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Invisible Injuries By Chantel Morel I know a girl at school whose brother came back from Iraq around Thanksgiving two years ago. “I was very happy to have him home—we all were—but then I noticed he’d changed,” my friend said. “All he would talk about was guns.” My friend said her brother wouldn’t talk to his family much about what he’d seen in Iraq, but he wanted to resolve every problem by fighting. I think his case is a clear example of the after-effects of war. Repercussions of War The United States military has been in Afghanistan since 2001 and in Iraq since 2003. My peers and I used to talk about how the war sucked, but it seems that since President George W. Bush left office, we’ve barely talked about it at all. Because he started the war, we used to blame him for it. But it was like we didn’t think about it anymore once he was gone. Yet American soldiers are still serving and dying in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom (these are the military’s names for the Afghanistan and Iraq operations). In fact, on December 1, President Barack Obama announced in a speech that he plans to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. Additional troops going out there just means more American deaths and more trauma. More than 900 American soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan and 4,300 in Iraq, according to the website iCasualties.org, which tracks military deaths and injuries. In Afghanistan, the body count has increased steadily since 2004. In addition to the deaths, 36,000 Americans have been wounded in these two countries since 2001. But that number doesn’t include soldiers who have come home from war with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. PTSD comes from a serious traumatic event and can cause flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety, and uncontrollable anger. The Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) estimates that 6-11% of Operation Enduring Freedom veterans and 12-20% of Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans suffer from PTSD. A Violent Aftermath From what I can tell, these psychologically damaged veterans don’t get enough help. At the Fort Hood Army base in Texas, which was recently in the news after an Army psychiatrist there killed 13 soldiers, there have been many cases of violence since the wars began. The New York Times reported that a crisis center on the base (home to 53,000 soldiers) gets an average of 60 phone calls a week from soldiers and their family members seeking help with suicide attempts or anger problems. Since 2001, violent and domestic crime rates have spiked in the area, which goes against national trends for towns the size of Fort Hood. I’ve heard about these effects closer to home through my friend. When I asked her if she thought her brother had PTSD, she said, “I’m sure he came back with problems, but I didn’t know what it was called. He would punch walls. He’d get into fights with my other brothers every 30 minutes. Whenever he saw violence on TV—like a scary movie we watched once, where a man’s head got cut off—he just laughed. He found violence hysterical. One minute he’d be very angry then the next he’d be fine. He would also get really depressed over any little thing.” Getting Help I’m not a psychiatrist and I can’t diagnose this as PTSD, but these are definitely signs that something was wrong. My friend says her brother is better now, and is at college studying to be a medical assistant. I think he’s one of the lucky ones. Soldiers should be helped as soon as they get back. Mental health resources are available to soldiers, and the DVA has added “thousands” of mental health professionals in the last four years, according to spokesperson Laurie Tranter. But to get these services, veterans first have to register at a VA hospital (a hospital for veterans run by the Veterans Health Administration, part of the DVA), and to do so they cannot have been dishonorably discharged. Soldiers can also be reluctant to seek help. The Army reported in a 2004 study that although one in eight soldiers who fought in Iraq had symptoms of PTSD, less than half of these troubled soldiers sought help because they were afraid of how their peers would look at them. I think the DVA must make sure soldiers feel encouraged to get help. My view is that soldiers shouldn’t be ashamed or afraid. We cannot forget about men and women who have been putting their lives on the line for us and still are today. Resources for Veterans If you or a loved one needs help dealing with life after war, or if you want to learn more about supporting veterans, check out these resources: National Veterans Foundation Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America United States Department of Veterans Affairs
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About
our books Stories from New Youth Connections have been anthologized in several books by Youth Communication. Starting With I (Persea Books, 1997) is a collection of personal essays first published in NYC; in addition, The Struggle to Be Strong: True Stories By Teens About Resilence (Free Spirit, 2000), Things Get Hectic: Teens Write About the Violence That Surrounds Them (Simon& Schuster, 1998) and Out With It: Gay and Straight Teens Write About Homosexuality (Youth Communication, 1996) feature stories from NYC as well as from Represent, our other teen-written magazine. |
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