Veterans for Common Sense

April 28, 2008 – The U.S. military is promising action to address conditions in a barracks at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, after a soldier’s father posted images on YouTube showing a building that he said “should be condemned.”

“This is embarrassing. It’s disgusting. It makes me mad as hell,” Ed Frawley said of the building where his son, Sgt. Jeff Frawley, had to live upon his return this month from a 15-month deployment to Afghanistan.

Frawley said Monday that Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Dick Cody called him to say he shares Frawley’s anger and that “there’s no excuse.” Cody said he would not want his own sons or any troops to return to such conditions, Frawley said.

Frawley’s 10-minute video shows still photos from throughout the building, which appears to be falling apart and filled with mold and rust.

Paint — which Frawley said is lead-based — is chipping. Ceiling tiles are missing. A broken drain pipe allows sewer gas into the building, while another one has tissues stuffed into it in an apparent effort to stop the gas from coming in.

Photos from the communal bathroom show some of the most disgusting images. In one, a soldier stands in a sink to avoid what Frawley describes as 3 inches of sewage water that filled the floor when toilets overflowed. 

At times, “sewage water backs up into the sinks in the lower floors of these barracks,” Frawley said in his narration. “The soldiers have to tell one another who’s taking a shower when they turn the sinks on, or the person taking the shower gets scalded with hot water.”

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Watch barracks in bad condition
Watch more about Frawley’s Afghanistan deployment
Frawley said the Army promised to have new barracks ready when his son’s unit, part of the 82nd Airborne Division, returned.

“The conditions depicted in Mr. Frawley’s video are appalling and unacceptable, and we are addressing the concerns he expressed,” said Maj. Tom Earnhardt, spokesman for the 82nd Airborne, in a written statement.

“Our paratroopers are our most valuable resource, and our commitment is to their well-being. Our actions now must represent the best we can do for our soldiers.”

“Fundamentally, we acknowledge these conditions are not adequate by today’s standards,” he added. “The images in Mr. Frawley’s video are alarming, and our soldiers deserve the best conditions we can provide as an institution.” 

Officials at the base invited the media into the barracks and acknowledged that there are serious problems.

Earnhardt said the building had been mostly unused during the 15 months Frawley and his unit were away. Fort Bragg has a massive construction project under way to create housing, but it is behind schedule, Earnhardt said.

The buildings used by the 82nd Airborne are about 50 years old, he said.

Earnhardt said the incident with the overflowing toilet took place the first day after the unit’s return and has been addressed.

Sen. Elizabeth Dole is among government officials who have responded to the video. In a written statement, she called living conditions in the barracks “unacceptable” and said the situation “must be immediately corrected.”

Ed Frawley said he is “hoping no one gets fired. I just want to see it get fixed.”

“They have the slowest contractors in the world,” he said, adding that people in jail live “in better conditions.”

April 29, 2008 – Two years after a rocket-propelled grenade hit Nathan Toews during an ambush in southern Afghanistan, sending shrapnel shooting into his skull and spiderwebbing through his brain, he has recovered enough to ask: What now?

Like so many leaving the military, after years of taking orders, he’s facing an almost infinite number of choices about his future.

Even now that he’s picked a school he’d like to go to, there are plenty of unknowns: His admissions interview included questions about whether the 24-year-old veteran could share a dorm room with a teenager, whether his head injury might keep him from completing the foreign language requirement, and just what, exactly, the government would pay for.

Decades after the GI Bill transformed American society after World War II, another generation of veterans is returning home — more than 800,000 as of last summer. What they find is quite different from the comprehensive benefits that once covered all the costs of an education, from undergraduate straight through Harvard Law. The current GI benefit covers just half the national average cost for tuition, room and board, veterans’ advocates say. “It falls dramatically short,” said Eric Hilleman of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

For those who, like Toews, were badly wounded, there are more benefits, so he expects his college costs to be covered. But it’s not just the money — there are physical and emotional roadblocks, too. A recent survey found that nearly half of recent veterans are un- or underemployed, and advocates say education can be key to a successful reentry. So a patchwork of efforts, public and private, have sprung up.

“These are people . . . who served the country at a time when very few people did,” said Sen. James Webb (D-Va.), who is pushing a bill that would expand benefits for veterans, including active-duty National Guard troops and reservists, to cover the cost of the most expensive public universities and to match contributions from private schools with higher tuition, for four academic years. “We should give them the best shot at a good future.”

An earlier version of the bill stalled in Congress; the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs opposed it as too expensive, too complex to administer and too likely to tempt troops to move back to civilian life. The bill, substantially revised, now has 58 co-sponsors, including both Democratic presidential candidates.

There are dozens of other bills, including one announced last week by senators including Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), also a presidential candidate. Hundreds of supporters of Webb’s bill plan to rally today on Capitol Hill.

Many people enlist to earn money for college, and almost everyone signs up for the education benefits — which, in the case of the main GI Bill, requires a service member to pay about $1,200 into the plan– but not everyone takes advantage of it. And that buy-in is not returned even if the benefits are unused.

About 70 percent use at least some part of it, said Keith Wilson, director of the education service, but the VA does not track how many earn degrees.

An independent study found that just over half use some part of the benefits, said Ray Kelley of AMVETS, a veterans support group, and only 8 percent use all. “Congress is realizing we’re not giving them the benefits we say we’re giving them,” Kelley said. “They only have 36 months from the time they start using it to the time they finish.” That means going to school full time, year-round.

Students apply for the flat-rate benefit monthly and get a check once it is confirmed that they are still enrolled. Luke Stalcup, 27, of Student Veterans of America, who served in Iraq and will attend Georgetown University for graduate study in the fall, said he paid his rent late every month after the GI bill check came in. Now he relies on loans and scholarships to cover the rest of the cost at Columbia University.

Some states, such as Maryland, supplement federal benefits with state aid. That helped Laurissa Flowers, who used to put her University of Maryland bill on her credit card, paying it down as she received each month’s benefits. Flowers said other issues can be just as daunting as the money, so she started a veterans’ group on campus.

Private donors are trying to help, too: B.G. and Charlotte Beck of Fairfax Station gave $1 million to Arkansas State University to provide training, rehabilitation, guidance and extensive support for veterans on campus.

In June, the American Council on Education will host a conference hoping to spur colleges to start or expand initiatives for veterans. Dartmouth College President James Wright said he realized after visiting wounded soldiers that most of them were eager to go to school but had no idea where to begin. He worked with the education council, raising money to pay for a counselor at four military hospitals.

So this past year, Heather Bernard, a former college counselor with a son serving in Iraq, has been working with wounded soldiers and Marines at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Naval Medical Center. She helps them plan ahead, choose schools, dig up old transcripts, prepare for standardized tests.

She found an evening art class for Calvin Linnette and Andre Knight, two soldiers who have to schedule around daytime medical appointments, at Montgomery College because it is close enough to Walter Reed that they can get there despite their injuries. The professor often helps them with a ride.

This month, Bernard was waiting nervously outside the admissions dean’s office at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, where Toews was interviewing.

High school was easy; Toews got good grades and SAT scores and was accepted into the engineering program at California Polytechnic State University. But his family couldn’t afford tuition. About a year after Sept. 11, 2001, he enlisted.

He spent a year in Baghdad, then volunteered to serve in Afghanistan.

In 2006, he was a gunner for a small convoy, bringing supplies for an offensive when the trucks slowed down in rough terrain and “all hell broke loose,” Toews said.

Two weeks later, he woke up in a hospital bed in Bethesda with no idea where he was or why. He spent the next couple of years getting surgeries and rehab.

As people at Walter Reed kept telling him how amazing his recovery has been, it hit him: He could work with brain-injured patients. “If I could somehow help one guy, encourage him or make things easier for him and his family, that I should do it,” Toews said.

He still had a lot to figure out; that could mean studying neuroscience or social work or occupational therapy. And to write a college application essay? “It’s been six years since I’ve done that kind of thing,” he said.

Bernard coached him through it all, taking him to visit a big university and then to Dickinson. He talked with the admissions director about some of the challenges he might face, such as the phys ed requirement and a taking on a heavy course load after being out of school.

A freshman asked him what he had done in his time off since high school. “I joined the military,” he said, skin grafts shining on his forearm, thick scars from a craniotomy tracing arcs on his skull, visible through his hair.

“Oh, that’s cool,” she said politely.

He and Bernard got lunch in the cafeteria, and he looked at the students swarming through. “They’re all such . . . little . . . kids,” he said.

April 29, 2008 – Longshoremen should finish unloading 6,700 tons of sand contaminated with depleted uranium and lead Tuesday afternoon, said Chad Hyslop, spokesman for the disposal company American Ecology.

The BBC Alabama arrived at the port Saturday afternoon with the 306 containers carrying the contaminated sand from Camp Doha, a U.S. Army base in Kuwait. The sand was packaged in bags designed to transport hazardous waste.

Longshoremen unloaded the containers in two shifts Sunday, then two more Monday, Hyslop said. They wore standard safety gear, and dust protection equipment and respirators were available, he said.

However, no one has opted to wear the respirators, he said.

“It’s gone real smooth,” Hyslop said.

Half of the containers will be loaded onto 76 rail cars and transported to an American Ecology disposal site in Idaho. The other half will remain at the port until the trains return to haul them to Idaho. The containers all will be at the disposal site in Idaho within 15 to 30 days, Hyslop said.

State Department of Health personnel are at the port to test radiation levels and to ensure none of the sand spills, Hyslop said. U.S. Customs agents also were on hand to inspect the cargo, he said.

The sand became contaminated with low levels of depleted uranium following a fire at Camp Doha during the first Gulf War in 1991, according to Hyslop and Army sources. The Army then discovered potentially hazardous levels of lead in the shipment.

Hyslop said he’s been happy with the job the port and other government agencies have done in helping with the transport of the material.

“We’re extremely pleased and impressed with the outstanding professionalism of the Port of Longview,” he said.

April 29, 2008 – A second American aircraft carrier steamed into the Persian Gulf on Tuesday as the Pentagon ordered military commanders to develop new options for attacking Iran. CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports that the planning is being driven by what one officer called the “increasingly hostile role” Iran is playing in Iraq – smuggling weapons into Iraq for use against American troops.

“What the Iranians are doing is killing American servicemen and -women inside Iraq,” said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

U.S. officials are also concerned by Iranian harassment of U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf as well as Iran’s still growing nuclear program. New pictures of Iran’s uranium enrichment plant show the country’s defense minister in the background, as if deliberately mocking a recent finding by U.S. intelligence that Iran had ceased work on a nuclear weapon.

No attacks are imminent and the last thing the Pentagon wants is another war, but Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen has warned Iran not to assume the U.S. military can’t strike.

“I have reserve capability, in particular our Navy and our Air Force so it would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capability,” Mullen said.

Targets would include everything from the plants where weapons are made to the headquarters of the organization known as the Quds Force which directs operations in Iraq. Later this week Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is expected to confront the Iranians with evidence of their meddling and demand a halt.

If that doesn’t produce results, the State Department has begun drafting an ultimatum that would tell the Iranians to knock it off – or else.

April 29, 2008 – The lawyer for US vice-president Dick Cheney claimed today that the Congress lacks any authority to examine his behaviour on the job.

The exception claimed by Cheney’s counsel came in response to requests from congressional Democrats that David Addington, the vice-president’s chief of staff, testify about his involvement in the approval of interrogation tactics used at Guantanamo Bay.

Ruling out voluntary cooperation by Addington, Cheney lawyer Kathryn Wheelbarger said Cheney’s conduct is “not within the [congressional] committee’s power of inquiry”.

“Congress lacks the constitutional power to regulate by law what a vice-president communicates in the performance of the vice president’s official duties, or what a vice president recommends that a president communicate,” Wheelbarger wrote to senior aides on Capitol Hill.

The exception claimed by Cheney’s office recalls his attempt last year to evade rules for classified documents by deeming the vice-president’s office a hybrid branch of government – both executive and legislative.

The Democratic congressman who is investigating the legal framework for the violent interrogation of terrorist suspects, John Conyers, has asked Addington and several other top Bush administration lawyers to testify. Thus far all have claimed their deliberations are privileged.

However, Philippe Sands QC, law professor at University College, London, has agreed to appear in Washington and discuss the revelations in Torture Team, his new book on the consequences of the brutal tactics used at Guantanamo.

Excerpts from Torture Team were previewed exclusively by the Guardian earlier this month.

Two witnesses sought by Conyers, former US attorney general John Ashcroft and former US justice department lawyer John Yoo, claimed that their involvement in civil lawsuits related to harsh interrogations allows them to avoid appearing before Congress.

In letters to attorneys representing Ashcroft and Yoo, Conyers shot down their arguments and indicated he would pursue subpoenas if their clients did not testify at his May 6 hearing.

“I am aware of no basis for the remarkable claim that pending civil litigation somehow immunises an individual from testifying before Congress,” Conyers wrote.

Conyers, who chairs the House of Representatives judiciary committee, also questioned the reasoning of Cheney’s lawyer in a letter to Addington.

“It is hard to know what aspect of the invitation [to you] has given rise to concern that the committee might seek to regulate the vice president’s recommendations to the president,” Conyers wrote.

“Especially since far more obvious potential subjects of legislation are plentiful,” he added, mentioning several: US laws on the use of torture on terrorist suspects, the 15-year-old War Crimes Act, and the rules that allowed the Bush White House to receive legal advice from a specialised office within the justice department.

April 27, 2008 – James Sperry’s nightmares always take him back to Fallujah.

There, he saw his friends blown apart. There, his best friend died despite his best efforts.

And there, Sperry himself nearly died on Nov. 9, 2004, when his platoon took part in the fiercest battle of the Iraq war.

Trained as a medic, Sperry, of Belleville, was taking cover behind a tank when a rocket-propelled grenade ricocheted off his Kevlar helmet, smashing it to bits and leaving him with a permanent brain injury. As Sperry lay in an alley, an insurgent ran up and fired two rounds from an AK-47 at his chest at point-blank range. Because of his armor, Sperry survived with a cracked sternum. His platoon sergeant shot the insurgent dead a moment later.

But the insurgent returned to haunt Sperry’s dreams, always standing over him, firing into his chest.

Lately, however, the shadowy figure has been replaced by a different nightmare.

In it, Sperry watches himself from above. He is driving a minivan through Fallujah. His wife and 1-year-old daughter are with him.

“We’re driving through,” he said, “and we get all shot up.”

 ‘A headful of bad memories’

Sperry takes eight pills a day to help him sleep and calm his anxiety and anger. The 22-year-old brought post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) home after seven months with the First Marine Division in Iraq.

PTSD is an anxiety disorder that sometimes affects people who have survived life-threatening events, such as combat, violent crimes, terrorist attacks or natural catastrophes. Symptoms can be mild or severe and include nightmares, flashbacks, depression, anxiety, anger and extreme avoidance behavior

A study released April 17 by the Rand Corp. reported that 18.5 percent of the 1.6 million U.S. troops who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan — or 300,000 people — said they had symptoms of depression or PTSD because of their overseas service.

Nineteen percent — 320,000 — reported they had suffered head injuries, which, research shows, sharply increases these troops’ likelihood of later developing PTSD. Only about half the troops had sought treatment for their mental health or head wounds, according to the report.

So far, about 120,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have sought help from the Department of Veterans Affairs for mental health complaints, including depression and alcohol abuse. Of that number, about 70,000 have been diagnosed with some level of PTSD, VA records show.

A former Belleville West High School golf star, Sperry declined college scholarships and joined the Marine Corps in October 2003, several months after graduating. Within 20 months, he would be medically discharged with a brain injury.

Sperry began weekly therapy for PTSD in November, a month after moving back to Belleville with his wife, Elizabeth — a fellow Marine — and their baby daughter, Hannah.

Seated on a sofa at his parents’ Belleville home, Sperry showed no outward signs of the injuries that ended his military career. His Palm Pilot sat on a table nearby. Because of his short-term memory loss, it has become an indispensable tool to him.

So far he’s made little progress with his PTSD, he said.

Insomnia. Mood swings. Racing thoughts. Emotional numbness. It’s all still there.

So are the nightmares.

“I seem to go through a period where things are good for a month or two, and then it’ll go bad for a couple weeks,” Sperry said.

Still, it’s better than it was.

One day three years ago, when he was living in California, Sperry walked into his garage and eyed the rafters, rope in hand.

“I threw the rope up and over and I just sat there,” he said. “I decided this was no way to go. So I got in my car and drove straight to the VA hospital.”

Now back in the metro-east, Sperry continues to seek solace.

The house where he grew up in west Belleville overlooks a patch of woods. Sperry goes there when the rage, the pressures, the memories of his 17 dead friends gets to be too much. “I just sit there and clear my head,” he said. “I listen to the sounds around me. My favorite thing is to go into nature and just be quiet.”

It provides some respite. 

“PTSD, or whatever you want to call it,” he said, “is just a headful of bad memories that you’ll have to live with for the rest of your life.” 

A perfect storm? 

Never before has the U.S. military fought a prolonged, two-front war overseas with an all-volunteer force. And never before has the U.S. military and Department of Veterans Affairs tried to address the epidemic of mental health problems with so many resources in such a short time.

Critics of the VA and Pentagon contend the U.S. military is creating the “perfect storm” for a PTSD epidemic in the way it is waging war in Afghanistan and Iraq through reliance on National Guard units, through 15-month-long tours of duty and through multiple deployments.

Nearly 200,000 — or about 40 percent — of the 513,000 active-duty soldiers who have served in Iraq since March 2003 have been deployed more than once. Of that number, at least 53,000 have been deployed three or more times, according to an Army report released this month.

The Army also has reported that more than 27 percent of troops on their third and fourth combat tours suffered anxiety, depression, post-combat stress and other problems. By contrast, 12 percent of soldiers on their first combat tour reported the same problems.

The multiple combat tours take a cumulative toll, said Dr. James Cannon, a psychiatrist who oversees a clinic for Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans that opened last year at Jefferson Barracks VA hospital in St. Louis County.

“There’s only so much fatigue you can take,” Cannon said. “If you’re in a combat situation and you’re deployed for a year’s time, there’s no chance for relief. … That’s what makes the changes in the brain.”

The Army in January reported that 121 soldiers in 2007 committed suicide — the highest number since the Defense Department began collecting such data in 1980.

By contrast, in 2002 — the year before the war began — 52 suicides were reported. The Army also cited 2,100 suicide attempts or self-inflicted injuries in 2007 — six times the 350 reported in 2002.

On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., accused the VA of lying about the number of veterans who have attempted suicide, saying that instead of the 790 the VA publically cited for 2007, internal emails have put the figure at as many as 12,000 a year.

The e-mails came to light because of a federal class action lawsuit filed in San Francisco against the VA by two veterans groups. The groups are demanding the agency provide far more care immediately for mentally ill veterans. The lawsuit’s trial phase began Monday.

The VA e-mails show, first, “that the VA is in crisis,” said Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, one of the plaintiffs. “And, second, that top VA leaders appear to be clueless. They were unaware that many of their policies were not being implemented.”

In any case, the Army has responded to the problem with a series of preventive efforts, including hiring more than 200 behavioral health-care professionals and launching a program to prepare soldiers for battlefield conditions, said Dr. Elspeth Ritchie, the Army’s chief psychiatrist.

It also is seeking to counter the effects of combat-related stress through early detection and intervention with a pilot program that sends behavioral health care teams to the front lines.

“We know that, as in many, many diseases, it’s much easier to treat things when they are caught fresh and early,” she said. “And we have much better treatment for them now than during Vietnam.”

But gaps still exist. Last year, a Defense Department report concluded the military health system “lacks the fiscal resources and the fully trained personnel to fulfill its mission.”
 
Dr. Ira Katz, the VA’s mental health chief, spoke optimistically of the VA’s ability to handle its PTSD caseload.

“This is the first major war for America when we’ve known that this is an illness, that we’ve known how to diagnose it and how to provide care,” Katz said.

The great majority of people with PTSD can learn to manage their symptoms through prolonged exposure therapy, Katz said.

Suffocating burden

Phillip Baldwin developed PTSD during his second deployment with the Army’s 10th Mountain Division, based in Ft. Drum, N.Y.

A railroad dispatcher from Roxana, Baldwin joined the Army after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He shipped out for basic training four months later, leaving behind his wife, Regina, and their young son and daughter.

By 2006, after serving a tour in southern Afghanistan, Baldwin had been promoted to staff sergeant and was preparing to return home. Then the Army invoked the “stop-loss” clause in his enlistment contract.

“But the second deployment turned out to be a lot more violent in nature,” he said.

In May 2006, a terrorist drove a car bomb into the front gate of Baldwin’s operating base in Bermel, Afghanistan. The explosion killed several Afghan soldiers and wounded others, including a young teenager.

Trained as a medic, Baldwin tried everything he could to save the boy’s life, but the teen died.

“I woke up the next morning, and I couldn’t breathe,” Baldwin, 36, said. “And every time I slept the remainder of my time in country, I woke up with the same feeling, that I was suffocating.”

Since there were no mental health professionals to talk to, Baldwin hewed to the Army motto: Suck it up.

When you’re awake, “you can suck it up, drive on and go on,” he said. “But when you sleep, you don’t have control over what you think about, what you dream about.

” I just had made accommodations to deal with it.”

Baldwin left Afghanistan in June 2006 after a firefight with Taliban guerillas. When he was being evacuated by stretcher from the battlefield with a bullet wound in his foot, another Taliban bullet sliced through his spinal cord, leaving him with permanent internal injuries and a left leg paralyzed below the knee.

Back home and at his old job, Baldwin found civilian life frustrating.

“There’s no outlet for your aggression, so it builds up,” he said. “You go from an environment where you have an enemy in front of you. You can let out your frustration on the enemy. … Things happen in the civilian world, and you still feel that anger and you feel that rage. And the thought goes through your mind, ‘I want to kill that person.’ I found myself hyper-sensitive to everything.”

The turning point for Baldwin occurred in early 2007, with news coverage surrounding the discovery in Kirkwood, Mo., of two abducted boys: Shawn Hornbeck and Ben Ownby.

” I was bawling,” Baldwin said. “Now, normally, you would go, ‘That’s great, that’s fantastic.’ But I was bawling. And I would be a crybaby for little or no reason. … I thought, ‘I’ve got to get a handle on this.'”

Sperry, while recuperating from his brain injury, began suffering PTSD symptoms in July 2005, soon after he left the Marine Corps.

More than once, he awoke in the middle of the night, terrorized by dreams, and mistook his wife for an Iraqi insurgent.

“I’d wake up screaming and think my wife was an insurgent and jump on her and she’d scream that she wasn’t an insurgent,” Sperry said. “And then, from that point on, it was basically a rollercoaster ride of nightmares and mood swings, and not feeling anything and feeling completely numb and feeling like you’re cut off from the world.”

‘An active process’

Nearly 400 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are enrolled in the PTSD clinic at Jefferson Barracks.

Since beginning therapy there a year ago, Baldwin said he’s been making progress, though flashbacks and sleep are still problems.

“I really have gone down a pathway of medicating myself to sleep a good portion of the time,” he said. “My sleep is interrupted by my recurring nerve pain from my injury, so I’ve really given up on getting good sleep.”

After about five months of treatment, Sperry is skeptical that he will overcome his PTSD.

“The VA miraculously can’t stop thoughts from racing through your head or the stuff you went through,” he said.

Katz, the VA mental health chief, disagreed. Plenty can be done to help veterans with PTSD lead normal lives, especially through prolonged exposure and cognitive therapy, he said. He compared the treatment to treatments for asthma. In both cases, he said, patients work to make “the symptoms to go away and to prevent them from coming back. And that’s an active process.”

Sperry attends group-counseling sessions at the clinic, which are good, he said, because “you feel you are not alone and share stories and have that old morale back.” He also works with a VA counselor who leads him through breathing exercises and the revisualization of the traumas he experienced in Iraq.

“You’re walking through a flashback is basically what we’re doing,” he said. “Each scene, you probably do 20 times per session.”

But, Sperry said, “it’s made it worse. It brought up new thoughts; it brought up new memories I had never thought of in Iraq that I just now remembered in therapy because of that.”

The VA has declared Sperry “medically retired.” Earlier this month, he moved his family into a townhouse outside Belleville. He plans to start classes at nearby Southwestern Illinois College with a goal toward becoming a veterinary assistant.

At Belleville West, Sperry earned A’s and B’s easily. But his brain injury has shaken his confidence. “Now, I’m more afraid of going to a state college because I don’t remember anything,” he said.

Since Baldwin returned home from the war, he and his wife, Regina, have welcomed two more daughters into the world. But the pain of his wounds makes each day a struggle. He walks with the aid of a cane and takes 35 pills daily, including anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medicines.

“His quality of living has dropped,” Regina said. “He made a comment, and I’m sure this is part of the depression that comes with PTSD, that he doesn’t think he’ll live a long life. Because once you’re injured like this and your body’s that worn down, it wears on you.”

Sperry said he wouldn’t change his war experiences, or forget any memories — even those that haunt him. “I’d rather be feeling pain every day than feel nothing at all,” he said.

It is the deaths of his friends that haunt him most.

In August 2004, Sperry’s best friend, Pfc. Fernando Hannon, 19, was fatally wounded when a car bomb exploded at a checkpoint outside Fallujah. He died as Sperry, trained as a medic, worked frantically to stop his bleeding.

“I’d switched posts with him,” Sperry said. “I think about that every day. I cheated him of his marriage and his life. … And I can’t get it out of my mind.”

April 25, 2008 -Rep Harry Mitchell (D-5) has given Deparment of Veterans Affairs Secretary James Peake an option: Produce documents related to suicides among veterans by May 9, or he will pursue “other options.”

In a letter sent to Peake’s office yesterday, Mitchell expressed that he is “frustrated and disappointed” that the VA has not complied with his request, submitted four months ago, to ascertain whether or not the department is adequately tracking the rate of suicides and attempted suicides in the veteran community and what outreach techniques are being employed to prevent more.

Here is the full text of the letter:

The Honorable James Peake

Secretary

Department of Veterans Affairs

810 Vermont Avenue, NW

Washington, DC  20420 

Dear Mr. Secretary:

            I am both frustrated and disappointed to once again ask for the Department’s compliance with the document request I submitted following the House Veteran’s Affairs Committee’s December 12, 2007 hearing entitled “Stopping Suicides: Mental Health Challenges Within the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.”

            In the four months since making this request, I have yet to receive a single document.

Subsequent inquires have been met with excuses, complaints, and most recently a suggestion that I, “go file a Freedom of Information Act request.” 

            I have tried to be reasonable.  I have tried to work with your staff to establish the location of responsive documents, and a fair timetable for delivery.           

            My patience, however, is at an end. 

            As a member of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, I have a responsibility to ensure that the Department has the resources and legal authority it needs to track veterans who commit suicide, treat veterans at risk for suicide, and conduct outreach to veterans at risk for suicide. 

            Toward that end, I have asked to review documents relating to requests for additional resources within the Department that were denied, unanswered, or responded to with less than the amount of additional resources requested. 

             If the requested documents are not produced by May 9, 2008, I will have no choice but to pursue other actions available to me as a Member of Congress and as Chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. 

             Enclosed, for your convenience, is a copy of my original request, as well as subsequent correspondence. 

             Thank you for your assistance.

  Sincerely,

Harry E. Mitchell

Member of Congress

Mitchell appeared on KPHO in December to decry the fact that it was a CBS investigation, not the VA itself, that unearthed evidence of a far higher veterans suicide rate than had previously been reported.

A lawsuit began on Monday in a San Francisco court alleging that the VA has dropped the ball when it comes to the mental health of returning servicemembers, and the data CBS uncovered is a large part of the plaintiffs’ argument.

As Mitchell stated in the letter, if he doesn’t get the response he’s after he could pursue other options available to his oversight subcommittee, including subpoenaing the requested documents or bringing officials from the VA Dept. before the committee.

April 27, 2008 – Raleigh, NC — Spc. Natasha McKinnon survived losing part of her left leg to an improvised bomb in Iraq. Now that she’s back, she’s trying to find her balance in college life. Sometimes she can’t recall a professor’s name. She loses track of test dates. Occasionally, she forgets she has pulled off her prosthetic leg to rest her stump during a long lecture, only to tilt off balance when she tries to stand.
As tens of thousands of veterans of the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq try to collect on their promised college benefits, McKinnon and others are finding that their combat experience complicates the transition from soldier to student.

Some have trouble collecting the government money that is supposed to pay for college, or they discover that the benefits aren’t nearly enough to cover tuition and other bills. While their classmates complain about homework and hangovers, many vets struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder, the effects of traumatic brain injury, lost limbs and a range of chronic medical problems.

“Not only am I a full-time student,” McKinnon said during a break between classes, “I’m a full-time patient. It takes a toll, mentally and physically. Sometimes I’m there in class, but only in body. Not in mind.”

With 1.5 million service members coming out of military duty in Afghanistan and Iraq since October 2001, universities across the state and the nation have been anticipating a postwar influx and looking for ways to welcome veterans to campus.

NCSU has a historical connection to veterans; immediately after World War II, the campus was inundated with returning soldiers attending school on the generous GI Bill of 1944. By the fall of ’46, they made up more than three-fourths of NCSU’s enrollment, part of the national “GI Bulge” that sent 8 million vets to college or vocational training.

Compared to that flood, today’s student veterans are a trickle, coming quietly onto campus a few at a time, often without mentioning their military service. No one tracks how many enrolled at NCSU, Duke or the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are veterans. If they don’t ask for help, the schools may never know they’re there.

That may be why many departments at NCSU have been slow to recognize that veterans might need special accommodations, says Cheryl Branker, NCSU’s director of disability compliance.

Provisions can include priority seating near a door so a student vet can leave quickly if the crowded room makes him anxious; a quiet room for taking tests, where other students’ sudden movements won’t send the vet into high alert; or relocating a class to a space that’s wheelchair-accessible.

“These are people who have put themselves in harm’s way, in a very dangerous place,” Branker said. “I just don’t see that a person could come back from that experience and the effects be mild. If there is a way to help them, we want to do it.”

Generally, Branker says, student vets fall into two groups. Reservists and National Guardsmen are usually in their 30s or older, back from combat duty they never really bargained for and now finally able to pursue the college education they always wanted. Then there are the soldiers in their 20s, who went into active duty shortly after high school, deployed overseas and came back aged beyond their years.

Either one walking into a classroom full of typical freshman might have trouble fitting in.

Vets slow to seek help

Soldiers coming out of the structure of the military may get frustrated by the inefficiency of a college bureaucracy, Branker says. There is no single place they can go, present their military records and get a package of information telling them what help they’re entitled to. Although she sets up kiosks and hands out brochures at every orientation session, every open house, every meeting she can squeeze into, Branker knows many veterans on campus still don’t know that her office exists and that they may be eligible for services there.

Privacy restrictions keep her from making the first call. Students must come to her.
Veterans often don’t want to admit they have a disability and won’t seek help, Branker says, even though they would qualify under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The law says any student with an impairment that affects a major life function is eligible for assistance, no matter the cause of the impairment.

Branker has seen student veterans who have hearing loss, vision loss, decreased physical stamina, mobility issues. She says most of the veterans she sees have been diagnosed with PTSD, thought to afflict as many as 20 percent of Iraq war veterans, or they have traumatic brain injury from being too close to too many explosions.

“Most of them have both,” she said.

Veterans often take medications such as antidepressants and sleep aids to help with the psychological effects of the war and painkillers to deal with the physical reminders. Such drugs can interfere with a student’s ability to focus.

Student values seem trivial

“You just feel like you’re on a different playing field,” said Jason Lindsay, 25, an Army reservist who spent five months in Iraq in 2003 before being called home to tend to his dying mother. A senior at NCSU, Lindsay is taking this semester off to work on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign.

“You think, ‘Why are these people complaining they have to do homework? Don’t they know they could be in a mud hut and it be 130 degrees and they could be killed just for supporting the opposition? Or be in military uniform, getting shot at?’ “

After being in Iraq, Lindsay says, “You take everything a lot more seriously because you know how fortunate you are.”

Though he has PTSD, a herniated disc in his back that doctors attribute to his service, and trouble concentrating on one thing for more than a few minutes, Lindsay says his main problem has been red tape involving his educational benefits. Last year, he says, the Department of Veterans Affairs, which administers the GI Bill, erroneously decided that Lindsay was no longer in the Reserves. It cut his monthly payments of $430 a month and said he would have to repay about $7,000. Dozens of calls and letters to the Army and the VA have not corrected the record.

It doesn’t help, Lindsay says, that a school with 31,000 students, of whom at least 400 are vets, still has only one person designated to certify those students for VA benefits — or that the current GI Bill, which spells out how much money vets are allowed for school, pays out a maximum of $9,900 per year. It allows considerably less for those in the National Guard and Reserves.

“It shouldn’t be a part-time job submitting applications and resubmitting applications and bugging people and having to go to your congressman to get it straightened out,” Lindsay said. “You just want to give up and say, ‘Why … am I giving up a weekend a month? Why did I just put my life on the line?’ “

Jim Benson, a spokesman for the VA in Washington, said the department is working hard to help veterans get the benefits they’re entitled to, but it can be complicated. Programs compete and overlap, and it takes time to determine which ones each vet is qualified for and which best suit his needs.

“Generally, we’re doing pretty well,” Benson said. “There are lots of challenges, lots of choices. It can be confusing.”

The challenge of mobility

For McKinnon, just getting from one class to the next can be an exhausting ordeal.

McKinnon launched her college career at Kent State University in her native Ohio but knew her scholarships and grants would run out before she could finish. Athletic, patriotic and, above all, pragmatic, she was lured by the military’s most effective recruitment tool: the offer to help pay for school when her service obligation was done.

April 26, 2008 – The movie “Stop Loss” filled the silver screen with haunting images of bad dreams, alcoholism and family strife in the wake of a tour of duty in Iraq. This film’s unerring look at the invisible casualties of war – the men, women and their loved ones who suffer emotional trauma long after the war is over – was long overdue.

Hollywood’s decision to shine the spotlight on the emotional burdens borne by soldiers who have served in the global war on terrorism and their families is significant. By taking us inside the hearts and minds of soldiers who have enlisted since 9/11, “Stop Loss” will undoubtedly open the eyes of millions to the emotional scars of war – and what we as a society must do to contend with this pressing issue.

In Massachusetts, six-plus years of war have taken an increasing toll on families of 26,000 members of the Armed Reserves and National Guards.

Unlike traditional military families, loved ones of members of the Reserves and Guard are spread across the country without the centralized support available at bases where regular military troops and families live, work and train together.

This leaves Massachusetts’ Reservists, the Guard and their families more vulnerable to the strains of war than their full-time soldier counterparts.

While the full extent of the war’s hidden casualties remains unknown, studies continue to report increased problems for returning veterans and their families.

In early March, the Army Mental Health Advisory Team released findings that soldiers on multiple deployments reported “more mental health problems and more stress-related work problems” than other soldiers.

Not surprisingly, the team found each successive deployment brings “increased risk for low morale, mental health problems and degraded performance due to stress or emotional problems.”

The stresses on veterans are heart-wrenching. The suicide rate for returning veterans is twice that of the civilian population. Some 31 percent of Marines, 38 percent of soldiers and 49 percent of Reserve and Guard will experience mental health problems as the result of deployment.

Across the state, many are answering the call for help. The Patrick administration, through the Department of Veterans’ Services, recently launched the Statewide Advocacy for Veteran’s Empowerment (SAVE) program. In collaboration with the Department of Public Health, the program is designed to assist veterans in need of referral services and is tasked with prevention of suicide.

SAVE was inspired in part by Kevin and Joyce Lucey, parents of Cpl. Jeffrey Michael Lucey, U.S. Marine Corps, a suicide victim who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). SAVE acts as a liaison between veterans and their families and the various agencies within the federal and state governments.

Strategic Outreach to Families of Army Reservists (SOFAR), an all-volunteer organization which is based in Cambridge, provides free therapy services to extended family of deployed and returning soldiers.

SOFAR also offers training to family members about how to identify whether a returning veteran needs treatment for mental health problems or is at risk of suicide.

These efforts and others recognize a painful reality about warfare – the inner war continues for veterans and families long after a soldier’s service ends.

Dramas like the one depicted in “Stop Loss” are undoubtedly painful to see, but we must watch and learn. A public health crisis faces our citizen-soldiers in the National Guard and Reserves.

As these proud men and women continue to cope with the effects of multiple deployments, they deserve our respect, support and as many services as we can make available to them.

April 26, 2008 – Judging by sheer numbers alone, this is most definitely the Year of the Veteran at the state Capitol. There are 122 bills introduced this session in the Senate and 83 in the House dealing with or mentioning veterans in some way. That’s 205 for the simple-math-challenged like me.

“I would have to agree and say that the (number of bills) is a bit higher this year,” says Tim Michaels, a veteran and chief administrator for the Senate Agriculture and Veterans Committee, which is conducting the bulk of hearings on veteran-related bills.

Says Jerry Kyser, a Vietnam War combat vet from St. Paul and chairman of the United Veterans Legislative Council of Minnesota, “We’re the buzzword right now.”

Credit the ripple effects of the largest deployment — and subsequent redeployment — of Minnesota troops since World War II. Credit a nationally recognized and much-modeled homegrown “Beyond the Yellow Ribbon” campaign addressing the reintegration needs of returning Iraq and Afghanistan vets.

Veterans are about as sizzling hot and in high demand in political circles as a Hannah Montana concert ticket is with the nation’s prepubescent crowd. Check out Congress, which is flooded with more than four times the number of veteran bills than their Minnesota counterparts are dealing with this year.

The avalanche of bills ranges from the basic “no-brainers” — as Kyser calls legislation to designate special days or Silver Star or Bronze Star special license plates — to the more substantive targeting of the health care, education and employment of old or newer returning combat veterans.
The following is a sampling of the bills passed or working their way through the Legislature this year:

Vietnam Veterans Day designated as March 29. It was passed and summarily celebrated for the first time in Forest Lake this year.

Korean War Armistice Day passed and designated for July 27.

Free lifetime state park permits for disabled veterans.

Veterans Outdoor Reintegration Act of 2008 adopted, providing lifetime hunting and fishing licenses to eligible veterans without fees, and appropriating money.

Resident student definition expanded to include the spouse and children of a resident veteran for purposes of determining eligibility for state financial aid for higher education.

Minnesota GI Bill program for veterans established, and money appropriated.

Veterans Day paid day off provided to veterans employed by school districts; Veterans Day educational instruction required; and private employers encouraged to grant paid holiday to veterans.

A proposed expansion of community-based services for veterans who want to receive care at home or in less-intensive facilities than nursing homes.

A so-called PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) bill that would require the criminal-justice system at the onset of a combat veteran’s arrest for a nonviolent offense to consider alternative treatment or sentencing if the violator suffers from such an ailment or other combat-related affliction.
“It’s not a free pass,” stresses Brock Hunter, a veteran and defense attorney. “It’s an attempt to persuade the court to consider alternative sentencing methods rather than incarceration in some cases.”

Hunter expects that the proposed legislation, attached to omnibus offender re-entry bills under consideration in both houses, will pass.

“Some people think this is giving defendants a pass,” Hunter says. “It just gives judges more information to consider in order to make a determination whether someone who has served our country deserves treatment rather than incarceration.”

STATE VETS HOME GOES WANTING

Although appreciative of the floodlight on veterans-related concerns and issues, Kyser and others caution against equating quantity with quality or effectiveness.

“There are people on both sides who use the veteran but in the end don’t walk the talk,” Kyser says.

One major bone of contention he and others raised was the defeat of more than $26 million in bonding legislation to demolish a condemned building within the 51-acre state veterans facility in Minneapolis and build a modern care center.

The proposal was part of several construction projects — including the Central Corridor light-rail initiative — that bit the dust as part of a political clash between the DFL-controlled Legislature and Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

Pawlenty and key legislators were negotiating possible restoration of the care center and the Central Corridor funding through the weekend.

The issue centers on Building 9, a more-than-70-year-old structure within the complex that housed mostly veterans afflicted with mental health or substance-abuse problems.

The building was declared a health and safety hazard and condemned by federally contracted construction engineers months ago, and about 50 veterans were displaced to another facility or sent to area nursing homes or relatives.

The $26 million proposal was eliminated in a dispute between Pawlenty and lawmakers in paring more than $200 million in proposed state bonding.

“Frankly, that was disappointing,” says Gil Acevedo. The recently appointed deputy commissioner of the state’s Department of Veterans Affairs was put in charge by executive order to oversee such facilities throughout Minnesota.

Which brings us back to Hannah Montana. Legislators recently passed a measure to prevent ticket gouging for such popular events.

The vets?

“The displaced vets in (Building 9) were essentially thrown under a bridge,” Kyser says.

“Just because the word ‘veteran’ appears in some bill, it doesn’t really mean anything,” Kyser says.

“We have made some progress, and I applaud that,” Kyser says. “But I agree with you. Some legislators are using veterans for political gain. It’s easy to come up with a bill.

“It’s hard to carry through on the bigger issues,” he adds. “I’m optimistic. I want Minnesota to be more veteran-friendly. But I feel it’s still behind the curve. There’s enough blame to go around with both sides here on this.”