[Vision2020] The Military, Religion, and Mental Health

[nickgier at roadrunner.com]

Greetings:

This is my radio commentary/column for this week.  I'm is heavily indebted to Tara McKelvey’s article “God, the Army, and PTSD” in The Boston Review (November-December, 2009).  The full version can be read at www.home.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/MentalHealth.htm

I've collected a lot of material on conservative Christian influence in the military and I will be writing more about this in the near future.

Nick Gier

THE MILITARY, RELIGION, AND MENTAL HEALTH

At a 2005 meeting Michael McLendon, a top official in the Veterans Administration, repeatedly pounded a table on which his Bible was placed. He was complaining that veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) were "costing us too much money," that the diagnosis was "made up," and that if the veterans "believed in God and country . . . they would not come home with PTSD." 

This is just one instance of far too many conservative Christian intrusions into the U. S. military.  There was the "Team Jesus" banner hanging in the locker room of the Air Force Academy football team, and the spokesman for Campus Crusade’s Military Ministry saying that Christian soldiers were "government paid missionaries." 

At every turn the Bush administration pushed aside professional standards and expertise in all areas--law, foreign aid, climate science, and mental health--for ideological and religious reasons. 

Since the Vietnam War many veterans have not sought treatment for PTSD, primarily because of the perception that it was a sign of weakness, but now many are being denied treatment and encouraged to seek spiritual help instead. One exasperated clinician said that the Bush Veterans Administration’s answer to mental health problems was contained in three words: "Jesus fixes everything."

Some conservatives have charged that the PTSD diagnosis was invented by anti-war activists and “leftist” psychiatrists such as Robert Jay Lifton. The symptoms of PTSD cannot be explained away so easily.  They have been described as consisting of "horrifying nightmares, hyper-vigilance, sleeplessness, and other potentially debilitating symptoms." Our veterans need a mental health system based on scientifically tested methods not on fanatical religion.

Drug treatment must be combined with intensive counseling to bring these patients back to normal. Counseling with a military chaplain or private pastor is also encouraged, but not to the exclusion of secular treatment.

Because of budget cutbacks under the Bush presidency, veterans seeking PTSD treatment now have to wait up to five months for an appointment at VA clinics.  As one informed observer states: "After years of neglect during the Bush administration, veterans now have nearly one million claims pending, a record high for the agency."

Roger Benimoff is an Iraq War veteran and a Baptist army chaplain. In his book Faith Under Fire he tells how he essentially broke down after many sessions of "Spiritually Uplifting" with his patients at Walter Reed Medical Center.  

Benimoff began to have questions about his faith when he admitted that if he were an omnipotent, benevolent father, as God is supposed to be, he would not let his children suffer like his patients, and a good deal of humanity, did.

Chaplain Benimoff eventually realized that he was also having serious psychological problems, and he was shocked to find that an army psychiatrist diagnosed him as having PTSD.  He constantly thought of killing himself and others, because "all that was left was pure hatred toward all people."

Benimoff finally checked into Coatesville Medical Facility in Pennsylvania and found that his roommate was a Vietnam veteran who had suffered from PTSD for thirty years.  As he went through the entry procedures, he was asked if he wanted to see a chaplain.  His answer was "absolutely not."

I resent the fact that conservative Christians have permission to evangelize on our military bases, forcing many soldiers to decide between going to church services or face ostracism if they stay in their barracks.

But most of all I feel sick at my stomach when I think of the 62,575 dead and 335,206 wounded in the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, wars that did not need to be fought. These families still mourn their loses, but my stomach really turns when I think of Benimoff’s wife and two sons and thousands like them, who suffer from the burden of the walking wounded in our midst. 

Nick Gier taught philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31 years.