It's Not Just Sad

I decided to cut out of work a little bit early today. Our IT guy came in to work on my computer and the weather outside was delightful, so I decided to hop into The Red Menace with the top down and enjoy the rest of the day.

As I was driving around, it just so happened that I got to hear the follow up story to the NPR broadcast, Soldiers Face Obstacles to Mental Health Services, by Daniel Zwerdling which I heard in early December, about the woefully inadequate manner in which our military treats those who have the courage to speak up and ask for help. See And How About Them?

In the latest story, Gaps in Mental Care Persist for Fort Carson Soldiers, Zwerdling returned to Fort Carson, noting:

Those stories sparked ongoing investigations of the post, including one by a bipartisan group of U.S. senators and another by Pentagon officials.

Early this year, commanders at Fort Carson responded by launching what they described as an important new program: They required every leader, from sergeants up to generals, to attend a training course on how to spot and help soldiers who potentially have post-traumatic stress disorder. Officials say more than 2,200 leaders have taken the course so far, most of them early this year.

But during a recent return trip to Fort Carson to see whether conditions for troubled soldiers had improved, the most significant changes appeared to be rhetorical.

See also, Checking In on Fort Carson, Part II. For example, Dr. Stephen Knorr, the chief of Fort Carson's mental health center, has a memo posted on his bulletin board stating:

"We can't fix every soldier," Knorr's memo states. "We have to hold soldiers accountable for their behavior. Everyone in life — besides babies, the insane, and the demented and mentally retarded — has to be held accountable for what they do in life."

NPR recounted to comments to an outside mental health specialist, Dr. Stephen Xenakis, a retired brigadier general who used to supervise the Army's medical centers in the southeastern United States. "It really saddens me" to hear that policy, Xenakis said. "It's inhumane."

It's not just sad, it's sickening.

Tags: Iraq, News, PTSD