Clinic Shootings Highlight Mental Health Challenges for Military -- Washington Post
As Repeated Deployments Take Toll, Army Expands Prevention, Treatment Efforts
Sgt. John M. Russell was near the end of his third tour in Iraq when he allegedly gunned down five fellow service members at a Baghdad combat stress clinic last week.
The incident cast a stark light on some of the military's biggest mental health challenges: the deepening psychological and personal toll of repeated combat deployments, the stigma that surrounds seeking help, and the growing indications that some hardened soldiers such as Russell are having trouble ever mentally departing the war zone.
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My Comment: Here is my personal story.
My father served with the Soviet Army during the Second World War. He faced continuous combat from the end of 1941 to meeting British soldiers in Germany in 1945 .... he saw it all. How he survived, I will never know. But as a child I had to live through his nightmares, post traumatic stress syndrome (before it was classified as a syndrome), and a list of psych problems that are commonly associated with men who have witnessed continuous combat .... sigh .... my list can go and on and on. If there was ever a candidate who needed counseling, it was him .... but he never went. He crossed into West Germany at the end of 1945, and he immigrated to Canada a few years later with a few Soviet soldiers who also wanted to go to the West. Because of language and cultural difficulties .... he was never positioned to receive care. .... so when I was born, I had to live through it. It was only later .... when I was an adult .... that I realized why my father was the person that he was.
My Godfather, who also experienced the same environment as my father during the war, committed suicide by playing Russian Roulette. I was a child at the time, but I always remember the impact that this had on the Russian community in Canada at the time. He was regarded to be the best of everyone .... but even he had his demons that he could no longer suppress.
War by its nature is abnormal. It impacts everyone who find themselves in the middle of it ... civilian and soldier. Some have more problems than others .... and for Sgt. John M. Russell, like my Godfather, it is clear that he could no longer cope.