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Monday, March 19, 2007

The fantasy of the stoic warrior
Posted by Jill | 6:47 AM
Perhaps more than any other war, the Iraq War is steeped in the American mythos of the stoic warrior; the manly, macho man with a gun, doing his patriotic duty and then returning home to a life of quiet stoicism. It's a myth perpetrated by such well-meaning folks as Tom Brokaw in his "Greatest Generation" books, Clint Eastwood in his 2006 WWII diptych Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, and over fifty years of war movies. It's an image nurtured and fostered by a president parading around in macho military drag and a chickenhawk vice president whose obsession with death permeates every speech.

The Vietnam war should have taught us what happens when a country sends its young off to a war without point, a war without end, a war based on lies. Nearly a third of Vietnam veterans have soffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder at some point in their lives.

With today's increased knowledge about and awareness of mental illness, one would think that more troubled returning soldiers would have access to and seek treatment. But the old myths of the Stoic Warrior do not die easily. As early as 2004, as many as 1 in 8 soldiers returning from Iraq were showing evidence of PTSD. A study published in the March 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine reported that nearly a third of veterans returning from Afghanistan were diagnosed with some form of mental illness.

We've seen how the Bush Administration treats the physical injuries of the soldiers it has sent into these wars. The care of wounded veterans has been held by this bunch to be less important than the desire of Dick Cheney to stuff his pockets with more and more texpayer cash by awarding expensive contracts to the company which still compensates him.

But there is a very real toll that these troubled returning veterans are suffering, one which flies in the face of the Myth of the Stoic Warrior, and therefore one which the Administration wants to just hide.

Bob Herbert writes about one of them today:

The war in Iraq began four years ago today. Fans at sporting events around the U.S. greeted the war and its early “shock and awe” bombing campaign with chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”

Jeffrey Lucey, who turned 22 the day before the war began, had a different perspective. He had no illusions about the glory or glamour of warfare. His unit had been activated and he was part of the first wave of troops to head into the combat zone.

A diary entry noted the explosion of a Scud missile near his unit: “The noise was just short of blowing out your eardrums. Everyone’s heart truly skipped a beat. ... Nerves are on edge.”

By the time he came home, Jeffrey Lucey was a mess. He had gruesome stories to tell. They could not all be verified, but there was no doubt that this once-healthy young man had been shattered by his experiences.

He had nightmares. He drank furiously. He withdrew from his friends. He wrecked his parents’ car. He began to hallucinate.

In a moment of deep despair on the Christmas Eve after his return from Iraq, Jeffrey hurled his dogtags at his sister Debra and cried out, “Don’t you know your brother’s a murderer?”

Jeffrey exhibited all the signs of deep depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Wars do that to people. They rip apart the mind and the soul in the same way that bullets and bombs mutilate the body. The war in Iraq is inflicting a much greater emotional toll on U.S. troops than most Americans realize.

The Luceys tried desperately to get help for Jeffrey, but neither the military nor the Veterans Administration is equipped to cope with the war’s mounting emotional and psychological casualties.

On the evening of June 22, 2004, Kevin Lucey came home and called out to Jeffrey. There was no answer. He noticed that the door leading to the basement was open and that the light in the basement was on. He did not see the two notes that Jeffrey had left on the first floor for his parents:

“It’s 4:35 p.m. and I am near completing my death.”

“Dad, please don’t look. Mom, just call the police — Love, Jeff.”

The first thing Mr. Lucey saw as he walked down to the basement was that Jeff had set up an arrangement of photos. There was a picture of his platoon, and photos of his sisters, Debra and Kelly, his parents, the family dog and himself.

“Then I could see, through the corner of my eye, Jeff,” said Mr. Lucey. “And he was, I thought, standing there. Then I noticed the hose around his neck.”


Here's another one, this one from January 2006:

By his own admission Douglas Barber, a former army reservist, was struggling. For two years since returning from the chaos and violence of Iraq, the 35-year-old had battled with his memories and his demons, the things he had seen and the fear he had experienced. Recently, it seemed he had turned a corner, securing medical help and counselling.

But last week, at his home in south-eastern Alabama, the National Guardsman e-mailed some friends and then changed the message on his answering machine. His new message told callers: "If you're looking for Doug, I'm checking out of this world. I'll see you on the other side." Mr Barber dialled the police, stepped on to the porch with his shotgun and - after a brief stand-off with officers - shot himself in the head. He was pronounced dead at the scene.


And another:

It took two years of hell to convince him, but finally Jonathan Schulze was ready.

On the morning of Jan. 11, Jonathan, an Iraq war veteran with two Purple Hearts, neatly packed his US Marine Corps duffel bag with his sharply creased clothes, a framed photo of his new baby girl, and a leather-bound Bible and headed out from the family farm for a 75-mile drive to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in St. Cloud, Minn.

[snip]

And so, with his father and stepmother at his side, he confessed to an intake counselor that he was suicidal. He wanted to be admitted to a psychiatric ward.

But, instead, he was told that the clinician who prescreened cases like his was unavailable. Go home and wait for a phone call tomorrow, the counselor said, as Marianne Schulze, his stepmother, describes it.

When a clinical social worker called the next day, Jonathan, 25, told again of his suicidal thoughts and other symptoms. And then, with his stepmother listening in, he learned that he was 26th on the waiting list for one of the 12 beds in the center's ward for post-traumatic stress disorder sufferers.

Four days later, on Jan. 16, he wrapped a household extension cord around his neck, tied it to a beam in the basement, and hanged himself.


And another:

It took several months of pushing, but finally, Chris Dana was ready.

The 23-year-old veteran of the Iraq war, who served with the 163rd Infantry Battalion, Montana National Guard, agreed to see a counselor for post-combat stress.


Members of his family, concerned for months about his change in behavior, believed they were starting to get through to him. Their son and brother promised to seek the help they all knew he so desperately needed.

Then Dana canceled the appointment. He began screening his calls. He stopped showing up at drill with the National Guard. He quit his job at Target, cleaned his car and the trailer he shared with a friend. And then, on March 4, he shut himself into his bedroom, put a blanket over his head, and shot himself.


Joshua Omvig was another one.

Paul Rieckhoff has more on the Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act (S. 479 and HR. 327), to mandate addressing the problem of mental health treatment in the military.

I realize that facing the very real toll that this war is taking on even those soldiers who manage to come home in one piece means bidding farewell to the Hollywood images of the strong, invincible good-guy warrior that have certainly and obviously fed George W. Bush's lust to fight a battle using other people's blood. But as we should have remembered from Vietnam, the people our leaders sent to fight war are flesh and blood human beings who deserve better than to have their souls ripped out of them by a military and a government that cares not a whit for them, and then be sent home to try to make their way without any support. If that means we have to finally put a stake in the heart of the warrior myth, so be it.

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