It has been a tough couple of months, burrowing into the challenge of military suicides…and repeatedly coming up empty-handed. My editors seemed like Pete Chiarelli when he became the Army’s No. 2 officer nearly five years ago: determined to find a way to halt suicide in the ranks, and frustrated when it proved to be so elusive. It …
Veterans
Captains Courageous
The two soldiers couldn’t have been more different. One was young and handsome enough to be known as “Captain Brad Pitt,” a 2007 West Point graduate trained to deliver ordnance from the Army’s most terrifying flying machine, an AH-64 Apache helicopter gunship. The other was a decade older, a bomb-squad grunt who high school …
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Compen$ation: What Troops Care About
Anyone who has ever tried to calculate military income knows it’s made up of lots of moving parts – basic pay, housing, retirement, health care, assorted bonuses, etc. They’ve marched in lockstep for a long time, so defense-budget whiz Todd Harrison asked 2,600 troops: what do you care about when it comes to compensation? Such …
Blast Effects
War is action v. reaction. The insurgents got the upper hand in Iraq with their improvised explosive devices. We countered with $40 billion worth of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles. That worked for a while.
But the advantage is shrinking. Six U.S. troops, all inside a single MRAP, died Sunday in Afghanistan in the blast of a …
The Nitty-Gritty of Women at War
What are the experiences of women at war, and what to tell clinicians about how to help? I have been asked to write a textbook on this subject, so have done another canvass of the literature.
What is striking is how little …
Red, White & Jeep…
Remember in the olden days, when the Army issued soldiers Jeeps? Well now Chrysler is offering to sell specially-outfitted “Freedom” Jeeps to GIs (and apparently anyone else who wants to spend $30,000, although troops may qualify for a discount of up to $500):
Available in red, white or blue, the new Jeep Wrangler Freedom edition
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“Stolen Valor” Law Ruled Unconstitutional
The Supreme Court basically upheld President Obama’s health-care law Thursday in the final day of its term. Amid all the hubbub over that, it’s important to note they struck down another law – one that made it a crime to …
The War After the War
The Capitol was shining it its full glory Wednesday, under a beautiful sunny sky, as a crowd gathered in Senate Park to grapple with the vexing problem of PTSD and suicide among the nation’s troops.
The Army, Navy and Air …
Why Is the UK’s PTSD Rate So Much Lower Than the U.S.’s?
Among the most interesting presentations at last week’s DoD-VA Suicide Prevention conference was one titled Time Bombs or Tidal Waves? The View from Blightly. It compared and contrasted the different psychological consequences …
The Importance of Instilling Hope
The 4th Annual Department of Defense-VA suicide-prevention conference was a big deal here in the capital last week, with three days of presentations by top officials from the Pentagon and the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Health and Human Services. I put together the first military suicide-prevention conference, back in 2002. A …
Double-Whammy: PTSD and Substance Abuse
Battleland contributor Bingham Jamison, a Marine who saw action in Iraq and came home the worse for wear, is the subject of a new video by Veterans Healing Initiative. That’s a nonprofit group dedicated to getting veterans treatment for substance abuse and PTSD. “VHI offers support to veterans from all conflicts, of all ages, men and …
A Different Kind of Invisible Wound
A new documentary called The Invisible War, from award-winning filmmakers Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering, exposes a brutal reality that affects far too many within our military community. It also provides an important framework to understand the impact of military sexual assault on those who serve and their families.
It sets the stage for …