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How to Help the Shell-Shocked
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The Fort Hood tragedy put the military's PTSD problem in the spotlight. The platoon sergeant they called 'Bad Voodoo' on why the mental-health stigma won't go away.
Former Army platoon sergeant Toby Nunn—known as “Bad Voodoo” in his combat days—was horrified when he heard about the shootings at Fort Hood that left 13 dead and 30-plus injured.
“It was so hard to believe that a soldier would turn his weapon on other soldiers. It’s a very special kinship that we have. ... It was also surreal,” says Nunn, 34, of Bastrop, Texas. “In the early moments, hearing the news, the first thing I thought was it was an attack. ... But for it to be what it’s ended up being—an individual that put his personal life ahead of something he raised his hand and signed on to—is just a very selfish act, an act of cowardice. He’s a scumbag.”
Until he officially separated from the Army in October, Nunn had served 13 years—from Iraq to Bosnia to Iraq again. His platoon was the focal point of a PBS/Frontline segment, Bad Voodoo’s War, which aired in spring of 2008, three months before his final tour in Iraq ended.
Excerpt from PBS Frontline's Bad Voodoo's War
As much as anyone, Nunn felt like he knew the Army inside and out. And the more he learned about Thursday’s tragedy, the angrier he became. Not just over his fallen comrades—that was a given; but over something he kept hearing in media reports—hints that shooter Major Nidal Malik Hasan might’ve suffered from the very ailment he was treating soldiers for: post-traumatic stress disorder.
“I do not think you can get PTSD by treating people with PTSD. It is not a contagious situation,” says Nunn, who entered counseling for the disorder eight months ago, and jokes that he’s neither crazy nor contagious. “The reason I believe that is because, as a mental-health person you should know what you’re dealing with. You should not be traumatized by something that you expect. It's the opposite of what PTSD is.”
“I do not think you can get PTSD by treating people with PTSD. It is not a contagious situation,” says Nunn, who entered counseling for the disorder eight months ago.
The former infantry rifle sergeant knows all about it—the symptoms, the stigma, the insecurity. He lives with it and tries to help others with it. As operations manager for Soldiers’ Angels, a national nonprofit that gives soldiers mental, emotional, medical, and even financial support (from care packages to airfare to trauma seminars), he often hears from fellow fighters who are struggling with post-combat fallout.
“I’m not trained to help people with PTSD, but if a fellow soldier reaches out to me, my hand is there and my grip is strong. And I can tell him where to get help,” Nunn says.
Nunn also knows the slippery slope that is mental-health care in the military. It's been debated over decades: how to handle soldiers who are suffering extreme psychological distress. How to get them treatment without stigmatizing them in the macho culture of soldiers. After all, war is hell. But even today with clearly outlined policies now prohibiting discrimination against personnel who seek treatment for such disorders, Nunn is convinced that the stigma very much remains. It’s just less talked about.
So sure is he that disclosing a mental-health issue counts against you in the service that he says he “waited until it was safe—until I’d decided to leave the Army" before getting help himself.
Not everyone shares his skepticism. The military has made strides; recently, it has rolled out a new “resiliency” program, aimed at helping soldiers and their families cope with the terrible fallout of war. Fort Hood was, ironically, the site of the program’s first facility.
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Martin Jacques is the cofounder of the UK think tank Demos, writes a regular column for The Guardian, and is a visiting research fellow at the London School of Economics Asia Research Centre. His new book, When China Rules the World, is available now.
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Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
I think we have asked too much of our military. Before we send even more of these warriors in harms way, we need to make a greater effort to give them the support they richly deserve here at home.
Probably not a good idea to have someone who is spouting anti-american nonsense and pro-enemy nonsense in the military. No matter why they might be doing it.
Thank you for covering this story, Shermakaye. I know how difficult it is to cull down a long interview into a coherent story. The only thing I wanted to add that didn't make it in is that I believe there IS still a stigma, but it's no longer so much of an institutional one. It's an individual one that we, as leaders, need to set the example in overcoming! The Army in particular has come a long way, but we need to change our way of thinking as Soldiers and leaders.
Again, GREAT story.
CJ Grisham
I'm sorry, but when our instruments of war happen to end up killing there is NO room to speak rhetoric of apology to anyone that there was violence. That's why it's called WAR and we need to stop taking that shit so casually. The DRUG WAR, ruined many and killed many more, war on a tangible object OR the countries' own citizens. The TERROR WAR, war on a idea originally used to politically simplify the concept of fighting brown people, similar phrasing used in massacres of Native American tribes recorded in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
And we're 'SHOCKED' when a SOLDIER goes trigger happy.
I disagree with the action, but I sure as fuck understand the reasoning. It was the reasoning behind the writing of the Bill of Rights by more privileged folk who understand what happens you fuck your people.
I'm not going to make this any more concise. Anyone shocked by this needs to not vote, ever. They have no idea what is going on in this global political landscape.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
The distinction between an injury and illness needs to be made carefully the way it is when it comes to the body.
I understand people say we have a reptilian brain and a higher brain, but is this really true? Or is that we have one brain, that is in charge of many functions, lower and higher, and some are functions that become second nature once we learn or have our needs met, but if trauma or supports have been taken away, psychologically or physically or socially, the brain might not be what is broken, but the framework of a functional psychology and or sociology.
So if we look at human development as a process, that goes from one need being met to the next one, so a person is climbing a ladder of human development, and suddenly a person loses their support, due to war, social conflict, or God forbid, flood, famine, and fire, then a person is back to square one.
Is this really an illness, or a breakdown, or possibly more precisely a fall down?
Does the cure lie in medication, or does the cure lie in resetting a person's structure of believing that their needs will be met again, which possibly is the roll that religion might serve.
It is a question. If suddenly someone loses their supports, medication might make them less able to fight or flight when in panic or devastation mode, but to see it as an injury, instead of an illness, where something inside has to be reset again, like a leg, when it is broken, for it to function the same way, means, that every single person, at a certain point of being deprived of something, could land up broken.
So savagery, mental illness what is the difference?
Isn't it easy to ask such difficult questions. So much harder to know the answer. Maybe the answer lies in a process or resetting.
But what potential for psychological warfare. Where you cannot see what has been broken inside.
After many years of PR flacks promoting the idea of stigma, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) promotes the idea that stigma prevents people from seeking treatment. Contrary to that paradigm are state and US laws (Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Rehabilitation Act of 1973), which address discrimination, which denies to persons PERCEIVED as mentally ill (i.e., having a disability) from enjoying the same rights and privileges as "normal" persons. NAMI does not address this perspective at all. They remain focused on promoting drug treatment because they receive major funding from drug corporations. See e.g.,
http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/644/36/
NAMI Constituency Revealed
AHRP.com
If a person wants psychiatric treatment there are no barriers other than internal ones. But if a person with a disability wants government services e.g., protection from crime police often deny them basic rights. NAMI ignores those abuses as does this essay.
How to Help the Shell-Shocked?
Step 1) Bring the troops home now!
Thank you.
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