PTSD-ongoing fight for generation of Iraq war veterans
WASHINGTON: Justin Carlisle was in the center vehicle of a five-Humvee convoy when the bomb went off. Insurgents had jammed several 155mm artillery shells into a manhole on a street in Ramadi, central Iraq, then triggered a blast that ripped through the patrol’s final Humvee, killing a Navy medic and three of Carlisle’s Marine Corps comrades-including his best friend. “Within 18 hours, we were back out on our next mission,” Carlisle said of the April 2, 2006 attack. “We didn’t have time to process it. You couldn’t sit there and dwell on what was going on because you still had to get up and go and fight the next day.”
Carlisle, from Ohio, is now among the millions of veterans dealing with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, a signature wound of any war but especially prevalent after the brutal urban fighting in Iraq. George W Bush launched that conflict 15 years ago this month, but in some ways its toll is only in its early phases. During two deployments to Ramadi and Fallujah, Carlisle said his unit of about 800 men lost 25 Marines and sailors, with another 350 wounded in action. Since coming home, at least a dozen more have killed themselves or died of drug overdoses. “It’s not until you get out and you are not with your tribe anymore that you start realizing you have some serious issues,” the former Marine infantryman said.
Curable condition? Estimates vary, but the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) believes about 13-20 percent of Iraq War vets suffer from PTSD. Symptoms can range from insomnia and depression to debilitating panic attacks, flashbacks, irritability and self-harming behavior. Like many of his buddies, it took Carlisle time to seek help for his condition, only going to see a doctor in 2012 - four years after leaving the military. He was given five different types of medication, and worries the VA dishes out pills too readily. 0“I don’t want to see them keep pushing medications to veterans. That should be, in my mind, the last line of defense,” he said, noting that alternative approaches including meditation have helped him more. Carlisle runs a non-profit organization — 3/8 Veterans of Fallujah and Ramadi-advocating for fellow veterans, and he’s about to start another group to run retreats for combat veterans. Paula Schnurr, executive director of the VA’s National Center for PTSD, said that while treatment is often through anti-depressants, the preferred recourse comes through various types of psychotherapy.
In 2006, the VA started training clinicians in techniques such as cognitive-processing therapy, where a patient learns about and processes their trauma. The VA also uses other methods aimed at desensitizing a veteran. Schnurr, who has been studying PTSD since 1984, said treatments have come a long way over the past decade and in many cases it is effectively curable. “We have treatments for PTSD ... it doesn’t have to be a chronic disorder,” Schnurr said. The National Center for PTSD runs a project called About Face encouraging veterans to seek treatment, and is increasingly using “teletherapy” to offer web-based counseling to vets without easy access to a VA center.
Mark Russell, director of Antioch University’s Institute of War Stress Injury, Recovery and Social Justice, said the VA’s response to veterans’ PTSD has been inadequate, arguing that war-related psychological conditions still go under-diagnosed.