In our view: Protect military's mental health

Opinion

Discussion

May 19, 2009

Anonymous The Joplin Globe Tue May 19, 2009, 09:18 PM CDT

Military personnel must be provided with the absolute best health care that this country can provide.

Considering the lifesaving efforts of military medicine in Iraq for the past six-plus years, the country must meet that goal for physical injuries suffered in battle.

But, mental-health care is a separate issue and one we’d like to address.

Diagnosis and treatment of physical injuries in a war zone tests the limits of medicine in some cases, but is straightforward. A young soldier is shot in the chest. The hole is there and blood flows. Medics and doctors push the limits of medical technology to save the life.

Not so with mental health. What happens when a soldier suffers psychic trauma that incapacitates him or her? How is it diagnosed accurately and appropriate treatment rendered? When does such behavior cross the line between “good order and discipline” and deteriorating mental health?

These are questions we believe the military must now address following the shooting of five people in a clinic on the outskirts of Baghdad. Sgt. John M. Russell, 44, has been charged with five counts of murder. As we understand the situation, the field commander accurately diagnosed the mental condition of the soldier as a danger to himself or others, immediately disarmed him and referred him for treatment. The soldier went to the field clinic. He was probably afraid for his reputation, angry, depressed, and paranoid perhaps, and his behavior in the clinic was evidently outrageous. The clinic reportedly kicked him out for his behavior. The distraught soldier obtained a readily available weapon, returned to the clinic and is now charged with murder.

Forget combat for a moment and consider the infamous postal worker who goes “postal” or the young student who goes on a killing spree. Much remains to be accomplished by the mental-health community in all areas of life, not just in the military, to prevent mental illness from destroying or radically disrupting all lives.

As to the military, we must consider the extraordinary demands of military service by an all-volunteer force. The solution in that case seems to us to be more rigorous screening at the entry and intermediate training level before combat assignments. Simply stated, boot camp and intermediate training must be pure hell to weed out those with mental-health weaknesses before sending them into high-stress combat.

It is an extraordinarily complex problem both for the military and society as a whole. Just as military medicine has admirably made great strides in physical trauma cases, it is confronted with a similar mental-health situation that requires the same kind of progress.

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In our view: Protect military's mental health

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