A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

I'm not going to wait for President Bush to discuss this issue, or to come on TV and have a public service push to support our troops and military families who are dealing with re-integration problems. I don't think that's ever going to happen. I wish it would, but you do see now that both sides of the aisle are now looking at the issue. And they have to make changes and look at it seriously, because their constituents aren't going to tolerate anything less.

-- Ilona Meagher, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) activist and author

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Ilona Meagher doesn't have a degree in journalism (although she is working on one, even though she's already proven that she doesn't need one), but she's far ahead of all those D.C. stenographers who wouldn't know a scoop if they were ordering a cone in an ice cream store. As a self-starter, former flight attendant, she has become one of the national experts on the epidemic of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome among our GIs returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

What started as an area of personal interest became a vital book on a major problem facing our combat veterans (which of course the Busheviks would prefer to ignore), Moving a Nation to Care: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and America's Returning Troops. [0]

After interviewing Meagher, we recently met her at the Yearly Kos conference in Chicago. She's enthusiastic, impassioned, immersed in her subject matter, and enormously knowledgeable about what she writes about. Now, isn't that what you would expect of a mainstream journalist, let's say, writing for the Washington Post on national issues, but don't get?

If our media is going to be reformed and restructured to remove it from the narrow corporate frame of the mainstream media, which keeps so many issues out of the news because they might make the powers that be punish them by cutting back on tax breaks or not granting favorable regulations, it will come from citizen journalists like Ilona Meagher.

As we noted in our review of Meagher's book:

Like wounded Iraqis, GIs with PTSD are just so much collateral damage to the White House.

What makes Moving a Nation to Care [0] particularly significant is that it is grounded in personal accounts of how many GIs with PTSD arrived at where they are. This is a well-researched book that combines facts, details and personal accounts into a compelling call for assisting our own victims of a fraudulent war.

Ilona Meagher truly supports our troops and cares about their well-being as they return to a country for which the Iraq War has been more faux jingistic sloganeering than real combat.

Unlike Bush, Cheney and the self-serving pro-war, pandering GOP candidates for president, Meagher identified an injustice done to our troops and has sought to do something about it with the power of the pen.

That, our friends, is a true patriot.

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BuzzFlash: You've written a book, Moving a Nation to Care: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in America's Returning Troops. [0] In terms of the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who are returning home, how big of a problem is this?

Ilona Meagher: We won't have a clear idea, just as we didn't with the Vietnam War, until many, many years after. But we can say that, of troops that have returned and separated from service, about one-third have already come in for some form of counseling. That's not necessarily PTSD. But about 75,000 troops who have returned from combat have been given a psycho-social disorder diagnosis from the VA. Of those, about 50,000 have the PTSD diagnosis.

The thing to keep in mind about these figures, though, is the stigma. We know that many troops don't seek help, because they are worried that having something on their record about some sort of emotional problems might not allow them to get a police officer job, or a different type of job that they might want. If they're in the Special Forces, they might not get the mission. So a lot of people don't get the help that they need.

One final figure I'm going to throw out that will really show you the extent of the problem is that even of those troops who filled out the post-deployment health assessment form - PDHA [1] - and checked off that they needed some help, only 22% got follow-up care.

Traumatic brain injury is another condition that's kind of an invisible wound, and something that may not show up in x-rays. That opens up a whole other area of need.

BuzzFlash: What is the definition of post-traumatic stress disorder?

Ilona Meagher: The technical definition comes from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, or the DSM. [2] It refers to a person who's been exposed to a traumatic event, and confronted with actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others. Anyone in a traumatic situation of that kind will have a reaction, of course. With post-traumatic stress disorder, however, the person keeps reacting over an extended period of time - you continually feel as though you're still in combat, in the case of veterans who have PTSD. So two months later, if they're still having nightmares, or if they're having flashbacks to an event, or if they're having serious hyper-vigilance, and they're over-reacting on a consistent basis, that kind of becomes PTSD.

BuzzFlash: How has our Veterans' Administration been in providing services to those who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD?

Ilona Meagher: Well, some incredible reporting has affected that. For example, NPR [3] began reporting in December on what was happening at Fort Carson, and that was one of the things that really moved this issue out into the open. Briefly, soldiers that were having problems with re-integration, like that hyper-vigilance, were going to their commanders for help. But there was a stigmatization about coming forward to ask for help. There were some reports of abuse, and some troops, rather than being treated for PTSD, were kicked out of the military.

ABC also did a report on our veterans getting a personality disorder diagnosis instead of a PTSD diagnosis. If you're given a personality disorder diagnosis, that means you actually had a pre-existing condition, so the Army was saying that what you're dealing with right now doesn't have anything to do with your combat service. We're going to just have you sign this, real quick, and you won't have to go through the two year process of getting the claim reviewed and approved. You just sign this, about this personality disorder, and you'll be discharged. Of course, then they find out that they don't have access to benefits.

Then the Walter Reed story that was reported by the Washington Post in February really took this issue to a whole new level of people. Ordinary Americans really started to pick up on this story, and they realized something's wrong if even those troops that are physically injured are having trouble getting good after-care. The care at Walter Reed was always top-notch and still is. It was that after-care. It was that trying to get their claims processed. Trying to get out of limbo. That really alerted people.

Another important thing is obviously the elections last November. A divided government is a really good thing, because, prior to November, we had no PTSD hearings. Now we at least have had, on Capitol Hill, quite a few PTSD hearings, where military families are able to come forward and tell their stories. Now reviews are being done, and the VA is being pushed to move and improve the care. I am hearing some good things from people on the inside.

So the culture is slowly changing, and because of this great reporting. That's why it's important to have this issue out there.

BuzzFlash: In America, in general, mental health issues tend to historically be looked upon as a weakness. Now things have changed in the culture at large about that, and I assume they've changed somewhat in the military. But for a long time it's been an issue that Americans are uncomfortable with.

Ilona Meagher: That's a great point. I think that the best way to answer that is to actually ask the question: Is this a mental health disorder? Or is it actually something that is a natural response to an out-of-ordinary circumstance?

I am a really great fan of Edward Tick [4] and his excellent book called War and the Soul. [5] He does workshops and retreats for veterans. The reason I bring up Edward Tick is because he talks about what past cultures did to help their warriors come home. In the Western cultures, you can see that when our veterans come home, we give them maybe a parade. The Vietnam veterans didn't even get that much, but we've learned and matured as a society. We know now that the veterans need our support in order for them to be able to make their transition.

But when they return, rather than being embraced by us, they're basically segregated from us. When they come back and they go to a hospital, where do they go? To a Veterans Hospital. But other cultures embraced their warriors when they came home. For example, some Native American cultures had all types of rituals to cleanse their warriors.

Obviously, in the United States today we classify post-traumatic stress disorder as a mental health disorder officially. But I really think that, as a culture, we can start to embrace the idea that many past cultures embraced, which is that the soldiers are having a natural reaction to something that's very traumatic. And they need our support to help them through the journey.

BuzzFlash: In your book, you mention that perhaps one of the components related to PTSD has to do with the very nature of these conflicts. The soldiers who are fighting in Iraq don't necessarily know who the enemy is. When our soldiers were fighting in World War II, it was clear who the enemy was. It was a national army. Now it's different types of insurgents, and the enemy could be in the Iraqi Police Force, or they could be Shiites they work with, Sunnis they work with, Kurds, foreign fighters.

And the troops are also asked to do a lot of horrific things, as we learned at Abu Ghraib. How does that affect PTSD?

Ilona Meagher: Psychiatrist Jonathan Shay [6] has written some books and speaks about the specific components soldiers need in order for them to be able to have faith in the mission, and to be able to deal with those traumatic, really severe experiences like having to shoot somebody who turns out to have been innocent at a checkpoint, for instance. There are two things you must provide soldiers. The first one is, invest in realistic training, so that they know what they're going to get into. Second, they have to have the proper equipment to do their job.

We already know that the troops haven't had the proper equipment. There was a big controversy about insufficient body armor and inadequate protection for the HumVees. And the National Guard and the Reserves are 40% of the fighting force in Iraq right now. They need to have equipment to train on to feel confident in their mission, correct? Yet we just had some reports a few months ago saying that 90% of the Guard units currently here in America have equipment shortfalls. They aren't training on the proper equipment. What happens is they're sent overseas, and they're encountering brand-new equipment they've never trained on before. Now how can you be confident in your mission when you have this? So that's one.

Community instability within their unit is the second point that Jonathan Shay says soldiers need to have in place in order for them to be able to deal with their combat experience after they get back. Capable moral leadership is the third point that they need to have in order to process their experience well. And we can see that that's really been lacking as well. The moral leadership isn't in place.

BuzzFlash: In relation to your first point, the Senate defeated a bill that was co-sponsored by Democratic Senator James Webb, the combat veteran from Virginia, that simply would require that there be troop readiness, and the troops be trained, and that they be rotated accordingly. That measure was defeated.

Ilona Meagher: Correct. Secretary Gates has said it's not something that he wanted to do, but his hand was forced as to rotations because the military is strained. The rules are that they should have rest at home after serving for a year, and then they come back. The reason why they need that rest at home isn't just because they need to hang out, have a beer, sit on their couch. It's because these are people, not machines. They have families that they have to reconnect with. They're multiple deployed, and they have some post-deployment things that they have to do, and then they already have to go back to training again.

What kind of relationship is going to survive something like that? So it's not surprising that we have a very high incidence of divorce. I'm hearing from National Guard leaders who have told me that, out of their units, at least 50% of troops who have either long-term relationships or marriages have already broken up. It's not called "PTSD." But it is stress.

When a soldier returns home, he or she needs their family. If they're arguing, if they've lost their wives, if they've lost their husbands, if their children are alienated, that's going to increase their stress. Obviously, there's a whole process of downward slide, of one problem after another. Maybe they are fighting at home. Maybe then that translates to they're not able to do a good job at work. So they lose their jobs and become unemployed, and then maybe they become homeless. This is happening to our troops.

This is why we need to have these discussions. One reason I wrote Moving a Nation to Care [6] is just to get the information out to people. I know that Americans care about our troops, and if they knew that there was more that they could do, I know they'd do it.

BuzzFlash: In your book, you have subsections about "Hiding it" and "Deriding it." Clearly, in this war, the Pentagon has tried to suppress, as much as possible, the PTSD claims and treatment.

Ilona Meagher: Correct. Now is really a transitional period. We've only just started having investigations. The public is only now becoming engaged, where they're calling their senators and asking for things to change.

But here's one example of why we need to pay attention, and we need to stay focused and engaged, and push our representatives to do the right thing. Representative Bob Filner, who is the Chair of the House Committee on Veteran Affairs, [7] has been holding some PTSD hearings. Former Secretary of the VA Jim Nicholson appeared in front of the House Committee. Filner had asked him, what can we do to move this out of the box? Our constituents are breathing down our backs and saying we want things to change, and we really want a significant change in attitude, in funding, in resources." Nicholson said, "Well, we don't need any more money."

Well, right off the bat, it's well known that the VA has been billions of dollars underfunded - so underfunded that they're not able to maintain proper levels of counselors. When you don't have funding for enough counselors, that translates to veterans being given a number rather than immediate care.

I've been doing research, collecting these incidents and putting them into what's called the E Pluribas Media PTSD timeline. [8] Some of these troops have returned, and they go and they get a number, and they commit suicide before they even get their first appointment. That has to stop.

BuzzFlash: Or they kill others and then commit suicide.

Ilona Meagher: Sure, in a police standoff, or murder-suicide.

BuzzFlash: One of the things that occurred at Fort Carson was marital killings, if I recall.

Ilona Meagher: There were some, yes. That's what got me started on this issue. I read an article back in August 2005 of a cluster of incidents in Washington State, when troops had returned from Iraq. The violence is directed both outward and inwardly and manifests in different ways. Even if it doesn't get to the suicide, or the murder-suicide, or the homelessness, that's a lot of trauma for a family to have to absorb. They need assistance from the community, from the military and the VA. There's more people involved than just the soldiers.

BuzzFlash: You are among a new crop of what can be called citizen-journalists. You started writing on E Pluribus Media, developing a timeline. And then you've written a wonderful well organized book that's rich with details, information, documentation. You really give a good sense of the scope of the problem. What inspired you to do something that the regular publishing world wasn't doing up until now, for a very disgruntled group of veterans?

Ilona Meagher: I am just a concerned citizen and a daughter of a veteran. But other than that connection, I really didn't feel connected to the issue. I'm not married to anybody who served in the military, and I haven't served myself. It was as simple as the fact that I read an article in the Seattle Weekly, and in that article the home front casualties are mentioned. They described the Fort Lewis cluster of incidents. There was one soldier specifically in that cluster who is the one I credit with bringing me emotionally into the experience.

He had served admirably for fifteen months in Iraq, received a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star, returned home. He was among the first twelve that received a new award called the Army Combat Action Badge. And Army Chief of Staff Peter Schoomaker himself pinned it on his uniform in a ceremony. So this guy was really an incredible person. He obviously had the faculties to lead men in battle and had just a wonderful record. He came back and, eleven days after he got that commendation, he killed himself. I thought, wow, how did this guy slip through the cracks? That's when I started doing some investigating.

We couldn't do this kind of research even ten years ago. We couldn't use online resources to track in real time what was happening in other local communities. But I started Googling because I wanted to know: Is this just happening in Fort Lewis, or is this elsewhere as well?

Of course, I found all types of different incidents. I thought we needed to start collecting these in one place. If the media isn't doing it, then I want to be able to do it. Fortunately, E Pluribas Media contacted me after seeing my research. They said we need to put this in a database and fact-check it. That database really is the one thing that everything has sprung from.

I also started a blog because I ended up having so much information. I started "PTSD Combat: Winning the War Within" at ptsdcombat.blogspot.com [9]. I started that up to just have a place to put all of this news, because I knew if I had these questions, there must be a few other people. It turned out that there were more than a few other people who were interested in it.

I'm just glad that I was able to do it. My publisher is a wonderful small-print publisher. They had seen my work, and they contacted me. They said we need this book to be written, and will you do it? I said, "I've never done anything like this before, but I'll do my best."

BuzzFlash: If you look at the neo-con ideology, and certainly Cheney and Bush, they keep saying things like that major combat operations in Iraq are over, and the U.S. and its allies have prevailed, and we're being successful, and victory is just around the corner - constantly painting a picture which is not reality in Iraq. My point here is that Bush and Cheney ultimately have contempt for anyone who shows weakness. They feel you just show strength, even if it's on behalf of a losing cause. Is PTSD, in a way, a casualty of that sort of thinking from the top down? If you're a soldier and you develop PTSD as a result of your combat experience, you're basically showing weakness.

Ilona Meagher: That's a great observation. I do know that both Democrats and Republicans will talk about PTSD, but we haven't heard that even uttered from President Bush's mouth. It's almost like AIDS - you know, Reagan never said it.

But I don't want to just point to Bush and Cheney. Even in World War II, there was an attitude, when it came to any mental health issues, that you just don't talk about it. What you had was soldiers coming back, and among those who were "normal" and able to conduct their lives relatively successfully, many of them formed groups - the VFW, the American Legion. Often they would go to the bar and drink, and smoke, and that was the cultural thing they did.

But they basically kept their feelings to themselves. We've heard all stories of military members whose families said they never heard a word about their experiences. They knew they would have problems coming forward with any type of issues that they had.

Today, you still have the remnants of that, I believe. And I do believe that it partly hast to do with the mentality of this mission.

Let me throw one other thing in. You mentioned Cheney and Bush, but we didn't talk about Rumsfeld. When he came in as Secretary of Defense, was going to bring about this revolution in military affairs - RMA. It was going to be create a military that's staffed far lighter. They were going to transform the military while they were fighting two wars. That's almost like trying to play in the World Series team, and you're going to suddenly change the rules and change the equipment. It's preposterous. And that did create more problems. But whenever Rumsfeld was questioned about those things, it was like you were saying. Just barrel on through. I think that falls into play with the PTSD as well.

If it doesn't fit into whatever they planned for or didn't plan for, then, yes, they just want to barrel through it. But now they can't. I'm not going to wait for President Bush to discuss this issue, or to come on TV and have a public service push to support our troops and military families who are dealing with re-integration problems. I don't think that's ever going to happen. I wish it would, but you do see now that both sides of the aisle are now looking at the issue. And they have to make changes and look at it seriously, because their constituents aren't going to tolerate anything less.

BuzzFlash: In World War II, we had an army where everyone participated. I mean, John F. Kennedy participated, Nixon participated. Now we really have a military that only really is a certain class, or a certain combination of classes - not the upper class, not the ruling class, not the wealthy, not the upper-middle class. Now you come back from a combat experience in which you've seen your buddies die. You've seen horrifying warfare against Iraqis, including civilians who have died. And you're coming back to a place where most of the people have no relatives, friends, acquaintances, co-workers who have served in Iraq. Does that present even more of a challenge to the person coming back? There's a large part of society that simply cannot understand at all what they've been through.

Ilona Meagher: Oh, yes. Less than half a percentage of the U.S. population is serving. After World War II, 25% of the U.S. male fighting-age population served - it was 12% of the U.S. population, versus the half percent right now. So we don't have that personal connection, and it's very hard for us to relate.

But even with that said, the leadership hasn't been clear about the sacrifices they are calling for. We didn't have the type of leadership that said, after 9/11, all right, it's going to be really tough. We need as many resources as we can get in order to fight this war because this is a fight for our civilization. Let's get serious as a country. If they truly believe that, then let's have our leaders asking us all to give up certain things, and contribute, and pay attention.

But instead of that, we haven't been asked to plant victory gardens. We haven't been asked to conserve fuel or conserve metal. We haven't been asked to pay attention. You know, back in World War II, people would go to the movies, and even there, they had a newsreel that told them about the war. And before they walked over to the movie theater, they had posters.

I'm not saying that was perfect back then. But at least the leaders knew that the best way to fight and win a war is to have the backing of every single citizen in the nation, not this divisive stuff that we've had, that one side is a terrorist sympathizer, and the other side isn't. This is not going to make our country stronger. I do fault the present leadership for those types of things.

And the media is a big part of this, as well. Maybe if enough of us got together and said we want better, and if we started really joining together and pushing the media to do better coverage overall, then they would. They would have to. But in the absence of that, yes, we have citizen journalism. We have tools to get the news out ourselves, as BuzzFlash has done for years. And how wonderful that we do have those resources to be able to do that.

I am hopeful, though. I do end the book on a hopeful note, with resources for citizens to get involved. We can do it. It's going to take some time, and we're never going to be able to let our guard down when it comes to this issue. But it's not just a Republican or Democratic issue. This is human nature. Often, when warriors return war, when the war's over, we kind of forget about our veterans. We can't allow that to happen.

BuzzFlash: Thanks so much.

Ilona Meagher: Thank you.

BuzzFlash interview conducted by Mark Karlin.

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Resources

E Pluribas Media PTSD timeline [10]

ptsdcombat.blogspot.com [11]

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

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