Halting Military Suicides and Stigmatization

–  Of a recent Army Suicide Report: “The report is written in such a way to blame the soldier, and not the leadership of the military for its part in not inculcating people so that they have resiliency and understand how to deal with stress; because there are not any real programs that train the force as a whole. Also, the leadership treats this problem as a lack of moral character, and a lack of intestinal fortitude, when it is really a medical issue. …” –
– Veterans’ advocate Steve Robinson

By Clyde H. Stagner

For the Veteran:

In the armed forces of the United States, medical mental health care includes repeated patient visitations to local armed forces medical facilities and/or military hospitalizations in local or general military hospitals for several months duration.

My knowledge, concerning military medical health care, is from hands on experience hopefully expressed herein with sufficient common sense to attain the wisdom of understanding.

In 1959, my two week hospitalization at the Tripler Army Hospital, included an interview with a psychiatrist,a Captain, who agreed not to make a record of my conversation concerning my wife. Several months later, during clearance for my departure to CONUS, a copy of the psychiatrist’s full, complete written record of my interview was handed to me by an enlisted medical man who was involved with the Boy Scouts on Schofield Barracks and who was also my wife’s lover. So much for believing an officer’s word is his bond.
 
 In 1964, my medical retirement was for 30% Paranoid,Chronic, with a specific diagnosis of suspiciousness which was accepted as appropriate. In 1984, at the VA Tucson Medical Clinic, a contract physician in his written report of my medical interview stated, “The mental status examination is within normal limits except for his fixed delusion that he was somehow involved in precipitating a military coup which would have resulted in the assassination of President Kennedy. The fact that the assassination did occur is only served over the years to confirm his belief” The psychiatrist’s statement is erroneous and untruthful as substantiated by my polygraph contained in, “The Captain’s Polygraph”, ISBN 978-1-4269-0310-6, Trafford Publishing, 2009. I have never precipitated, or advocated, a military coup in the United States ,or elsewhere.
 
Other military psychiatric medical interviews were also erroneous as to the conversation between the psychiatrist and myself thus becoming detrimental to my recorded health conditions, obtaining insurance, obtaining employment, serving on jury duty ,and social acceptance. Upon my medical retirement on May 1, 1964, the US Army prescribed that the US Army ostrasize me both industrially and socially. Several years later, the social ban was lifted by the US Army. Since the war in Iraq, the US Army forwarded me the US logo bumper stickers and a logo lapel pin which is worn on my collar every day.
 
My encounters with psychologists and psychiatrists renders a description of inquisitors. In a college class, a doctor of psychology described a rat testing procedure utilizing electricity. When asked the frequency of the electricity, the doctor knew nothing yet the campus building in which he had his office was entitled,”Social Science”. Mathematically, psychologists derived attributors from statistical behavior analysis which was capable of defining affected numbers from a group but without individual identification: car accident insurance is based upon a group of cars from which an individual car is involved in an accident but cannot be identified in advance of the accident. Richard P. Feynman, a US Nobel prize winning scientist, in his book, “Surely Your Joking, Mr. Feynman”, describes psychology as the “Cargo Cult Science”.
 
Has a psychiatrist ever been found guilty of medical malpractice? A psychiatrist renders written clinical reports of interviews with patients. These unchallenged written reports are entered into the patients military medical record file. Of several written psychiatric reports in my possession, only one represented some accuracy as pertains to JFK. Should an effort be undertaken by me to correct the records, to whom should the corrections be submitted? TheVA IG will not involve itself in claims. Who would the VA recipient believe, the psychiatrist or the veteran individual whom the VA has defined as paranoid schizophrenic?
 
   As a partial solution to reducing the loss of soldiers due to suicide, this experienced veteran patient suggests:

    1. All medical records associated with individual psychiatric patients shall be classified confidential.
    2. All medical personnel having contact with psychiatric patients must have a confidential clearance.
    3. Psychologists be denied physical contact with individual psychiatric patients and their involvement limited to medical records analysis for group behavior analysis.
    4. Psychiatric patient/ psychiatrist interviews shall be recorded electronically when feasible and approved with the patent’s signature within 72 hours of the interview.
    5. Hand written psychiatrist/ patient interviews shall be legibly written and approved by the patient within 72 hours of the interview.
    6 Enlisted psychiatric clinical personnel shall be professional military personnel with a minimum of eight years service and, if possible, combat or overseas veterans.
    7. In closed psychiatric wards, psychiatric patients shall be addressed to include their rank.(In 1964,in a closed ward with Col., Lt.Col.,Maj., Capt., Sgt’s and Privates, the patients voluntarily addressed each other by their rank. The psychiatrists tried to bare their ids-leave them some dignity!).
 
 The US government classification of confidential is defined as information that could “damage” national security if disclosed. The reduction of suicides,or attempted suicides, should  improve the image,the morale and the confidence of our citizens in the military. The effects of change in suicide, or attempted suicide ,group size on these parameters may be an appropriate application of psychology with the possibility of beneficial results should psychiatric efforts be successful.