STATISICAL INFORMATION:
The National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) expects 30% of returning veterans will suffer from PTSD as some point in their lives. Farrell Udell, Team Leader, The Department of Veterans Affair. Presented at an NASW Conference on May 18, 2007-Challenge on the Homefront: Social Workers Call to Action with Returning Vets.
About 1,800 U.S. troops, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, are now suffering from traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) caused by penetrating wounds. But neurologists worry that hundreds of thousand more at least 30 % of the troops who’ve engaged in active combat for four months or longer in Iraq and Afghanistan are at risk of potentially disabling neurological disorder from the blast waves of improvised explosive devices, IEDs and mortars, all without suffering a scratch.
For the first time, the U.S. military is treating more head injuries than chest or abdominal wounds, and it is ill-equipped to do so. According to a July 2005 estimate from Walter Reed Army Medical Enter, two-thirds of all soldiers wounded in Iraq who don’t immediately return to duty have TBI.
An article appeared in the New York Times: Troops Exposed to Sarin Risk Brain Damage: report. The New York Times, 5/17/07. Scientists have found evidence that the kind of low-level exposure to sarin gas experienced by more than 100,000 U.S. troops in the first Gulf war can cause ‘Lasting brain deficits,” N.Y Times May 16, 2007.
Approximately one in seven of the 700,000 troops deployed in the first Gulf war experienced a mysterious set of ailments, with problems including persistent fatigue, chronic headaches, joint pain and nausea. The paper noted in the story to appear in Thursday print edition of the New York Times. The Veterans Affairs department says those symptoms persist today for more than 150,000 troops, more than the number of troops exposed to the gases. Individuals with potentially greater exposure had deterioration in fine motor skills, performing tests at a level similar to people 20 years their senior, the Times said.
Now we know 30% of our troops will develop PTSD and 30% are at risk for TBI! Now add to this that perhaps more than 100,000 troops have been exposed to sarin gas. If these are additive —TBI, sarin gas and PTSD we have a problem of monumental proportions that the VA system has never had to deal with before and is ill-equipped to do so now.
Five hundred and sixty five thousand (565,000) troops are eligible for VA benefits but roughly 170,000 have applied. They know that once they apply for VA benefits they compromise future military assignments and promotions, a heavy cost to receive benefits. One can interpret this to mean that for a veteran, one has to be near death to apply. The VA shares all of its information with the Department of Defense. This is part of the problem. In addition if more veterans apply for benefits that are eligible, there is neither the expertise nor the room to treat them. We are in a crisis here.
The high profile firings of top commanders at Walter Reed have shed light on the woefully inadequate treatment for troops. In these circumstances, soldiers face a struggle to get the long-term rehabilitation necessary for a TBI. At Walter Reed, Macedo said, doctors have chosen to medicate most TBI patients, even though cognitive rehabilitation, including brain teasers and memory exercises, seems to hold the most promise for dealing with the disorder.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, the ratio of wounded service members to fatalities is 16 to 1, if the definition of “wounded” is anyone evacuated from a combat zone. During the Vietnam War, according to the VA, the ratio was 2.6 to 1. U.S. troops no longer die from the kind of injuries that killed many thousands in Vietnam.
Now in its fifth year, the Iraq conflict is not a war of death for the U.S. troops nearly so much as it is a war of disabilities.
“There are 25 million veterans alive from all wars currently.” Said Don Viets, presenter at the NASW conference on May 18, 2007, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The Veterans Administration cannot keep up with the tremendous demand being placed on them and Congress has not funded them to expand their services to meet the past, present or future needs of the veterans returning from Iraq. Many Veterans who are seen by the VA still have significant health symptoms that are retractable to current medical treatment.
According to Joyce Riley, many veterans have been exposed to biological agents that are contagious. These men and women are coming home and affecting their spouses and there are an inordinately high number of birth defects related to these biological agents and toxins used in the war. The men and women who come back from the second Gulf War are sicker and they are experiencing a far greater amount of Post Traumatic Stress.
