Veterans For America

The Mental Health Assessment Team (MHAT) V’s report was released today. Key findings of the report include:

• The percentage of soldiers screening positive for mental-health problems is similar to previous years, and similar in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unit morale was higher in Iraq in 2007 than in 2006.
• Combat exposure is down in Iraq, but up in Afghanistan, so that it is now similar in both theaters.
• Soldiers on their third or fourth deployment have significantly lower morale, more mental-health problems and more stress-related work problems.
• Suicide rates remain elevated in both theaters and are above normal Army rates.
• Soldiers who received Battlemind training before deployment reported fewer mental-health problems.
• There are barriers preventing soldiers from obtaining mental-health care they need. In Iraq, many soldiers were moved last year to small outposts where they could maintain close contact with Iraqi civilians and security forces. This placed them farther from care providers at large bases. In Afghanistan, dispersal of troops over a large area made access difficult. Commanders in Afghanistan have responded to the report’s recommendations by moving providers closer to troops.
• Reports of unethical behavior by U.S. troops were largely unchanged from 2006.
• Recommendations by the team included augmenting military behavioral-health providers in theater with civilian personnel, increasing time between deployments, providing marital and family counseling as a TRICARE benefit and more focused suicide-prevention training.

This report provides further proof that America’s level of involvement in its current conflict is unsustainable. It simply is not possible to send the same men and women into a war zone over and over again with little time at home and expect them to be healthy and capable of executing their missions.

Read the full report here.