thedrifter
07-16-07, 07:42 AM
Mental health co-chair says troops should be screened for ‘resilience’
By William H. McMichael - bmcmichael@militarytimes.com
Posted : July 23, 2007
Why could Lewis “Chesty” Puller, like so many other storied warriors throughout history, willingly go back into the heat of battle time after time, while others are so affected they can’t bring themselves to do so — or if they can, they end up psychologically scarred for life?
The answer, said Vice Adm. Donald Arthur, is that the famous Marine Corps general, awarded five Navy Crosses for repeated acts of combat heroism in World War II and the Korean War, had the intangible quality of resilience.
The issue is more than academic; the Iraq war is sending home thousands of veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder or other mental afflictions, as well as the aftereffects of traumatic brain injury caused by roadside bomb attacks.
Arthur, the Navy surgeon general and co-chair of the Defense Department’s Task Force on Mental Health said he thinks that in the future, if the military could somehow gauge the resilience of recruits, those most susceptible to PTSD could be steered toward non-combat jobs in which they could still contribute to the mission, but with a reduced likelihood that they would see combat and potentially be subject to developing problems.
“We think that if we could measure resilience in some way, and discover those factors which would help us retrain our service members to be more resilient, we’d have better service members, we’d have better mothers and fathers, we’d have better parents,” Arthur said during a July 12 presentation of the group’s June 2007 report to the House Armed Services military personnel subcommittee.
“We would also be able to identify people who have the least resilience, and to then ask them to undergo more training than others in how to adapt to the stress of military life,” he said. Such training would take place early in a military career, he added.
After the hearing, Arthur said troops would never be openly identified and segregated during such training. Determining their mental makeups would require a high degree of confidentiality because, as he points out, a stigma could easily be attached to those somehow identified as being less resilient.
“We’re never going to say we’ve got the class of nonresilient people over here, and the class of highly resilient people over here,” Arthur said. “That would add to stigma.”
All troops would benefit from such training, no matter what their level of resilience, he said.
“They would not be identified as being weak,” Arthur added. “They would be identified as people who might do better in a military occupational specialty that’s not involved in direct combat.”
Arthur said this is already practiced to some degree in the military, if not in the same fashion.
“We have people go into SEAL or Ranger training, and there are a lot of candidates,” he said. “But not everybody gets in, because they’re looking for a particular kind of individual to be a SEAL. And we don’t stigmatize people who don’t get into the SEALs. We just move on, and they go on to careers in the military with other occupational specialties. And every single person who wears a uniform contributes.”
Arthur said part of being able to perform in combat is an individual’s ability to reach down inside and discover the inner strength to do so.
“But not everyone is capable of being as resilient as the next person,” he said. So, he said, “If they’re good with mechanical things, you’d want them to be a mechanic. If they’re good with resilient characteristics and they’re a good rifleman, you’d want them to be in combat.
“What we’re doing is just putting people into jobs where they have the best aptitude,” Arthur said.
Tough to determine
Although some initial research has been done within the psychological community on the topic, Arthur said there is no current test for resilience. “We ... don’t know necessarily what causes one person to be extraordinarily affected by the same event that another person would just shrug off,” he said.
Individual response to psychological stress, Arthur said, is largely inborn. “There can be training that can affect it,” Arthur said. “But we don’t fault people who break legs. We don’t fault people who get cancer. We don’t fault people who get sore throats. But we tend to blame people who have post-traumatic stress disorder.”
Dispelling the stigma of reporting stress-related problems, the report said, “is an issue that must be addressed by each echelon of DoD leadership; ... leaders who fail to do so reduce the effectiveness of the service members they lead.”
“It’s not your fault if you are severely affected by post-traumatic stress of having been in combat,” Arthur said. “And that’s the kind of psychological framework we need to imbue [in] our leadership.”
Some enter the military from difficult childhoods, he said, and may still be affected by that when they first put on a uniform.
Ellie
By William H. McMichael - bmcmichael@militarytimes.com
Posted : July 23, 2007
Why could Lewis “Chesty” Puller, like so many other storied warriors throughout history, willingly go back into the heat of battle time after time, while others are so affected they can’t bring themselves to do so — or if they can, they end up psychologically scarred for life?
The answer, said Vice Adm. Donald Arthur, is that the famous Marine Corps general, awarded five Navy Crosses for repeated acts of combat heroism in World War II and the Korean War, had the intangible quality of resilience.
The issue is more than academic; the Iraq war is sending home thousands of veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder or other mental afflictions, as well as the aftereffects of traumatic brain injury caused by roadside bomb attacks.
Arthur, the Navy surgeon general and co-chair of the Defense Department’s Task Force on Mental Health said he thinks that in the future, if the military could somehow gauge the resilience of recruits, those most susceptible to PTSD could be steered toward non-combat jobs in which they could still contribute to the mission, but with a reduced likelihood that they would see combat and potentially be subject to developing problems.
“We think that if we could measure resilience in some way, and discover those factors which would help us retrain our service members to be more resilient, we’d have better service members, we’d have better mothers and fathers, we’d have better parents,” Arthur said during a July 12 presentation of the group’s June 2007 report to the House Armed Services military personnel subcommittee.
“We would also be able to identify people who have the least resilience, and to then ask them to undergo more training than others in how to adapt to the stress of military life,” he said. Such training would take place early in a military career, he added.
After the hearing, Arthur said troops would never be openly identified and segregated during such training. Determining their mental makeups would require a high degree of confidentiality because, as he points out, a stigma could easily be attached to those somehow identified as being less resilient.
“We’re never going to say we’ve got the class of nonresilient people over here, and the class of highly resilient people over here,” Arthur said. “That would add to stigma.”
All troops would benefit from such training, no matter what their level of resilience, he said.
“They would not be identified as being weak,” Arthur added. “They would be identified as people who might do better in a military occupational specialty that’s not involved in direct combat.”
Arthur said this is already practiced to some degree in the military, if not in the same fashion.
“We have people go into SEAL or Ranger training, and there are a lot of candidates,” he said. “But not everybody gets in, because they’re looking for a particular kind of individual to be a SEAL. And we don’t stigmatize people who don’t get into the SEALs. We just move on, and they go on to careers in the military with other occupational specialties. And every single person who wears a uniform contributes.”
Arthur said part of being able to perform in combat is an individual’s ability to reach down inside and discover the inner strength to do so.
“But not everyone is capable of being as resilient as the next person,” he said. So, he said, “If they’re good with mechanical things, you’d want them to be a mechanic. If they’re good with resilient characteristics and they’re a good rifleman, you’d want them to be in combat.
“What we’re doing is just putting people into jobs where they have the best aptitude,” Arthur said.
Tough to determine
Although some initial research has been done within the psychological community on the topic, Arthur said there is no current test for resilience. “We ... don’t know necessarily what causes one person to be extraordinarily affected by the same event that another person would just shrug off,” he said.
Individual response to psychological stress, Arthur said, is largely inborn. “There can be training that can affect it,” Arthur said. “But we don’t fault people who break legs. We don’t fault people who get cancer. We don’t fault people who get sore throats. But we tend to blame people who have post-traumatic stress disorder.”
Dispelling the stigma of reporting stress-related problems, the report said, “is an issue that must be addressed by each echelon of DoD leadership; ... leaders who fail to do so reduce the effectiveness of the service members they lead.”
“It’s not your fault if you are severely affected by post-traumatic stress of having been in combat,” Arthur said. “And that’s the kind of psychological framework we need to imbue [in] our leadership.”
Some enter the military from difficult childhoods, he said, and may still be affected by that when they first put on a uniform.
Ellie