The author is a Technical Sergeant in the U.S. Air Force and a member of March Forward!, an organization of veterans and service members who stand against war and racism.
Politicians in Washington incessantly repeat the clichéd refrain: “support our troops.” But their cynical rhetoric is routinely proven empty when compared to their actions. Nowhere is this point made more clearly than when examining the quality of health care provided for armed service members by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
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Most recently, a sergeant at the end of his third tour in Iraq shot and killed five fellow soldiers. The VA responded by quickly implementing a public relations full-court press to stave off public criticism and to preempt an investigation into whether it offers adequate mental health care.
The soldier, Sgt. John M. Russell, was charged with five counts of murder and one of aggravated assault for shootings that took place after he sought treatment for stress at a mental health facility at Camp Liberty in Baghdad. The case was the deadliest incidence of friendly fire in Iraq to date and highlights the extreme stress soldiers face during repeated deployments to war zones.
Prior to the shootings, Russell was only six weeks away from completing his third one-year tour in Iraq. He was planning to purchase a new home with his wife. His father said that while at the military stress center his son was treated poorly and that the counselors there did not help him, but “broke” him instead. Just days earlier, Russell emailed his wife that the days he had spent at the facility were the worst of his life.
Avoidable spread of infectious diseases at VA
Further adding to the VA’s problems, five patients recently tested positive for HIV and another 33 for hepatitis as a result of unsanitary conditions.
In February, the VA began notifying more than 11,000 patients that they may have been exposed to infectious body fluids. The department has since advised those patients to pursue follow-up blood checks to ensure they have not been infected.
The infections occurred due to the improper set-up and sterilization of medical equipment used in colonoscopies and ear, nose and throat procedures. All positive infections so far have occurred at one of three VA medical centers located in Miami, Fla., Murfreesboro, Tenn., and Augusta, Ga.
Despite these entirely avoidable infections, the VA’s chief safety officer, Dr. Jim Bagian, asserts that the infected patients will be unable to prove that they were exposed to the diseases while under the care of the VA. “At this point I don’t think we’ll ever know” how the patients were infected, Bagian said. (Associated Press, May 11)
Dr. Bagian does admit, however, that the VA is unsure how frequently exposures may have occurred dating back as far as 2003, when the equipment for the procedures was first used.
Steady rise in military suicides
As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have dragged on, there has been a steady rise in the rate of military suicides. At least 128 soldiers were confirmed to have killed themselves in 2008, compared with 115 in 2007, 102 in 2006 and 87 in 2005. (NBC News, Jan. 29)
In response to this increasing trend, clinics staffed with mental health specialists have been set up on most major bases in Iraq. But most soldiers are reluctant to seek treatment due to the associated stigma in the prevailing hyper-macho culture of the military.
In contradiction to claims of increasing attention to the issue, it was exposed in the spring of 2008 that the VA had covered up the number of attempted suicides by veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Testifying before the Senate Veteran Affairs Committee, Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said that while the VA claimed the number of attempted suicides was as low as 790 in 2007, internal emails revealed the true number to be as high as 12,000.
“Our suicide-prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among the veterans we see in our medical facilities,” Dr. Ira Katz, chief of the VA’s mental-health programs, wrote in an email to the department’s communication director. “Is this something we should [carefully] address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?” (McClatchy Newspapers April 24, 2008)
But before the VA made any public disclosure on the issue, it was forced to reveal the truth when a class action lawsuit was filed against it in San Francisco this spring. Despite this, Gordon Mansfield, deputy secretary of veterans affairs, cynically claimed while testifying in front of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee that the failure to tell the truth about the matter was in no way an attempt to mislead either the Congress or the public.
Making matters worse, a 2008 Rand Corporation study revealed that 300,000 troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan had post-traumatic stress disorder, while 320,000 reported probable traumatic brain injuries. Both conditions greatly increase the likelihood of attempted suicide.
Money for health care and education, not for war
As long as the United States continues its criminal wars and occupations around the world, health care for armed service members—and millions of others in society—will continue to be neglected. The outrageous sums budgeted for military “defense” contractors in pursuit of world domination and increasing rates of profit should instead be used to provide veterans and active-duty service members comprehensive health care and expanded educational opportunities. Reparations should also be paid for the devastation wreaked upon the millions of innocent victims whose countries have been caught in the crosshairs of global U.S. aggression.
This is not our war!
