Winning the soldier's heart

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By Mary Claire Kendall

Wounded warrior Jerrod Fields, an Army sergeant featured in "Where Life Is," screened at the GI Film Fest, panics every time July Fourth fireworks go off, though he's been home from Iraq for four years.

"Soldier's Heart" - the name given to that dazed stare of Civil War soldiers, ceaselessly reliving ear-piercing, nerve-wracking blasts, bloody carnage and the stench of death - afflicts between about 300,000 and 600,000 American troops (20 percent to 40 percent) returning from Middle East theaters of war. They have helped win the peace, only to be robbed of inner peace.

Skyrocketing suicide rates - up 60 percent since 2003, now exceeding killed-in-action numbers - have prompted an intense effort by top military brass to fight and win this battle of the soldier's heart.

The biggest problem is the stigma attached to admitting mental wounds as if a sign of weakness. As an antidote, the Defense Department recently launched its Real Warriors campaign (www.realwarriors.net) communicating that it's OK to get help - "You're not alone."

Abraham Lincoln, for one, suffered from depression, signaling, rather than weakness, that what's now called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) shows one's specialness.

When asked to comment, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen told me the memory of Lincoln, who preserved the Union under great duress and sought to "bind up the nation's wounds," highlights the need for "leaders right now" to deal with PTSD's toll "particularly [among] those who have been in the heavy throes of combat" for so long - "our sixth year of two wars, eighth year of going to war."

As the point person stimulating leadership to tackle this burgeoning crisis, Adm. Mullen is asking military leaders to "step forward" to get screened and get help, if necessary. "And, if they do that, others will follow, and they'll know it's OK."

Adm. Mullen pointed to the corresponding need for a "mental health system that has the capacity and the wherewithal to be able to deal with the challenges" of PTSD about which "we're just learning."

"This," he said "is going to be a long haul."

We're not short on leaders.