Free Republic

There were 32 Army suicides in July, the highest monthly toll ever recorded. The grim figure underscores the military’s continuing inability to find ways of preventing troubled soldiers from taking their own lives. Military officials said 22 active-duty soldiers were thought to have taken their own lives last month, along with 10 reservists. The incidents are under investigation, and it'll be several weeks before the Army definitively rules on each case. If the numbers hold up, July will be the worst month for Army suicide in two years, since the Army first began releasing monthly suicide data. The previous record...

Drugs widely prescribed to treat severe post-traumatic stress symptoms for veterans are no more effective than placebos and come with serious side effects, including weight gain and fatigue, researchers reported on Tuesday. The surprising finding, from the largest study of its kind in veterans, challenges current treatment standards so directly that it could alter practice soon, some experts said. Ten percent to 20 percent of those who see heavy combat develop lasting symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, and about a fifth of those who get treatment receive a prescription for a so-called antipsychotic medication, according to government numbers. The new...

A class action settlement announced Friday between the federal government and a group of disabled veterans will award lifetime health-care benefits to more than 1,000 veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who were discharged from the service because of post-traumatic stress disorder. In a motion filed Thursday with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the National Veterans Legal Service Program and the government jointly asked the court to approve lifetime disability retirement benefits to 1,029 veterans with PTSD who were denied those benefits upon discharge from the military following their wartime service. “It’s getting your dignity back,” said...

WASHINGTON – The PTSD Coach smartphone application (app), launched in April by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense (DoD), has already helped more than 5,000 users connect with important mental health information and resources. “This new tool is about helping Veterans and Servicemembers when and where they need it,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki. “We are encouraged so many have already downloaded this resource and hope many more will utilize this convenient tool to access VA services.” Since its launch, the PTSD Coach app has been downloaded by thousands of individuals. While...

Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled VA's mental health care system and disability claims system remain badly broken, and veterans face long delays to see doctors and obtain benefits. The Court of Appeals ordered VA to fix what it descrbed "egregious problems." VCS believes now is the time for our President, VA Secretary, and Congress to fix VA. The lengthy bureaucratic delays our veterans face must end now. The Court of Appeals concluded, "VA's unchecked incompetence has gone on long enough; no more veterans should be compelled to agonize or perish while the government fails...

"When vets seek therapy, they want a professional who can relate to soldiers in combat, and that usually means a therapist who has military experience. Without such empathy, therapy often is doomed, vets say. Because most psychologists and mental health care professionals don't have a military background, there's a void in the safety net for vets. Some veterans' organizations have stepped up, training members to help their peers, and the Soldiers Project provides free counseling from licensed professionals and veterans by phone to newly returned vets."

WASHINGTON, DC – This morning at a hearing of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, U.S. Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) heard testimony and demanded answers from government officials about lackluster and delayed mental health care treatment from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA).

Military doctors struggling to treat post-traumatic stress disorder are quietly adding a new tool to their arsenal: A controversial brain-wave therapy they say can heal troubled veterans and even send once-broken troops back into combat. Staff Sgt. Justin Roberts is one of hundreds of service members finding relief with the experimental remedy. While working at a combat hospital in Iraq for more than two years, Roberts, now 32, was exposed to the grisliest of war’s suffering. Every day he helped treat troops, captives and Iraqi civilians who suffered devastating wounds from gunfights, bombings and IED attacks. Click above to play...

This thread is in gratitude for all you veterans who put your lives at risk to fight the forces of darkness working through unwitting dupes all over the world. Colonel Monaco has put together the patriot outreach site and their Be Still exercise is simply a miracle in helping to save the lives of so many soldiers. It has actually been used in civilian version for about 50 years and now it is taking off like wildfire in the military; because it works! And no charge for you all! God bless.

SAN DIEGO (CBS 8) - A local Navy wife is desperate to find her missing husband, who has post traumatic stress disorder and hasn't been seen in days. "My whole world is collapsing because this is the guy I was going to spend the rest of my life with," says Amanda Hamilton. She and Nicholas married four and a half years ago and have two sons together. As a couple they've faced deployments, but the most recent deployment on the USS Ronald Reagan to provide humanitarian relief to Tsunami victims in Japan proved to be a tipping point, according to...

Left handed people are more affected by fear Left handed people are affected by fear far more than those who are right handed, new research has revealed. By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent 7:15AM BST 01 May 2011 Psychologists found that people who watched an eight minute clip from a scary movie suffered more symptoms associated with post traumatic stress if they were left handed than if they were right handed. When asked to recall events from the film clip, taken from near the tense climax of thriller Silence of the Lambs, left handed volunteers gave more fragmented accounts filled with...

Something may be either helpful or hurtful, depending on the intentions of the user. If I see a man limping, I can offer him a cane to help him get around, or I can use the cane to beat him bloody. An idea can be used to diagnose and treat human suffering, or it can be used to stigmatize and slander the sufferer − and increase the suffering. For example, take PTSD. Dave Grossman, Lt. Col., USA (Ret.) is a former Army Ranger who became a clinical psychologist. Having looked at combat trauma from both sides, he is a true...

WASHINGTON – Handsome and friendly, Clay Hunt so epitomized a vibrant Iraq veteran that he was chosen for a public service announcement reminding veterans that they aren't alone. The 28-year-old former Marine corporal earned a Purple Heart after taking a sniper's bullet in his left wrist. He returned to combat in Afghanistan. Upon his return home, he lobbied for veterans on Capitol Hill, road-biked with wounded veterans and performed humanitarian work in Haiti and Chile. Then, on March 31, Hunt bolted himself in his Houston apartment and shot himself.

Are you sick of seeing our troops and veterans slandered? Are you tired of hearing them called "unstable"? Are you annoyed by claims of their supposedly high rates of homicide and other violent crimes? I am. Read "An Obscene Bid to Smear Our Veterans" by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, USA (Ret.), a former Ranger and widely published psychologist. Unlike the slander-mongers, he knows what he is talking about.

Anyone that has followed my blog knows that I am passionate about helping to remove the stigma of PTS and PTSD. When I was first diagnosed (after years of denial), I still didn't really want to accept it. Honestly, I broke down into tears because now I would have to wear that label like a scarlet letter. I still had the mentality that it was a weakness. For the benefit of those that are new to my writings, let me try and sum up for you what led to my diagnosis. I was a part of the ground assault into...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — In the first combat-zone study of its kind, a research team led by Michigan State University found that soldiers with a positive outlook in the most traumatic situations were less likely to suffer health problems such as anxiety and depression. The study, which surveyed Army troops fighting in Iraq, could have implications for police officers, firefighters and others who regularly deal with traumatic events such as death. Training these first-responders to think in less catastrophic terms could help them better cope with distressing events and function more effectively in the long term, said MSU’s John Schaubroeck,...

A woman who cannot feel afraid because of a missing structure in her brain could help scientists discover treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Research published in Current Biology showed the woman felt no fear in a variety of scary situations. These included exposure to snakes and spiders, horror films and a "haunted house". The woman feels other emotions but said as an adult, she had never felt afraid. She is the first known case of someone who is unable to process fear. Researchers at the University of Iowa said her inability to feel frightened was because she is missing...

Researchers calm an overly stimulating chemical within five hours of trauma CHICAGO --- Post-traumatic stress syndrome – when a severely stressful event triggers exaggerated and chronic fear – affects nearly 8 million people in the United States and is hard to treat. In a preclinical study, Northwestern Medicine scientists have for the first time identified the molecular cause of the debilitating condition and prevented it from occurring by injecting calming drugs into the brain within five hours of a traumatic event. Northwestern researchers discovered the brain becomes overly stimulated after a traumatic event causes an ongoing, frenzied interaction between two...

David Lynch is looking to make the world a little quieter. The filmmaker behind the movies "Blue Velvet" and "Mulholland Drive" is giving $100,000 to launch Operations Warrior Wellness, an initiative to help 10,000 veterans overcome Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and other war-related illnesses through transcendental meditation, which he says creates "professional peacemakers." Backed by the likes of actors Clint Eastwood, directors George Lucas and Martin Scorsese, Mr. Lynch will announce the new program next month at a gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The stress from the front line war on terror often does not end when troopers come home. It is often difficult to fight an evil possessed enemy without that evil getting inside the good guy. But the Patriot Outreach supplies, free of charge, a highly effective calming exercise that will expunge that problem. Great for civilians too in putting one onto the path of real happiness!