Who wouldn’t want a soldier suffering PTSD to get the help he or she needs?  Our attitudes and awareness have evolved light years since World War II when we saw “battle fatigue” as an excuse for cowardice and treated it with either Thorazine or an ice pick to the brain.  Today the term “PTSD” is universally familiar, and the success of movies like “The Hurt Locker” and “Brothers” reveals a deep vein of sympathy and compassion towards our soldiers who suffer from war’s traumas.

So how is it that soldiers like Eric Jasinski cannot get the mental health care they need?  Rather than treating his severe PTSD, the Army courtmartialed him for refusing to go back to Iraq, and he spent twenty-five days of this month in Bell County Jail near Fort Hood in Texas.

Eric enlisted in 2005 and was deployed to Iraq in 2006 where he collected intelligence that helped determine the location of air strikes. “What I saw and what I did in Iraq caused my PTSD,” he told reporters before his trial.  “I went to get help and had an eight hour wait to see one of five doctors.  I ended up getting a letter that instructed me to go see a civilian doctor, and she diagnosed me with PTSD.  I began taking the medications (Zoloft, Seraquil, Periactim, and Ambien), and they were helping, because I thought I was to get out of the Army in February 2009 when my contract expired.” 



But in late 2008 the Army extended his service and gave him a 90-day supply of meds to get him back to Iraq.  (As if the meds alone could take care of his PTSD, let alone enable him to return to Iraq.)  When he told a counselor “I don’t know what I’m going to do if I go back to Iraq,” the counselor asked if he was suicidal.   When Jasinski responded, “I’m not planning on going home and blowing my brains out,” the counselor told him he was then good to go to Iraq.

“There was no way I could go back with my untreated PTSD.  I needed more help.”  He went AWOL during his pre-deployment leave break, and on December 11, 2009 turned himself in to authorities at Fort Hood, in Killeen, Texas. 



His civilian lawyer, James Branum, believes that Jasinski’s case highlights the need of the military to provide better mental health care for its soldiers.
 Even while the Army has seen a record number of suicides since 2006 and an escalation of soldier-on-soldier violence, it still does not provide its veterans meaningful mental health treatment. Practitioners are overwhelmed, the demand far outstripping the supply of qualified professionals.

Eric Jasinski is not an isolated individual.  He represents countless service men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who see no choice but to go AWOL when the military does not provide them meaningful mental health care treatment for their PTSD. 
According to a 2008 Rand Corporation report, at least 300,000 veterans returning from both wars have been diagnosed with severe depression or PTSD. 



Eric Jasinski offers advice to his fellow service members: “Do not, do not let a 5-10 minute review by a military doctor determine if you go to Iraq.  Even if you have to pay out of pocket, go to a civilian doctor.  Even then I’m not sure that will help… but you have to take that chance.” 

He believes we need a total overhaul of the military’s mental health care and more experienced psychiatrists– ones who are first and foremost dedicated to the well-being of their patients rather than the “good ole boy” system of their superiors.

We civilians must open our eyes to the treatment our combat vets are receiving.  In our names they have served, and because of that service, they are suffering.  We are all implicated in their suffering.

The Multigenerational Ripple of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)