Child care, Tricare top list, at Hill summit
By Karen Jowers
Army Times, May 10, 2010

A fully funded program for spouse tuition assistance, tuition vouchers for military children, subsidized child care for families waiting for military child care and minimum standards for special needs programs are just a few of the recommendations on a military spouses’ wish list that emerged from a recent summit on Capitol Hill.

Some 63 spouses came from all over the country to attend the April 23 summit, at the invitation of members of Congress, in an effort to glean information about how to improve the lives of military families.

The event was hosted by the congressional Military Family Caucus. Since congressional caucuses have no taxpayer funding, the spouses paid their own expenses.

One member of Congress came to hear their issues: Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., cochair of the caucus. No other lawmakers were there, she said, because votes originally scheduled for that Friday were canceled, so many members had already left town.

“It’s clear American military families have needs that are not being met. But with your contributions here today, we’re better identifying what those needs are,” and developing an action plan, Rodgers told the group. “All of you traveled here at your own expense, and I promise you your money will be well-spent.”

The spouses were chosen from about 500 applicants, said Aimee Henneke, who is military legislative assistant for Rodgers. In addition, senior officers’ spouses attended, including Deborah Mullen, wife of Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They were interspersed among the groups, but spouses generally used only their first names.

Staff members are compiling the ideas and recommendations for members of the caucus.

Among the spouses’ recommendations:

Children’s education

• Create or expand charter schools and Defense Department schools on installations.
• Create tuition vouchers for military families.

Child care

• Ask defense officials to provide Congress with reports on child care, such as the number of child care centers, types of care available and the number of children on waiting lists.
• Provide taxpayer dollars to subsidize off-post child care for families on military child care waiting lists.
• Consider restructuring child care costs by geographic areas, much like housing allowance rates.

Deployment effects

• Standardize and mandate family readiness programs, with paid professionals.
• Mandate financial counseling for service members.

Health care

• Instead of three Tricare regional contractors, consider just one, so that when families transfer they don’t have to enroll in a new region.
• Provide more money for reimbursement of Tricare providers, to alleviate problems with physicians dropping Tricare.
• Convert to fully electronic records for continuity of care.

Special needs

• Mandate minimum standards for the service branches’ policies, programs and procedures for military families with special needs.
• Require health coverage of evidence-based behavioral health treatments for autism spectrum disorders.
• Require Medicaid portability, creating a federal exception for military families. The federal program is administered by the states, so families go from the bottom of one waiting list for Medicaid benefits to the bottom of another waiting list when they move from state to state.

Spouse education and employment

• Fully fund and staff the My Career Advancement Accounts tuition assistance program for all military spouses.
• Allow spouses access to online military education courses and training.
• Fast-track security clearances for spouses.

Mental health

• Create an awareness campaign about military mental health issues in the civilian as well as military communities to help alleviate the stigma.
• Remove mental health services from the umbrella of family readiness organizations.

Army wife Jennifer Taylor, from Fort Bragg, N.C., said, “It’s refreshing that what I see as problems, others see, too. Hopefully something will be done.”

Marine wife Laura Smith, from Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, S.C., said she realizes some of the spouses’ hoped-for specifics won’t come to fruition for another five to 10 years. “But to be able to participate in this was very much worth it.”

Army wife Stacy Bannerman said she used up all her frequent flier miles flying from Oregon and spent an additional $600 to attend the summit.

“I’ll know if it’s worth my trip in six months,” she said. “That’s enough time for this caucus to begin to digest all of this, and take action.”

By Rick Maze – Staff writer
Army Times, Friday Feb 26, 2010

A House subcommittee is considering legislation that would give two weeks of unpaid leave to the spouses, children and parents of any service member who is deployed or ordered to active duty in support of a contingency operation.

Sponsored by Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the bill calls for a major expansion of Family and Medical Leave Act benefits that grant up to 26 weeks of unpaid leave for families of deployed or seriously injured service members.

Smith said the bill, HR 3247, gives time off to people not covered by the FMLA, which is limited to people who have worked for their current employer for 12 months or longer, worked more than 1,250 hours in the past year and whose employer has 50 or more employees within a 75-mile radius.

“As a significant number of military spouses work for small businesses, work part-time to balance work and family needs, or have less than one year with a company due to recent moves or reassignments, many are not eligible for protected leave under current law,” Smith said Thursday when his bill was being considered by the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee’s economic opportunity panel.

Smith said the bill is modeled after Washington and Oregon state laws that took effect in June 2008.
Those testifying at the hearing had only praise for Smith’s bill, but that may be because only veterans service organizations and supporters of pending bills provided testimony. No one representing the businesses that would have to grant time off under Smith’s bill was on hand to offer their views.

Employer concerns

Although businesses are unlikely to openly oppose the idea of helping military families, congressional aides said one concern is that employers might become more reluctant to hire military family members and more likely to let them go if times are tough.

That kind of opposition would not prevent the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee from approving Smith’s bill, but it might prevent the House of Representatives from being able to pass the bill without lengthy debate, which usually does not happen on veterans bills.

Stacy Bannerman, the wife of an Army National Guard sergeant first class, said the bill “would offer protection so that we are able to spend much-needed time with our loved ones immediately prior to, during and after deployment, without fear of losing our jobs or being forced to choose between work and family.”

“When the soldier goes to war, so does the family,” Bannerman said. “When the veteran comes home, family support is the single most critical factor in successful reintegration.”

Tim Embree of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America said the bill would allow an employer to provide paid or unpaid time off for the two weeks of military leave, and employers would be penalized for not granting the leave.

“This bill will give family members of service members on leave the opportunity to spend time with the service member instead of working during that limited time,” Embree said. “It will also provide a cushion for family members to handle all of the unexpected tasks, errands and responsibilities that surface during a deployment.”

Justin Brown, testifying on behalf of Veterans of Foreign Wars, said the bill also provides legal guarantees that a family member taking military leave will receive the same benefits, positions and seniority when they return. The bill, he said, “affords to service members and their families precious quality time, which is imperative to their well-being and morale.”

Medford’s Stacy Bannerman will propose the idea to the state Senate Veterans Affairs Committee today
Mail Tribune, February 23, 2010

Medford resident Stacy Bannerman, who helped push a military family medical leave act through the state Legislature and prompted the introduction of a similar act in Congress, now has her sights set on creating a landmark military family advisory council in Oregon.

Bannerman, whose husband, Lorin, returned from his second tour of Iraq last year as a member of the Washington Army National Guard, was scheduled to make a proposal late this afternoon to the state Senate Veterans Affairs Committee in Salem to create what she believes may be the first state military family advisory council in the nation.

Made up of military family members, the council would advise the state on issues relating to Oregonians in the military, their families and veterans, she explained.

“With the protracted wars and multiple deployments, military families are struggling with finding day care, health care, dealing with relationship issues, domestic violence and deployment-related financial and mental health problems,” she said. “Military family members are the primary unpaid caretakers of veterans. When a veteran comes home with a physical or psychological injury, the whole family hurts, but help for the family member can be hard to find.

“The council would provide a voice for our military families to assist the state, including the Oregon military (National Guard) and Department of Veterans Affairs, in better serving us and our loved ones,” she added.

Although the council would be new, the idea is not new to Bannerman.

“This is something I have been championing for about three years now,” she said of creating such a council. “This is clearly necessary with the demographics we have today.”

Most people in the military serve multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, she said, adding that most also are married with children.

“These (wars) are not short-term,” she said. “We can no longer pretend that military family support, particularly for the Guard and reserves, is adequate. This war on terror is demanding we begin to acknowledge and formalize support and service for the military families. The council is about acknowledging that we’ve got experts on the ground.”

Military family members are experts by virtue of bearing the burdens of repeat deployments and caring for veterans, she said, noting the council would be modeled after state veterans’ boards.

Bannerman also is the founder of the Sanctuary for Veterans & Families, which provides sanctuary weekends for women veterans. In addition, the facility advocates on behalf of the women who serve at home and in harm’s way.

Bannerman lobbied the Oregon Legislature before its approval in 2009 of a military family leave act which provides up to two weeks of time off for employed military family members during the mobilization of a loved one. The leave, which is unpaid, enables family members to spend time with their loved one in uniform before or at the end of the deployment.

Her efforts also led to the Military Family Leave Act of 2009 being introduced in Congress by Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden. Congress, however, did not act on the bill.

U.S. senator from Oregon cites Applegate resident’s relentless support for legislation

By Paul Fattig
Mail Tribune
July 04, 2009 6:00 AM
MEDFORD — Applegate resident Stacy Bannerman, whose husband is serving in Iraq with the National Guard, has won a major battle in her effort to create an unpaid leave for military families.

Citing Bannerman for her unrelenting lobbying for the legislation, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., announced Friday he would introduce the Military Family Leave Act of 2009 next week, one of several bills he is sponsoring aimed at helping those in military uniform, their families and veterans.

The announcement came the same day as some 3,000 members of the Oregon Army National Guard, including about 150 from Jackson and Josephine counties, completed two months of advanced training at Fort Stewart, Ga. (See related story, Page 1A).

“They are making extraordinary contributions to their country,” Wyden told about two dozen Guard members, spouses and representatives of various veterans groups gathered at the Medford armory. “We are going to do everything we can to back them up with legislation, support and services.”

The Military Family Leave Act of 2009 would give spouses, children and parents of those being deployed up to two weeks of unpaid leave to spend with the soldier before or after the deployment.

Bannerman thanked Wyden and his staff for their work in creating the bill.

“When we are a nation at war and we have so few people sacrificing so much for so many for so long, we’ve absolutely got to support the families,” she said. “I heard story after story from family members and spouses who literally had to make the decision between work or their family when their soldier was going for his second or third tour.

“We wanted something like this that would be user friendly and would support the family.”

Bannerman’s husband, Lorin, is on his second deployment to Iraq with the Washington Army National Guard. When he returns home next month, it will be a year since the couple has been together.

A similar bill was approved by the Oregon Legislature earlier this year, and now awaits the governor’s signature.

Other related bills Wyden plans to introduce include:

The National Guard and Reserve Soft Landing Reintegration Act of 2009, which allows those in uniform returning from war to remain on active duty for up to 90 days, collect pay and access reintegration services. The “soft landing” will ease their readjustment into civilian life, Wyden said, noting they now have just a few days.

The Wounded Warrior Retention Act of 2009 will allow service members who wish to remain on active duty after suffering injuries during service-related duties to do so.

The Service Members Mental Health Care Commission Act of 2009 would form a commission to study and identify the most effective treatments to those experiencing problems as a result of their service.

The Department of Veterans Affairs Hospital Quality Report Card Act of 2009 would allow patients to compare the quality of health care provided by VA facilities.

“I think what he has in mind is fabulous,” said Central Point resident Amanda Matlock, whose husband, Pvt. Brandon Matlock, is deploying to Iraq with the local National Guard unit. “He (Wyden) seems to be right on his game.”

The young couple have two girls, ages 1 and 3.

“My only concern is that my husband is taken care of, along with me and my children when he gets home,” she said.

“These bills take care of several of the issues we are concerned about,” said Jan Schutz, wife of Col. Bill Schutz, director of personnel with the local guard unit. Schutz is not in the current deployment but has been deployed several times in recent years.

“This won’t only help the family members but also the soldiers when they come back,” she added. “They can come back and get resources, whether they are medical, emotional or jobs. This is all real positive.”

Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at pfattig@mailtribune.com.

By Andrea Calcagno

April 8, 2009

WHITE CITY, Ore. — Women make up almost 20 percent of the U.S. Armed Services, and experts say more specific support services are needed for them.

Senator Ron Wyden attended a round table discussion Wednesday at the Southern Oregon Rehabilitation Center & Clinics (VA SORCC) in White City, that reviewed services for women veterans and looked at where improvements can be made.

“The fact is that the system was created many years ago when men constituted the military. Clearly women are making tremendous contributions to the military now, are serving with great valor, and great courage, and it’s time to modernize the VA system,” says Wyden.

Officials say more women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan than any war in history, and now the need for women veteran services is growing.

“Nationally, we’ve recognized that we’re increasing women veterans at a rapid pace, and we needed to change how we do business, and we needed to change our programs,” says Women’s Veteran Program Manager Melinda Spolski.

Reintegration is hard for many women.

“Women veterans are three times more likely to be divorced than male veterans who have also been deployed, so these women veterans often feel very much alone,” says Director of Sanctuary Weekend for Women’s Veterans Stacy Bannerman.

“When I was mobilized, I was married 32 years, I had a horrible time when I came back, and I had a very stable relationship. You’ve been in a different place, and you feel like your disconnected. You feel like you can’t relate to the other people around you,” says Spolski.

This weekend the first ever Sanctuary for Women Veterans Retreat will take place, where women can get peer support, learn how to navigate the VA system, and hear about how combat trauma impacts women. There’s already a waiting list for a second retreat.

“We’ve had phone calls from women veterans as far away as Ohio. There’s an overwhelming need for these kinds of gender specific support retreats for women veterans,” says Bannerman.

The retreat will take place in the Applegate area. To find out more information about the Sanctuary for Women Veteran Retreat visit www.sanctuaryone.org

http://blog.oregonlive.com/oregonatwar/2009/03/how_to_support_the_troops_edit.html

Posted by mfrancis March 18, 2009 16:11PM

A bill in the Oregon Legislature would allow employees to take unpaid leave when spouses come home from war

Associated Press

Some 3,000 members of the Oregon Army National Guard are preparing to spend a year away from home. They will pack next month for a few weeks of training in California, be given a week off, then fly to Georgia for another couple of months of training. From there, they will be shipped to Iraq for about 10 months.
In other words, several thousand spouses and their children will have one week in April or June, plus two weeks for midtour leave, to spend time with their deployed family members. But some of them won’t be able to take full advantage of that time because their employers won’t let them take a week or two of leave.

That’s why military family activist Stacy Bannerman went to her legislator, Rep. Sal Esquivel, R-Medford, and asked him to offer a bill that would require Oregon employers with 25 or more workers to offer up to 14 days of unpaid leave to employees who want to spend time with a spouse on his or her way to war, during a midtour leave, or when he or she comes home for good.

“It is,” Esquivel told the House Veterans and Emergency Services Committee on Tuesday, “the least we can do.”

The bill, which likely would be folded into the Oregon Family Leave Act, costs nothing but a little inconvenience for people who employ the spouse of a service member. A representative of Associated Oregon Industries, an association of employers, said his organization supports the proposal, although it has a quibble or two with the language that defines “employer.” He pledged to work with Esquivel to produce an agreeable bill.

“I think you should declare a double emergency, if there is such a thing,” said the Oregon Military Department’s Brig. Gen. Mike Caldwell, who testified in favor of the bill Tuesday. By that he meant it should take effect immediately.

Time is of the essence for the 3,000 families, and of course, there are other military personnel in the Reserve who would benefit from passage of this bill. If the Legislature wants to show its support for the troops, this bill would be a practical way to do it.

28 February 2008

By Victoria E. Knight

Dow Jones News Service

NEW YORK – For citizen soldiers, returning from combat and rebuilding the professional lives they left behind presents a new battle.

As the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war nears, support for returning soldiers from businesses remains spotty. One in five U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are National Guard members and Reservists. And 54% were working for an employer prior to activation. Federal law requires there to be a job waiting when they return.

Large employers, such as Microsoft (MSFT) and Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., with military employees and clients, have dedicated programs for reintegrating veterans. But small employers with limited means can feel ill-equipped to act.

Fortunately, there are resources small businesses can tap, including free online tools on applicable federal laws, and inexpensive reintegration programs.

The U.S. Small Business Administration’s Patriot Express initiative (www.sba.gov/patriotexpress/index.html) provides advice on preparing for deployments, including free or low-cost online training and business counseling. In addition, low-interest loans of up to $500,000 are available to veterans and members of the military community wanting to establish or expand small businesses.

Other initiatives can include simply celebrating troops’ return to work, according to a free employer guide published Thursday by The Workplace Warrior Think Tank, which comprises the Disability Management Employer Coalition, a non-profit employer association, and disability insurers, The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. (HIG), MetLife Inc. (MET) and Unum Group (UNM).

Educating supervisors about potential red flags – and internal and external conduits to care – and developing veterans mentoring programs are among its recommendations (www.dmec.org).

“The U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan has created long-term medical and disability issues for returning veterans,” says Marcia Carruthers, chief executive of the DMEC. “To retain these valuable employees and benefit from their knowledge, abilities and experience, a comprehensive response is needed by employers.”

One of the guide’s authors, Andy Gilbert, a former tactical planner for the air war in Operation Desert Storm who is an associate at Booz Allen Hamilton, says employers often underestimate the psychological adjustment involved, even for troops without health problems.

“One day you’re in desert camies (camouflage gear), the next day you’re in a suit. It’s a huge culture shock,” he says.

In a war zone you have a mission with specific goals and you’re operating in a hierarchical structure. By contrast, the workplace is collaborative and there’s not the sense of urgency as lives aren’t hanging in the balance.

Military veterans from any war who’ve already made the transition can provide valuable advice to recent returnees about the challenges and coping strategies.

“Virtually any employer can provide mentoring by other veterans – at any level and for very little cost,” says Gilbert, a founding member of Booz Allen Hamilton’s Armed Services Forum.

Managers can support veterans by giving them meaningful work and checking in regularly on progress. At Booz Allen, managers typically hold professional development meetings with employees once a month, but they have contact with returning troops once a week, he says.

Around 90% of employers who provide health benefits offer some free counseling services to employees and their families. While the programs might not be equipped to deal with combat-related stress, they can be a lifeline to family members experiencing personal and financial stress, experts say. But employers need to do a better job of publicizing the counseling.

Combat can deal heavy physical and psychological blows. Four out of ten combat veterans treated by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs – about 120,000 individuals – have been diagnosed as suffering from stress or mental disorders ranging from mild to severe. Around half have received a preliminary diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, which is treatable (www.va.gov). Only 59% of small firms with 3 to 199 workers offer health insurance, and many plans don’t offer mental health benefits.

Combat veterans, including citizen soldiers, can get treatment through the Veterans Affairs healthcare system. In January the period of eligibility for benefits was extended from 2 to 5 years for all combat veterans who served on active duty after Nov. 11, 1998, and were discharged under other than dishonorable conditions. Cost-free care and medications are provided for conditions potentially related to combat service, including PTSD.

“Employers can help get the word out,” says Dr. Ira Katz, the VA’s deputy chief patient care services officer for mental health.

Veterans can access care through the VA’s medical centers and clinics as well as Vet Centers. Over the past 2 1/2 years the VA has hired about 4,000 new mental health experts and the annual budget for mental health services has increased from $2 billion in fiscal 2001 to about $3.5 billion now, he says.

Stacy Bannerman, the author of “When the War Came Home,” and a Washington National Guardman’s wife, says long waiting lists, inconvenient opening hours – often weekday-working hours – and limited care in rural areas present barriers to care from VA facilities.

Bannerman, who is testifying Thursday before the House’s Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Health, is leading a grassroots effort to create a new model of post-combat care for citizen soldiers and their families (http://sanctuaryvf.org).

Employers need to familiarize themselves with their federal legal responsibilities to avoid the threat of future litigation. The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, USERRA, requires employers to promptly reinstate individuals into a position with the same seniority, status and pay they would have attained had they remained continuously employed. The Department of Labor has developed an interactive tool, USERRA elaws Advisors, to help employers and workers understand their respective rights (www.dol.gov/elaws/userra.htm).

(Victoria E. Knight is a Getting Personal columnist who writes about the financial implications of health care issues.)

By Victoria E. Knight, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-2438; victoria.knight@dowjones.com

‘Sanctuary’ would help Guard, Reserve families
Effort to set up support group here under way

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

By CAROL SMITH
P-I REPORTER

Stacy Bannerman, a Washington National Guardsman’s wife, has had her own series of deployments since her husband left for Iraq in 2004 — to Olympia and to Washington, D.C., where she’s become the force behind a movement to create a “sanctuary” for citizen soldiers and their families.

The sanctuary would be a place to get support and counseling, share experiences and otherwise find a community of people who know what deployment has been like. Her goal is to launch such a center in the Puget Sound area by Veterans Day. She hopes to expand the program nationwide in regions that have a high density of returning soldiers.

Guard and Reserve families are more isolated than active-duty military when they come home, she said. They don’t have a base community for support and can have a more difficult time getting care through the traditional VA system, yet Pentagon and other studies have shown they are more likely than their active-duty counterparts to experience mental health problems when they return.

And those problems often don’t get spotted in the initial mental health screens required of returning soldiers.

A November report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, for example, found that concerns over relationship issues, including alcohol abuse, quadrupled in the six months after the initial screening.

Bannerman, an intense woman with brown eyes, leans forward and drills home her points: Homelessness, unemployment, divorce, substance abuse and suicide are on the rise among citizen soldiers who have served combat deployments.

“People have gone AWOL from their lives,” she said.

Families struggle to know how to deal with the family member when they return.

“The person coming back is not the person who left,” she said. “But how do you grieve for someone who isn’t dead?”

Alii Naipo, whose husband, Garry, served 15 months in Iraq and now struggles with depression, anxiety and flashbacks, among other symptoms, knows they are one of the lucky families. They have managed to get some services through the VA, but even though Naipo was sent home from Iraq with a PTSD diagnosis in hand, it has required persistence.

“My advice to other families is follow through, follow through, follow through,” said Alii Naipo. “Seek assistance, follow up on appeals to denied services and invest in self-care.”

Other families of citizen soldiers haven’t been so fortunate. Hundreds of Guard and Reserve families across the country have told Bannerman they feel forgotten.

“This is destroying families,” she said.

The Guard has responded with stepped-up programs to help veterans, said Annie DeAndrea, who runs the Guard’s Transition Services. The Washington National Guard has started checking in with returning soldiers and families at more frequent intervals. The Guard also has a resource and referral service to help families cope with financial, housing and mental health issues.

The VA Puget Sound and the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs also have a network of counselors who are trained to spot PTSD and traumatic brain injury symptoms.

Bannerman, who is still looking for private-venture backing as well as public support to fund the sanctuary, hopes that providing a place where families can get help together will offer a new model to get more assistance to veterans and their families more quickly.

Since 9/11, more than 6,000 Guard and Reserve members from Washington have gone to Iraq and Afghanistan. And the number will grow. The Washington National Guard has been put on alert to redeploy in August as a security force in Iraq.

Altogether, more than 425,000 Guard and Reserve members have done at least one tour in Iraq or Afghanistan. Guard members now make up 20 percent of the troops deployed in the war. But the multiplier effect of their deployment on society is much greater because of the ramifications for family members.

“We will be living with this for the rest of our lives,” said Bannerman. “And so will our grandchildren.”

© 1998-2008 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

America’s Military Kids Are Latest Collateral Damage
By Stacy Bannerman
The Women’s Media Center

Monday 06 August 2007

“Think not forever of yourselves, O chiefs, nor of your own generation. Think of continuing generations of our families, think of our grandchildren and of those yet unborn, whose faces are coming from beneath the ground.” – Peacemaker, Founder of the Iroquois Confederacy, circa 1000 AD. The children of the troops serving in Iraq are experiencing significant collateral damage at home, according to two staggering new reports on the occurrence of child maltreatment, neglect, and abuse during combat-related deployments. The results of a three-year study recently published in the American Journal of Epidemiology stated: “War has a profound emotional impact on military personnel and their families. The rate of occurrence of substantiated maltreatment in military families was twice as high [during] deployment.” Most victims were four years old or younger and the perpetrator was usually the civilian parent who remained at home while a spouse was deployed. An even greater finding of abuse was uncovered in a similar study published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Looking at families of enlisted Army troops with verified reports of child maltreatment, the study found: “Among female civilian spouses, the rate of maltreatment during deployment was more than three times greater; the rate of child neglect was almost four times greater; and the rate of physical abuse was nearly twice as great.”

Skyrocketing stress levels in the parent left behind are one of the key factors contributing to elevated rates of neglect and abuse, according to the research. The JAMA study found that the primary offenders were non-Hispanic white civilian females, who, according to other informal surveys and anecdotal reports, are also reporting higher rates of secondary post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). War-related “secondary trauma” shares some of the same symptoms as a full-blown diagnosis, including emotional withdrawal, increased
anxiety, and poor anger management.

The extended deployments of 15 months or more and the reduced dwell time in between deployments are also exacerbating tensions on the home front. Another issue is the Army’s rather haphazard approach to providing respite childcare, family support, and prevention services and education.

“The Army is not really grasping what’s going on with the kids,” said Beth Pyritz, a 27-year-old mother of five whose husband, an Army specialist, returned to Iraq in June. It’s his third deployment in six years, and this time he’ll be gone for at least 15 months. His previous tour-of-duty lasted 10 months, during which time their six-year-old began acting out, and their eldest, an Honor Roll student, failed a grade.

Military kids are experiencing social, emotional, behavioral and academic problems that range from mild to severe, including bed-wetting, anti-social behavior, and juvenile delinquency. In the most acute cases, adolescents have been placed in psych wards or put on suicide watch while their parents were at war.

Well over one million children have had a parent deployed in combat since 2001, but there are few developmentally appropriate programs available, and the Veterans Administration and Vet Centers do not serve individual family members. The Army does provide some voluntary resources, such as Family Readiness Groups, but these are clearly not enough. And although the TV series, “Army Wives,” portrays a close-knit group of women on base, the reality can be quite a bit different. Beth’s family has been stationed at Ft. Eustis in Virginia for less than a year, and she says, “There’s not a lot of camaraderie with the wives.”

Resources and support, both formal and informal, are even fewer and further between for the families and children of the more than 400,000 National Guard and Reservists who have been deployed. Five years into the war in Iraq, and the military is just now beginning to recognize that these citizen soldiers and their families are struggling with different challenges from those experienced by active duty troops, and have often been more detrimentally affected by long deployments.

At the state and local level, some are taking steps to help these families cope. While the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs is just beginning to conduct research on the impact of deployments in Guard families, particularly the ways in which schoolchildren aged 6-12 have been affected, a Boston-based group is piloting a program for families of citizen soldiers who served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Strategic Outreach to Families of All Reservists (SOFAR) provides psychotherapy at no cost for the parents and the kids. Jaine Darwin, a psychologist who co-founded the service, said, “Unlike regular Army children who tend to be in a school with other Army children, the children of Reservists are more isolated and have no one focusing on helping them to cope.”

For the littlest ones, who are most often the targets of maltreatment, immediate intervention is especially critical. The early years are the formative ones, and the mother-child interaction in the first 18-24 months of life literally helps shape the growth and development of the prefrontal cortex of the child’s brain. When that relationship is defined by neglect and abuse, the brain lobes responsible for higher intelligence, creativity, and adaptability, will be under-developed. So while the doubling – or more – of child maltreatment that occurs when a parent is in a combat zone is deeply disturbing in and of itself, it also has significant, long-lasting social ramifications. It certainly gives new meaning to that old bumper sticker: War is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things.

When Mental Healthcare Goes AWOL
By STACY BANNERMAN
Progressive Media Project

America must quit treating its National Guardsmen and reserves like second-class soldiers. To an unprecedented extent, President Bush has been relying on the men and women of our National Guard to help fight his war in Iraq. Today, they make up approximately 20 percent of the force, down from a high of 48 percent during the summer of 2005. More than 425,179 guardsmen and reservists have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. The number of citizen-soldiers killed in Iraq is more than four times the number that died in Vietnam, a fact that President Bush did not mention when he recently compared the two wars.

Those weekend warriors who return from Iraq alive do not get the crucial services they need — especially mental healthcare. Many of them were never given post-combat mental health evaluations and are no longer eligible for treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Some have to wait more than two years to get it.

Active-duty troops can get year-round mental healthcare, but Guard members, once demobilized, “have virtually no access to healthcare,” according to Maj. Gen. Timothy Lowenberg, Washington National Guard, who testified at a recent hearing held by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

This hearing took place one day after the Pentagon revealed that 99 Army soldiers committed suicide last year — the highest rate in more than 25 years. Failed suicide attempts outnumbered suicides by almost 10 to one, according to the Pentagon’s report. That report did not include Marines, airmen or soldiers who killed themselves after separating from service, or citizen-soldiers.

Nearly half of all members of the National Guard vets are exhibiting post-combat mental health problems, according to the Pentagon’s Mental Health Task Force.

National Guard Spc. Brandon Jones, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, testified about one of his buddies: “My friend was medevac’d because of the stresses of combat. He was supposed to be on suicide watch. He was supposed to have been receiving counseling and medication. He was sent home alone! He put a gun to his head and took his own life.”

Active-duty troops participate in post-deployment follow-up for three months, and their regular contact with fellow soldiers facilitates decompression and reintegration. By contrast, guardsmen typically have no follow-up in the first three months post-deployment and no formal contact with their unit.

Jones, who suffers from mental injuries as the result of his combat deployment to Iraq in 2003-04, recounted being told that certain resources were “strictly for active-duty soldiers.” He said he was made to feel that counseling services “were a favor” and that “we were taking up a resource meant for active-duty soldiers.”

When combat trauma is exacerbated by this neglect and disregard, the sense of betrayal can set the stage for suicide.

We cannot continue to rely on our National Guard to take on the burdens of warfighting only to abandon them — and their families — when they are demobilized.

The men and women of the National Guard who have been fighting in Iraq know the terrible toll this war is taking on their hearts and minds. They shouldn’t have to fight for the care that this nation promised them when they get home.

Iraq Veterans Deserve More Than Post-Combat Negligence

By Stacy Bannerman
Special to The Seattle Times

Sunday 14 October 2007

WHEN the appalling conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center were made public, accompanied by grim photos of moldy walls, crumbling ceilings and dirty, bug-infested rooms, it sparked a national outcry and immediate action. Unfortunately, it has been comparatively quiet about the nearly 300 Iraq war veterans who have committed suicide, and thousands more who have attempted it.

America cannot afford the price of failing to care for veterans with combat-related mental-health problems. The systemic breakdown in mental-health care is so profound that military families and veterans groups have filed lawsuits against the Department of Veterans Affairs. Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth have filed a class-action suit on behalf of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who are dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The suit claims there are as many as “800,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans said to suffer or risk developing PTSD.” The groups charge the VA with collaborating with the Pentagon to avoid paying PTSD benefits.

Joyce and Kevin Lucey of Belchertown, Mass., are suing the VA for negligence, contending that their son Jeffrey, a Marine Reservist, hanged himself after the military refused to treat his post-traumatic
stress disorder.

Yet, in conversations about the dire state of care for deployment-related trauma, the question I am most often asked is some variation of “Why should I care?”

Not so long ago, I believed that when it came to veterans’ assistance, demonstrated need was justification for treatment. I thought that the unprecedented number of troops returning from Iraq with post-combat mental problems – 31 to 48 percent, compared with the estimated 30 percent for Vietnam veterans – was evidence enough.

Because this country drapes itself in the flag of family values, I thought the increased divorce rates among U.S. troops might be sufficient motivation. I presumed that the growing body of evidence attesting to the skyrocketing rates of child abuse, neglect and maltreatment during combat-related deployments would be enough to spur this nation to tend to the invisible wounds of war.

I imagined that the escalating incidents of post-deployment domestic violence and murder – domestic abuse in military households is around five times the civilian rate – would seal the deal. And then there are the public health and community costs incurred when the police, fire and emergency medical technicians are called. The costs escalate more when the courts get involved, when guardians for the children are assigned, supervised visitation is required and foster-home placements have to be made.

I figured that making good on this nation’s commitment to support the troops, and keeping America’s promise to take care of our veterans, would be sufficient closing arguments.

I was wrong. It seems that the double bottom line on most Americans’ minds is economic and national security, both of which are compromised by negligent post-combat care.

According to the Department of Labor, the unemployment rate for young Iraq war veterans is triple that of their civilian counterparts. Almost half of the 425,000 citizen soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan experience deployment-related mental-health problems, according to the Department of Defense Mental Health Task Force.

Because their post-combat mental-health care is limited or nonexistent, when citizen soldiers return to their civilian jobs, they bring their psychological problems along.

In Washington and other states with large concentrations of civilian veterans in the work force, untreated war trauma means higher turnover, increased absenteeism, elevated health-care and human-resources costs, and reductions in performance and productivity. It also means a diminished tax base, lower housing values and fewer consumers.

Those things may be the least of our worries. The No. 1 reason for military attrition is untreated mental-health problems, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. If we don’t take care of the troops who have seen combat, they will, quite literally, not be available to take care of us.

Last updated July 10, 2007 5:09 p.m. PT

STACY BANNERMAN
GUEST COLUMNIST

“Let us strive…bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan.”

– Abraham Lincoln: Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865

The post-combat mental health care provided by the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration was “created for a military that no longer exists. Today’s system was designed for the 19-year-old, single GI,” according to a statement by Bobby Muller, president of Veterans for America, at April’s historic joint meeting of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs and Armed Services Committees.

Current programs and services were developed in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, when troops typically served one tour-of-duty, and the wound-to-kill ratio was 3-to-1. A recent Pentagon report indicated that the length of tours is an important factor contributing to elevated levels of combat stress. It also found that soldiers who were deployed for more than six months were 1 1/2 times more prone to depression or anxiety than those serving shorter tours.

Repeat, extended deployments of up to 15 months or more are the norm for the 1.6 million troops who have served in Afghanistan or Iraq, where the wound-to-kill ratio is 16-to-1. Being wounded or seeing someone wounded is a significant factor in the development of post-combat mental health problems. Those who have served multiple tours are 50 percent more likely to suffer from acute combat stress.

According to a recent report on the long-term costs of veterans’ medical care, “36 percent of the (Iraq) veterans treated so far — an unprecedented number — have been diagnosed with a mental health condition.”

The most conservative estimates project that at least 350,000 veterans of the “war on terror” will struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder or a diagnosable mental disorder. But these are not the veterans of your father’s day.

Active duty troops who have been deployed since 2001 are, on average, 27 years old; the average age of Guard and Reservists is 33. Approximately 60 percent have family responsibilities. At least 700,000 children have had a parent deployed overseas, but there are scant resources for the stressed kids who are exhibiting social, emotional, behavioral and academic problems.

Nearly 50 percent of troops killed in Iraq have left spouses and children behind, but there are precious few programs offering grief counseling for Gold Star families. Support for family members acting as primary caretakers for their severely injured veterans, including those with polytraumas and traumatic brain injury, is virtually non-existent.

Since 2001, 160,000 female troops have been deployed, and 10 percent of them are single mothers. Women combat veterans are at an elevated risk for PTSD, and often suffer military sexual abuse. But the VA has just two gender-specific in-patient treatment programs.

The VA has barely begun to grapple with the multiple and unique post-combat challenges of almost 400,000 citizen soldiers, the largest ever deployment of Guard and Reservists in U.S. history.

As the wife of a Washington State National Guardsman who fought in Iraq, I have seen firsthand the psychological wounds the war is inflicting in the troops and their loved ones. Yet treatment options are non-existent, insufficient or unavailable. Tens of thousands of veterans have timed out of the two-year window of care guaranteed by the VA. In addition, there are projected cutbacks for veterans care in 2009-2010 and beyond — just when the demand for immediate assistance may crest.

The untreated effects of combat-related trauma last a lifetime, and long-term consequences include: unemployment, depression, divorce, domestic violence, chemical dependency, poor physical health, homelessness, “accidental death,” suicide and even murder.

Thousands of U.S. veterans, children and military family members now meet the definition of an at-risk population: being endangered, as from exposure to disease or from a lack of parental or familial guidance and proper health care.

But government agencies, particularly under the Bush administration, do not have a good track record of quickly and creatively responding to communities in crisis. The private and philanthropic sectors and grass-roots organizations do. Together, we can build a rural retreat in Western Washington to provide support, care and services for the battles that begin when the war comes home.

While the government is playing catch-up, the lives of our veterans, the well-being of their families, and the very fabric of our communities hang in the balance.

Let’s build them the sanctuary they deserve.

Stacy Bannerman of Kent is the author of “When the War Came Home: The Inside Story of Reservists and the Families They Leave Behind,” (Continuum Publishing, 2006). She is working to establish The Sanctuary for Veterans & Families; www.sanctuaryvf.org. She can be contacted at stacy@stacybannerman.com.

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