Kimberly Dozier: No Stranger To PTSD
By haystack Posted in Capt. Funkhouser | Kimberly Dozier | PTSD | Veteran Issues | War — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
THIS article from CBS, "The Military's Showdown Over PTSD" is important. It serves to inform us about a major problem our Veterans are having to contend with, and opens our eyes ever-so-slightly to the hard reality of the ineptitude on the part of our Military machine AND Congress to adequately attend to the real needs of Veterans and their families as the politicization of the war rages on unabated. Written by Kimberly Dozier, a compelling case is made about the problems Soldiers bring home with them after their deployments to (in this case Iraq and Afghanistan) fight a war in defense of America. In the piece, Ms. Dozier offers a link to another CBS article that discusses a Rand study indicating that "one in five Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans suffer from PTSD or major depression." This is a horrible statistic.
What especially caught my eye, however, was the name Kimberly Dozier.
More below the fold...
In the Dozier profile, those of us who REMEMBER her name are reminded of a piece of history everyone else likely never paid any attention to:
On Memorial Day 2006 (May 29), while reporting a story in Baghdad about American soldiers working with Iraqi security forces, Dozier, cameraman Paul Douglas and soundman James Brolan were the victims of a car bombing. Douglas and Brolan were killed, as were the U.S. Army captain they were following and his Iraqi translator. Dozier was seriously wounded, but recovered completely after multiple surgeries and months of physiotherapy.
The lack of naming the Soldier that gave his life so she might live to write this PTSD article, only referring to him as a "U.S. Army captain," angered and frustrated a LOT of people. Quick to name her and her crewmen with nothing but "a soldier" in reference to this married father of two lovely daughters, a deep-rooted frustration gave rise to several articles and a few life-changing events for a lot of people.
The first news I saw of Capt. Funkhouser's role in saving Dozier's life was titled The "U.S. Soldier" written by CJ of A Soldiers Perspective and this piece inspired me to join The Patriot Guard Riders specifically so I could attend Capt. Funkhouser's funeral, pay my respects to the memory of his service and sacrifice, and write about his funeral from a first-hand perspective. Like CJ, I was angered by the lack of recognition for Capt. Funkhouser's sacrifice, and it was important that he get every bit as much acknowledgment as those he died saving (or trying to save). For CJ's part, a whole new "movement" was borne from this story. An incredible honor to the fallen now carries on in Capt. Funkhouser's memory, and EVERYONE should go to CJ's website They Have Names to learn about the real lives and the real losses...and contribute to his ongoing efforts to keep their memories alive.
Dozier survived that attack. She endured multiple surgeries and extensive physical therapy. Though not stated anywhere I can find, she surely suffers many of the same PTSD problems as the Soldiers she writes about in her article. Certainly she brought home her very own demons from that horrible moment in her life.
While once angered at the inadequate coverage of the people around her the day Capt. Funkhouser was killed, I have grown to respect her more for taking this particular issue up with the American media consumer. This is an important problem that the Military chain of Command AND Congress needs to take a whole lot more seriously than it has...and it needs all the attention any of us can give it with our Representatives up on the Hill in DC.
Thank you Ms. Dozier.
Kimberly Dozier: No Stranger To PTSD 4 Comments (0 topical, 4 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
I considered the level of "PTSD" our Viet Nam Vets faced(many still do)...Korea, WWII, and so on. I didn't want to convolute the piece challenging the legitimacy of the syndrome, or whether it's a kool name on an issue ANY must face after serving in an active theater of combat. I kept it to thanking Dozier for bringing up the larger issue of how commanders often dismiss such things, and re-train Soldiers or redeploy them...or rotate them out to avoid giving them the medical attention they deserve.
You have a valid point, and I don't consider it callous...though some might.
Iustum et tenacem propositi virum non civium ardor prava iubentium, non vultus instantis tyranni mente quatit solida.
-Quintus Horatius Flaccus
to 1987. Fourteen years working with veterans and their problems forms the base for my comments. The Veterans Administration is not perfect - neither is any branch of the military.
However, my experience has been that individuals with real PTSD seldom seek treatment. In fact, the more severe the PTSD condition, the less likely is the individual to admit to others his/her problems.
Since the more serious cases avoid treatment and as mind readers do not exist, there is a treatment gap with all of its attending problems.
I would be called in when the individual's family and/or friends finally noticed symptoms of PTSD. As I must first get the individual's permission before I could help, I often spent hours interviewing and counseling these individuals until they accepted my help.
In almost every case, other people had offered assistance but had been rejected. The individual would recount how this NCO or that officer had tried to get him to go see a doctor or how a Veterans Administration representative or a representative from one of the service organizations had offered assistance.
People with severe PTSD, as I mentioned before, tend to hide their problems and resist treatment. Even after I had gained the confidence of some PTSD sufferers, I would still have a problem getting them into treatment. The problem was not with the Veterans Administration or the military but with the person I was trying to help.
As these PTSD sufferers hide their symptoms and refuse to seek treatment, it is hard to make early and/or timely diagnoses.
I have been aware of this problem since 1973 but I have not been able to figure out a solution.
My brother in law is a Marine (well now former Marine just got out a few weeks ago) and he suffers from PTSD. He did two tours in Iraq and it really affects him in ways that are hard to understand. He was at Camp Lejeune and he knew of a couple soldiers with PTSD who had committed suicide not long after getting back. Its definitely something that the VA needs to get a hold on and Congress needs to allocate the resources to help our returning soldiers and vets... He has received treatment but he will never be the same. It is incumbent upon Congress to make sure our soldiers get proper care and be given everything they need while at war and when they get back home.
I met a vietnam vet one day who I noticed was continually shaking. He and I talked for awhile and he told me about having been in a Recon unit in Vietnam and how to this day he continually shakes from the effects of what he saw over there. Its heartbreaking to see people who would otherwise be normal, happy people who just get all that sucked right out of them.
I don't think the war was a mistake, but we owe it to those soldiers coming home to make sure they are able to function in life upon return.
View my blog at http://politicalperpetuity.blogspot.com/
... about the incidence of PTSD in Iraq versus the incidence in WW II, or any other "pre-enlightenment" war for that matter. This is a very delicate subject and may well result in a blast of flame about insensitivity and callousness but I think it is a legitimate question.
Today we have a conjunction of factors that simply didn't exist "pre-enlightenment": extensive, not necessarily truthful, media coverage; a far more active anti-war counter-culture; a culture of victimization where just about anyone can instantly become the 'victim' of some real or imagined disorder, discrimination or mistreatment; an over-lawyered, litigious society. I have far too much respect for our soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen and Coast Guardsmen to believe that they willing seek to be seen as 'victims' of anything --- after all, these are men and women who have stood up to some of the the worst people in the world.
So this kind of "awareness" of Iraq PTSD makes me wonder about the true prevalence of this problem as opposed to the same problem post WW II for example. In WW II while they were not continuously in combat, troops served in theatre essentially, "for the duration." I have seen some statistics that indicate the, despite being in theatre for the duration, most WW II combat troops saw much shorter periods of engagement than troops in Vietnam or Iraq. Much of this is due to the far greater mobility of the "modern" military making it possible to move troops from one engagement to another very rapidly. But by the same token this mobility has also produced far greater opportunities for rotation, medical evacuation, etc.
Does anyone know of sources for research into the post-war stresses experienced by the troops in WW II compared to the troops of today; research that is actually comparable to today's? Millions of Americans went to war in WW II and came home and became bakers, bankers, carpenters, scientists seemingly with far fewer post-war incidents than we appear to be have experienced post-Vietnam and now post-Iraq. Are we faced with more actual problems or "simply" with better reporting? Are we faced with willful ignorance post WW II or heightened awareness post Iraq?
While I think it is important to treat these problems where they exist, I suspect it would be far more useful in the long term to understand how to prevent, or at least reduce, them in the first place.
John
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Why would God invent something like whiskey? To keep the Irish from ruling the world of course