On May 24, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a hearing on post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Chair Henry Waxman (D-CA) said, “While often invisible, these mental health injuries are real, and if left untreated, they can devastate soldiers and their families. We’ll hear today from witnesses who experienced combat-related mental illnesses themselves or through a family member. Their stories are heartbreaking, and they remind us that behind each statistic lies a soldier and a family struggling to cope.”
Noting that “up to 19 percent of returning combat veterans suffer some type of neurological damage or mental illness,” Ranking Member Tom Davis (R-VA) stated, “Every American we send into combat brings something of that experience back…If the war in Iraq ended tomorrow, our obligation to understand the mental battles of current and future warriors would not.”
Antonette Zeiss, deputy chief consultant for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Mental Health Services, presented an overview of VA mental health care. She explained that a central component of VA health care is the Vet Center, which provides services, including counseling and supportive social services, assessment and treatment of military related sexual trauma, PTSD assessment, and family counseling. Dr. Zeiss also said that veterans are screened for depression, substance abuse, and military sexual trauma, as well as PTSD. She concluded her testimony by stating, “The mental health needs of our veterans are as important as their physical needs. We acknowledge the need to reevaluate and improve mental health care and services provided to our nation’s veterans and we are committed to ensuring that the VA provides the highest quality.”
Referring to a paper published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology in 1992, Co-Director of the UCLA-Duke University National Center for Child Traumatic Stress John Fairbank said, “[M]y colleagues and I reported that families of veterans with PTSD were more likely to suffer domestic violence than families of veterans without PTSD. In addition, the study found that children of the veterans with PTSD manifested significantly higher levels of behavioral and emotional problems than children of veterans without PTSD, and that more than one third of veterans with PTSD had a child with behavioral or emotional problems.” He continued, “Specifically, our Vietnam-era findings suggest that a significant number of current members of our Armed Forces will need access to effective treatments for war-related PTSD and its co-morbid conditions; similarly, their spouses and children will need access to trauma-informed treatments and services.”
Tammy LeCompte, the wife of a soldier with PTSD, described her experience: “I am not a PTSD expert, but let me tell you how PTSD and the lack of care impacted my family. As a wife, it was hard to make sense of the changes with Ryan. I didn’t understand the anger, the sudden outbursts; I didn’t understand the lack of support from his chain of command. I couldn’t explain to my children why Daddy was the way he was detached, distant, and someone that I didn’t know at all. My children were afraid. They were constantly asking why Ryan was acting the way he was, why he was yelling at me, and why he was always away. I didn’t have any answers for them.” Ms. LeCompte said that her husband has now been diagnosed with chronic PTSD and is currently in an intensive program.
