Combat-related post-traumatic stress. The continued deaths of soldiers by suicide. The effects of being at war on a soldier's return home - including domestic violence and homicide. Even Oprah's going to be covering it - her show is soliciting stories from people affected by these issues.
The New York Times featured an article about those families who have lost soldiers to suicide, but have not received condolence letters from the White House because their family members did not die in combat.
"Suicide has crept out of the shadows and become a front-burner problem for the military," states the article, but stigma about mental health issues still exists.
The Boston Globe had a small piece about the loss of questionnaires meant to capture information about the mental and physical health of returning troops.
Over the past year, I feel like I've been observing the armed forces - as a system, from individual families to our President - approach and retreat, and approach and retreat again from these issues.
The father of the family highlighted in the New York Times says something which I imagine resonates with many who have been involved in trying to improve the armed forces response to soldier stress, mental illness, and the effects of these issues on families of troops.
"My last words to my son were, ‘Be a man and get through it'... If my son had said, ‘Dad, I've broken my leg, I can't go on,' I would have understood. But I didn't understand the mental health side."
How would putting mental illness on par with physical illness or injury help us know how to better respond to soldiers in these situations? Will acknowledging a death by suicide during military service as combat-related death help reduce the stigma of suicide? How might a better understanding of "the mental health side" help prevent other violence in military families and communities?
Copyright 2009 Elana Premack Sandler, All Rights Reserved
