The Trauma Of Women Veterans

The Women's War - Sara Corbett - Iraq - Soldiers - Women - Abuse - New York Times

This is an excellent article by Sara Corbett, New York Times, about the effects of war and the military in general on women soldiers. More than 160,000 women have been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, compared to 7,500 in Vietnam. Today, 1 in 10 soldiers are women.

The effects of war on women is unknown. However, the stories of these women are compelling. The women vets we have worked with in Returning Warriors retreats bear out that women not only have to deal with the stress of war, but also the betrayal of their men comrades who are supposed to help and protect them.

Betrayal and Assault

From day one in boot camp, new soldiers are taught that they must view their fellows as family, to rely on each other and take care of each other. Such trust is imperative in a war zone, especially in a fire fight. With this background, rape looks a lot like incest.

''It's very disconcerting to have somebody who is supposed to save your life, who has your back, turn on you and do something like that,'' says Susan Avila-Smith, the director of Women Organizing Women, an advocacy program designed to help traumatized women navigate the vast V.A. health-care and benefits system. ''You don't want to believe it's real. You don't want to have to deal with it. The family doesn't want to deal with it. Society doesn't want to deal with it.''

Tina Lee, a psychiatrist at the V.A. Palo Alto Health Care System in California, works with both male and female PTSD patients. She points out that traumatic experiences in childhood may increase the risk of developing PTSD when exposed to another trauma in adulthood.

''So you have young women joining the military who have the profile of being victimized, who don't have boundaries sometimes,'' Lee went on to say. ''And then you have a male population that fits a perpetrator profile. They are mostly under 25, often developmentally adolescent, and you put them together. What do you think will happen? The men do the damage, and the women get damaged.''

The article notes, "A 2003 report financed by the Department of Defense revealed that nearly one-third of a nationwide sample of female veterans seeking health care through the V.A. said they experienced rape or attempted rape during their service. Of that group, 37 percent said they were raped multiple times, and 14 percent reported they were gang-raped. Perhaps even more tellingly, a small study financed by the V.A. following the gulf war suggests that rates of both sexual harassment and assault rise during wartime. The researchers who carried out this study also looked at the prevalence of PTSD symptoms - including flashbacks, nightmares, emotional numbing and round-the-clock anxiety - and found that women who endured sexual assault were more likely to develop PTSD than those who were exposed to combat."

"Two years after deployment to the gulf war, where combat exposure was relatively low, Army data showed that 16 percent of a sample of female soldiers studied met diagnostic criteria for PTSD, as opposed to 8 percent of their male counterparts. The data reflect a larger finding, supported by other research, that women are more likely to be given diagnoses of PTSD, in some cases at twice the rate of men.

"Experts are hard pressed to account for the disparity. Is it that women have stronger reactions to trauma? Do they do a better job of describing their symptoms and are therefore given diagnoses more often? Or do men and women tend to experience different types of trauma? Friedman points out that some traumatic experiences have been shown to be more psychologically ''toxic'' than others. Rape, in particular, is thought to be the most likely to lead to PTSD in women (and in men, in the rarer times it occurs). Participation in combat, though, he says, is not far behind."

Corbett does note in the article: "There were women, it should be noted, who spoke of feeling at ease among the men in their platoons, who said their male peers treated them respectfully. Anecdotally, this seemed most common among reserve and medical units, where the sex ratios tended to be more even. Several women credited their commanders for establishing and enforcing a more egalitarian climate, where sexual remarks were not tolerated."

Isolation

Among the many striking things about women traumatized by war and the military is their isolation. It is as though their distrust of others transfers into distrust of themselves. Some may spend weeks or months unable to sleep with their partners, alone in their home and unable to socialize, or simply appear uncertain of what to do next and hopeless.

Many find it difficult to discriminate between people who are "safe" and those who are not. One woman in the article, as well as one who participated in the Returning Warriors retreat for women in February 2007, described this as her "people picker" being broken. If you can't tell who to trust, it is safer just to be alone.

Some women in treatment described their experience: "how they lived before treatment - one with security cameras and a security fence at her house, another locked away in her apartment, several having lost their marriages and distanced themselves from their kids. ''They said: 'You don't want this life. I would give anything to go back to when my trauma was new and to get help with it.'"

We will be creating another retreat for women soon. Let us know if you are interested.

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Self-medication Leads To Crime And Violence In The War Zone

For U.S. Troops at War, Liquor Is Spur to Crime - New York Times

"Despite the military’s ban on all alcoholic beverages — and strict Islamic prohibitions against drinking and drug use — liquor is cheap and ever easier to find for soldiers looking to self-medicate the effects of combat stress, depression or the frustrations of extended deployments, said military defense lawyers, commanders and doctors who treat soldiers’ emotional problems."

Alcohol and drug abuse are important indicators of PTSD. This article clearly demonstrates that the problem of trauma is appearing in the war zone, and not only upon the soldiers' return home. The article goes on...

"Seventy-three of those 240 cases involve some of the most serious crimes committed, including murder, rape, armed robbery and assault. Sex crimes accounted for 12 of the convictions. The 240 cases involved a roughly equal number of drug and alcohol offenses, although alcohol-related crimes have increased each year since 2004."

What kind of crimes?

One Army specialist "shot up some contractor’s rental car ... (then) hopped in a Humvee, drove around and shot up some more things. He shot into a housing area and at soldiers guarding the base entrance.

"Six months later, at an Army base near Baghdad, after a night of drinking an illegal stash of whiskey and gin, (another specialist) of the Third Brigade, Third Infantry Division, pulled his 9mm service pistol on another soldier and shot him dead.

"And in March 2006, in perhaps the most gruesome crime committed by American troops in Iraq, a group of 101st Airborne Division soldiers stationed in Mahmudiya raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and killed her and her family after drinking several cans of locally made whiskey supplied by Iraqi Army soldiers, military prosecutors said."

The article then looks at the military's response to this "issue of grave concern"...

"In the military, seeking help for psychological problems, including alcohol and drug abuse, is considered a taboo, especially among officers competing for promotions. Several officers interviewed for this article said the Pentagon was not doing enough to reduce that stigma.

"Though the Pentagon has spent millions of dollars on several initiatives to reverse the trend, including a new Web site that deglamorizes drinking, financing to combat alcohol abuse has fallen over time, a Pentagon spokesman said. Spending on programs to reduce alcohol abuse, smoking and obesity dropped to $7.74 million in the current fiscal year from $12.6 million in fiscal year 2005 — a 39 percent decline."

In the 1980s and 1990s, the previous general acceptance of alcohol and drug abuse among the troops changed. It became socially unacceptable for a soldier to have more than a couple of drinks at the bar. However...

"At a time when the military is fighting two major ground wars, the often serious consequences of heavy drinking has emerged with increasing clarity as more troops return from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and other mental health problems, military officials and mental health experts said."

Charles P O'Brien, a psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine who served as a Navy doctor during the Vietnam War hits the nail squarely.

“I think the real story here is in the suicide and stress, and the drinking is just a symptom of it." There is a high incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder among Iraq veterans, he said, adding that “there’s been a lot of suicide in the active-duty servicemen.”

"More than 90 percent of sex crimes prosecuted by the military involve alcohol abuse, defense lawyers and military doctors said. Roughly half of the marines charged with crimes in Iraq exhibit clear signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, a Marine defense lawyer said.

“They turn to alcohol and drugs for an escape,” he said.

And by the way, the Veteran's Administration considers drug use and alcoholism separate diagnoses from PTSD. Claims for therapeutic assistance are denied frequently on the basis that the soldier has drug abuse or alcohol problems .... not PTSD.