Mental health groups call on President Obama to recognize military personnel who commit suicide

[sabra]

Source: Chicago Trib

The American Psychiatric Assn. on Tuesday urged President Obama to reverse a long-standing policy of withholding condolence letters to the families of U.S. servicemen and women who commit suicide.

"A reversal of this policy to allow condolence letters to family members will not only help to honor the contributions and lives of these servicemen and women, but will also send a message that discriminating against those with mental illness is not acceptable," said Dr. Carol A. Bernstein, president of the nation's leading organization of psychiatric specialists.

The APA's appeal comes amid an escalating suicide crisis within the armed forces. A recent surge of suicides among U.S. military personnel has punctuated already record suicide rates over the last five years within the ranks of U.S. service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, recently predicted that the mental health emergency among those who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan is far from over: With the return home of thousands of U.S. troops after multiple deployments, "I think we are going to see significant increases in the challenges we have in terms of our families," Mullen told reporters recently.

In an effort to persuade service members to seek help for emotional problems, the military has been struggling to remove the stigma that psychiatric care has long held within the ranks of the armed forces. In calling for the recognition at the highest level, the American Psychiatric Assn. appears to be pressing the military to do more to de-stigmatize those who seek help for mental illness.

Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/la-heb-military-suicide-101210,0,5007253.story

[Karenina]

1. . .

[Wickerman]

2. kick

:kick:

[tomm2thumbs]

3. what a most-horrible policy in the first place - WTF???

disgusting to the core

[nolabear]

4. Yes. Yes. YES. It's high time they treated military personnel as human beings.

It's been a problem forever. We want warriors, not people. We want to delude ourselves into believing that soldiers are not mere human beings who think and feel and have all the vulnerabilities that all human beings have. And in fact the process of boot camp is designed to select for those who can bury that part of themselves most effectively and become, not men and women, but weapons. The variability of the extent of emotional damage done to these people by both the horrors of what they see and do and the extent of their injuries (Traumatic brain injury is a horror in and of itself) is nearly infinite. To pretend that they never existed when their wounds result in the desperation that creates a suicide is unconscionable, and continues the pretense that it's a flaw in them, and not the sheer wrongness of war that caused their deaths.

[Sienna86]

5. Well said, Nolabear

It is beneath human dignity to not address war itself as a material factor in these suicides. I hope President Obama hears this request from the APA and acts on it. The parents of some of these soldiers who died of suicide have already made such a request earlier this year.

[Solly Mack]

6. k/r

[mopinko]

7. oh, man, that is just incredibly disgusting. old time, i know

probably just something that has been carried along without thought. but jesus h. christ.
let's all move into the 21st century, eh?