Latest Army Mental Health Survey Brings More Bad News -- Is McCain Listening?

Today's release of the Army's latest mental health survey provides very little to be happy about. In the past, I've talked repeatedly about mental injuries in war, so I won't rehash all of that again. But here are the highlights from today's report:

Despite all the talk about how wonderful things are in Iraq, the overwhelming majority of troops in Iraq continue to say that morale in their units and their own morale is low. Just 11 percent reported that their unit's morale was "high or very high." Only 20 percent said their own morale was "high or very high."

Afghanistan, which is quickly becoming the 'forgotten war' for Bush/McCain, is finding a worsening of the mental health among our troops there. Preliminary reports are that there has been a rise in the amount of troops in Afghanistan reporting depression. In Iraq, troops report the same level of depression as last year.

Combined, the findings are highly troubling. What it tells me, and any person with an elementary school education, is that for all the talk of success in Iraq, the troops aren't feeling that, at all. At the same time, we're crushing our troops in Afghanistan, who have done heroic work there with little help, but now are feeling increasingly overwhelmed.

The report is so bad, that apparently one of the conclusions is to consider sending more mental health workers to the war front. That's right. Rather than deal with the root cause -- repeated and extended tours -- we're going to send shrinks to the field. I'm not opposed to having counselors on the warfront, because that can only help. But we're joking ourselves if we think that will keep our troops from severe mental injuries.

At any rate, the press, which has treated Senator McCain with kid gloves so far, should bring these findings up with him. Let's see what kind of Commander-in-Chief he would be. When the troops are telling him for the second straight year that they don't see 'sunshine and lollipops' progress in Iraq like him, when more and more are showing signs of severe breakdown in Afghanistan, when they are clearly telling him they need a break, is he really OK telling them that we're going to stay the course?

Crossposted at VetVoice.com

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Comments

[mgloraine]

No one in the Cheney/Bush Conspiracy (which now includes McCain) has EVER listened to reports from troops in the field, because the actual war participants are likely to tell the truth about the war. BushCo has told the regular armed forces and the National Guard that they will keep going back to Iraq for 100 years even if they achieve the goals of the occupation, which were to seize control of Iraq's fossil fuel resources, to establish huge permanent military bases in Iraq, and to enrich BushCo and their crony corporations with massive handouts in the form of "no-bid" and "cost plus" contracts (i.e., war profiteering by design).

The only "troop" they "listen to" is their phony "General" David Petraeus, who gets paid big bucks to read whatever statements the BushCo White House has prepared for him, stuff like "the surge is working", or "Baghdad is as safe as Des Moines", or "the Sunni are on our side now", or "the Shia are on our side now", or "all those weapons we handed out will never be used against our own troops".

It must be hard for the REAL troops to maintain a positive outlook on life when their theater commander and "Commander In Chief" are clearly lying to Congress and the American people about the state of the conflict in order to keep sending them back into harm's way. It gets even more difficult to be cheerful when it becomes evident that the risk of death and dismemberment is being endured NOT for reasons of national security, but for reasons of big profits enjoyed exclusively by the Bush Crime Family and their closest friends.

BushCo is not inclined to reduce its profits by paying for the physical and/or mental health of otherwise inexpensive, disposable assets (ordinary citizen soldiers). What do you think this is, some kind of entitlement program? These deadbeats ought to be buying private health insurance from a good American company so that a capitalist (preferably a Republican) can make a huge profit on every aspirin, band-aid, and Prozac.

[Rog49Thomas]

Frankly, I'm a bit surprised at the tone of this article.

I mean who do you want me to believe?

Our dear leader and Honest John who are struggling daily in Crawford and Sedona to keep our country free? And who have both American flag pins and yellow ribbons on the lapels of their expensive suits?

Or some inexperienced and clearly ungrateful kids who are enjoying an all expense paid vacation to the California of the Middle East? Where are their yellow ribbons? Don't they support our troops?

[FirstShirt]

The military has studied combat stress since before World War I and the effects of post traumatic stress syndrome now and after Viet Nam. It isn't new news and is more a commentary on the effects of war in general than any strategy in particular. It is often not respected by the man and woman in the street and seen as a sign of weakness. Nothing could be further from the truth. The mind, like the body, can be worn down and broken. The next president needs to make this a priority.

[darker]

McCain is too far-gone and OUT TO LUNCH to listen to anyone but his publicists who try to
sell him as A PRODUCT, as they did GWBush. WHAT A LEMON!

[darker]

Enough of "sunshine & lollipops" on WAR from McCain. He's ready to continue
the Bush-Cheney WAR FRAUD and have middle-income Americans GO BANKRUPT
paying for it to republican PROFITEER WAR PROVIDERS cashing in on the
USTreasury money. War pays big. Middle-income Amercans lose!

[MichelleB]

Obama will bring the troops home

[blastocyst]

In The Valley Of Elah

[Berettasskeeter]

Jon, as usual you confuse mental health with morale. The two are mutually exclusive. Morale is a multi-faceted, very subjective, view of a GI/unit ability to cope with the daily grind. Men and women can always be found who will gripe, its a GI's perogative. Morale is easily measurable by the willingness/ability of a unit to do their job well.
Your mental health statistics, as usual, do not bring a comparison of civilian mental health statistics. This goes right along with your poor attempt to paint GI's as suicide and murder-prone killers, while deliberately ignoring the facts that their problems are much smaller than they are here in the civilian world.
Semper fi

[bogtrotters]

From the DoD:

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=48834

[Berettasskeeter]

I read the link. What's your point? Jon's assertions about suicide have already been debunked, by readers and by the press. Therefore, even though his post comes from a newswire report, and he offers no illuminating evidence on the morale story. As a retired Marine, I am intimately familiar with troop and unit morale. Jon shows no familiarity with it, nor does the newswire report.
Semper fi

[Betsy]

My husband served in Nam and was awarded the Purple Heart. He suffers from PTSD. We’ve been married for 34 years and the easiest way to explain PTSD to those of you who haven’t had to deal with the disorder is to simply say PTSD victims are out of step with the rest of society.

[dogman44]

And alot of us dropped out because society is out of step with reality. Every time I go out among
civilians I am amazed at how oblivious they are to their surroundings and what is going on around them. Stopped at a wal-mart today, people so enthralled with the glitter and the stuff that they could
buy they were walking into things with their carts.

[DC]

for what it is worth. I email often with my nephew who is stationed (special forces in Afghanistan) and it it clear that is is under extreme stress and moments of real depression.

I sent him and his wing man a box of cigars (Cuban cigars!). I got a wonderful photo back of all of them enjoying the cigars on "the wall."

I hoped it helped.

[PioneerKing]

Why should Sen. McCain be listening?
It was president Regan who signed the base closure act in the 80's and President G.H. Bush who began the implementation of the closure act. It was a republican congress and president G.W. Bush who enacted and signed a land grab deal to set in motion the closure of Walter Reed Hospital during a war.
It has been a republican congress and republican president who've sent our troops to war without proper armor and not enough armament. While Halliburton has profited greatly and a barrel of oil has gone form $18.00 per gallon to over $100.00 per gallon.
It is has been a republican controlled defense department president G.W. Bush who have fought soldiers on benefits and has not ensured that our troops have adequate medical support upon return. Where has Sen. McCain been through all of this? AWOL?
Just look at how many votes he has missed throughout his career in Washington, and how few committee meetings he has held. Just look at how he proposes to keep our troops in Iraq for a 100 years. Why would you ever think that Sen. McCain is listening?
Sen. McCain is out of touch with reality and his rhetoric does not match his actions.

[Zyzzygowski]

Pres Bush's bumper sticker has always been 'Support the Troops.' Unfortunately, it is incomplete.

Pres Bush should have been saying, 'Support the Troops, Enlist.' The more Troops we have, the more we can use, the greater time they will have to spend at home, and the Troops will not be on their third and fourth rotations.

Is Sen McCain prepared to say, 'Support the Troops, Enlist. You are needed'?

[SamThornton]

What I'd like to see is a Mental Health Survey of our national politicians.

No need to name names in the results. Initials will be sufficient.

[gopindrag]

There are long stretches in a nations' history that require that nation to throw good lives after good lives. A running total of American lives lost is just a distraction to true believers, W, McCain, Hillary, etc.
It's not about winning, is it? It's about remaining committed, heroicly, to a lost cause. It has some of that Charge of the Light Brigade about it. It's not about how many died, or how they died; it's about a nation's wilingness to sacrifice a generation, a nation's willingness to bear witness to amputee's, double amputee's, to young people so broken they will spend much of the rest of their lives in VA hospitals. It's about a committment to borrow against the future of the generation being sacrificed, a willingness to borrow until China says otherwise. .......... It feels like a nation committing suicide.

[dogman44]

It's about an elite political class being unable to admit failure. Hopefully all of them will soon retire
to their bunkers/estates and drink the poison and shoot themselves.

[glitz]

Jon..Just the thought of sending "health care professionals" to the war zone is rediculous. If our soldiers need help, just being in the war zone creates and intensifies the problem!! What are they thinking? And if they send the level of "Professionals" that the VA has hired to work with the TBI patients, our soldiers will be facing a different kind of war. I'm afraid that if our active duty officers and soldiers have to hear every minute what it means to be "normal" from a shrink (also dealing with being in a war zone), the description of "insurgency" will change.