Video by Tey-Marie Astudillo for Politics Daily | Story by Giulia Lasagni for Military Times
WASHINGTON — A group of veterans called for a stop to the redeployment of traumatized troops during a rally Thursday, the ninth anniversary of the beginning of the war in Afghanistan.
Service members who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury are often sent back to combat without receiving proper medical care, said members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, who marched from Walter Reed Army Medical Center to Capitol Hill to launch their new campaign, “Operation Recovery.”
In the military, several members of the group said, mental health issues are still surrounded by stigma, which prevents troops from receiving adequate treatment.
“Soldiers don’t like to admit they have trauma,” said 22-year-old Brock McIntosh, a specialist in the National Guard.
Army Sgt. Maggie Martin said that situation is even worse for women because “they are already seen as the weaker sex.”
Martin, 28, deployed three times to Iraq. “I didn’t feel OK, but I didn’t know what to do.” she said.
Army Spc. Zach Choate, 26, was injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2006. He said that after being diagnosed with PTSD and TBI, he was given the option to go back to Iraq.
“Out of guilt and lack of better knowledge, I deployed back to a combat zone,” he said.
The departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs have acknowledged that mental health treatment stigma is preventing troops from receiving the care they need. In 2007, in cooperation with the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, they launched the “Real Warriors Campaign,” an initiative aimed at creating awareness around trauma-related issues in the military.
McIntosh said that when he was deployed to Afghanistan he saw a fellow soldier, who suffered from PTSD, have a breakdown.
“I remember looking in his eyes and seeing nothing,” he said.
If that soldier had had that breakdown behind his weapon, McIntosh said, he would have put the lives of other soldiers and the Afghan people at risk.
“We want to give soldiers a chance to heal,” McIntosh said.