“Our budget proposal provides the resources necessary to continue our aggressive pursuit of President Obama’s two over-arching goals for Veterans,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki. “First, the requested budget will help transform VA into a 21st century organization. And second, it will ensure that we approach Veterans’ care as a lifetime initiative, from the day they take their oaths until the day they are laid to rest.”
The $125 billion budget request, which has to be approved by Congress, includes $60.3 billion for discretionary spending ( mostly health care ) and $64.7 billion in mandatory funding ( mostly for disability compensation and pensions ).

“VA’s 2011 budget request covers many areas but focuses on three central issues that are of critical importance to our Veterans – easier access to benefits and services, faster disability claims decisions, and ending the downward spiral that results in Veterans’ homelessness,” Shinseki said.

Reducing Claims Backlog

The president’s budget proposal includes an increase of $460 million and more than 4,000 additional claims processors for Veterans benefits. This is a 27 percent funding increase over the 2010 level.

The 1,014,000 claims received in 2009 were a 75 percent increase over the 579,000 received in 2000. Shinseki said the Department expects a 30 percent increase in claims – to 1,319,000 – in 2011 from 2009 levels.

One reason for the increase is VA’s expansion of the number of Agent Orange-related illnesses that automatically qualify for disability benefits. Veterans exposed to the Agent Orange herbicides during the Vietnam War are likely to file additional claims that will have a substantial impact upon the processing system for benefits, the secretary said.

“We project significantly increased claims inventories in the near term while we make fundamental improvements to the way we process disability compensation claims,” Shinseki said.

Long-term reduction of the inventory will come from additional manpower, improved business practices, plus an infusion of $145 million in the proposed budget for development of a paperless claims processing system, which plays a significant role in the transformation of VA.

Automating the GI Bill

The budget proposal includes $44 million to complete by December 2010 an automated system for processing applications for the new Post-9/11 GI Bill. VA also plans to start development next year of electronic systems to process claims from other VA-administered educational programs.

The Post-9/11 GI Bill authorizes the most extensive educational assistance opportunity since the passage of the original GI Bill in 1944. Over $1.7 billion in regular Post-9/11 GI Bill benefit payments have been issued since the implementation of the program on Aug. 1, 2009. In 2011, VA expects the number of all education claims to grow by 32 percent over 2009, going from 1.7 million to 2.25 million.

“To meet this increasing workload and process education claims in a timely manner, VA has established a comprehensive strategy to develop industry-standard technologies to modernize the delivery of these important educational benefits,” Shinseki said.

Eliminating Homelessness

The budget proposal includes $4.2 billion in 2011 to reduce and help prevent homelessness among Veterans. That breaks down into $3.4 billion for core medical services and $799 million for specific homeless programs and expanded medical care, which includes $294 million for expanded homeless initiatives. This increased investment for expanded homeless services is consistent with the VA secretary’s established goal of ultimately eliminating homelessness among Veterans.

On a typical night, about 131,000 Veterans are homeless. They represent every war and generation, from the “Greatest Generation” to the latest generation of Veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. To date, VA operates the largest system of homeless treatment and assistance programs in the nation.

Targeting Mental Health, Preventing Suicides

“The 2011 budget proposal continues the department’s keen focus on improving the quality, access and value of mental health care provided to Veterans,” Shinseki said.

The spending request seeks $5.2 billion for mental health, an increase of $410 million ( or 8.5 percent ) over current spending, enabling expansion of inpatient, residential and outpatient mental health services, with emphasis on making mental health services part of primary care and specialty care.

The secretary noted that one-fifth of the patients seen last year in VA’s health care facilities had a mental health diagnosis, and that the department has added more than 6,000 new mental health professionals since 2005, bringing to 19,000 the number of employees dedicated to mental health care.

The budget request will enable the department to continue expanding its programs for post-traumatic stress disorder ( PTSD ) and traumatic brain injury ( TBI ), along with the diagnosis and treatment of depression, substance abuse and other mental health problems. Shinseki called PSTD treatment “central to VA’s mission.”

The proposed spending will continue VA’s suicide prevention program. Since July 2007, the department’s suicide prevention hotline has received nearly 225,000 calls from Veterans, active-duty personnel and family members. The hotline is credited with saving the lives of nearly 7,000 people.

Reaching Rural Veterans

For 2011, VA is seeking $250 million to strengthen access to health care for 3.2 million Veterans enrolled in VA’s medical system who live in rural areas. Rural outreach includes expanded use of home-based primary care and mental health.

A key portion of rural outreach – which shows promise for use with Veterans across the country – is VA’s innovative “telehealth” program. It links patients and health care providers by telephones and includes telephone-based data transmission, enabling daily monitoring of patients with chronic problems.

The budget provides an increase of $42 million for VA’s home telehealth program. The effort already cares for 35,000 patients and is the largest program of its kind in the world.

Serving Women Veterans

The 2011 budget provides $217.6 million to meet the gender-specific health care needs of women Veterans, an increase of $18.6 million ( or 9.4 percent ) over the 2010 level. Enhanced primary care for women Veterans remains one of the Department’s top priorities. The number of women Veterans is growing rapidly and women are increasingly using VA for their health care.

Shinseki said the expansion of health care programs for women Veterans will lead to higher quality care, increased coordination of care, enhanced privacy and dignity, and a greater sense of security among women patients.

Among the initiatives for women in the 2011 budget proposal are expanded health care services in Vet Centers, increased training for health care providers to advance their knowledge and understanding of women’s health issues, and implementing a peer call center and social networking site for women combat Veterans. This call center will be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Delivering World-Class Health Care

During 2011, VA expects to treat 6.1 million patients, who will account for more than 800,000 hospitalizations and 83 million outpatient visits.

The total includes 439,000 Veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, for whom $2.6 billion is included in the budget proposal. That’s an increase of $597 million – or 30 percent – from the current budget.

The proposed budget for health care includes:

• $6.8 billion for long-term care, an increase of $859 million ( or 14 percent ) over 2010. This amount includes $1.5 billion for non-institutional long-term care;
• Expanding access to VA health care system for more than 99,000 Veterans who were previously denied care because of their incomes;
• $590 million for medical and prosthetic research; and
• Continuing development of a “virtual lifetime electronic record,” a digital health record that will accompany Veterans throughout their lives.

VA is requesting $54.3 billion in advance appropriations for 2012 for health care, an increase of $2.8 billion over the 2011 enacted amount. Planned initiatives in 2012 include better leveraging acquisitions and contracting, enhancing the use of referral agreements, strengthening VA’s relationship with the Defense Department, and expanding the use of medical technology.

Preserving National Shrines

“VA remains steadfastly committed to providing access to a dignified and respectful burial for Veterans choosing to be buried in a VA national cemetery,” Shinseki said. “This promise requires that we maintain national cemeteries as shrines dedicated to the memory of those who served this nation in uniform.”

The requested $251 million for cemetery operations and maintenance will support more than 114,000 interments in 2011, a 3.8 percent increase over 2010. In 2011, the department will maintain 8,441 acres with 3.1 million gravesites. The budget request includes $37 million to clean and realign an estimated 668,000 headstones and repair 100,000 sunken graves.

Building for the Future

$1.15 billion requested for major construction for 2011 includes funding for medical facilities in New Orleans; Denver; Palo Alto, Calif.; Alameda, Calif.; and Omaha, Neb. Also budgeted for 2011 are major expansions and improvements to the national cemeteries in Indiantown Gap, Pa.; Los Angeles; and Tahoma, Wash., and new burial access policies that will provide a burial option to an additional 500,000 Veterans and enhance service in urban areas.

A requested budget of $468 million for minor construction in 2011 would fund a wide variety of improvements at VA facilities.

The Washington Post reports, the U.S. military has reprimanded an unusually large number of commanders for battlefield failures in Afghanistan in recent weeks, reflecting a new push by the top brass to hold commanders responsible for major incidents in which troops are killed or wounded, said senior military officials.

This new change in military policy marks a departure for the U.S. military, which until recently has been reluctant to second-guess commanders whose decisions might have played a role in the deaths of soldiers in enemy action. Disciplinary action has been more common in cases in which U.S. troops have injured or killed civilians.

In response to the recent reprimands, some military officials have argued that casualties are inevitable in war and that a culture of excessive investigations could make officers risk-averse.

“This is a war where the other side is trying, too,” said one Army officer who commanded troops in Afghanistan and requested anonymity in order to speak freely.

As many as five battlefield commanders have received letters of reprimand in the past month or have been the subject of an investigation by a general who recommended disciplinary action. A sixth commander received a less-severe formal letter of admonishment. None of the investigations or letters of reprimand has been released publicly.

Read the full article.

The American Legion, the largest veteran group and Veterans of Foreign Wars spokesmen told The Washington Times on Wednesday their groups do not want to see military readiness disrupted while the armed forces are fighting two wars. The two groups have more than 4 million members combined.

“We support ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ and the position is, now, since we are still fighting two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, now is not the time to extend ourselves with a new social-engineering project,” Legion spokesman Joe March said. “We expect the Pentagon will very carefully examine the implications before changing any policies to maintain that highest state of readiness.”

The Legion released the wording of a resolution adopted by its executive committee last fall.

“The American Legion recognizes that the U.S. military is in the highest state of uptempo short of that experienced in World War II, and as a result there is enormous stress upon the troops in the armed forces,” it states. “Now is not the time to engage in a social experiment that can disrupt and potentially have serious impact on the conduct of forces engaged in combat. The American Legion will keep an open mind to the findings and information which results from military studies and findings. Now is the time to support the existing policy.”

The VFW similarly criticized changing the law as using the military as “a control group for social engineering.”

“The VFW is fully aware that societal norms regarding homosexuality have changed since the 1993 passage of [the ban], but what is considered acceptable by civilians must not be blindly imposed on a military institution that the great majority of society chooses not to join,”

spokesman Joe Davis said.

Congress has the final say since the prohibition was signed into federal law in 1993 by President Clinton, who approved a spinoff policy, “don’t ask, don’t tell,” which requires gay service members to keep their sexuality private or face discharge.

Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat and Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, suggested Tuesday he would attempt to repeal the ban in the 2011 defense-authorization bill, meaning voting would come before senators see Mr. Gates’ study.

But that’s still not soon enough for those who favor lifting the gay ban.

“I do think that a year is too long,” Aubrey Sarvis, who heads the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, told PBS. “It has been considered for some time. In fact, the military has been studying this for 50 years.”

A House aide involved in the repeal effort said Democrats see no reason there cannot be a vote to repeal as the study is being conducted. At this point, most Democrats seem in favor of ending the ban, while most Republicans think the current policy is working.

“Supporters of ‘dont ask, dont tell’ accuse those who would change it of trying to impose a social agenda on the military,” Mr. Levin said. “But at this point in our history, when gays and lesbians openly work and succeed in every aspect of our national life, it is the ‘dont ask, dont tell’ policy that reflects a social agenda out of step with the everyday experience of most Americans.”

Gays received another boost Wednesday when Colin L. Powell, who supported the ban when he was Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman in 1993, announced he backs Mr. Gates’ study approach. But he stopped short of saying the law should be changed.

“I strongly believe that this is a judgment to be made by the current military leadership and the commander in chief,” Mr. Powell said. “It is also a judgment Congress must make. For the past two years, I have expressed the view that it was time for the law to be reviewed by Congress. I fully support the new approach presented to the Senate Armed Services Committee this week.”

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WASHINGTON — The Army staff sergeant knew something was seriously wrong when he still couldn’t sleep weeks after returning from Afghanistan. But he never considered going to Army psychiatrists.

“There’s still too much of a stigma in the military with seeing a therapist,” said the solider, who asked to remain anonymous. “People are going to call you psycho. Even if people just see you going into the mental health offices, they’re going to think you’re crazy.”

The sergeant did get help, but through the non-profit counseling organization Give an Hour. He’s been seeing a psychiatrist for nearly two years now, after duty hours and without his colleagues’ knowledge.

Military officials have redoubled efforts over the last year to encourage troops like that solider to seek therapy for a range of post-combat mental health issues, before they grow into destructive habits or criminal behavior. But most of those efforts have focused on ways to pull troops into military counseling programs, and outside groups say those official programs still lack the compassionate, trustworthy approach needed to appeal to those suffering from psychological trauma.

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The problem is literally from floor to ceiling inside Roanoke’s Poff Federal Building. According to a report uncovered by our Lynchburg newsroom the News and Advance, nearly 11,000 folders were found sitting on top of full file cabinets. That was during an inspection between August 25 and September 2.

In the report by the Va’s Inspector General, an engineer states the load on floors 10, 11 and 12 of the 14 story building is double what is considered safe. The load was determined to be 160 pounds per square foot, twice the 80 pounds per square foot recommended limit.

That’s heavy enough to cause a potential collapse. The engineer mentions the possibility of structural damage that would threaten the safety of the building and people inside.

“It’s just outrageous. We’ve got to deal with this backlog.“, says Rep. Tom Perriello. As a member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, Congressman Perriello demanded this inspection. “We’re certainly upping the inspections.“, says Perriello.

The Inspector General’s office told us on the phone they hope to get the VA regional office inspections on the same timetable as VA hospitals, every three years. A spokeswoman tells us this was not a surprise inspection, but was on very short notice.

The U.S. General Services Administration oversees the upkeep of federal properties including the Poff Building. When we called the administration’s Philadelphia Headquarters to ask for an interview about the structural risk found in Roanoke, we were referred to an office inside the Poff Building. When we called there, we were referred back to Philadelphia. Our request was eventually denied.

Roanoke office director William Nicholas responded to the Inspector General on December 30. Nicholas said 40 to 60 percent of the file cabinets would be moved from the Poff Building to an off-site storage facility, available in 60 days. The Inspector General spokeswoman says that’s likely 60 days from the date of his response. We do not know if that process is underway, as the VA did not return our calls for comment.

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Around 4,000 military personnel from the East Timor operation and Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts have put in a claim after being injured or developing illnesses and conditions in the course of their deployment.

But Mr Griffin says soldiers are encouraged to make claims on all injuries so they are properly documented in case they develop related conditions further down the track.

“We estimate between 25,000 to 30,000 Australians have been deployed across conflicts [over the past decade],” he said.

“Of those injures, many are in fact minor, although quite a few are in fact very serious.

“What we’re committed to do is make sure that we’re providing those who have injuries and those who have wounds with the support and help that they need.

“That means they’ve got to put the claims in and we’ve got to consider them to make sure they get the health care they deserve.”

The National President of the Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia Ron Coxon says the Department of Veterans Affairs has a “fair bit” of bureaucracy.

He has urged those putting in claims to seek help from an ex-service organisation, because an injury or condition they have now may cause other illnesses that will need treatment in the decades to come.

“If the wrong thing is put on a claim, if the wording is wrong or whatever, then it can affect the outcome of a claim,” he said.

“If we can get it right at the primary level it saves all the stress and ongoing expense of having appeals at higher levels.”

Mr Coxon says while he has “some concerns” with the department he is in a constant dialogue with the Government who has been receptive to matters raised.

But he says the Government must consider the ongoing costs of deployments once they are over.

“When governments talk about committing troops to Afghanistan, Iraq and those sorts of things, one of the things we have reminded the Government of is don’t just consider the cost of going over there for those conflicts. You must consider the cost after of the treatment of the personnel involved.”

Neil James of the Australian Defence Association agrees and points out that on the day troops were first deployed to Afghanistan veterans against previous wars were protesting against inadequate pensions.

“These problems are not new,” he said.

Opposition Defence spokesman Bob Baldwin says the Government must ensure soldiers are rehabilitated after injury so they can stay in the Defence Force.

“Many ex-ADF personnel, who have been medically discharged, have approached me and said they would like nothing more than to remain within the ADF and to continue serving their country,” Mr Baldwin said.

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The Fallen Heroes Project by the Michael G. Reagan Portrait Foundation makes its debut at Arlington National Cemetery’s Visitors Center on Tuesday, Jan. 19th at 3 p.m.

All are welcome to attend! For more information about the project, please visit http://www.fallenheroesproject.org. The project will be on display at the Visitors Center for several months.

On Dec. 23, a week after his 31st birthday, Gokool transitioned from survivor to victim. Relatives say he died in his bed, apparently during one of the violent panic attacks that had plagued him since the incident.

His younger brother found Gokool about 7 p.m. Dec. 23 in the house they shared. Medical examiners still haven’t said what killed him, but relatives believe that a deadly attack stopped his heart.

The U.S. Navy classified Gokool 100 percent disabled due to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The attacks came without warning, lasting from a few minutes to hours, and because of them, Gokool couldn’t work, drive or even bowl – his favorite pastime.

“He was afraid of having an attack with a ball in his hand,” his sister, Natala, 29, said. “I’ll pick him up to go somewhere and he’ll sit in the back seat so if he has an attack, he won’t distract or hurt me.”

Gokool, say relatives, frequently stayed up all night chatting online with military buddies around the world.

During the day, he couldn’t make plans, his sister said.

“He didn’t like to be in public in strange places. … He’d be stuck in his room for days. He lived like an owl,” she said.

He talked about the explosion all the time, she said. “Anybody who would listen, he would talk.”

Born in Trinidad, Johann Gokool was 8 years old when the family moved to South Florida. His father, Ramish, is Hindu, of Indian heritage; his mother, Liah, is French Creole Catholic.

Brothers Angelo and Hamish Gokool of Homestead, and Owen Paponette of Richmond, Va., also survive.

After graduating from Southridge High School in 1997, Johann joined the U.S. Army, then transferred to the Navy and went through boot camp at Chicago’s Naval Station Great Lakes.

“He would have been a lifer,’ ” said Natala, herself an Army veteran. “He loved it so much.”

But on Oct. 12, 2000, as the Cole refueled at the port of Aden, Yemen, terrorists rammed it with an explosives-filled boat, tearing a 40-foot gash in the hull and triggering deadly fires.

Gokool was in the mess hall.

“When the explosion went off, everything was in slow motion, like a movie,” he told The Miami Herald in 2005. “My body spun around and I could smell smoke and fuel.”

He fell four stories into an engineering room, where he lay unconscious for half an hour. When he awoke, he tried to climb into an escape trunk: a four-story ladder inside a metal tube.

Then he realized his legs were mangled.

“I don’t want to die here,” he told himself as he inched up the ladder, hand over hand.

At the top, he found himself trapped by a damaged steel door. He banged on it until rescuers found him.

His family saw the news on television.

“The same day, I knew he was alive,” Ramish Gokool said, “but (Navy officials) never told us the extent of the injuries.”

Johann was flown to a military hospital in Germany, then to the Naval Medical Center Portsmouth in Virginia. Gangrene was spreading up his left leg.

“Johann made the decision to take the leg off,” said his father, a police officer in Trinidad and security guard in South Florida. “That took such a weight off me.”

President Bill Clinton visited the hospital, and shook Johann Gokool’s hand.

“The president … told me to hang in there,” Gokool told The Herald. “I told him not to worry, that I’d make it, and to prove it, I’d open a nightclub and he’d be the first musician I’d invite so he could watch me dance on one leg while he played the sax. I mean, I was on morphine at the time.”

As he recovered, Gokool learned to get around on a prosthetic leg – three, actually, his father said: one for walking, one for running track, one for swimming. And he sought PTSD treatment at the Veterans’ Administration Medical Centers in Miami and Homestead.

They tried hypnosis and a hyperbaric chamber, Ramish Gokool said, but nothing helped. Several years ago, Johann stopped taking mood-altering medications because of the side effects, Natala said.

When he was awake, the episodes were generally mild, she said. When they struck in his sleep, he would thrash uncontrollably.

“We had to restrain him,” said Natala, project coordinator for a Miami architecture firm. “Once, he got loose and hit me with such force I went through the (open) front window.”

Later, he’d have no memory of the incidents.

“When he was doing well, he was outgoing,” she said. “He spoke to everyone and was very friendly,” a practical joker who would play tricks with his prosthetic leg.

“When he wasn’t doing well, it was physically exhausting.”

When he could, Gokool spoke to school kids about overcoming adversity. He played cards on Monday evenings, and had an on-again, off-again relationship with a longtime girlfriend.

He loved Buffalo wings, Caribbean dishes like curried crab and shrimp, and all kinds of music, from German punk rock to a bagpipe version of Amazing Grace to Sean “Diddy” Combs’ raps.

He was clean-cut and preppy, Natala said. “He didn’t own a pair of jeans.”

Drenched in Davidoff’s Cool Water cologne, he’d declare: “I want to look sharp and smell good.”

The family plans to take his ashes to Arlington National Cemetery, where the Cole dead lie in a special section.

“He always said he wanted to be interred with his buddies up there,” his father said.

Source

Members of the armed forces wishing to use their military education benefits to provide financial assistance for their spouse or dependent(s) have little time to elect that option.

The last day to transfer educational entitlements under the Defense Department’s Post-9/11 G.I. Bill is Dec. 31. This deadline applies to Sailors who are in need of an exception to the reenlistment policy. This exception allows for short term extensions to be used to satisfy the required service obligation. Beginning Jan. 1, 2010, all enlisted servicemembers who wish to transfer entitlement to a family member must reenlist for the time required to meet the service obligation, in accordance with current reenlistment policy and procedures.

Under the new bill, which took effect Aug. 1, service members with at least six years on active duty or in the selected reserves are entitled to transfer all or the remaining of their educational benefits to a spouse or dependent.

Senior Chief Navy Career Counselor (SW) Veronica Holliday, Navy Region Southwest retention advisor said that service members who are interested in transferring their benefits need to take proper steps to do so.

“The active-duty service member must ensure their family member is enrolled in DEERS (Defense Eligibility Enrollment Reporting System and is eligible for benefits, at the time of transfer to receive educational benefits.”

The option could possibly lift a huge financial load for a service member paying their child’s college tuition, Holliday added. “The same would be true for a spouse benefiting from the paid tuition.”

Additional guidelines are outlined in NAVADMIN 203/09. The message states that a service member must:

* –Agree to serve four additional years in the armed forces from the date of election; or
* –Must have served at least 10 years in the armed forces and if either Navy, DoD policy. Or federal statute restricts the member from committing to four additional years; members must agree to serve the maximum amount of time allowed by that policy or statute.

If a member becomes retirement eligible during the period of Aug. 1, 2009 thru Aug. 1, 2012, he must agree to serve the additional period below:

* –For those eligible for retirement between now and Aug. 1, 2010, a one-year obligation is required.
* –For those eligible for retirement on or after Aug. 1, 2010 and before Aug. 1, 2011, a two-year obligation is required.

Service members with an approved retirement date prior to July 1, 2010, do not need to obligate any additional service.

Holliday added that once a service member has elected to transfer their entitlements, it cannot be reversed. “However, certain changes between designated family members can be made, such as changing the months of benefits.”

Service members who have been discharged or retired from the armed forces prior to Aug. 1 are not eligible for the option.

To make the education transfer, visit https://www.dmdc.osd.mil/TEB/. Currently, you must use an Internet Explorer browser to access the site.

For additional details and if the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill is your best option, log onto http://wwwgibill.va.gov.

NOTE: The information on deadline requirements has been updated as of 11:15 a.m. PST.

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Emotional pain, depression, and angst among US soldiers seeing multiple deployments in war zones are much more common than the Pentagon has reported, a new Department of Veterans Affairs survey says.

Soldiers facing multiple deployments, moreover, are at least three times more likely to anonymously report problems of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than are those with a single deployment, according to the study published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health.

Coming as 30,000 more troops are being sent to Afghanistan, the findings in a study of nearly 3,000 New Jersey National Guardsmen are likely to spur additional debate over military and societal response to America’s heavy dependence on volunteer soldiers for repeated deployments in two wars.

The findings also raise questions about the military’s ability – and willingness – to properly screen soldiers for combat-related problems that could limit their effectiveness in war zones, writes Anna Kline, lead author of the VA study.

“The Pentagon has tried to downplay these problems, and now it’s a moral and strategic outrage that we’ve got on our hands,” says Lawrence Korb, assistant defense secretary in the Reagan administration and now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington. “They’re in essence playing catch-up.”
Prescription drug abuse a related problem

Still, the Pentagon does not have its head in the sand about the effects of turnstile deployments on both enlisted men and National Guard troops. A study of 28,000 troops released by the Pentagon on Wednesday acknowledged that 20 percent had abused prescription drugs, mostly painkillers, and that the number of troops experiencing PTSD has gone from 9 percent in 2005 to 13 percent in 2008.

The new VA study, however, says that up to 30 percent of soldiers seeing multiple deployments have psychological problems, including post-traumatic stress.

The study points out a potentially key caveat: National Guard troops may not be as well equipped to handle multiple deployments as are enlisted troops.

Another issue is the “buck up, soldier” attitude in the Army and Marine Corps. The VA survey finds that 53 percent of those who anonymously reported deployment-related problems did not let the Army know, fearing “mental health stigma” from officers and fellow soldiers. Moreover, 90 percent of soldiers who screened positive for alcohol dependence reported receiving no treatment in the past 12 months.

Recently, reports of suicides by active-duty soldiers and newly returned veterans have alarmed military commanders enough to start “spiritual resilience” campuses at places like Fort Hood, in Texas. The Pentagon has also established a new suicide hot line with an online chat option. Moreover, military officials report that all VA hospital patients are now screened for PTSD and are seen by professionals within two weeks of a diagnosis.

But the Army has also struggled to increase the time between deployments as the US mounts a new offensive in Afghanistan. Relatively calm Iraq, too, could flare back up, putting renewed stress on the volunteer force.

The VA study confirms what many mental health professionals have been warning of for years: the cumulative effects of a nation relying on a relatively few volunteers to fight what’s now the longest-lasting war in modern US history fought without a draft. Currently, 38 percent of the fighting force has seen two deployments and 10 percent has seen three or more.
Difficulties increase with each deployment

“The difficulties with combat stresses increase with each deployment, and now we have people that have been there five, six times and we’re going to be sending them back again,” Dr. Judith Broder, a psychiatrist who runs the Soldiers Project, a nonprofit group that helps veterans, told the Whittier (Calif.) Daily News recently. “I don’t think we’re ready.”

The VA study says another problem is that soldiers known by the Pentagon to be struggling mentally and physically are too often being redeployed. The Pentagon has reported that 43,000 medically unfit soldiers were pressed into service between 2003 and 2008, a practice which the Office of the Army Surgeon General warns can have adverse effects on the ability of soldiers to carry out their duties.

“Screening programs and mobilization trainings remain imperfect mechanisms for identifying and insuring treatment of psychologically impaired soldiers,” Ms. Kline writes. “It is important, therefore, for military and veteran authorities to develop mechanisms for the truly confidential and accessible … treatment of mental and behavioral health problems … and to examine existing policies regarding multiple deployments of troops.…”

One available but politically unpopular solution to the grinding stress on the volunteer force is the draft, Mr. Korb says. The mandatory US Selective Service system currently has 5 million able-bodied young Americans who could be called up, he notes.

The other option is to simply endure what’s being played out now, he says.

“People are being sent back that don’t have the required time home, and that’s why we need to face up to this,” he says. “These are battle-hardened guys, no doubt about it, but you do have this other aspect [of psychological trauma for some soldiers] and it’s going to be dogging them for years.”

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