Carter Center event highlights veterans' mental health

By Christopher Quinn

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Darryl Wilson remembers feeling a surge of panic in 2006 while driving to the Golden Corral with his wife for dinner. He realized he did not have a weapon with him.

Wilson had recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq with the Georgia Army National Guard's 48th Brigade Combat Team, and the Jonesboro veteran had to stop, refocus and realize he was no longer in a combat zone.

"My wife said, ‘What's up?' And I said, ‘Nothing,'" Wilson, now 42, remembers. "I had to catch myself."

The civilian soldier said he sought help from the Department of Veterans Affairs, but the agency seemed overwhelmed four years ago and offered little help other than prescriptions. So he stopped going.

The VA has realized America's veterans need help adjusting back to civilian life and have beefed up programs while facing issues such as rising numbers of suicides. But advocates say more needs to be done, especially for those in the National Guard.

Former first lady Rosalynn Carter, a 40-year advocate for mental health, said reservists have a tougher time getting mental health support than full-time soldiers because they are left on their own to work through the Department of Veterans Affairs bureaucracy. Or they can reach out to family, a minister or local counselors, while full-time soldiers have a supportive, understanding network of friends and professional helpers who are familiar with their needs.

"We send them off to war, surely we should be able to help them when they get home," Carter said.

Carter is hoping to spark a change in policy and practice. The Carter Center's annual mental health symposium Tuesday and Wednesday is calling together national experts and policymakers to figure out better ways to reintegrate National Guard members back into civilian life.

Police Chief John King of Doraville, who commanded Wilson as a colonel in the 48th Brigade, agrees that changes need to be made, but key help is missing.

"The challenge is the skilled medical providers, we are lacking that in the National Guard because the military puts the resources where the majority of soldiers are, on the bases," he said. "We are not taking advantage of our civilian community health providers, doctors and psychologists. [The government is] trying to do it all through contractors or Veteran Affairs. And I don't think that is sufficient."

Carter's symposium could not have come at a more opportune time, as the VA is in the middle of an expansion of mental health services for veterans, especially in the area of suicide prevention.

The suicide rate for male veterans less than 29 years old, who have left the military, went up 26 percent from 2005 to 2007, data from the VA says.

"Of the more than 30,000 suicides in this country each year, fully 20 percent of them are veteran suicides," Eric Shinseki, the secretary of the VA said last January. "That means, on average, 18 veterans commit suicide each day."

To give better mental health support to America's growing number of veterans, military researchers announced a $17 million study last Wednesday to figure out what makes suicide-prevention programs effective. In 2009, the Army announced a separate $50 million study of mental health and suicide.

Regionally, new veterans centers have opened, like the year-old center in Marietta, and the VA has started a suicide prevention hotline at 800-273-TALK and a chatline at www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org.

Tousha West, a social worker and suicide prevention coordinator for the VA offices in Atlanta, said the military is doing a better job than it did in the past of helping soldiers deal with coming home, including giving better mental screenings and helping them decompress over a period of time and adjust to civilian life.

"Which we may not have done in previous years. It helps normalize these things that may occur so people will not be overwhelmed by them," West said.

Carter said some areas, such as the state of Colorado, have done good jobs of reintegrating the National Guard, but more needs to be done.

"There is a lot going on, but not enough to reach everybody that needs to be reached," she said. "What we have learned is the whole community has to be involved in it, so when they come home they get the proper support they need."

Veterans centers in Georgia: http://www2.va.gov/directory/guide/state.asp?dnum=ALL&STATE=GA