the time service members spend at home between deployments, saying troops need 18 to 36 months to "reset" their mental well-being after a combat tour. The panel also said troops in Iraq should spend a month away from the front lines for every three months of high-level combat duty.
"Being in mortal danger for hours on end, every day of the week for months at a time is at best physically exhausting and mentally draining," the panel wrote. "At no time in our military history have Soldiers and Marines been required to serve on the front line in any war for a period of 6-7 months, let alone a year, without a significant break in order to recover from the physical, psychological, and emotional demands that ensue from combat."
But the recommendations for troop relief run counter to recent military actions. Just weeks ago, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that Army combat tours in Iraq would be extended, from 12 months to 15 months, and that soldiers could expect a year at home before being sent back.
At a Pentagon news conference, Maj. Gen. Gale Pollock, the acting surgeon general of the Army, acknowledged that the force was stretched thin, and said she hoped the panel's finding would highlight the need to increase the size of the Army.
"We have authority now from Congress to grow the Army, but that doesn't happen overnight," Pollock said. She said she was confident that, once the force is expanded, the "dwell time" between deployments could be lengthened.
The advisory team found that 27 percent of troops serving repeat tours screened positive for a mental illness, compared with 17 percent of those deployed for the first time. Both numbers rose significantly from a year earlier.
The panel also called for better ethics training after finding that one in 10 soldiers and Marines admitted to unnecessarily assaulting civilians, or destroying or stealing their property. Troops who screened positive for mental problems were twice as likely to mistreat civilians, the report found.
Surveys of soldiers and Marines also found that fewer than half agreed that all non-combatants should be treated with dignity and respect. More than a third said they would support the use of torture to gather important information about insurgents.
Pollock, the acting surgeon general, said those figures reflected the stress of war.
"These men and women have been seeing their friends injured, and I think that having that thought is normal," she said. "But what it speaks to is the leadership that the military is providing, because they're not acting on those thoughts. They're not torturing the people. And I think it speaks very well to the level of training that we have in the military today."
Officials said Friday they have begun revising their ethics training for deployed troops, in response to the report.
Soldiers surveyed also complained that leaders did not allow them to participate in four-day "R&R" breaks at a special site in Qatar because of the potential "loss of combat power" that the leaves would necessitate. Only 5.2 percent of soldiers and 6.5 percent of Marines reported taking those leaves during deployment - a lapse that the team said raises the question, "What is the purpose of an R&R program if [soldiers and Marines] can't take advantage of it?"
This is the fourth time the military has sent mental health experts to assess the well-being of troops in Iraq. A panel was first sent to the war zone in 2003 after military leaders became alarmed by a spate of suicides in Iraq. The suicide rate dropped in 2004, but climbed again in 2005 and 2006.
The report found that existing training in suicide prevention was not effective because it was not designed for a combat environment. It also faulted the military for lacking a standardized reporting system to monitor and inform commanders about mental health problems that troops experience during deployment. The report notes that the military formed a suicide prevention committee in August 2006, and military officials said Friday they have already updated their training program.
After the initial advisory team report was released in 2004, the military greatly increased the number of behavioral health workers in Iraq, with one worker in the war zone for every 387 troops. But the panel reported Friday that the number of mental health workers has dropped to one on 668, a rate nearly as low as at the beginning of the war, even as troops' psychological needs have multiplied.
Soldiers and Marines reported difficulty arranging meetings with mental health workers, and among those who screened positive for mental health problems, fewer than half sought help. In increasing numbers, soldiers and Marines said they feared that mental health counseling would hurt their career or their reputation in their unit. And more than 40 percent of behavioral health workers expressed concerns that commanders would not welcome back a service member who had sought mental health care.
The panel also asked for better training for those mental health workers, reporting that fewer than 5 percent of the mental-health and combat-stress workers in Iraq had taken the Army's specialized combat stress control training. Since February, the course has been required for all deploying behavior health workers.