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I want to make a couple quick comments on the furor over Major General Dana Pittard’s blog post that soldiers who kill themselves are being selfish, and his exhortation that those thinking of suicide should just buck up and face their problems like an adult. “Suicide is an absolutely selfish act,” he wrote to his official [...]
– A post on his official Army blog from Major General Dana Pittard, who commands Fort Bliss in Texas. The comment has since been removed. h/t National Journal (sub. req.)
I want to add to the debate on the hot issue at the American Psychiatric Association this week. Retired Army general and vice chief of staff Peter Chiarelli made a strong case for re-naming post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Chiarelli advocates calling it post-traumatic stress injury. The Canadians use the term “operational stress injury” or [...]
I wrote a few weeks ago about Marine Major Jeff Hackett, who killed himself in the aftermath of a collapse following his distinguished 26-year career. Major Hackett’s widow, Danielle was initially denied payment of Jeff’s $400,000 life insurance policy because when times got tough economically for Jeff, he missed a few payments. Recently, the VA [...]
Two weeks after the Department of Veterans Affairs’ inspector general issued report eviscerating the agency for its handling of mental-health care, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki appeared before the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. It’s old news that there were high hopes when Shinseki took the helm at the VA. He’s a former Army Army chief of staff [...]
For those of you keeping score at home, the blunt decision by a federal appeals court a year ago came as a shocker: We willingly acknowledge that, in theory, the political branches of our government are better positioned than are the courts to design the procedures necessary to save veterans’ lives and to fulfill our [...]
The Department of Veterans Affairs first-ever large-scale study of homeless vets shows that the vast majority of homeless vets have mental disorders. “Majorities of the newly homeless diagnosed with mental disorders…were diagnosed before they became homeless, indicating mental disorders usually occurred before homelessness,” the Department of Veterans Affairs inspector general said in a report issued [...]
The Army buys lots of things for the troops, but this is one we haven’t seen before. Behavioral artwork? What’s especially surprising is that Thursday’s announcement was simply a declaration that the contracting office at Fort Gordon, Ga., intends to award a contract for an unspecified amount to “Perspective, LLC” of Holladay, Utah. There is, [...]
If you pore over the towering columns of reports and studies detailing the mental wreckage wrought by combat, you keep seeing that drugs prescribed to heal, or ease pain, are a double-edged sword. Just like a surgeon’s scalpel poking around your chest, they can help as well as hurt. There is a constant battle to keep [...]
Nicholas Tolentino spelled out the reasons he resigned from New Hampshire’s main Department of Veterans Affairs health center Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs. While his prepared remarks also detail just how flexible the VA’s data are when it comes to showing that vets are getting adequate mental-health care, it’s why the 14-year Navy [...]
