Report: Mentally ill troops forced into combat

Military not following own rules on deployment, paper says

Saturday, May 13, 2006; Posted: 10:05 p.m. EDT (02:05 GMT)
HARTFORD, Connecticut (AP) -- U.S. military troops with severe psychological problems have been sent to Iraq or kept in combat, even when superiors have been aware of signs of mental illness, a newspaper reported in its Sunday editions.

The Hartford Courant, citing records obtained under the federal Freedom of Information Act and more than 100 interviews of families and military personnel, reported numerous cases in which the military failed to follow its own regulations in screening, treating and evacuating mentally unfit troops from Iraq.

In 1997, Congress ordered the military to assess the mental health of all deploying troops. The newspaper, citing Pentagon statistics, said fewer than 1 in 300 service members were referred to a mental health professional before shipping out for Iraq as of October 2005.

Twenty-two U.S. troops committed suicide in Iraq last year. That number accounts for nearly one in five of all noncombat deaths and was the highest suicide rate since the war started, the newspaper said.

The paper reported that some service members who committed suicide in 2004 or 2005 were kept on duty despite clear signs of mental distress, sometimes after being prescribed antidepressants with little or no mental health counseling or monitoring. Those findings conflict with regulations adopted last year by the Army that caution against the use of antidepressants for "extended deployments."

Although Defense Department standards for enlistment disqualify recruits who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, the military also is redeploying service members to Iraq who fit that criteria, the newspaper said.

Col. Elspeth Ritchie, the Army's top mental health expert, and other military officials said they believe most commanders are alert to mental health problems and are open to referring troubled soldiers for treatment.

Ritchie acknowledged that some deployment practices, such as sending service members diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome back into combat, have been driven in part by a troop shortage.

"The challenge for us ... is that the Army has a mission to fight. And, as you know, recruiting has been a challenge," she said. "And so we have to weigh the needs of the Army, the needs of the mission, with the soldiers' personal needs." - CNN (Bold mine - DG)
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The Army's spokeswoman's comments say it all. At least some soldiers' personal needs aren't as important as the mission, whatever that is this week.

Using the figure given (22 suicides) and a population of 150,000 (average number of troops in Iraq in 2005), I get a suicide rate of about 15 per 100,000. This is almost 50% higher than the figure given by the US Department of Health and Human Services (10.8 per 100,000 population) for the entire US.

I read about this in the newspaper and couldn't figure out how do they pass their physical. Surely, physical fit, and mentally fit should go hand in hand. I don't remember the specifics of the article, but one soldier was pictured and his mom brought on the complaint.

Are we desperate? Yeah, I guess we are.

From Baltimore Sun May 16

When Army Sgt. 1st Class Mark C. Warren of La Grande, Ore., received a diagnosis of depression soon after his deployment to Iraq, a military doctor handed him a supply of the mood-altering drug Effexor.

Marine Pfc. Robert Guy, of Willards, Md., was given Zoloft to relieve the depression he had developed in Iraq.

And Army Pfc. Melissa Hobart of East Haven, Conn., took the Celexa she had been prescribed to ease the anxiety of being separated from her young daughter while she was deployed to Baghdad.

Each is among a growing number of mentally troubled service members treated in combat with potent psychotropic medications but with little or no medical monitoring or mental health counseling.

Warren, 44, and Guy, 26, committed suicide last year, according to the military. Hobart, 22, collapsed in June 2004; no cause has been determined.

Interviews with members of the military, their families and medical experts, along with autopsy and investigative reports obtained by The Hartford Courant, reveal that the military's emphasis on retaining psychologically unfit troops has had dangerous, sometimes tragic consequences.

The practice is at odds with the military's medical guidelines, which state that certain mental illnesses and medications are incompatible with deployment to a combat zone.

It also conflicts with statements by top military health officials, who have indicated to Congress that psychiatric drugs are not being used to keep service members with serious disorders in combat.

Military officials say their use of medications is judicious, and they argue that keeping troubled troops close to the front lines is in the service members' best interests because it helps them avoid the stigma of abandoning their duty.

Many outside the chain of command disagree.

"It's best for the Army," said Paul Rieckhoff, a former platoon leader in Iraq who said he was overruled when he tried to have a mentally ill soldier evacuated. "But find me an independent mental health expert who thinks that that's a proper course of action.