The Big Wave Coming

As I've noted before, the largest Army base in the US is 30 miles south of Seattle--Fort Lewis, home to the Stryker Brigade. The two dailies in Seattle have been tracking mental health issues among Fort Lewis troops fairly aggressively lately, documenting a health care system that is grossly understaffed and a military culture that's loathe to admit problems. Here's a good article on this from the Seattle Times.

"Adams, the highest-ranking enlisted soldier in his brigade, started taking tranquilizers to help him sleep. In an unusual step, he shared his struggles with the homeward-bound troops.

At a dusty desert base in Kuwait, Adams went from unit to unit, telling his fellow soldiers that he was not OK and would seek counseling when he returned. He urged others to do the same.

In the Army, where soldiers often mask the traumas of war, this was an unsettling confession from a leader who had unflinchingly tackled the grimmest of tasks -- even washing out the insides of armored Stryker vehicles bloodied by human remains."

Of course, Adams, a Sgt. Major, ran into all kinds of problems with the military bureaucracy. And that's my big concern.

According to various reports, as much as 40 percent of returning troops are reporting some kind of mental health concerns and perhaps 15 percent are suffering from PTSD. The military is doing a lousy job of addressing this and they sure aren't helped by a treatment paradigm that isn't producing good results. When the Iraq War ends in...well, who really know when we are pulling out...we will be looking at 100,000 or so troops who've got some serious problems and we've simply got to do a better job of addressing their needs than we did with the Vietnam generation.

The long-term psychological consequences of combat are disastrous and I have run into too many examples of the post-combat vet who's still messed up by what he saw when he was 20 years old to not be really concerned about what we'll be seeing in Iraq vets come 2010. Or whenever the big wave comes home.