Reply #162: soldier stories

[monicab]

People wonder why more soldiers don't speak out readily. We believe a lot of it has to do with their age, and the fact that life on military installations encourages the type of isolationism that keeps soldiers and families from having enough interaction with the public for them to know that there is thought process other than the one repeated incessantly by commanders, platoon leaders, trainers.

Before you can destroy others, you have to destroy yourself. It's what basic training, and continued military life is all about. Uniformity, becoming part of the unit, family is your unit, your FAMILY takes second and third place, so that all feeling has to be shoved to a dark corner inside yourself, and if you do exhibit any feeling - in the wrong unit with the wrong commander you will be punished for it.

This is what our next article will do more than touch on.. but for now..

When soldiers returned from deployment, the screening process was simply to have them return for duty every day for a period of 3 weeks to a month before they were allowed to take family leave to reacquaint with their family. There was a 5 page questionnaire the soldier had to fill out answering questions about how he considered his mental and emotional condition. That was the extent of it. If a soldier asked for care, it was not typical for there to be a compassionate platoon leader to get them that care. It WAS typical for that platoon leader to believe that enough "in your face" orders, and duty assignments to keep the soldier busy would scare the stress right out of them. "Handle your problems like a man."

One of the soldiers in Kevin's unit had returned from Iraq with all the symptoms of PTSD. Many did.. this is just one story. He received no treatment. As the months went by and the possibility of a second deployment loomed, he become morose, and visibly, severely, depressed. His "compassionate" platoon sgt.(different platoon from Kevin's) had been telling them that "half of the platoon was not going to come home from Iraq. That they are pieces of _____ and that he shouldn't have to deal with sending their coffins back to their families in the states." (quoted from this soldier's wife.) The platoon sgt. thought that this soldier was "malingering" or pretending to be depressed to avoid duty. This platoon sgt. told his soldiers that "they are going to be put on guard duty with no flack vest, ammo or weapon," and that by acting depressed, this one soldier in particular had "just made the next 365 days of his life a living hell and he had better hope that he would return." (quoted from this soldier's wife.)

On the day leading up to the beginning of this unit's deployment - this soldier attempted to commit suicide. He did so because he felt that he would rather die here with his wife and step children, than die in Iraq with no one who cared about him. His wife found him in time. She took him to the local hospital. The commanders followed when they heard the news, and ordered him sent to the military psych unit on post. Once there, the commanders refused to allow this soldier's wife in the unit with him. His wife was told that she would not be allowed to know what was going on with her husband, but that he would be staying in the psych ward for the next 3 days, at which time he would be taken from the unit and placed on a plane to fly to Iraq. A day before he was scheduled to deploy, he had time out of the psych unit, and he and his family went AWOL. During that time, he was in contact with his Rear Detachment unit commander, who finally talked him into returning by assuring him that he would have the help that he needed. A month after he returned, he was on a plane deploying to Iraq. The mental health counselors determined that this soldier DID have PTSD and that they would see that he received treatment for it once he got to his assignment in IRAQ... at a Forward Operating Base, in the middle of a heavy combat area. He has been placed under a different command, and his wife says that he is doing as well as can be expected. His commander is much more compassionate than the first.

If our own soldiers are treated this way by their command.. how can we expect that they will know how to treat people from other countries?