Drum commander: “as busy as it’s ever been”
I’m just back from a media briefing at an uncharacteristically charming little building at Fort Drum. Major General James Terry and some brigade commanders spoke about a pretty extraordinary deployment pace at the Army base near Watertown.
Tune in Monday on The 8 O’Clock Hour for a more complete report. But here are a couple takeaways…
Fort Drum is deeply involved in the war on both fronts. To wit:
- 2nd Brigade is in Iraq until the fall. 1st Brigade just shipped to Afghanistan this winter.
- The 10th Aviation Brigade, which returned from Iraq last October, is pivoting to Afghanistan this fall – a rest time of just 12 months.
- 10th Mountain Division Headquarters will take control of the Kandahar region of U.S./NATO operations this fall. Kandahar is currently the main theater in the fight against the Taliban. “That’s where we want to be,” said Gen. Terry.
- 3rd Brigade, which came home from Afghanistan in January, will turn around and return there in spring 2011.
Fort Drum’s soldiers’ performance will play a substantial role in how quickly the U.S. can start drawing down troops levels in both countries.
The second takeaway is that Fort Drum’s leaders are talking a lot about the epidemic of mental health problems soldiers have been experiencing Army-wide for several years – everything from suicide and PTSD to high divorce rates and drunk-driving.
General Terry said the biggest challenge is that high-level officers have bought into the need to remove the stigma of seeking mental health help. But it remains difficult to penetrate the rank and file. Here’s Terry talking about new “brigade resilience teams” trying to burrow down.
The issue’s particularly sensitive right now on the heels of a New York Times report about problems at a Warrior Transition Unit (for injured soldiers) at Fort Carson.
I’d love to hear from active duty or retired Fort Drum soldiers or their families. Have you seen Fort Drum’s approach to combat trauma and other mental health issues improve over the years? Was it fine to begin with? Are there still problems? Have at it over the weekend…
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My perspective, as a currently deployed Soldier from Fort Drum, is that the strain and stress on Soldiers and families does stem from the frequent deployments, but as stated in this article Soldiers have about one year of time at Fort Drum before deploying once again. This stress is compounded when approximately six months of that year are spent working late nights to reset equipment, training in the field, conducting pre-deployment training at a national training center, on temporary duty to an Army school at another base, or loading/unloading shipping containers preparing for deployment. The stress that contributes to the mental health problem comes from the long work hours for a 12 month (or previously up to 18 month) deployment followed by the promise to come home to spend time with your loved ones but being close to them yet so far away at the same time. I see it every day when the most promising officers and enlisted Soldiers I serve with reach their personal breaking point and decide to depart the military after their current term of service is over.
The mental health issue is real in the military. No matter how much we hear leaders tell us to seek help, there is still a huge stigma associated with seeking treatment for depression or anxiety. For example, the security clearance form has a line asking if you have ever sought treatment from a mental health provider. How does a young Soldier seek treatment if it could have a negative impact on his security clearance?
the bottom line is this: when you know that you are looking at another 12 month deployment, the 12 months of work before you get on those planes turns it into a 18-24 month deployment, depending on the unit. You may only have boots on the ground for 12 months, but the stress on families before departure starts to build long before they leave. Every family is faced with pushing two years of life into about 8 months. . .and this happens over and over again. Twelve months is not enough time. We are at the 82nd now, but spent time at 10th Mtn and it is the same everywhere. Guys come home, broken and tired, and have to find time to fix their relationships and their bodies in the short amounts of time they have between deployments. Do we really need to use that scarce dwell time going to JRTC and NTC? Is GEN Casey still saying that we are “out of balance?” We are more than out of balance, we are broken and we don’t see anything changing in the near term. Of course, this is just one spouse’s perspective.
My personal experience and deployment , Fort Drum will never get better because the leaders at Fort Drum really do not listen to the soldiers at all when it comes to needing mental health. If you were to think about it, look at what happened at Fort Hood, TX in the late fall of 2009. That is a good example of how “OUR LEADERS” take care or the soldiers and their families when it comes to deployments, PTSD, depression, etc. I think that someone that is in DOD should REALLY look into what’s going on because I think that the army is doing a very poor job and most of this can fall onto the NCO’s too. I just wanna see a actual change in the military not just talk because honestly, I am tired of talk, action is what need to happen…
A year is not enough time to recover from a deployment. It takes 3-4 months to get all the equipment back and running. then they spring a big inspection (ARMS) on you in the middle of it all. Then your off to Colorado for high altitude training for a few weeks. Then you’re back and getting ready to deploy in a few months. What gives? Yes. I am speaking of the Aviation Brigade. What happened to the 2 years between deployments? There is very little quality time for families to spend together.
While the mental health of redeploying Soldiers is a real issue and should be treated as such, the way the big Army goes about throwing money and resources at the problem is not working and not realistic. Having returned from a deployment last year with the 10th MTN DIV, the unit was required to sit with an outside civilian agency (I believe) who asked the same questions you are asked when you go back through Kuwait and the post deployment screening (“Are you feeling suicidal?” “Are you depressed? “Do you think you will hurt yourself or others?” blah, blah, blah). Upon conclusion of this 10 minute “check-the-block session, he handed me his card and said that his group of counselors would be at Fort Drum for a few more days and if I needed to talk, I could call during normal duty hours. He then said I was required to sit in the room with him for a specific amount of time and talk.
During the small talk we discussed the weather, where he was staying off post and the incredible amount of money he and his peers were getting paid for their services.
The current services is the Army’s typical way of overreacting to a problem by throwing powerpoint slides, contracted resources and funding at an issue which would be better suited elsewhere. Bottomline, if a Soldier/family member does not want help or want to seek help, there is nothing that can be done to solve their issues…no different than drug abuse or alcoholism.
100% Agreement with all that is already posted. I’m a spouse rather than a soldier, and 12 months home is not time spent at home. They get home, their workload is thankfully very light for the first month or two, but then it’s back to being out in the field over-night 1/2 the month, and the days when my husband does come home are 12 to 16 hour days – this is not occasional, it is constant – and he’s too tired from being a soldier to be a husband… so basically, I get him on the weekends, if he doesn’t have CQ. Then he’s sent off to JRTC and other random schools that he gets volunTOLD for… and according to this article, he’ll be “home” about 14 months before he deploys again. “HOME”? Yeah right. When they’re home, let them be home. Of course they need to train, so maybe that’s why the whole 2 year dwell time needs to become reality.
Oh, and as far as the family stress goes… most of us in 3rd Brigade were well aware that they would deploy again in Spring 2011 BEFORE they even came home in January! So that constant fear and anxiety the families feel when they’re gone never actually goes away because they’re just leaving again in a few months… so yes, the families are ALWAYS stressed out – not just during actual deployment.
Sir,
I have deployed once with 25th ID and twice with 10th Mountain and going on my fourth. As a Soldier who has seen and engage the enemy I can only speak of my experiences and what I see. The first deployment was uneventful and upon our return to Hawaii PTSD wasn’t even mentioned and mental health wasn’t even on the radar now this was back in 2004-2005 time frame.
Next deployment with 10th Mountain (OIF 07-08) I think 10th Mountain had procedures in placed to deal with issues while deployed and at home. However this last deployment 08-09 mental health providers actually were embedded in the unit upon our return home. They were here for at least 3 months (kind of a pain I wanted my office back). So to answer your question 10th Mountain has been forthcoming in helping soldiers with issues and getting are thing getting better! Yes they are.
But I also think some soldiers also like to make false claims about PTSD when they have never but outside the wire and played Nintendo for the whole 12-15 months while deployed. I think those soldiers who suck up resources from people who actually need the care need to be severely punished for malingering.
But to increase moral lets get rid of the Beret and go back to the Patrol Cap. Just a thought
please all soldiers have to remember to be honest-YOU VOLUNTEERED
u volunteered to join the military
It is a mistake to think that providing more mental health care is going to fix the problem. It is more of a band aid that sometimes can head off catostrophe, but it will not fix the underlying problem.
An alcoholic can go see his provider every month, but if he doesn’t stop drinking, his liver will die.
A Soldier and their family can go see their provider every month, but it doesn’t change the fact that the Soldiers and families are seperated and many are constantly in harms way.
There is that old saying that doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definiton of stupididity. You can provide all the Mental Health providers, Chaplains, and Battle Buddies in the world; but if you keep sending Soldiers constantly into harms way and seperating families, there is no reason to expect different results.
I am not trying to be disrespectful. Just want to identify that these mental health issues are merely a symptom of an underlying issue. Trying to make this a healthcare issue is a mistake.
I was in 10th Mountain for 14 years of my career. I did 7 deployments. Mental Health is not an issue that has been taken serious at Fort Drum. I assure you sometime in the future there will be another incident like what happened at Fort Hood. I got orders to PCS to Fort Leonard Wood. I actually begged and pleaded to stay at Drum for family stabilization. I was denied. Now at Fort Leonard Wood I am in a non-deployable unit. Also to drop my retirement paperwork. All I can say is Good Luck.
AM – Yes, all well aware (or should be) that we volunteered/re-up’d to join/stay in the military….not the point.
Point of the article and question at hand is what could/should/is being done to help those with mental health issues.
Granted some use the issue as a scapegoat to get out of the military/claim disability benefits/pardon their poor behavior or actions, but there are PLENTY of us who see that the Army has taken the typical “identify problem, overreact with money and half-assed resources at it” approach.
The Army needs to just toughen up all the way around. You cannot coddle Soldiers through basic and AIT and Garrison then send them to combat and expect them to know how to react when something extreme happens.
–break–
Former SFC D – while I hope there is never another Fort Hood type incident, that incident had NOTHING to do with mental health issues due to deployment. This is one guy who will use the fact that he “heard terrible stories from Soldiers while deployed” for the basis of his B.S. defense…nothing more. To think that this guy suffered a real mental health disorder from “hearing stories” about deployment is utter stupidity.
I feel that because of the rapid deployments happening at fort drum, soldiers are not able to fully recover from one deployment when they have to mentally prepare for an upcoming deployment the following year. I am not a spouse, but a girlfriend of a soldier at fort drum, so most of the time my opinion is ignored.
my boyfriend returned from iraq fall of 2009 with the news that he would deploy the following fall to afghanistan. not only that, his 12 month dwell time was cut short and there are already talks of possibly extending to over 12 months. if the army is interested in the well-being and mental health of our soldiers, they have to figure out a way to allow the proper amount of dwell time or possibly increase it. there is no way a soldier can fully recover from a deployment and prepare for another in 10-12 months. and in those months are weeks/months of training. it’s exhausting. it causes feelings of anger, detachment, and resentment towards the army itself which decreases their morale. i don’t feel that the effect on our relationship is appropriate to speak about because our relationship is not recognized, which is fine. but the effect this is taking on his family is devastating. his family has to constantly worry about their son for 12 months, get 10 months off, and then go right back to it for 12 again? It’s torturous.
upon my significant others return, it took the army around 5 months before he was treated for obvious signs of PTSD. 5 months. and then you are going to turn around and deploy these guys again?
yes, I understand that this is their job and they did sign up for it. but besides being soldiers, they are human beings.
I got 10 months home (and am deployed AGAIN), most of which was spent training or away from home. Served for 17 years and I will not do 20. Repeat I got 10 months home not 12..why won’t the media do a story on that? Stop reporting we get 12 months home it is a lie.
I spent a whole 2 long years at Fort Drum and it was the worst 2 years of my Life in the Army. The leadership was Absolutely horrible and this was in the 04-06 time frame so hopefully things have changed by now. As far as the takeing care of soldiers and mental health issues/ absolutely Horrible !!!
As a careing NCO/ it was pretty heartbreaking to see soldiers punished for going to sickcall or better yet and heaven forbid the mental health clinic.
The Army is Broke/