Suicides Temporarily Shut Down Ft. Campbell

by Rocky G. Macy
Licensed Clinical Social Worker

As a former mental health provider at Ft. Campbell, KY, I was saddened, though not necessarily surprised, to learn about the rash of suicides that has plagued the post over recent months. According to news reports this week, the 101st Airborne Division (basically all of Ft. Campbell) has suffered eleven confirmed or suspected suicides recently, including two in the past week.

This week, in an effort to take a breather and examine the problem, and hopefully stem the tide of this horrific dynamic, the base commander, Brigadier General Stephen Townsend, announced a three-day stand-down to focus on the problem and look for solutions. Regarding the rash in suicides, Townsend told his troops, "It's bad for soldiers, it's bad for families, bad for your units, bad for this division - and our army - and our country - and it's got to stop now. Suicides at Ft. Campbell have to stop now!"

Yup. Brigadier General Stephen Townsend has ordered the suicides to stop. That ought to get the job done - after all, the man has a star on each shoulder.

One hundred and fifteen U.S. soldiers took their own lives in 2007. That number rose to 128 in 2008, and this year it is already at 64 and on track to beat last year's total. Sadly, of all the army units, Ft. Campbell is in the lead.

I worked as a mental health provider at Ft. Campbell from 2005 to 2007, so I have some understanding of what is happening. First. like most military units, Ft. Campbell has a shortage of mental health professionals. And even if every slot for social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists was filled, it would still be an uphill struggle to evaluate and monitor every soldier who has gone through the trauma of one, two, three, four, or even five long tours of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan.

One tour can ruin a marriage and destroy a family. Loneliness and infidelity take their toll both at home and in the combat theatre. One tour can take a happy, well-adjusted young person and return him (or her) with emotional and psychological issues that will impact the veteran for years - or longer. And that's just one tour.

Multiple tours take all of the risks and dangers of one tour and increase them exponentially. If one tour doesn't wreck a family, two very well may. Fathers and mothers return from the desert to discover that their children have grown up and away from them. The parent who had remained at home has become the decision-maker, the go-to person when something needs to be approved or accomplished. It takes months for the family to re-group as it was prior to the deployment, and by the time it does, the next deployment has rolled around.

I've harped on this before, but it needs to be explained again - so bear with me. Numerous deployments are a product of the dishonest way this war has been waged. Bush, Cheney, and Rummy didn't want to institute a draft - because each of the three had clear memories of the social upheaval that resulted from the draft for Vietnam and did not want to see the country get that fired up over their oil war. (They also undoubtedly remembered all of their own artful dodging to keep from going to Vietnam, and did not want to put today's children of privilege in that same predicament.)

So having a draft was out of the question. Bush, Cheney, and Rummy did not want to do anything to create and stoke public resentment to their Middle East misadventure. Where, then, were the troops going to come from to fight their war?

One way was to recruit soldiers from the general population. Recruiting quotas were increased and recruiters were forced to scrape the bottom of society's barrel in order to meet those quotas. The minimum enlistment age was raised to forty-two, and recruiters routinely told marginal applicants how to pass drug exams and falsify other entrance requirements. Steven Green, also a member of the 101st Airborne Division at Ft. Campbell, was brought into the army with no difficulties, even though the young man had obvious psychological issues - issues that led to the slaughter of an Iraqi family.

The other method was to not let soldiers out of the army when their terms of enlistment expired (a back door draft called "Operation Stop Loss"), and to keep pumping them into the combat zones over and over.

In a line obviously stolen from a social worker, Brigadier General Townsend said, "Suicide is a permanent solution to what is only a temporary problem."

It's not a temporary problem, General, it's a recurring problem. Something has to be done to get these young people off the combat merry-go-round.

General Townsend, you and your brother generals need to step up to the plate and let the Defense Department and the President know that the mental health of your troops is being worn away. The casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan are not limited to the battlefields. Many of those brave men and women appear to be fine when they march into the hangars at your base for reunions with their families, but they are often ticking time bombs (or land mines, or IED's) that will suddenly go off weeks, months, or even years after the welcoming bands have played their last happy notes.

Good mental health is not something that can be "ordered" to occur. For our troops to have even a semblance of a chance for a future of good mental health, multiple deployments must come to an end. If these are wars that have to be fought, bring back the draft and share the burden with those who couldn't be bothered to volunteer to serve. And maybe thirty or forty years from now when we are on the verge of some other major military operation, our country will have the leadership of people who actually went to war and understand its reality.

The men and women at Ft. Campbell are in my thoughts and prayers.

The Apology

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Steven Green, the former U.S. Army private who led the brutal attack on an Iraqi family in order that he and his friends could rape the pretty fourteen-year-old daughter, was convicted last week of the raping and killing the girl. He was also found guilty of murdering her parents and her younger sister. The jury could not come to a unanimous decision to impose the death penalty on Green, probably due in large measure to their knowledge of some of the abuse that he suffered as a child. Some jurors may have also factored in the devaluation of human life that accompanies war - who knows for sure? Because the jury could not act in unanimity, the judge was obligated to sentence young Mr. Green to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

And I am much like those jurors. Where is the line that serves as a boundary between an abusive childhood and an evil adulthood? At what point did that pathetic child finally become an irredeemable monster? Would killing him right any wrongs? Will permitting him to live decades in a cage and finally die in a cage accomplish anything either?

Today Mr. Green apologized to the relatives of the family that he murdered. He didn't have to, because his verdict had already been determined. But he chose to express his shame to those family members gathered the courthouse in Paducah, KY. While his words were simple, they rang with sincerity. Mr. Green said:

"I helped to destroy a family and end the lives of four of my fellow human beings, and I wish that I could take it back, but I cannot. And, as inadequate as this apology is, it is all I can give you...I know you wish I was dead, and I do not hold that against you. If I was in your place, I am convinced beyond any doubt that I would feel the same way...I know that I have done evil, and I fear that the wrath of the Lord will come upon me on that day. But, I hope that you and your family at least can find some comfort in God's justice."

Steven Green said that he now sees the Iraq War as "intrinsically evil because killing is intrinsically evil." He added that he was sorry that he had anything to do with either.

Amen.

The Bush Legacy

by Pa Rock
Angry Citizen Journalist

I don't want to write about Army Sergeant John M. Russell, the soldier accused of killing five American troops at a mental health clinic at Camp Liberty in Baghdad. There hasn't been much hard news released on the sad event, just a lot of surmising and second guessing. So I really don't want to write about it until I have a clearer understanding of what actually happened out in that mean desert. I don't want to write about it...but I can't help myself!

You see, for the past five years I have worked in military mental health clinics - so this shit is personal - very effing personal!

Every man or woman who does a tour in a combat zone is negatively impacted - every single one, no exceptions! No, they don't all go on a killing rampage, but they suffer physical hurts - and psychological injuries that may not manifest themselves for months after the troop returns home. And their relationships with loved ones suffer also. It's damned hard to keep a marriage together after one partner has spent twelve or more months living in close proximity with a group of strangers - people who tend to become more like family than the actual families as the stress of war takes it toll.

That's after one long tour. Sgt. John M. Russell, 43, of Sherman, TX, was on his third tour in Iraq. Why, one would wonder, would anyone have to serve three tours? (I know some Special Forces troops who have been to the desert five times!) Vietnam required one tour, and a person could volunteer for a second tour if they wanted an opportunity to get out early.

Why three or more tours? Our troops were forced to do multiple tours because chicken hawks like George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Don Rumsfield (who all declined to take part in Vietnam, but were not too proud to send your kids off to the Middle East) wanted in the worst way to avoid a draft. They were spared Vietnam tours due to family privilege, but all were in college during the draft protests of the sixties - and none wanted to see those types of events soaking up valuable newsprint or television air time. That was not the story they wanted told. "Stop Loss," the practice of not allowing soldiers to exit the service when their enlistments were up, was another form of this back door draft.

Sgt. Russell's unit apparently did everything right. According to some news sources, his superiors recognized signs that he was losing it. They took his weapon and had him escorted to the mental health clinic. Once inside, the angry sergeant got into a loud disagreement and was told to leave. Somewhere outside of the clinic he acquired another weapon, reentered the clinic, and opened fire. Where did he get another weapon? Hey, it's Iraq, a country where guns are as ubiquitous as grains of sand.

Two of the casualties were supposedly doctors, one Navy and the other Army. I've known several Army doctors (psychiatrists) who served in Iraq, as well as countless combat soldiers from Ft. Campbell, and I am, quite obviously, hoping that none of my friends or acquaintances were among the victims - but whoever died, they were friends, and relatives, and loved ones of many, many people.

I can't bring this to a close without folding in the case of Steven Green, a former Army private who was convicted last week of masterminding the murder of an Iraqi family and the rape of their young daughter. Green was only on his first tour of Iraq, but he obviously did not have the psychological strength to deal with it - a fact that should have been caught as he was trying to enlist. But we had quotas to meet - and an honest draft to avoid.

And I have to take one swipe at Texas, the home of record of Sgt. John M. Russell and Pvt. Steven Green. Texas is pure testosterone - a place where any seven-year-old boy who isn't a sissy is expected to be learning how to play football, and every ten-year-old male has at least two guns and an NRA membership card. Football and killing things. If there are any better indicators of emerging manhood, I'd like to know what they are. (Somehow George Bush missed the macho boat, though. He went to college and became a cheerleader, and then graduated and hid from the war.)

The killings at Camp Liberty this week marked the fifth incident of the Oil War in which one of our own has gunned down his comrades. The gun advocates will quickly point out that guns don't really kill people (and other assorted horse shit), and the fuzzy headed liberals will argue with equal fervor that those young people are not responsible because the war is so damned loud and wrong and stoked with machismo that no one could hear their cries for help.

So, if they guns can't be held responsible, and the shooters were themselves victims, who then is to blame?

My vote goes to the chicken hawks: Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfield! Boys, you broke it, and damn you all - now you own it!

Peace, brothers and sisters. It's the only real answer!