But you will have to write about this topic again, again and again...
I met a soldier at Second Life in September.
We talked, voice chat not writing, for about 2 hours.
He was feeling many emotional problems but was supposed to go back to Iraq on November, yes this month.
He has been at Afghanistan and Iraq and told me he could not sleep, he didn't want to kill innocent people, he felt guilty of not being part of one of the fights, he could not sleep and was feeling...
You all got the picture.
He has been to the AA that is at Second Life and we found together that there is a group for PTSD.
He said he committed himself not to stop to fight till the end of the war.
I told him many things and that he was already suffering too much and that he should search for help.
I told him about Furious Seasons and about all of us who are trying to raise awareness about psych-drugs harms.
I never saw him again because he left when someone appeared and asked what was the "problem" after he said this word.
I saw a documentary and maybe one of the helps these soldiers can have is from vets from Vietnam.
I felt terrible because I am a Brazilian and maybe I am too... biased? I don't know.
All I know is that from where I see now, not being an American citizen, if I had a son I would never, never let him go to any war.
I don't knowhow you will take it but this is what I feel.
When they return to their country... the government, and some civilians, not any of you who are here, treat them like aliens.
this is all too sad. Too, too sad.
I sometimes see the badges at blogs "cost of Iraq war" and the numbers going up every second.
I wold like to see "profits of Iraq war" too.
Sorry for such a long and digressing comment.

Grohol's piece was excellent. The relationship between war and psychiatry has always been close. During a draft, other than physically maiming yourself, the best way to avoid service is to claim insanity.

I believe that both Szasz and Torrey developed their almost completely opposing views of "mental illness" while working as psychiatrists at a VA hospital.

The question seems to be, is suicide a medical disease that soldiers just happen to be coming down with that needs to be treated as a medical disease with pills or are there really problems with the military that make fighting in these wars so horrible that suicide is a viable solution? Biopsych says drug the soldier and send him back on the field. Decent humans might have another answer.

http://bostonreview.net/BR34.6/mckelvey.php

Interesting article you might want to review

"God, the Army, and PTSD
Is religion an obstacle to treatment?"

"The political fallout from the Iraq war and the government’s failure to care for its veterans has been far-reaching. Shortly before Benimoff resumed his chaplaincy—now at Walter Reed—stories describing inadequate treatment at the hospital appeared in The Washington Post, appalling the public. “I was walking into an institutional crisis,” he wrote. “I’ll speak for myself when I say it felt like everything was broken. If the system was broken, so was I—a broken healer for broken soldiers in a broken system. God save us all."

“I was walking into an institutional crisis,” he wrote. “I’ll speak for myself when I say it felt like everything was broken. If the system was broken, so was I—a broken healer for broken soldiers in a broken system. God save us all."
Well this is quite an interesting quote to think about in relation to Hasan -- lots of potential I'd say for someone to go crazy, especially if they have the added layer of Islamic issues. And lots of reasons to try and numb that pain by taking medication.

"If the system was broken, so was I—a broken healer for broken soldiers in a broken system. God save us all."

That moved me in the article as well, because it's how I feel when I go to the psych hospital. Not saying I am a doctor or clergy, but as a mom, seeing other patients (like soldiers in a war, seriously in personal battles)and my daughter--it's very hard to remain optimistic and comforting in a place like that.

It leaves me wanting change--of course it does---and it's a vast, enormous change needed, leaving one feeling beaten down when seeing it day in and day out. Where do we begin? I feel much compassion for someone like the chaplain in this article, for attempting to comfort such broken spirits.

It was a hospital chaplain that found me at one hospital 4 years ago and supported me without any religious pressure (didn't try to push it on me), he merely comforted a mom whose daughter was going to be sent to a state institution. He even went onto the unit to check on her, and prayed for her, to this day I feel much gratitude when I said, "What will I do?" and he answered, "You'll simply go there with her."

He carried a lot of burden, and I imagine in a hospital setting full of sick children he sees parents like me quite a lot for even dying kids.

Sorry,this is a long comment, but I just feel there needs to be more people who actually feel that burden of importance as this chaplain did, when that happens, when we see bad situations, we can then truly change thing based on serious compassion and caring. It's often a lonely path to take, more people need to visit patients in psych hospitals and the agencies where the veterans are going for support need to be increased, it's all so painful.

I too, often feel broken as a result of the system, just by being in it supporting my daughter so long.

PTSD is a normal reaction to abnormal circumstances.

You say:

"We have a military that pays more attention to mental health problems that it probably ever has in its history and yet things keep getting worse. "

I think this is the crux of it. Just throwing treatment at the problem is counterproductive. The wrong treatment is far worse than no treatment.

Overtreatment is HARM, always. This is something at many psychiatrists, especially pill pushers, don't understand. They think that if a drug helps one person, they should give it to 100 more people, just in case some of them might also be helped. But, the majority of people who didn't need the drug are not helped, and are most often harmed by severe side effects.

Overtreatment is harm. The Hippocratic Oath says, "First do no harm," NOT "throw experimental treatments at large groups of people hoping something sticks."

Hear, hear (or is it Here, here?) A. You make an excellent point!

I totally agree throwing chemicals at people who are suffering from what they have witnessed in life is not the answer, and can create more problems. I am writing on a personal level of wanting more people to listen to the one's who have had harm done and suffered PSTD as a result of being in the psych system.

So far "first do no harm" hasn't applied to psychiatrists, because they just don't get how the drugs HARM, and they harm more than the patient they treat.

"more people need to visit patients in psych hospitals and the agencies where the veterans are going for support need to be increased,"

I totally agree Stephany.
Here are plenty people helping blind here in Rio de Janeiro because there is a good and well know Institute to take care of them.
Many people volunteer.
But what when I say I visit the mental institutions (I have to hide that I go there to get the prescriptions, you see?, I would have all I say put in doubt because after all I take psych-drugs) and talk to them and it is just like being at a kindergarten but they smoke...
I listen to them and it cost me nothing. Of course some I don't talk to those who don't like me and I don't like to those I don't like...
just like it happens when we are among any place with more than 10 people.
I'll go there tomorrow morning.
At 9 a.m. those who are not in maniac phase or are not taking electroshock can go to the garden to walk.
that's where I meet them.

"During a draft, other than physically maiming yourself, the best way to avoid service is to claim insanity"

Actually, stating that one is gay or bisexual seems to get one quickly discharged from the military. As we saw with the Fort Hood shooting, the military overlooks such small matters as psychiatrists engaging in bizarre anti-American/pro-jihadist rants and communicating with the enemy.

I am old enough to remember when the military used psychiatrists to identify gay soldiers so that they could be kicked out of the military.

You might be interested in reading this

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1947405,00.html

Time magazine

A Mounting Suicide Rate Prompts an Army Response

"Only about a third of Army suicides happen in war zones, officials note, and another third are among personnel who had never deployed. But that means two-thirds of Army suicides have deployed, many returning home with mental scars that make them prone to take their own lives, the Army's No. 2 officer said last week."

""Soldiers who are suffering from posttraumatic stress are six times more likely to commit suicide than those that are not," General Peter Chiarelli told the House Armed Services Committee on Dec. 10. "The greatest single debilitating injury of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan is posttraumatic stress." Nearly 1 in 5 soldiers — more than 300,000 — comes home from the wars reporting symptoms of PTSD. Army officials also acknowledge that substance abuse, fueled by repeated combat tours, and a war-created shortage of mental-health professionals, contribute to mental ills that can lead to suicide."