Purple Heart for PTSD?

[Snaquebite]

I believe that Washington and Patton would STRONGLY disagree with this idea...

What Are the Wounds of War?
Military Debates
Purple Heart Awards
For Mental Stress
By YOCHI J. DREAZEN
May 13, 2008; Page A11

WASHINGTON -- Centuries before Iraq and Afghanistan, George Washington created the Purple Heart to honor troops wounded in combat.

But with an increasing number of troops being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, the modern military is debating an idea Gen. Washington never considered -- awarding one of the nation's top military citations to veterans with psychological wounds, not just physical ones.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates offered cautious support for such a change on a trip to a military base in Texas this month.

"It's an interesting idea," Mr. Gates said in response to a question. "I think it is clearly something that needs to be looked at."


More...
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB121063207588086509-JCODxaBcdADwD4dtqaLv8KcIMtQ_20080611.html?mod=tff_ main_tff_top

[Pete]

I agree with what you said plus....

I think this gets back to the push for gun control, yes gun control.

For the last two or three years we have been seeing the push from the left on the mental issue.

You've now got 1/3 of vets with mental problems?

As with most liberal programs it's not the first step that trips you, it's the new look at the old law two or three years down the road.

A few years from now you'll hear stories of vets going to the local gun show, offer to by a rifle, turned down at the insta-check, and when he looks into why finds out it's because he saw a shrink after a trip to Iraq.

There are those with problems that need help but the majority needs to think hard on it.

[Snaquebite]

Pete,

Very good points, I agree with you also. Further investigation into the proponents of this would probably reveal that very underlying agenda.

[JJ_BPK]

Probably reveal that very underlying agenda.

I don't disagree that the Left probably is trying to link PTSD and combat trauma to gun control..

But fighting with the Left doesn't do anything for the troops that really need help..

A little story:

When I was a kid in the 50t's, my dad would take me to the VFW every Saturday morning around 10 AM.. The place stunk of stale beer,, always did, didn't matter what time of the day or day of the week.

Anyway,, I spend a lot of Saturdays in the VFW bar,, met a lot of WW II & some Korean Vets,, most were real nice people,, all were drunks. So was my old man...

Nobody use PTSD back them,, he had a chip on his shoulder,, misplaced youth,, ringing in your ears,, to much trench time, or something else,, nuff said??

When I returned from Nam,, my old man and his buddies did me the honor of electing me as the VFW Post Commender,, still the same crown,, 20 years later,, still drunk..

Not one of us can stand up and say they liked being shot at..

Some of us hide it,, hide it well.. Some don't,,

It's the nature of the human mind..

I am not saying all vets are drunks,, I'm not..

I don't think a PH will help many,, but public awareness will.

I am very proud of my PH,, so much so that I'm not sure it should be used for non-bleeding combat wounds..

I don't have the answer,, but we all know there is a problem..

[The Reaper]

In my limited experience, the ones who snivel the most, want more entitlements, and rewards, etc. are the ones who did the least.

I would wager most "homeless VN vets" were never in a combat unit during the war, were never in VN, or in many cases, in the military at all during the period.

Watch how many of these new PTSD applicants never left the FOB.

Riding the gravy train, with biscuit wheels.

TR

[jbour13]

In my limited experience, the ones who snivel the most, want more entitlements, and rewards, etc. are the ones who did the least.

I would wager most "homeless VN vets" were never in a combat unit during the war, were never in VN, or in many cases, in the military at all during the period.

Watch how many of these new PTSD applicants never left the FOB.

Riding the gravy train, with biscuit wheels.

TR

Agreed TR

I'll share a story with you via PM about a sniveling E-6 that received his PH from a "rocket attack" that would make you cringe.

I myself am a Fobbit, no questions asked. I have been outside and played Soldier for a minute. I somehow was dubbed "PTSD Sufferer" upon my return from Iraq by a doc. I was just tired and wanted to go to work. Been fine since, no issues. It's who you are, not what you are!!

I have a Soldier (prior 11B) that has to take meds and hates it. Is he jacked up, no. Does he want a PH, no. Does he qualify for one, yes. The fragmentation in his calf would say yes, he just moved on and didn't make a fuss about it.

[tom kelly]

The Following List of Soldiers I served with were AWARDED THE PURPLE HEART.
Herbert Francis Hardy Panel 01E line 45 KIA 03-04-64 Age-36
George Underwood-Panel 1E Row 59 KIA 07-23-64 Age-21

William Toth -Panel 1E Row 69 KIA 10-27-64 Age-22

James Gabriel Jr. - Panel 1E Row 8 KIA 04-08-62 Age-24

Wayne Marchand -Panel 1E Row 8 KIA 04-08-62 Age-29

Dave Morgan -Panel 2E Row 93 KIA 09-23-65 Age-28

George A Hoagland III Panel 4E Row 109 KIA 01-29-66 Age-30

Donald J Fawcett -Panel 8E Row123 KIA 07-03-66 Age-25

Richard E Pegram -Panel 47W Row 51 KIA 08-23-68 Age-40

Bryan E Grogan -Panel 2E Row 27 KIA 07-05-65 Age-29

All The Above (except Grogan ) were members of C Company 1st SFG (Abn)
2nd Lt. Grogan was a Sgt. E-5 at Special Forces Tng. Gp. in Dec.1962.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE........Regard's,tom kelly

[AngelsSix]

TR beat me to it. I noticed that the folks who brag the most are the ones who have done the least. I take particular notice to all the folks that like to put the medals they have on their license plates....seems a little weird to me, I am proud of my accomplishements just like the next person, but you won't catch me putting it on a license plate or a sticker on my car.
But hey, each to his own, right??

[FMF DOC]

Well, I agree that PTSD is probably at a all time high among our returning fighting forces and that they deserve all the help (treatment) the government can give them. I have trouble agreeing they should recieve the Purple Heart ie; The Red Badge of Courage for not showing any red. Maybe the solution is to create a whole new type of recognition. As far as the sniveling going on. You will always have those sniveling for some recognition they do not rate just as you do for the Combat Action recognition, low life personnel who never left the FOB, ship, airfield, ect... think they rate it and most get it.... When the instruction reads that you must recieve and return fire under hostile conditions to rate it. At least in the USMC and USN ground forces that is how it is suppose to work. And we must face the facts that this generation of men are not as tough as our forefathers.

[Jack Moroney (RIP)]

And we must face the facts that this generation of men are not as tough as our forefathers.


Let's not paint an entire generation with the same brush. There are exceptional folks out there that have picked up the torch for those of us that no longer can. While I think that the majority of the PTSD is a crock for those who would have otherwise found ways to skate we have a group of folks who came from the what's in it for me tribe that joined the military for reasons other than fullfilling a commitment to the profession of arms. These folks have found a way to milk a system through manipulation of technology and information gathering not available to those that came before them.

[CPTAUSRET]

Let's not paint an entire generation with the same brush. There are exceptional folks out there that have picked up the torch for those of us that no longer can. While I think that the majority of the PTSD is a crock for those who would have otherwise found ways to skate we have a group of folks who came from the what's in it for me tribe that joined the military for reasons other than fullfilling a commitment to the profession of arms. These folks have found a way to milk a system through manipulation of technology and information gathering not available to those that came before them.


My best buddy wrote the PTSD definition for DSMlll...I guarantee this is not what she had in mind!

PTSD can be real, and it can screw you up, but a lot of individuals are riding this crutch.

[FMF DOC]

Jack,

I agree with your statements, I guess what I'm saying is that with todays technology and bureaucracy it is much easyer for the ones just looking for whats in it for them to make claims and get bennifits that they truely do not deserve. Our forefathers did the job and did it well and those who came home did so without complaint.

[Mike]

Worst thing about the PTSD issue is when theyattatched a diagnosis and a paycheck to it in the 90s.

Guys were being counselled on how to handle what problems they had at the time.

This suddenly changed to letting one's problems handle one'self and it has been downhill ever since.

"Get well" and lose that check?....No Way.

The new generation almosts expects automatic PTSD compensation as a benefit.

I read a lot of vet boards and there's some shameful shit going on.

It was bad enough to see some weak fucks lay there and bleed when they could man up and move out, but when the started getting paid for it, it became a disaster.

There are legitimate cases and we know who they are.

Few if any of the weaklings will be found in our house.

I expected to be affected by combat. I had a life threatening wound and returned to operations.
I don't do crack and I have a home and managed to retire from civil service.

Oh yeah, fuck a PH for PTSD.

[jwt5]

Some more "feel good" medals from those who brought us the CAB....

[incommin]

The PH has always been for wounds received on the battlefield even though a few received it for cuts and scratches. How many have heard the story that so and so got one for dropping a mortar round on his foot while firing H&I or illumination rounds....... I hope they don't start giving it out for other issues and cheapen it more.

Jim

[The Reaper]

How about a "Purple Brain" or a "Purple Huggy Bear Ribbon" for them them instead?

TR

[swpa19]

Im in full agreement with Col. Jack and T.R. Im also wondering just what type of position this would incur. And, how many friends and family of the left this office would employ. Also, the author of the original article should have done some backgound research. George Washington DID NOT create the Purple Heart Medal to "Honor those wounded in combat". The Purple Heart was originally a Badge. And it was conceived to: "Reward troops for unusual gallantry and extraoridnary fidelity and service". Just my humble opinion.

[uplink5]

Does anyone doubt for a minute that our society has been breeding a victim mentality for our people for a long time now, and how better to identify these victims than with a Purple Heart?

Something to consider is this, and please correct me if you can but, since the vast majority of our soldiers throughout the force albeit SF, are no different than they have always been, very young. In our media driven, politically motivated and therefore politically incorrect involvement in another unpopular war, (one that many are reenlisting for incidentally), are not our youngest and most impressionable soldiers being encouraged to be victims of PTSD? Anytime he goes to get a Motrin at the TMC, he has to fill a questionnaire identifying if he has trouble sleeping, or if he wants to kill himself or anyone else. “Here is your chance boys and girls, jump on the bandwagon while you can”.
Doesn’t the possibility of a Purple Heart encourage this even more?

Hmm…I think my first wife gave me PTSD during my deployment in the first gulf war; can I still qualify for a Purple Heart?

I’m not saying they shouldn’t have problems coping. I think the average Joe ETSs at the age of 21 or 22 but, even if their 25 yrs old. If they had not joined the service, wouldn’t these same youngsters still be having difficulties with any number of issues in their confusing lives? Isn’t that the nature of being young? Of course they would but add a couple combat tours and sure, you could perhaps put a label on it. Give them the help they need but let’s not go overboard.

I would like to propose a couple other examples of this victimization of our people. ADHD, OK how many of us were hyperactive as kids? Were you doped up for it? Yes there are extreme cases that need help but not the numbers reflected by our obsession with doping up these kids that we have today. Now they’re diagnosing Adult ADHD. Well I guess when I thought I was just multitasking, I was wrong; I must be a victim there too!!!

And then there’s psychiatry, a noble profession I’m sure but has anyone ever walked away from a visit to one of these guys without a diagnosis of something? (Especially this crowd) I think not enough. Which leads me back to our original topic and I’ll try to sum it up.

Young impressionable minds will be affected as will old ones by a combative environment. As was pointed out in an earlier post, nobody takes getting shot at lightly. Some young minds though do not have the tools to cope as well as the old ones and therefore will need some help. But lets not encourage a new victims bandwagon to be exploited across the board and I’ll be dammed if we should refer to them as wounded, or worthy of a Purple Heart.

That said, it may already be too late. This genie is already out of the bottle I'm afraid and it fits in too nicely with so many agendas...jd

[Scimitar]

Here's the current official view, I understand that this is a recent addition. Looks like Mother Army has made her decision

http://www.armyg1.army.mil/wtu/docs/WTUConsolidatedGuidanceAdministrative.pdf

Scimitar

______________________________

Warrior Transition Unit Consolidated Guidance (Administrative)

Department of the Army WTU Consolidated Guidance
14 March 2008

5-2. Purple Heart Awards for Concussion, Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI) and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

c. Concussions that result from enemy action may qualify for award of the PH. Medical authorities must make the determination of the degree of the injury warrants the award. Head trauma which results in no symptoms and does not require any medical treatment would not meet the criteria for the award, since medical treatment must be required. Receiving a medical evaluation does not meet the criteria for the award. The treatment must be required by a medical office or medical extender. Medics and Combat Lifesavers are not medical extenders.
d. Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), for which the treatment is rest, does not qualify for award of the PH since there is no medical treatment by a medical professional. However, this injury may cause long-term or permanent impairments and disabilities that require medical treatment, for which the PH may be authorized.
e. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder does not qualify for the award. An Award Policy File entry dating back to WWI states, “In the absence of a definite physical lesion, shell shock is not a wound”. Not every Soldier exposed to active combat with the enemy develops PTSD, nor has every Soldier suffering from PTSD been in combat. Symptoms of PTSD may not appear for many years after combat, during which time, other factors and experiences ma cause the mental disorder, rather than direct action with the enemy.

[uplink5]

[Not every Soldier exposed to active combat with the enemy develops PTSD, nor has every Soldier suffering from PTSD been in combat. Symptoms of PTSD may not appear for many years after combat, during which time, other factors and experiences ma cause the mental disorder, rather than direct action with the enemy.[/B][/QUOTE]

That does it, the Genie looks to be back in the bottle. Lets hope he stays.....jd

[Mike]

Absolutely outstanding post on our "society of victims."

The paycheck they attatched to PTSD brought every weak fuck in existewnce out from under their rock.
Paid to maintain the problem.
I know a guy, honest to christ, is drawing it because he got scared he might have to go to Veet-nam.

[gagners]

Watch how many of these new PTSD applicants never left the FOB.

TR

I know of 2 deployments... One to Iraq and one to Kuwait. Same timeframe, same sized units. Guess which one has the most PTSD cases? By far, it is NOT the one that was mortared/blown up/shot at EVERY DAY in Anbar and had several soldiers die, it was the one pulling FOB security in Kuwait that NEVER got shot at/blown up/mortared, nor had anyone injured for anything more than pulling a hammie in the gym...

3x the cases, AAMOF...:rolleyes:

[AngelsSix]

I will thow this into the mix, the guy down the street from me is pulling the "I have PTSD" crap over on a few people here lately. He was in the Army and was supposedly a medic (I have not spoken to him yet, this is second hand from the other officers that have dealt with him). I hear he shot up an apartment in TX (not sure about that, either). He has had numerous incidents with the local cops (that I DO know about). His wife has left with the baby (good thing, too, he managed to destroy all the furniture in the house and has broken three windows in the back of the houes in fits of rage).
He stays in the house all day playing video games. The brief contact with his parents revealed that he has a drug history and may still have firearms in the residence. The neighbor next door has spoken to him a little, but not much. I got a call to come down there to the neighbor's last night because he was "flipping out". The guy was screaming at the top of him lungs and throwing things around the house. The last person he was seen with is a possible drug user himself.

The parents left no contact number with the PD. He refused treatment at the local vet hospital, instead demanding he be sent to NY. The guy will not answer the door when someone knocks. I am afraid that he will eventually kill himself or overdose.


What would you do??

[Team Sergeant]

What would you do??

You would not want to know.

Taking drugs, shooting up an apartment and domestic violence, you can see that on "Cops" every night and it has nothing to do with PTSD. IMO there is absolutely no excuse for his actions other than he's a pathetic loser.

TS

[AngelsSix]

Agreed, sir!! That's what I told my SGT. The guy is off the deep end, just not for the reasons he is trying to claim.

[Onuma]

That guy -- I won't call him a man for many reasons -- has issues far beyond PTSD. Possible schizophrenia and/or psychosis, perhaps. Rational, sane people don't trash houses, furniture, and break windows for no reason while yelling at the top of their lungs.

I'll be the first to admit that seeing some things in Iraq, nearly getting blown up on a couple of occassions, etc, definitely had an effect on me. I wasn't on patrols and didn't have to take a life out there, but there were some instances out there that Joe Schmoe back home would never, ever want to see.
Some would call this PTSD, but I'm still doing what I need to do and I don't expect any compensation for it. I feel much worse about having lost a few other guys in the unit than having been danger close to incoming fire. Time will heal you up, but in the meanwhile you've just gotta FIDO.

[MVS2]

I will thow this into the mix, the guy down the street from me is pulling the "I have PTSD" crap over on a few people here lately. He was in the Army and was supposedly a medic (I have not spoken to him yet, this is second hand from the other officers that have dealt with him). I hear he shot up an apartment in TX (not sure about that, either). He has had numerous incidents with the local cops (that I DO know about). His wife has left with the baby (good thing, too, he managed to destroy all the furniture in the house and has broken three windows in the back of the houes in fits of rage).
He stays in the house all day playing video games. The brief contact with his parents revealed that he has a drug history and may still have firearms in the residence. The neighbor next door has spoken to him a little, but not much. I got a call to come down there to the neighbor's last night because he was "flipping out". The guy was screaming at the top of him lungs and throwing things around the house. The last person he was seen with is a possible drug user himself.

The parents left no contact number with the PD. He refused treatment at the local vet hospital, instead demanding he be sent to NY. The guy will not answer the door when someone knocks. I am afraid that he will eventually kill himself or overdose.


What would you do??

If you're concerned about him doing more damage to himself or people around him - he probably needs to be forcefully removed from his place and put into some sort of home or hospital, by the police or whomever.

[tom kelly]

If you're concerned about him doing more damage to himself or people around him - he probably needs to be forcefully removed from his place and put into some sort of home or hospital, by the police or whomever.

Make that POS life miserable. Everytime he acts up call 911 and report an emergency situtation with a adult male possibly high on drugs and brandishing a weapon....Let SWAT handle the situtation, usually if the offender is taken into custody and brought before a judge the individual will probably be sent for a Psyc. Eval. that can last from 72 hrs. to 45 days. This could cure him or kill him. In any event problem solved...Regard's, tom kelly

[AngelsSix]

If you're concerned about him doing more damage to himself or people around him - he probably needs to be forcefully removed from his place and put into some sort of home or hospital, by the police or whomever.

Been there, tried that.......they sent him to the VA hospital in NY, he was back in a week.

Make that POS life miserable. Everytime he acts up call 911 and report an emergency situtation with a adult male possibly high on drugs and brandishing a weapon....Let SWAT handle the situtation, usually if the offender is taken into custody and brought before a judge the individual will probably be sent for a Psyc. Eval. that can last from 72 hrs. to 45 days. This could cure him or kill him. In any event problem solved...Regard's, tom kelly

We tried that, too. The local police stated that if he isn't harming anyone else, we had no buisness to go to his house. They are right. As long as he stays inside and doesn't hurt anyone else he is to be left alone. My feeling is that when he does do soemthing outside the house it will be ugly. Then the questions will come...why no one did anything.........you know the drill.

He has been sent to NY at least twice that I know of, both times they sent him right back home. He has recked his car and has nothing to drive now, he has been seen taking taxis. One of the Sgt's at the PD actually clocked him in excess of 80 MPH at the traffic circle a few weeks before he ended up totalling his car.

There is not much more that can be done if his parents won't sign commitment papers. Happens a lot more than people realize....hence the school shootings he have been having all over the country.

[MVS2]

Been there, tried that.......they sent him to the VA hospital in NY, he was back in a week.



We tried that, too. The local police stated that if he isn't harming anyone else, we had no buisness to go to his house. They are right. As long as he stays inside and doesn't hurt anyone else he is to be left alone. My feeling is that when he does do soemthing outside the house it will be ugly. Then the questions will come...why no one did anything.........you know the drill.

He has been sent to NY at least twice that I know of, both times they sent him right back home. He has recked his car and has nothing to drive now, he has been seen taking taxis. One of the Sgt's at the PD actually clocked him in excess of 80 MPH at the traffic circle a few weeks before he ended up totalling his car.

There is not much more that can be done if his parents won't sign commitment papers. Happens a lot more than people realize....hence the school shootings he have been having all over the country.

Psychosis/Antisocial for sure (someone mentioned possible schizophrenia) - would be a good idea maybe to write a letter explaining that he's a danger to society as it stands - wouldn't be the end of the world to check himself in.

[AngelsSix]

Sadly, my neighbor finally lost his battle with the demons plaguing him. They took him out of his house on a gurney doing CPR. His direct next door neighbor (an ex-Marine and a good friend of mine) called to let me know. The hospital wouldn't release the info, so we called the firefighters that lived across the street and they got the word that he had died. Turns out that he was huffing and possibly drinking heavily. Not really sure what else may have been going on. There were hundreds of air cans strewn around the mess in him house, you would think that someone would have noticed.

Very sad, indeed. I have been told that many of the troops over in Iraq have now turned to this form of getting high, since it is readily available and there is no way to test for it, etc.

[HOLLiS]

There is a book, Red badge of Courage. People have been know to fake, exploit, manipulate anything for their own personal advantages. One of the members of this forum wife is very knowledgeable about PTSD. Maybe her response would be of value. There is a lot of societal view about it, that is very incorrect. No body chooses to be wounded, at least that is the idea. No body chooses to have PTSD.

Whether there should be a special recognition for it, or it added to the Purple heart, I really don't know. Historically our society has treated mental illness as some sort of a curse or some self inflected injury.

[The Reaper]

There is a book, Red badge of Courage. People have been know to fake, exploit, manipulate anything for their own personal advantages. One of the members of this forum wife is very knowledgeable about PTSD. Maybe her response would be of value. There is a lot of societal view about it, that is very incorrect. No body chooses to be wounded, at least that is the idea. No body chooses to have PTSD.

Whether there should be a special recognition for it, or it added to the Purple heart, I really don't know. Historically our society has treated mental illness as some sort of a curse or some self inflected injury.

As with VN vets, the number who served and who are actually injured are far fewer than the number who claim to have been there.

IMHO, I have seen a lot of people playing the game with the Army and the VA to get more money, including a bunch of PTSD claims. Some of them have never even deployed. I guess they caught it from someone who did.

The ones who are actually suffering deserve our best. Those who are faking it deserve a swift boot in the ass.

TR

[HOLLiS]

As with VN vets, the number who served and who are actually injured are far fewer than the nummber who claim to have been there.

IMHO, I have seen a lot of people playing the game with the Army and the VA to get more money, including a bunch of PTSD claims. Some of them have never even deployed. I guess they caught it from someone who did.

The ones who are actually suffering deserve our best. Those who are faking it deserve a swift boot in the ass.

TR



I know what you mean. We could have used those extra 10 Million SF, Seals and Recon guys.

H.

[The Reaper]

Sadly, my neighbor finally lost his battle with the demons plaguing him. They took him out of his house on a gurney doing CPR. His direct next door neighbor (an ex-Marine and a good friend of mine) called to let me know. The hospital wouldn't release the info, so we called the firefighters that lived across the street and they got the word that he had died. Turns out that he was huffing and possibly drinking heavily. Not really sure what else may have been going on. There were hundreds of air cans strewn around the mess in him house, you would think that someone would have noticed.

Very sad, indeed. I have been told that many of the troops over in Iraq have now turned to this form of getting high, since it is readily available and there is no way to test for it, etc.


The funeral was on the front page of the local paper today.

The article states that Joseph Dwyer was an Army medic with the 3rd Infantry who joined after 9/11 and since his return was suffering from PTSD.

http://www.thepilot.com/stories/20080702/news/local/20080702Photo.html

http://www.thepilot.com/stories/20080706/opinion/opinion/20080706editdwer.html

Here is the Army Times piece on his death.

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/07/military_dwyer_photographer_070308w/

He previously received some fame when a picture of him carrying an Iraqi child to safety was captured by the media and appeared in national publications, including the Army Times.

Taken from the Army Times story on field medic Joseph P. Dwyer at the time of an intense gun battle on the banks of the Euphrates:

"We didn't want to get too close to the village knowing that there could be possible enemy there," he went on. "We saw him with the child. He came running out to where we had the hospital set up."

And then he and some other soldiers, guns at the ready, bolted from cover to help. Dwyer reached the father and grabbed his son from him, cradling the young boy in a protective embrace as he raced back to safer ground.

The boy, about 4 years old, "grabbed right onto to me, that was the weird thing," Dwyer said. "The kid was doing all right. I could feel him breathing real hard and I was just carrying him and he didn't cry one bit and you know he was a cute little kid.

"He was scared, though, you could tell."

"You know, for (the father) to trust us to take his child over and know that we'd take care of him, maybe it's just me being optimistic, but I think it was a good feeling knowing he trusted us to take care of his child.

"It was a little kid. I have little nieces and nephews back home. … It was just a kid, it wasn't an enemy. This is what I signed up to do, to help people."

That day was the first time Dwyer treated any wounded. The little boy had a broken left leg, but Dwyer says he'll make a quick recovery.

Though gratifying as the encounter may have been, it left Dwyer with some lingering concerns; he wishes he could talk to the family.

"I wonder how they felt about us," he said. "I mean if I was in their position, and this was going on, I'd be mad at me, you know, for being here. I don't know. I wouldn't mind being able to talk to him, that's for sure."

The article also states that he died of an apparent overdose, leaving behind a wife and child.

Let us not be too quick to judge.

RIP, Joseph. Thank you for your service. I am sorry that we were unable to get you the help that you deserved.

TR

[82ndtrooper]

Thank you TR for recognizing what should be obvious and stating it in the manner in which in I'm used to reading from you.

Again thank you for that insight.

Rest easy Josesph.

[jbour13]

RIP Doc, you did well in your service to this nation, and you will not be soon forgotten.

[Gypsy]

I read about this Soldier but didn't put two and two together...it's sad he didn't get the help he truly needed. RIP, my thoughts and prayers are with his family.

[HOLLiS]

Rest In Peace.

Part of the help issue, is that the person also needs to understand they need help. Society as a whole sends a very mixed message as to what PTSD is, about sucking it up, about mental health, and other aspects. The VA and Veterans groups, that I know of, do a pretty good job of explaining what PTSD is. Hollyweird and even one's fellow soldiers do a pretty good job of confusing the heck out of everyone. If a person feels that they can not seek help, or no help is available, or ignorant of the problem, they probably won't seek the right help.

What happens is they go to, self medication (drugs and alcohol abuse), self destructive behavior, isolation,withdrawal from friends and family members. Which leads to a dead end road.


I would hope some one who is a trained professional in this area will pipe up. i

[RTK]

While I don't believe PTSD should be a golden ticket to a PH for the same reasons TR states, I also don't believe commanders and first line supervisors are doing a great job of recognizing warning signs from their Soldiers. Additionally, the Soldiers aren't doing a great job of asking for help until, for some of them, something catastrophic happens or it's too late.

I don't know the answer to all this, but I've referred 4 Soldiers in the last 5 months to either ADAPC, Behavioral Health, or both for PTSD like issues. They're now some of my most productive Soldiers.

[The Reaper]

PFC Dwyer's story and photo is on the front page of Drudge right now.

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/07/military_suicidedwyer_070308w/

TR

[AngelsSix]

Thanks for posting that, Reaper. There are a lot of truths in that article, more than in some of the other I have read. There are a lot of folks out there that were glossing over his problems. He needed to be committed into an in-patient facility and his family refused to do so, even after the police gave them the information on how to get that help for him. Most everyone in his family from NY are cops or military. His brother is a SSgt in the AF and he was at the funeral. He has two brothers in the NYPD. I guess I would have done things differently. There is absolutely no way I would sit back and let someone in my family do something like that if I was aware of it. The exact words of his wife were "he didn't want help". How sad.

[The Reaper]

More on PFC Dwyer.

RIP, troop.

I know quite a few people who are battling with PTSD and demons of their own, as well as several who I believe are faking it.

May those who need help find it in time.

TR

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,387122,00.html

Army Medic in Famous Photo Never Defeated 'Demons'
Monday, July 21, 2008

PINEHURST, N.C. — Officers had been to the white ranch house at 560 West Longleaf many times before over the past year to respond to a "barricade situation." Each had ended uneventfully, with Joseph Dwyer coming out or telling police in a calm voice through the window that he was OK.

But this time was different.

The Iraq War veteran had called a taxi service to take him to the emergency room. But when the driver arrived, Dwyer shouted that he was too weak to get up and open the door.

The officers asked Dwyer for permission to kick it in.

"Go ahead!" he yelled.

They found Dwyer lying on his back, his clothes soiled with urine and feces. Scattered on the floor around him were dozens of spent cans of Dust-Off, a refrigerant-based aerosol normally used to clean electrical equipment.

Dwyer told police Lt. Mike Wilson he'd been "huffing" the aerosol.

"Help me, please!" the former Army medic begged Wilson. "I'm dying. Help me. I can't breathe."

Unable to stand or even sit up, Dwyer was hoisted onto a stretcher. As paramedics prepared to load him into an ambulance, an officer noticed Dwyer's eyes had glassed over and were fixed.

A half hour later, he was dead.

When Dionne Knapp learned of her friend's June 28 death, her first reaction was to be angry at Dwyer. How could he leave his wife and daughter like this? Didn't he know he had friends who cared about him, who wanted to help?

But as time passed, Knapp's anger turned toward the Army.

A photograph taken in the first days of the war had made the medic from New York's Long Island a symbol of the United States' good intentions in the Middle East. When he returned home, he was hailed as a hero.

But for most of the past five years, the 31-year-old soldier had writhed in a private hell, shooting at imaginary enemies and dodging nonexistent roadside bombs, sleeping in a closet bunker and trying desperately to huff away the "demons" in his head. When his personal problems became public, efforts were made to help him, but nothing seemed to work.

This broken, frightened man had once been the embodiment of American might and compassion. If the military couldn't save him, Knapp thought, what hope was there for the thousands suffering in anonymity?
___

Like many, Dwyer joined the military in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

His father and three brothers are all cops. One brother, who worked in Lower Manhattan, happened to miss his train that morning and so hadn't been there when the World Trade Center towers collapsed.

Joseph, the second-youngest of six, decided that he wanted to get the people who'd "knocked my towers down."

And he wanted to be a medic. (Dwyer's first real job was as a transporter for a hospital in the golf resort town of Pinehurst, where his parents had moved after retirement.)

In 2002, Dwyer was sent to Fort Bliss, Texas. The jokester immediately fell in with three colleagues — Angela Minor, Sgt. Jose Salazar, and Knapp. They spent so much time together after work that comrades referred to them as "The Four Musketeers."

Knapp had two young children and was going through a messy divorce. Dwyer stepped in as a surrogate dad, showing up in uniform at her son Justin's kindergarten and coming by the house to assemble toys that Knapp couldn't figure out.

When it became clear that the U.S. would invade Iraq, Knapp became distraught, confiding to Dwyer that she would rather disobey her deployment orders than leave her kids.

Dwyer asked to go in her place. When she protested, he insisted: "Trust me, this is what I want to do. I want to go." After a week of nagging, his superiors relented.

Dwyer assured his parents, Maureen and Patrick — and his new wife, Matina, whom he'd married in August 2002 — that he was being sent to Kuwait and would likely stay in the rear, far from the action.

But it wasn't true. Unbeknownst to his family, Dwyer had been attached to the 3rd Infantry's 7th Cavalry Regiment. He was at "the tip of the tip of the spear," in one officer's phrase.

During the push into Baghdad, Dwyer's unit came under heavy fire. An airstrike called in to suppress ambush fire rocked the convoy.

As the sun rose along the Euphrates River on March 25, 2003, Army Times photographer Warren Zinn watched as a man ran toward the soldiers carrying a white flag and his injured 4-year-old son. Zinn clicked away as Dwyer darted out to meet the man, then returned, cradling the boy in his arms.

The photo — of a half-naked boy, a kaffiyeh scarf tied around his shrapnel-injured leg and his mouth set in a grimace of pain, and of a bespectacled Dwyer dressed in full battle gear, his M-16 rifle dangling by his side — appeared on front pages and magazine covers around the world.

Suddenly, everyone wanted to interview the soldier in "the photo." Dwyer was given a "Hometown Hero" award by child-safety advocate John Walsh; the Army awarded him the Combat Medical Badge for service under enemy fire.

The attention embarrassed him.

"Really, I was just one of a group of guys," he told a military publication. "I wasn't standing out more than anyone else."
___

Returning to the U.S. in June 2003, after 91 days in Iraq, Dwyer seemed a shell to friends.

When he deployed, he was pudgy at 6-foot-1 and 220 pounds. Now he weighed around 165, and the other Musketeers immediately thought of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Dwyer attributed his skeletal appearance to long days and a diet of MREs (Meals Ready to Eat). He showed signs of his jolly old self, so his friends accepted his explanation.

But they soon noticed changes that were more than cosmetic.

At restaurants, Dwyer insisted on sitting with his back to the wall so no one could sneak up on him. He turned down invitations to the movies, saying the theaters were too crowded. He said the desert landscape around El Paso, and the dark-skinned Hispanic population, reminded him of Iraq.

Dwyer, raised Roman Catholic but never particularly religious before, now would spend lunchtime by himself, poring over his Bible.

When people would teasingly call him "war hero" and ask him to tell about his experiences, or about the famous photo, he would steer the conversation toward the others he'd served with. But Dwyer once confided that another image, also involving a child, disturbed him.

He was standing next to a soldier during a firefight when a boy rode up on a bicycle and stopped beside a weapon lying in the dirt. Under his breath, the soldier beside Dwyer whispered, "Don't pick it up, kid. Don't pick it up."

The boy reached for the weapon and was blasted off his bike.

In late 2004, Dwyer sent e-mails to Zinn, wondering if the photographer had "heard anything else about the kid" from the photo, and claiming he was "doing fine out here in Fort Bliss, Texas."

But Dwyer wasn't doing fine. Earlier that year, he'd been prescribed antidepressants and referred for counseling by a doctor. Still, his behavior went from merely odd to dangerous.

One day, he swerved to avoid what he thought was a roadside bomb and crashed into a convenience store sign. He began answering his apartment door with a pistol in his hand and would call friends from his car in the middle of the night, babbling and disoriented from sniffing inhalants.

Matina told friends that he was seeing imaginary Iraqis all around him. Despite all this, the Army had not taken his weapons.

In the summer of 2005, he was removed to the barracks for 72 hours after trashing the apartment looking for an enemy infiltrator. He was admitted to Bliss' William Beaumont Army Medical Center for treatment of his inhalant addiction.

But things continued to worsen. That October, the Musketeers decided it was time for an "intervention."

Minor, who had moved to New York, overdrew her bank account and flew down. She, Knapp and Salazar went to the apartment and pleaded with Dwyer to give up his guns, or at least his ammunition.

"I'm sorry, guys," he told them. "But there's no way I'm giving up my weapons."

After talking for about an hour and a half, Dwyer agreed to let Matina lock the weapons up. The group went for a walk in a nearby park, and Dwyer seemed happier than he'd been in months.

But Dwyer's paranoia soon returned — and worsened.

[The Reaper]

On Oct. 6, 2005, when superiors went to the couple's off-base apartment to persuade Dwyer to return to the hospital, Dwyer barricaded himself in. Imagining Iraqis swarming up the sides and across the roof, he fired his pistol through the door, windows and ceiling.

After a three-hour standoff, Dwyer's eldest brother, Brian, also a police officer, managed to talk him down over the phone. Dwyer was admitted for psychiatric treatment.

In a telephone interview later that month from what he called the "nut hut" at Beaumont, Dwyer told Newsday that he'd lied on a post-deployment questionnaire that asked whether he'd been disturbed by what he'd seen and done in Iraq. The reason: A PTSD diagnosis could interfere with his plans to seek a police job. Besides, he'd been conditioned to see it as a sign of weakness.

"I'm a soldier," he said. "I suck it up. That's our job."

Dwyer told the newspaper that he'd blown off counseling before but was committed to embracing his treatment this time. He said he hoped to become an envoy to others who avoided treatment for fear of damaging their careers.

"There's a lot of soldiers suffering in silence," he said.

In January 2006, Joseph and Matina Dwyer moved back to North Carolina, away from the place that reminded him so much of the battlefield. But his shadow enemy followed him here.
___


Dwyer was discharged from the Army in March 2006 and living off disability. That May, Matina Dwyer gave birth to a daughter, Meagan Kaleigh.

He seemed to be getting by, but setbacks would occur without warning.

On the Fourth of July, he and family were fishing off the back deck when the fireworks display began. Dwyer bolted inside and hid under a bed.

In June 2007, police responded to a call that Dwyer was "having some mental problems related to PTSD." A captain talked him into going to the emergency room.

Later that month, Matina Dwyer moved in with her parents and obtained a protective order. In the complaint, she said Dwyer had purchased an AR-15 assault rifle and become angry when she refused to return it.

"He said that he was coming to my residence to get his gun back," she wrote in the June 25, 2007, complaint. "He was coming packed with guns and someone was going to die tonight." She declined to be interviewed for this story.

In July 2007, Dwyer checked into an inpatient program at New York's Northport Veterans Affairs Medical Center. He stayed for six months.

He came home in March with more than a dozen prescriptions. He was so medicated that his feet flopped when he walked, as if he were wearing oversized clown shoes.

The VA's solution was a "pharmaceutical lobotomy," his father thought.

But within five days of his discharge, Dwyer's symptoms had returned with such ferocity that the family decided it was time to get Matina and 2-year-old Meagan out. While Dwyer was off buying inhalants, his parents helped spirit them away.

On April 10, weary and fearful, Matina Dwyer filed for custody and division of property.

Without his wife and daughter to anchor him, Dwyer's grip on reality loosened further. He reverted to Iraq time, sleeping during the day and "patrolling" all night. Unable to possess a handgun, he placed knives around the house for protection.

In those last months, Dwyer opened up a little to his parents.

What bothered him most, he said, was the sheer volume of the gunfire. He talked about the grisly wounds he'd treated and dwelled on the people he was unable to save. His nasal membranes seemed indelibly stained with the scents of the battlefield — the sickeningly sweet odor of rotting flesh and the metallic smell of blood.

Yet despite all that, Dwyer continued to talk about going back to Iraq. He told his parents that if he could just get back with his comrades and do his job, things would right themselves.

When Maureen Dwyer first saw Zinn's famous photo, she'd had a premonition that it might be the last picture she'd ever see of Joseph.

"I just didn't think he was going to come home," she said. "And he never did."

___

An autopsy is pending, but police are treating Dwyer's death as an accidental overdose.

His friends and family see it differently.

The day of the 2005 standoff, Knapp spent hours on the telephone trying to get help for Dwyer. She was frustrated by a military bureaucracy that would not act unless his petrified wife complained, and with a civilian system that insisted Dwyer was the military's problem.

In a letter to post commander Maj. Gen. Robert Lennox, Knapp expressed anger that Army officials who were "proud to display him as a hero ... now had turned their back on him..."

"Joseph Dwyer who had left to Iraq one of the nicest, kindest, caring, self-sacrificing and patriotic people I have ever known," she wrote, "was forced to witness and commit acts completely contrary to his nature and returned a tormented, confused disillusioned shadow of his former self that was not being given the help he needed."

While Dwyer was in the service, Minor said, the Army controlled every aspect of his life.

"So someone should have taken him by the hand and said, `We're putting you in the hospital, and you're staying there until you get fixed — until you're back to normal."

But Dr. Antonette Zeiss, deputy chief of the VA's Office of Mental Health, said it's not that simple.

"Veterans are civilians, and VA is guided by state law about involuntary commitment," she told the AP. "There are civil liberties, and VA respects that those civil liberties are important."

The family would not authorize the VA to release Dwyer's medical records. But it appears that Dwyer was sometimes unwilling — or unable — to make the best use of the programs available. In an e-mail to The Associated Press, Lennox, the former Bliss post commander, wrote that Dwyer "had a great (in my opinion) care giver."

Zeiss said the best treatment for PTSD is exposure-based psychotherapy, in which the patient is made "to engage in thoughts, feelings and conversations about the trauma." While caregivers must be 100 percent committed to creating an environment in which the veteran feels comfortable confronting those demons, she said the patient must be equally committed to following through.

"And so it's a dance between the clinicians and the patient."

Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, feels the VA is a lousy dance partner.

Rieckhoff said the VA's is a "passive system" whose arcane rules and regulations make it hard for veterans to find help. And when they do get help, he said, it is often inadequate.

"I consider (Dwyer) a battlefield casualty," he said, "because he was still fighting the war in his head."

___

The Sunday after the Fourth of July, Knapp attended services at Scotsdale Baptist, the El Paso church where she and Dwyer had been baptized together in 2004.

On the way out of the sanctuary, Knapp checked her phone and noticed an e-mail.

"I didn't know if you had heard or not," a friend wrote, "but I got an email from Matina this morning saying that Joseph had died on Saturday and that the funeral was today."

Knapp maintained her composure long enough to get herself and the children to the car. Then she lost it.

The children asked what was wrong.

"Joseph is dead," she told them.

"You said he wasn't sick any more," Justin said.

"I know, Justin," his mother replied. "But I guess maybe the help wasn't working like we thought it was."

The kids were too young to understand acronyms like PTSD or to hear a lecture about how Knapp thought the system had failed Dwyer. So she told them that, just as they sometimes have nightmares, "sometimes people get those nightmares in their head and they just can't get them out, no matter what."

Despite the efforts she made to get help for Dwyer, Knapp is trying to cope with a deep-seated guilt. She knows that Dwyer shielded her from the images that had haunted him.

"I think about all the torture that he went through when he came back, and I think that all of that stuff could have happened to me," she said, stifling a sob. "I just owe him so much for that."

Since Dwyer's death, Justin, now 9, has taken to carrying a newspaper clipping of the Zinn photo around with him. Occasionally, Knapp will catch him huddled with a playmate, showing the photo and telling him about the soldier who used to come to his school and assemble his toys.

Justin wants them to know all about Spc. Joseph Dwyer. His hero.

[CPTAUSRET]

This is really sad!

My wife headed up an Institute Of Medicine blue ribbon panel on VA PTSD compensation. The link to her report is below. She is also the M.D., who wrote the PTSD definition for DSM lll.


http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=11870

[Mike]

I have known a lot of vets over the years.
Some have issues from PTSD.
Some think they do, many of them make a living off it.

Most guys overcome and control their experiences and get on with life's issues.

Some lie there and bleed, allowing their issues to control them. They are yhe weak-fuck 'em.

This guy under discussion had a lot more than PTSD. He was full-blown mentally ill and probably should have been where he could have been helped-if possible.
I think it is short sighted to focus on the war as the root and source of his illness.

[Arwr]

Purple Heart: NO
Compensation and Treatment: YES

Malingerers have always been a cancerous disease to the resources of any military. Yet, I would rather see 100 POGs get compensation they did not deserve than a single warrior be denied his due.

I would highly suggest that every warrior read David Grossman's book "On Killing." It is an insightful read, and explains the dynamics of PTSD in a manner that a warrior can readily understand, as well as identify with.

Arwr