Soldiers returning home with mental/behavioral health issues 1

Soldiers returning home with mental/behavioral health issues

Spencer C. J. Weaver
University of Texas at El Paso
Soldiers returning home with mental/behavioral health issues 2

Abstract

While reading this essay you will read the global issue that soldiers returning home from

war with mental/behavioral health issues. Many people see this as a problem, but many also see

this as a way of people using it as an excuse to get away from their mistakes and problems they

have caused. But you will understand the amount of people that are affected by this is growing

constantly. Then also how these service members are just given medications instead of actual

treatment, then there are some that are willing to expose themselves to their triggers that came

from their experiences while overseas. Furthermore, there are many soldiers that have been

released from duty are turning towards medical marijuana to help with their bodies due to over

medicating from doctors. In this we will see the true light and conflict seen with these issues that

these soldiers are dealing with every day.

Soldiers returning home with mental/behavioral health issues 3

One of the biggest issues around the world is soldiers returning home with

mental/behavioral issues, that affect them on a daily basis. This is one of the worst situations we

are dealing with and how many service members can either get help, be judged wrongly, or

thought that they are just looking for drugs for a quick fix. Many people do not realize what the

war is actually taking a toll on these service members that are fighting against every day. Many

of these service members start drinking or move towards drugs to help them suppress the demons

they are fighting every day. This also takes a toll on the families of service members as well and

can destroy marriages and relationships. After looking for resources to help show the importance

that mental/behavioral health issues that these service members acquire while serving overseas, I

found many different things that can make this look good, bad or even un-normal due to the

nature of how people perceive this issue. But there is also many different places trying to help

soldiers trying to transition back to normal life a easy and help process by using fun or even

friendly means to give some ease to these military members.

Today we have twenty-two service members committing suicide daily. If you add that up

for one week it is a total of one hundred an fifty-four, but in one year there is around one

thousand one hundred an forty-seven. This is way too many lives being taken away due to PTSD,

depression, and other means that are cause from war. Just by these numbers alone is an issue and

should be seen as a major cause of why our veterans and service members should be looked after

better then what is actually happening today.

There were images that showed the problem that these service members go through on a

daily basis and how much it affects their life after the military. Many of these pictures are very

powerful and show the true meaning of what mental/behavior health issues cause on a daily
Soldiers returning home with mental/behavioral health issues 4

basis. While looking at these pictures you can really tell the true meaning behind the painful

problems that are a daily impediment of life.

While researching more about this global issue I came across serval videos about

medication and the stigma that comes with these types of issues. The one video that came close

to home was a video that Fort Bliss Public Affairs Office interviewing a soldier affect by the war

and started having behavioral/mental health issues. He explains his whole story and has a very

difficult time reliving the thoughts of what was going on during the time being back home when

everything stated to un-ravel. When he starts talking you can tell he is very emotional and is

having the hardest time trying to talk about his problems. He also states that he “did not notice it

and started going out and drinking all the time.” (SGT Blanco, 2013) this was his way of
Soldiers returning home with mental/behavioral health issues 5

processing it. Then he goes to talk about when he got married, he had “other issues” he didn’t

know off, “sleeping, I wasn’t sleeping good. I was waking up in the night and my wife was

trying to talk to me and I wouldn’t talk to her” (SGT Blanco, 2013). This was one of the first

breaking points for SGT Blanco in dealing with his demons. This was all due to him losing a lot

of good friends during the war. During the whole interview he goes on to explain more about his

ways of coping with the depression and PTSD that affected him daily.

He goes on to talk about his way of feeling out of place and alone while on a trip to

Vegas. He talked about how he was trigged while watching war movies and drinking. “I broke a

beer bottle and slashed my chest, multiple times.”,” I thought about ending it right there.” (SGT

Blanco, 2013) He goes to talk about how his wife was trying to fix him back up after finding out

what happened. Then he finally thought about going to see someone. He tried to hide what

happened and tried to hide it away from every soldier that he has. But he finally showed and

talked about what is going on. His friend told him to go see someone, he wanted to think about

and talk to his wife about the situation. His wife also threatens to leave him if he did not go seek

help from the behavioral health clinic on post. While all this happened, he finally got the help he

needs to keep himself from trying to taking his life again. He also talks about the stigma that is

within the military. The stigma is one of the worst things in the military, the reason for this is

that you are weak when you are seeking the help that could save your life. This stigma needs to

be fought against and broken down so everyone can get the right help you need to live.

The next thing I also came across was a doctor that talked about the medication that is

given to soldiers by medical providers that also create a major behavioral health issue. The

medication that I am talking about is anti-depressants. Most of these doctors do not realize the

side affects that it has on these people and can cause someone to become suicidal or have
Soldiers returning home with mental/behavioral health issues 6

suicidal tendencies. This is one of the other biggest things that cause service members to have

more mental/behavioral issues to come forward, this is because medical provides will just keep

giving medication to them and just push them through without looking at the major factors. The

major factors that most soldiers deal with is depression and PTSD, and most medical providers

will just give them the medication that is easily accesses and is highly know for suicide. This

doctor goes into detail and tries to go after the medical providers prescribing these medications

in a out-rages amount to military and veterans.

While watching the video he talks about a general and his son that went enlisted. He

explains about the son suffering from depression and how the doctors prescribed an anti-

depressant to help with his symptoms, but in the long wrong the medication causes him to have

suicide intension that caused him to end his life. The general use this to start looking into what

caused this to happen. The problem was that the medical providers were not paying attention to

the side-affects the medication was causing to the soldier and made his depression spike higher.

The general found that these providers were over using anti-depressants that were the “easier

access medication”. These medications are causing many different people to turn away and start

moving toward seclusion and then suicide.

As watching the video, Dr. John Breeding, talks about the General wanting to “pledge to

prevent suicide by getting soldiers to see psychiatrist” (John, 2009). He talks about how the

General is not seeing the truth fully but only one aspect of the ideal of suicide but not the actual

medications that are causing the psychic state that people are one. He also goes to use other

references that talk about medications. While talking about this he names numerous amounts of

medications that can cause suicidal intentions. He states that the medications are boosting the

amount of people to go suicidal because of these things. Then he talks about his friend’s
Soldiers returning home with mental/behavioral health issues 7

daughter that committed suicide in middle school due to the anti-depressants she was on. Not

going into deep on the detail she took her life in a very demeaning way that is very old in nature.

He also shows how the military does not so the facts of how many people are dying in different

ways due to medication cocktails and suicide at the same time. During his video he talks about

how many different means of treatment are just covered up by medications, so it can keep

soldiers going. All the medications are killing service members to die at a young age, but also

states that it is more of a profit ideal to the companies making these drugs for the military.

After this video it really gets you think about how much the military medicates its service

members to keep them going. This is very heart breaking due to the fact of how wrongful this is

to every person that goes through this. This is one of the biggest problems that lead to either

suicide and early death. The early death is due to the amount of different medications that are

given and having to take all these multiple times a day, in which can cause cardiac related

deaths. Many of these is a problem is the leading cause of soldiers getting hooked on drugs.

Many of the drugs are also opiates, in which is one of the other main drug the military and VA

like to hand out to help soldiers with stress and anxiety, but also can be used to help with PTSD,

depression and sometimes sleep. The ideal of how easily medication is given out and over

medicating people with these symptoms is sickening and also devastating. With this thought,

how many more soldiers have to suffer before actually getting the help that is really needed.

Then to follow this example I have talked about the vice video that interviewed and

looked into veterans fighting to legalize medical marijuana. Many of the vets talk about the

amount of medications they were on in a short amount of time due to their time in service, wither

it was due to IED or PTSD from the war. They all suffer from some type of life altering

disability, but many of them suffer more from mental/behavioral health issues. One vet talks
Soldiers returning home with mental/behavioral health issues 8

about his children and wife telling him to “take a ten-minutes” (News 2017) so he can smoke his

medication to calm himself down from his anger that is apart of his PTSD or depression. Many

of them all have similar experiences with doctors recommending them to look into medical

marijuana but also tell them that they are not recommending or tell anyone that they said this,

basically what is going on is that the doctors want to help the patients but can not actually legally

tell them about trying/looking into this type of medical procedure.

In the fight for medical marijuana many vets that take multiple amount of medications

would rather be on medical marijuana then all the medication that these providers are giving out.

This fight is one of the most conversional and problem causes around this country just because

people still believe it is a gate way drug. But for many veterans they need this due to their time

served in war. Their main focuses for fighting to legalize marijuana is from their own

experiences and how many types of drugs they are prescribed in a year. One veteran talk about

being prescribes almost ten-thousand different pills in one year, and even many of those are

classes as “class two drugs” (News 2017). With all of this do you think we should look into

different methods of treating veterans and especially other people the same way due to the ease

of getting all of these medications so easily?

To furthermore, there is other groups trying to help service members that are returning

back from deployment and want to help with any type of mental health issues they could be

suffering from. There is a National Guard unit in Illinois that wants to team with local churches

to help military members that could have these mental/behavioral health issues instead of turning

towards drinking or even going towards all the worst possible drugs that are out in the world

today. This is a great ordeal and idea, the reason I say this is because of the stigma that the

military members have when it comes to mental/behavioral health, even in the video interview
Soldiers returning home with mental/behavioral health issues 9

that SGT Blanco was in explains the same problem. The military members think if you seek help

or think you have any type of problems it is considered weakness and that ends up clouding the

judgement of someone that could really use help from these doctors.

This idea of helping anyone that is suffering from these problems is the best thing that

could have happened due to the amount of service members that deal with sometime of

depression and/or PTSD. While looking at this exert, I have seen I great promise and much help,

but also a way to trying to appeal to soldiers that really need help.

“During the conference, Lambert pointed out five critical challenges military men and women face after leaving a
war zone and returning home:

-- Overcoming alienation

-- The transition from a simple regimented lifestyle of duty to complexity at home

-- Replacing the war with another form of high (alcohol or substance abuse)

-- Moving beyond war to finding meaning in their lives

-- Coming to peace with self, God and others.” (Smith 2010)

This is a great example of their plains and ways to helping soldiers come forth to their

issues without any judgement and trying to find peace. Many people do not think they can find

peace with all of this, but there are many different people that can help our service members with

trying to find ways of coping with the stress, depression, anxiety and even PTSD. If their was

more services or eve groups that could actually take it into their own hands to help our service

members there would be less soldiers trying to fight this battle over the demons that haunt them

every day by themselves.

Soldiers returning home with mental/behavioral health issues 10

Then there are people who think PTSD is just a ploy to get peoples sympathy and also

see it as what these soldiers deserve. This mentally is ignorant and completely outrages, just to

the fact of these service members are fighting to keep your country safe and have no choice but

to go to war due to their orders. If they do not listen to their orders it can cause them to go to jail

or even be discharged dishonorably for disobeying a lawful order from a superior. Then there are

people that really and truly believe that this is a big problem that controls the soldiers everyday

and can affect everything in their life. Theses people are actually worried and want to help these

service members with their PTSD and want to see them get better, because of them serving their

country and sacrificed their own health for their freedom. But in todays society we are always in

conflict when it comes to this ideal of soldiers that return home with mental/behavioral health

issues should or shouldn’t deserve what has come forth to their lives, without even thinking

about what if they were in the service members shoes? Do you think their mentality would

change after that?

While reading many different exerts from one article written by the Toronto Star, I have

seen one of the worst persons that could be demeaning to the soldiers that are suffering from the

issues. Frank MacKay, Scarborough, talks about “Do not be fooled by excuses of PTSD and

mental illness used as special pleading for criminality.” ((Canada) 2009). This statement is very

wrong and is the thought that many service members are killers or murders. Not every single

service member get PTSD from war fighting, some service members get it from being attacked

on the actual Forward Operating Base or F.O.B. for short. There are service members that were

or are on a F.O.B. get attacked by random firing or mortar attacks, that are within their living

area and can cause some to lose their lives, or the lucky ones survive and have problems

afterwards in their daily lives with startling noises. All of this can start a flash back to what
Soldiers returning home with mental/behavioral health issues 11

happened on that day. This man does not think about if he was in their shoes, he attacks soldiers

saying its in their genetics and is not a mental illness.

The best thing to over come people like this, is organizations and business that are

supporting our troops returning from overseas and trying to help then transition back with very

simple, fun and relaxing time. These types of things can be very simple but effective way to help

soldiers that could have these problems be less stress and have a great time coming back instead

of dealing with stressful environment.

With saying this, I came across an article that was showing all different type of business

and groups, giving deals and activities. All the advertisements in the margins are for all people

and genders, most of these are between Buffalo Wild Wings, to beauty salons and even comedy.

Many of these groups are trying to give soldiers a relaxing and even have simple fun after six

months to a year of non-stop work. This belief of making soldiers that could have

mental/behavioral health issues have an easy transition with no stress at all is another great form

of people understand that all that is given from these service members. In the article, the detail

within the pictures really should how much everyone wants to help and take care of the returning

soldiers, unlike many of people that see soldiers as killers and murders. To e this is the greatest

improvement from our country and how well people understand the hardship our service

members dealt with overseas.

In the case of how many service members that is climbing more and more every single

day and year for receiving mental/behavioral health treatment. The article by Tracey Barnett

goes so far in-depth that it even talks about how many of them turn towards alcohol and drugs to

suppress the emotions and fears that are faced daily. Then she talks about how the number of
Soldiers returning home with mental/behavioral health issues 12

service members that have served or are serving seeking help are increasing within the time the

article was written. This is the best example of showing the true problems these people are facing

every day.

“Soldiers are surviving war in bigger numbers, but with greater "polytrauma" and extensive traumatic brain injury
brought on by atmospheric pressure from roadside bomb blasts.

percentage of veterans receiving care from Veterans Affairs hospitals for mental health issues, including post
traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), drinking, substance abuse, hypervigilence and additional serious behavioural
problems: 43 per cent. This is a six-fold increase since 2002.

Number of soldiers US Army statistics show returning home with PTSD: 17 per cent. Age group most likely to
experience extended and multiple deployments of two, three and four tours of combat: 25 and under.

Age group of marines with highest rates of PTSD and alcoholism: 25 and under.” (Barnett 2009)

This little exert from this article shows some of the examples of how many service

members have seek help from the VA but it also shows the amount it jumped in one year. Then

you can also see some of the things these service members suffer from while being overseas and

how much it affected their lives. These statistics show everything including alcoholism even if it

is just over one service. The greatest thing about this article is how in-depth this writer goes with

explaining and giving the detail about the real statistics of the soldiers facing problems and how

many either get help or try to use alcohol to suppress these problems instead of getting help. But

this article also shows the average age that it is affecting every day. Most people do not actually

look in to the amount and age of these service members and not realize the affect it is having on

them in their lives.

Soldiers returning home with mental/behavioral health issues 13

Then to further the affect of what PTSD is and how it affects someone on their daily lives

I came across a YouTube video from TEDx. They recorded “Peter Tuerk the Director of a VA

PTSD program” (Tuerk 2015). The purpose of him talking is about the in-depth of what actually

causes the PTSD problems we do not understand. Peter Tuerk is trying to show that PTSD is not

just stress, but it is “comprised of at least three components: re-experiences symptoms, arousal,

and avoidance.” (Tuerk 2015). He goes on to talk about people with PTSD try to stay away from

experiences that can give these people their symptoms and cause them to go back in the

memories of what happened at that time. Their was talk about service members getting pulled

over by cops thinking they are under the influence of alcohol or drugs while driving; but the

main reason for this is because of soldiers thinking there is a I.E.D in the road from past

experiences, this causes them to swerve out of the way for a plastic bag or something left in the

room that can cause them to think it might be an I.E.D. But also makes cops think that they are

under the influence of something.

The in-depth explanation of how we process chaos in our minds. Peter Tuerk uses an

example of a quickie mart and many different things that could possibly happen, but also talks

about how it can be affected by emotion connected. The emotion connection of the experience

that our brain cannot process it fully. He also talks about how it is very treatable due to exposure

treatment. He goes forth to talk about exposing the traumatic experience that can cause triggers

for service members by confronting the memory that they went through. The group he talks

about is using “Prolong Exposure Therapy” (Tuerk 2015) to help service members that are

returning back from overseas that are confronted with PTSD, and those that do not want the pain

of PTSD controlling their life every second of the day.

Soldiers returning home with mental/behavioral health issues 14

Peter Tuerk talks about the people that complete this therapy have an overcome of their

PTSD. He also says that it is very successful for those that can overcome their PTSD through

their treatment, but he also talks about how its not just a hundred percent treatment success rate

and understand it does not work with every case due to the severity of the patient and their

willingness to complete the treatment or how affective the treatment is on the person.

In all of this we can all see how serious it is for soldiers that are returning home with

mental/behavioral health issues. This is one of the biggest impacts on their lives and their

families. Between Their daily triggers and the way, they cope it can be very deadly, but even the

medications they are given throughout their lives. These things can also impact their lives either

good or bad in the ideal of some medications can be harsh on the body. But this issue has to be

shown to the world for all to understand the affect it has on these service members lives on a

daily basis and what they could do to help ease the pain they deal with.
Soldiers returning home with mental/behavioral health issues 15

References

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Barnett, Tracey. 2009. US conflicts: The numbers speak for themselves (Utep data base). Oct 31.
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Breeding, Dr. John. 2009. PycheTruth/YouTube. Jun. 5. Accessed 2018.

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