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.

President Barack Hussein Obama!

by Pa Rock
Proud American

Today has been glorious! George Bush was packed up and flown out of Washington (sadly sans tar and feathers!), Dick Cheney was pushed away from the world's power center in a wheelchair, and Barack Hussein Obama placed his hand on Abraham Lincoln's Bible and a few brief words later became the leader of the free world! The symbolism was huge!

America, at long last, was able to breathe a massive sigh of relief!

Like most of America, I watched the inauguration on television. Unlike most of America, however, I viewed the ceremony from a military installation with uniformed service members sitting in the room. And even though Republicans like to behave as though our military is their own personal property, I'm here to tell you that just ain't so. Many young troops are just as excited about the promise of a President Obama as their civilian counterparts. Surveys taken before the election, in fact, revealed that a majority of troops serving in the Bush's Oil War supported the election of Barack Obama.

Will this be a pro-active government? For a quick answer to that question, check out this site: www.whitehouse.gov The Obama team had it completely converted to their administration within minutes of their man taking the oath of office. What a joy to have a government that cares for us and is eager to make change!

That's all! I'm so happy tonight that I can't think or type! What a glorious day this has been!

Piss Off, Joe!

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Senator Joseph Lieberman, a once prominent Democrat who rose to the heights of being Al Gore's running mate in 2000, has been on a downward spiral since he became a cheerleader for the Oil War in Iraq way back in 2003. His ardent support of that ill-conceived and misguided military misadventure resulted in him losing the Democratic primary election in Connecticut in 2006.

In order to save his Senate seat, Lieberman ran as an independent and managed to defeat the Democratic and Republican candidates. He came back to an evenly split Senate as an independent and caucused with the Democrats, allowing them to keep the chairmanship of all of the Senate committees, and in return allowing Lieberman to remain chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. It was a classic marriage of convenience: the Democrats needed Lieberman to stay in control, and Lieberman needed the Democrats to remain relevant.

But then came the 2008 Presidential election. For months Joe Lieberman has served as John McCain's right hand man, joining him in public appearances, coaching him on Middle East fine points - like the differences between Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims, and probably checking the water temperature in the bathtub before McCain got in.

Not only was Joe not supporting the Democratic ticket, he was actively campaigning against them! That should be it - marriage over! But for some inexplicable reason, Harry Reid seems to be hesitating about taking Lieberman's Homeland Security chairmanship away from him. The Democrats have a solid majority now and no longer have to pander to two-faced Joe. The man who should have been elected Vice President as a Democrat in 2000, has now turned his back on all of those who worked so hard to get him elected. It's time to return the favor!

Harry Reid needs to call the clown into his office and fire his butt, and if he doesn't do it, the Democratic caucus in the Senate needs to do it for him. Let the old fart roam off into the wilderness and live with the Republicans. Even that is better than he deserves!

More Soaking of the Poor

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

A regular reader wrote in today to mention another way that some banks stick it to the poor. It is a process called a minimum balance fee - a special charge that is imposed on your account if you fail to maintain a certain amount of money in your account. So the poor, who are often lucky to have any balance at all, get dinged with an extra fee if they can't maintain the necessary amount.

The particular bank that he was talking about was Bank of America, a money-grubbing monster that charges a monthly "maintenance fee" of $20 on any checking account that fails to maintain a $2,000 balance. An average family that struggles from paycheck to paycheck can just about plan on donating $240 to the gargantuan Bank of America every year. That makes for a very lucrative income stream that doesn't pose any burden on the bank's wealthier customers.

It sounds to me like Bank of America is redistributing the wealth - sending it from the poor to the rich!

And here's another example of wealth redistribution, straight from today's headlines. Exxon-Mobile reported its best quarterly profits ever - $14.5 billion! The poor use just as much gas as the rich to drive to work every day, and often more considering that their raggedy-assed vehicles seldom operate at maximum fuel efficiency. Why can't a good portion of that obscene profit be used to lower prices at the pump? Or why can't fuel taxes be reduced and replaced with a stiff and meaningful tax on the corporate profits of the oil companies? Why must the public pay taxes to support the Oil War when it is companies like Exxon-Mobile who will ultimately benefit from the fiasco in Iraq with new pipeline routes and easy access to Iraq's oil fields?

Are you poor and living in America? Take a number and bend over - someone will be on you shortly!

Racism's Last Hurrah

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

One week from tonight America will experience a watershed event: the election of a black man as the forty-fourth President of the United States. Some worry that the election of Barack Obama will loose a torrent of of racial attacks spurred on by white racists with low IQ's and poor self-concepts. (Indeed, a couple of drunken hillbillies were busted in Tennessee this week for planning to terrorize a predominantly black high school and murder one-hundred-and-two black students before assassinating Obama. These bozos did have a flare for the dramatic - they were going to commit their horrendous crimes wearing white tuxedos and top hats!) Others worry that if the election is derailed at the last minute by some rogue state officials such as the Secretary of State in Florida (2000) or the Secretary of State in Ohio (2004), angry blacks will pour into the streets seeking revenge.

And I confess to being very concerned that something bad could happen either before the election or afterwards. Some of Sarah Palin's speeches have been little more than thinly veiled incitements to riot, and McBush has given up on talking about himself, electing instead to constantly hammer away at the awful things that he thinks his opponent has planned for America.

But I have begun to feel better about the prospects of a fair election and a smooth transition of power. The Obama numbers are up in almost every demographic. He leads among old people, young people, women, and now even among white men. Polls show that he leads among veterans of Bush's Oil War and among service people currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. People are deciding across the board that he is the candidate best able to fix the economy, end the war, and restore America's image as a world leader. It's a tall order, but they recognize that Obama is the candidate with the best chance of bringing about the changes that our country so desperately needs.

National Public Radio has a correspondent on the road talking to people in swing states. Today she was in St. Louis, MO, and interviewed several people who were planning to vote for Obama. Some were older individuals who had never voted before because they felt that their votes wouldn't be counted or make a difference. Now they are all planning to vote, they are all sensing some ownership in America.

One black man who was featured said something very poignant about the long struggle for equality in this country. It follows:

"Rosa sat so Martin could walk;

Martin walked so Obama could run;

And Obama ran so our children could fly!"

Amen, brother. Amen

Body of Lies

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Saturday evening at the movies - a nice conclusion to a beautiful Arizona day!

Body of Lies is a contemporary war thriller that chased terrorists, ours and theirs, in and out of several middle eastern countries. Leonardo DiCarpio starred as an on-the-ground CIA operative whose operations were continually screwed up by his stateside handler, Russel Crowe, a suburban Washington D.C. father of young children who telephoned in mayhem while standing on the sidelines of his daughter's soccer game.

DiCaprio, one of the finest actors of his generation, was amazing as he bounced around the sands of the Middle East like a scorpion on speed. He was tough, relentless, and very, very deadly. Yet, despite his necessary brutalities, he was able to deftly demonstrate that cooperation and a sense of culture could be employed much more effectively in the war on terrorism than any amount of testosterone-soaked American machismo.

Crowe, himself an especially talented actor, never managed to animate his character with much believability or passion. His performance was so mediocre that a second-year drama student would have probably fared better. For some reason the Aussie actor was either instructed or chose to put on a lot of weight for this film, although the reason for portraying his character as an overstuffed suburbanite was never made clear. Perhaps it was to show CIA bureaucrats, and Americans in general, as slovenly consumers of the world's wealth. Whatever the logic, Crowe's excess lard was as disconcerting as his lame acting.

This movie spoke to the need to view conflict from a human perspective. The clash of ideologies was seen as an ebb-and-flo phenomenon with the human pawns left to secure their own survival. The story clung to Leonardo DiCaprio as a garment of America's potential for redemption, and he wore it with grace and honor.

Banned Books Week: Day Two War: What Is It Good For?

by Pa Rock
Cultural Commentator

I can vividly recall the most difficult book that I ever read. Joseph Heller's Catch-22 was so bewildering with its many quirky characters and numerous time shifts that I abandoned the effort to complete it twice, each time after finishing a couple of hundred pages. The third attempt was just as mind-muddling, but I resolved to stick with it and master the complex book just so that I could understand what all of the hype was about. And it was in the final hundred pages or so where all of the plots, sub-plots, snippets, and varying time perspectives came together to reveal a meaningful tale about the senselessness of war.

Joseph Heller was a bombardier with the Army Air Corps on an island just off the coast of Italy during World War II. After the War he spent the next six years writing his masterwork, Catch-22, a war story that revolved around Captain Yossarian, a bombardier for the Army Air Corps on an island just off the coast of Italy during World War II.

Heller's book was a tragic, yet humorous, examination of the horrors and shenanigans of war. His Captain Yossarian wanted nothing more than to go home. Each time he came close to completing the required number of bombing missions needed to get sent home, his colonel, who desperately wanted to be a general, would increase the requisite number of missions. (A bait-and-switch gimmick much like the one used by George Bush in the Oil War to keep troops from leaving the service after their time was up through a back-door draft called "stop-loss.")

Milo Minderbinder was the mess officer for Heller's fictional outfit. Milo saw war as a profit making venture. (Think Dick Cheney and Halliburton.) He bought and sold goods on the black market and formed a syndicate of war companies in which he and all of his friends held shares. Milo sold opportunities, and once arranged for the Germans to bomb his own unit - for a fee, of course.

And there were dozens of other strange individuals populating Yossarian's island. Woven together they told a tale of the uselessness, tragedy, and universality of war, albeit in somewhat of an absurd manner. Joseph Heller did not view war in a particularly patriotic light, and that attitude has resulted in Catch-22 often landing on lists of banned books.

Another war book that should be equally objectionable is Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, a story of the U.S. military in Vietnam. Like Catch-22, The Things They Carried was also semi-autobiographical in nature, with the central character being an Army company clerk named Tim O'Brien. It is the story of O'Brien's year in Vietnam and the people and situations he encountered. This book is much more readable than Catch-22, and every bit as good - if not better. Both books define war in less than heroic terms. I have not seen The Things They Carried on any banned book lists yet, but it is so good that I'm sure that honor will be forthcoming!

More on Pygmies

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

I had a comment from "Anonymous" on my blog last night about the shortcomings of G.W. Bush and Sarah Palin. Anonymous is my favorite correspondent, and I want to take some space tonight to reply by to what he (or she) had to say. The comment was:

I do not think it is fair to blame all that is going on in government on George Bush. The stage for what is going on was set way before he came into the presidency.

Anonymous, I agree with your statement entirely. The government is an accumulation of sins and mistakes that goes back over two hundred and thirty years. There have also been some marvelous things to come out of our national government: the emancipation of the slaves and social security are two examples.

One of the biggest problems that I have with our current President is that he has been in snooze mode for most of the past eight years and left governing to his half-wit sycophants. But, on those few occasions when he has actually been the decider, he decided wrong - take for example the Oil War in Iraq and his two choices to sit on the Supreme Court.

In the eight years that George Bush has been in office, the foxes have been given complete and unfettered access to the hen house. Anything that could be deregulated has been (hence our current economic mess for which he does deserve much credit), and our national resources have been drilled, and mined, and cut down like there was no tomorrow. The thieves clamored to get it all carted off before this administration left town. The party, they realized, would one day come to an end.

Well, the party is ending. George Bush is not responsible for everything that has happened in government during the time he was in office. Lots of people had a hand in the carnage. But he did fritter away an amazing gift (or theft, depending on your point of view): the Presidency of the United States of America. How sad for him, and how sad for us. He came in with a robust economy, and promptly sent out rebates as a way of starving social programs. Then he used a national tragedy to start a war with a country that had no involvement with that tragedy. And now four thousand American troops are dead - and many other thousands have suffered wounds, homelessness, and broken families, thousands of Iraqi children are dead or maimed, and our national prestige is in the toilet - all so that George Bush could resolve some teen angst issues that he had with his dad. What a sad waste.

I did not say George Bush was responsible for all of the ills of government. That would have been an irresponsible statement. I said that he had been a national embarrassment - and that statement is easily defensible.

It's Not About You!

by Pa Rock

This election is not about you, and it certainly isn't about me. It's not even about our kids. This election is about our grandkids and their kids and grandkids.

I am so tired of hearing people snivel about not wanting to do things to contribute to the general good because it will have no immediate, personal impact on them. And they certainly don't want to spend money now on something whose aim is to build a better tomorrow. They think that those folks living in tomorrow should take care of themselves! (And maybe they could if they didn't have to worry about paying off our debt!) This tendency to vilify any plan that would require payment today for a better tomorrow is just greed, plain and simple. What most people seem to be after is immediate gratification with the bills coming due sometime in the future. It's the notion of play now and pay later, and not the other way around.

So when an election rolls around, it's very natural for politicians to pander to the public greed. They hyperventilate about cutting taxes while bridges collapse in Minnesota, whole cities get washed away by hurricanes, and students are piled in public schools like so much cord wood. They huff and puff about ending government waste and eliminating earmarks, then rush to to public trough to grab goodies for their home district so the folks will remember them at election time. (Earmarks are only wasteful when they go to someone else's district!)

And politicians never, ever tell you the truth.

Here is some of the truths that don't get told:

1. Public services cost. If you want paved roads, bridges, schools, prisons, a standing military, law enforcement, hospitals, emergency services, clean air and water, mail delivery, Internet, telephones, railroads, indoor plumbing, and border fencing, you pay! You pay with taxes. Living in a civilized country that offers services to its citizens is a privilege. Paying the taxes that support those services is an act of patriotism.

2. If you are unhappy about the priorities that the government sets in spending your taxes, you become politically active and work to have your priorities moved to the front of the political agenda. If, for instance, spending a bazillion dollars on a phony Oil War that can't be won strikes you as wasteful, and you would rather see your money go toward something useful such as universal health care, get off of your tired butt and support candidates who think the way you do. If you sit back whining about all politicians are the same and it doesn't make any real difference who gets elected, then you deserve to live in a land where greed and patriotism are interchangeable concepts, and crap like Dear Leader rises to the top of the Federal Government.

3. Politicians play to your basest instincts: greed and fear. They are going to cut your taxes, send you a rebate, or put a major highway near land that you own. And while they themselves might not call their opponent a gay, Muslim, child molester, people connected to their campaign or their causes will see that stories like that get around. Politicians nearly always stand ready to fan the coals of baseless innuendo and lies. It is much easier to tear the other guy down than it is to build your own case through positive appeals - and Americans prefer gutter tactics anyway.

If you want change, make change happen! If you're happy with the way things are, check your meds!

Selling Out Our Veterans

by Pa Rock

I am a fan of the G.I. Bill, and moreover, I am even a product of the G.I. Bill. After serving four years in the United States Army in the early 1970s, I got out and went back to school. For the next forty-eight months the government gave me a check every month to help with my school expenses. That money provided me with the opportunity to earn two additional degrees and also put a lot of food on the table for my family. I didn't look on those monthly payments as a gift from my government, rather I saw them as deferred income. When I entered the service I did so for a complete package of benefits that included things like salary. medical and dental benefits, 30 days vacation a year, and assistance with college expenses. I gave the military four years of my time, and in return I had an expectation of collecting all that they promised me.

Congress cut back drastically on the G.I. Bill after the Vietnam debacle was over, and new enlistees were offered a much more meager package of college benefits. Congress and the President usually forget the veterans quickly once the crisis has passed.

Over the past few years the Bush administration has appeared to be absolutely inhumane in their treatment of veterans returning from the Oil War in the middle east. Many tried to get out after their enlistments were over, only to learn that they were being drafted into continued service through the back door with a program called "stop loss." Stop Loss allowed the military to keep individuals from leaving service because they were still needed for the war effort. That way Dear Leader could prance around bragging that we didn't need a draft (drafts are messy affairs that attract public demonstrations and outrage) while keeping the military ranks full by holding veterans against their will.

And when they got out, veterans were routinely hit with poor medical care in inferior facilities (Walter Reed Army Hospital, Ft. Sill - to name a couple). And then the news media began finding veterans of Dear Leader's wars living under overpasses and out on the streets. If our government had been treating dogs and cats the way it managed the needs of our brave veterans, the public outcry would have closed the capitol!

So some in Congress, seeing that the current administration was too dumb and uncaring to do right by our veterans, decided that Congress would take the lead in changing things. One idea that turned into legislation was to fund an effective G.I. Bill. Oddly enough, the hawks, those who are always ready to send other people's children into war, fought the plan. George Bush (who didn't go to Vietnam even though he let his government train him to be a fighter pilot - and who can't remember where he was in 1972) opposed it. Prick Cheney (who used five or six student deferments to stay out of Vietnam - and then managed to get Lynn pregnant so that he could also use a family deferment) opposed it. Even John McBush (who did go to Vietnam and whose son did fight in the Oil War) opposed the new G.I. Bill. And the Veteran's Administration, the agency that is supposed to look after the needs of our veterans, opposed it. (VA honchos are appointed by the President - see how that works!)

So why did these public servants oppose legislation that would be of enormous benefit to people who had actually put their lives on the line for their country (unlike Bush and Cheney)? Their stated reason was that the new G.I. Bill was too good and would cause people to get out of the service so they could go to college. (If somebody could get that load of crap trucked to the Midwest, I would like to have it spread over the pasture at my little farm in the Ozarks!)

Long story short (sort of): The bill passed and has been enacted into law. So our veterans can all rest easy knowing that they are in for some quality schooling. Well, don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen! Yesterday, in a stupefying case of passive aggressive behavior, the VA announced that it would be privatizing the implementation of the new program. They are hiring private companies to manage the G.I. Bill. (And we all know what a stellar job private companies did in managing the Oil War!)

So troops, when you are safely out of harm's way and out of uniform, and you think that you have bent over for Halliburton and Black Water for the last time - think again! They're back!

Dear John McBush

Dear John McBush,
Over the past two evenings I have written to your running mate and her daughter giving them my sage advice. And as there is still some sage left in the old cranium, I thought that I would sprinkle some your way too.

Please take what I am about to say in the spirit of constructive criticism: I believe, with every fiber of my being, that you would make a horrible President. We both know that residents of Arizona have conducted most of their U.S. Senate business through Senator Kyl for the past several years because you have been too busy cheerleading for the war, running for President, napping, and chasing tail to engage in the mundane business of legislating or assisting constituents with their issues. It is not uncommon to hear Arizonans talk about their two equine Senators - Kyl the workhorse, and McCain the show horse.

But it isn't your laziness or tom-catting that I find off-putting in the current Presidential election. Indeed we have suffered and survived lazy bastards and whore mongers living at the White House before - and undoubtedly will again. And it isn't even your insane support for the unwarranted and impossible-to-win Oil War that has me the most concerned, because we have had other dumb asses in the White House and survived them as well.

The thing that I find absolutely unforgivable about your quest to be President is your age. John, you are seventy-two years old. You are a tired old man. You are so old and so tired that you seldom campaign on weekends. The Presidency is a hard job, a job that needs to be managed by a healthy, alert, and very bright young person. It is not the type of thing that us old farts need to aspire to. Set that vanity aside and act your age!

Do you know that the brains of adult humans shrink as they get older, and that the shrinking really starts to kick into gear around the age of sixty? Remember sixty, John? It was twelve years ago! I'm sixty now, and I know that my energy level and my memory have decreased markedly over the past few years.

John, you would probably make a decent neighbor (though, please God, not mine!), but you are too old and cranky to lead the free world. Pack it in, Partner. It's time to dust off the golf cart, get rid of all those troublesome houses, and move to Sun City. You'll like it there, and if you don't, give it a couple of more years and you won't know where you're at anyway!

Yours for Obama in '08!

Pa Rock
Goodyear, AZ