Soldiers show mental strain from combat tours
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than a quarter of U.S. soldiers on their third or fourth tours in Iraq suffer mental health problems partly because troops are not getting enough time at home between deployments, the Army said on Thursday.
Overall, about 17.9 percent of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan had mental health problems in 2007, according to an annual Army survey. That is slightly below the 2006 figure of 19.1 percent but relatively consistent with previous years.
But the incidence of mental health problems for soldiers in war zones climbs significantly among troops returning for a third and fourth combat tour, the survey showed.
Among noncommissioned officers, for example, 27.2 percent on their third and fourth tours suffered mental health problems in 2007. That compares with 18.5 percent for those low-ranking officers on their second tours and 11.9 percent of those on their first tours, the Army said.
"Soldiers are not resetting entirely before they get back into theater," said Lt. Col. Paul Bliese, who led the Army's Mental Health Advisory Team survey for 2007.
By "resetting" Bliese meant soldiers are not getting enough time to recover from the trauma of duty in a war zone.
"They're not having the opportunity, and we bring this up in the report, to completely recover from previous deployment and then go back into theater."
Bliese attributed the problem to the relatively short "dwell time" -- the period a soldier has at home between deployments.
Soldiers now have only 12 months at home before their next deployment. The Army's goal is to give soldiers three years at home for every one year deployed, but officials admit that is not realistic given current combat requirements in Iraq and Afghanistan.
PERSONAL PROBLEMS
Short dwell times helped the Pentagon execute President George W. Bush's troop "surge" last year that boosted troop levels in Iraq to 160,000 and keep about 28,000 troops in Afghanistan.
It also allowed the Pentagon to extend all Army deployments in the Middle East to 15 months from 12, a move needed to sustain that "surge" of forces in Iraq last year.
While those steps helped improve security in Iraq, the survey shows they also increased stress on an already strained force and seemed to contribute to work and personal problems.
"We see this multiple deployment effect for the mental health problems. We see a similar pattern for morale. We see some of the same reporting for job-related problems," Bliese said.
The military has struggled to meet troops' medical needs -- both mental and physical. The Pentagon has been trying to reform the health system since a Washington Post report last year that wounded troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan faced neglect at Walter Reed, the premier military hospital.
The 2007 Army mental health study surveyed 2,295 soldiers in Iraq and 699 in Afghanistan.
Soldiers in 2007 reported more difficulty accessing behavioral health services than in previous years despite the Army's year-long effort to hire more health professionals.
Part of the problem is linked to higher troop numbers in the war zones, said Col. Elspeth Ritchie, a psychiatrist and consultant to the Army Surgeon General.
In 2007, there was one practitioner for every 734 soldiers compared with one per 658 soldiers in 2006, Ritchie said.
The problem is also related to the U.S. military's decision to push its soldiers farther away from bases, where many medical services are housed, so that they can work with local security personnel and interact with the community.
The Army is trying to hire 275 additional mental health professionals from the civilian sector in the United States plus others in Europe and Korea. A tight labor market and difficulty getting civilian practitioners into the war zones has hurt the effort, Ritchie said.
(Reporting by Kristin Roberts, editing by Philip Barbara)
