[NYAPRS Enews] NYT: Army Leaders Alarmed About Soldiers' Mental Health

[Harvey Rosenthal]

Army Is Worried by Rising Stress of Return Tours to Iraq 

By THOM SHANKER   New York Times   April 6, 2008

 

WASHINGTON - Army leaders are expressing increased alarm about the
mental health of soldiers who would be sent back to the front again and
again under plans that call for troop numbers to be sustained at high
levels in Iraq for this year and beyond. 

 

Among combat troops sent to Iraq for the third or fourth time, more than
one in four show signs of anxiety, depression or acute stress, according
to an official Army survey of soldiers' mental health.

 

The stress of long and multiple deployments to Iraq is just one of the
concerns being voiced by senior military officers in Washington as Gen.
David H. Petraeus, the senior Iraq commander, prepares to tell Congress
this week that he is not ready to endorse any drawdowns beyond those
already scheduled through July.

 

President Bush has signaled that he will endorse General Petraeus's
recommendation, a decision that will leave close to 140,000 American
troops in Iraq at least through the summer. But in a meeting with Mr.
Bush late last month in advance of General Petraeus's testimony, the
Joint Chiefs of Staff expressed deep concern about stress on the force,
senior Defense Department and military officials said. 

 

Among the 513,000 active-duty soldiers who have served in Iraq since the
invasion of 2003, more than 197,000 have deployed more than once, and
more than 53,000 have deployed three or more times, according to a
separate set of statistics provided this week by Army personnel
officers. The percentage of troops sent back to Iraq for repeat
deployments would have to increase in the months ahead. 

 

The Army study of mental health showed that 27 percent of
noncommissioned officers - a critically important group - on their third
or fourth tour exhibited symptoms commonly referred to as post-traumatic
stress disorders. That figure is far higher than the roughly 12 percent
who exhibit those symptoms after one tour and the 18.5 percent who
develop the disorders after a second deployment, according to the study,
which was conducted by the Army surgeon general's Mental Health Advisory
Team. 

 

The Army and the rest of the service chiefs have endorsed General
Petraeus's recommendations for continued high troop levels in Iraq. But
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Gen. George W. Casey
Jr., the Army chief of staff, and their top deputies also have warned
that the war in Iraq should not be permitted to inflict an unacceptable
toll on the military as a whole. "Our readiness is being consumed as
fast as we build it," Gen. Richard A. Cody, the Army vice chief of
staff, said in stark comments delivered to Congress last week. "Lengthy
and repeated deployments with insufficient recovery time have placed
incredible stress on our soldiers and our families, testing the resolve
of our all-volunteer force like never before."

 

Beyond the Army, members of the Joint Chiefs have also told the
president that the continued troop commitment to Iraq means that there
is a significant level of risk should another crisis erupt elsewhere in
the world. Any mission could be carried out successfully, the chiefs
believe, but the operation would be slower, longer and costlier in lives
and equipment than if the armed forces were not so strained.

 

Under the drawdown already planned, the departure of five combat
brigades from Iraq by July should allow the Army to announce that tours
will be shortened to 12 months from 15 by the end of summer.

 

Even so, senior officers warn that time at home must be increased from
the current 12 months between combat tours. Otherwise, they say, the
ground forces risk an unacceptable level of retirements of sergeants -
the key leaders of the small-unit operations - and of experienced
captains, who represent the future of the Army's officer corps. 

 

The mental health study conducted by the Army was carried out in Iraq
last October and November, and does not represent a purely scientific
sampling of deployed troops, because that is difficult to accomplish in
a combat environment, the authors of the study have said. Instead, the
study was based on 2,295 anonymous surveys and additional interviews
from members of frontline units in combat brigades, and not from those
assigned primarily to safer operating bases. Since the study was
distributed last month, it has become a central topic of high-level
internal discussions within the Army, and its findings have been
accepted by Army leaders, senior Pentagon and military officials say.

 

The survey found that the proportion of soldiers serving in Iraq who had
encountered mental health problems was about the same as found in
previous studies - about 18 percent of deployed soldiers. But in
analyzing the effect of the war on those with previous duty in Iraq, the
study found that "soldiers on multiple deployments report low morale,
more mental health problems and more stress-related work problems."

 

By the time they are on their third or fourth deployments, soldiers "are
at particular risk of reporting mental health problems," the study
found.

 

The range of symptoms reported by soldiers varies widely, from
sleeplessness and anxiety to more severe depression and stress. To
assist soldiers facing problems, the Army has begun to hire more
civilian mental health professionals while directing Army counselors to
spend more time with frontline units. 

 

Senior officers at the Pentagon have tried to avoid shrill warnings
about the health of the force, cognizant that such comments might
embolden potential adversaries, and they continue to hope that troop
levels in Iraq can be reduced next year. Still, none deny the level of
stress on the force from current deployments.

 

Admiral Mullen spoke broadly to those concerns last week, saying at a
Pentagon news conference that the military would have already assigned
forces to missions elsewhere in the world were it not for what he called
"the pressure that's on our forces right now." 

 

He added that the military would "continue to be there until, should
conditions allow, we start to be able to reduce our force levels in
Iraq." 

 

One example of the pressure has come in Afghanistan, where the Pentagon
has been unable to meet all of the commanders' requests for more forces,
in particular for several thousand military trainers. 

 

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told reporters on Friday that he
expected that the United States would be able to add significantly to
its deployments in Afghanistan in 2009. But to do that - and to increase
time at home for soldiers between deployments - probably would require
further reductions in troop levels in Iraq, Pentagon planners said. 

 

Members of the Joint Chiefs also acknowledge that the deployments to
Iraq, with the emphasis on counterinsurgency warfare, have left the
ground forces no time to train for the full range of missions required
to defend American interests.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/washington/06military.html?pagewanted=
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