- will remember Ilona from the Military panel with Wes and Jon Soltz. She is a stellar example of Genaral Clark's "When you can do good, you should." Devoting her life to researching, informing and helping to solve the PTSD problem plaguing our troops.

Here is her testimomy before Congress last week.

Please read it. She's a Clarkie, a CCN Series blogger, and an inspirational human being who is truly supporting our troops. And one of the sweetest people you could ever meet! Thank you Blog Angel for posting the fabulous slideshow!

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Testimony By Ms. Ilona Meagher
Caledonia, Illinois
Author

"Moving a Nation to Care: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and America's Returning"

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Opening Statement

Chairman Filner, Ranking Member Buyer, and other distinguished members of the Committee, I thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.

To open, I’d like to briefly share my thoughts on why it is that I believe I’m here.

I am not only someone who’s spent the past two years researching and writing about post-traumatic stress in our returning troops, I’m also a veteran’s daughter. My father was born in Hungary, served two years in antitank artillery as a Hungarian Army conscript, fought against the Soviet Union on the streets of Budapest during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, and later fled to America where, in 1958, he again became a soldier, this time wearing a United States Army uniform, and serving as a combat engineer stationed in Germany.

My father’s unique experience of having served on both sides – East and West – in such differing armies during the Cold War, gave him a unique perspective on military life.

And so, growing up, my sisters and I often heard my father say,

“You can always tell how a government feels about its people by looking at how it treats its soldiers.”

Looking at our returning soldiers and their widely-reported struggles with the military and VA health care systems they rely on, of being stigmatized from seeking care or of being placed on lengthy VA waiting lists when they need immediate help – some even committing suicide before their appointment dates arrive – have raised this citizen’s alarm bells.

We have had a “see no evil, hear no evil” approach to examining post-deployment psychological reintegration issues such as suicide. After all we have learned from the struggles of the Vietnam War generation – and the ensuing controversy over how many of its veterans did or did not commit suicide in its wake – why is there today no known national registry where Afghanistan and Iraq veteran suicide data is being collected? How can we ascertain reintegration problems – if any exist – if we are not proactive in seeking them out?

As late as May 2007, Department of Veterans Affairs spokeswoman Karen Fedele told the Washington Post that there was no attempt to gather Afghanistan and Iraq veteran suicide incidents. "We don't keep that data,” she said. “I'm told that somebody here is going to do an analysis, but there just is nothing right now."

Meanwhile, the Army reported its suicide rate in 2006 rose to 17.3 per 100,000 troops, the highest in 26 years of keeping such records. At long last, the Associated Press revealed that the VA is finally conducting preliminary research. They’ve tracked at least 283 OEF/OIF veteran suicides through the end of 2005, nearly double the rate of the additional 147 suicides reported by the DoD’s Defense Manpower Data Center.

Looking only at the these suicide figures from the VA (283) and the DoD (147), there have been at least 430 Afghanistan and Iraq veteran suicides that have occurred either in the combat zone or stateside following combat deployment. Lost in the VA and DoD counts are those veterans who have returned from their deployments, are still in the military and not yet in the VA system. The DoD says they do not track those incidents, and I assume neither does the VA because these veterans are not yet on their radar.

Yet even with this omission, many of these 430 confirmed suicides are a result of our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and should – but won’t – be listed with the DoD’s official OEF/OIF death toll of 4,351. It bears mentioning: Currently 10 percent of the overall fatal casualty count of these wars is due to suicide.

Dismissing the issue of veteran suicide in the face of this data is negligent and does nothing to honor the service and sacrifice of our veterans and the families and communities that literally are tasked with supporting them once they return.

Yet, prior to last month’s CBS News investigation, which revealed that 120 veterans of all wars committed suicide every week in 2005 and that 20-24 year old Afghanistan and Iraq veterans are two to four times more likely to commit suicide than their civilian counterparts, the scope of the problem has been largely unknown because no one with proper resources and access to do the compiling of data came forward to do so.

In my written testimony, I’ve included 75 suicides that I and other citizen journalist colleagues have been tracking since September 2005 and which today reside in the ePluribus Media PTSD Timeline.

Offering only a small and incomplete sliver of insight into how some of our returning troops are faring on the home front – especially in light of the fact that at least another 355 incidents could be added among them according the the VA and DoD – I believe that they collectively tell an even greater tale about the failure of us as individuals and as a society to ensure that our returning warriors are cleansed completely from the psychological wounds of war.

They also reflect the failure of our government institutions to protect those who protect us.

While I realize that these distressing stories are the exception and not the rule, to our exceptional military families having to deal with the deterioration of a loved one they thought had safely returned from combat, they are the rule. In 1956, the same year that my parents fled to this incredible country, the 84th Congress – in the very House that we sit in today – had this to say in a presidential commission report on veterans’ benefits:

“The Government's obligation is to help veterans overcome special, significant handicaps incurred as a consequence of their military service. The objective should be to return veterans as nearly as possible to the status they would have achieved had they not been in military service… and maintaining them and their survivors in circumstances as favorable as those of the rest of the people. … War sacrifices should be distributed as equally as possible within our society. This is the basic function of our veterans' programs.”

I am not a pedigreed expert or a government official seasoned in testifying before you, but those who are from the GAO and the Congressional Research Department and even the Veterans Administration itself, have sat in this very seat over the years and told you we are falling far short in providing the resources and programs our returning troops and military families need to successfully return to their personal lives following their service to the nation.

To those who resist hearing the cold hard truth of where we are today, I’d like to say: The time is here to stop fighting the data, and to start fighting for our troops.

This is America. We can do better. We must do better.
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**Emphasis mime. More at Ilona's page
http://ptsdcombat.blogspot.com/2007/12/thank-you-to-house-veterans-affairs.html

I just cannot overstate my admiration for the nature of the work undertaken by Ilona & the quality of that work.

We should nominate her for a Wings of Justice Buzzflash award.

Kudos also to whoever is helping her with the technical aspects of her projects also, that work is also first rate, let alone the content itself of course.  

Ms. Ilona Meagher is truly a wonderful and caring person, her book is to be read.

And great pics...