Mr. Chair and members of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, on behalf of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), thank you for this opportunity to testify in front of this subcommittee, especially regarding an issue that affects me so personally.

I also want to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the Chair and Ranking Member of this committee who, by working together in a bipartisan manner, passed the largest increase in education benefits for veterans since the GI Bill was created 64 years ago. Our veterans and our nation will benefit tremendously from your hard work.

I am currently serving as a combat medic in the DC National Guard. I enlisted in the Army one month before we invaded Iraq and later volunteered to be deployed to Iraq in 2004. For one year I was attached to the 256 infantry Brigade, part of the Louisiana National Guard. I was assigned to a line unit and patrolled various parts of Baghdad.

Three years ago today, we had just wrapped up a massive raid in our area of operations, in Northwest Baghdad. During that raid, my patrol unit was assigned to pull security, called an outer cordon, to ensure that no one attacked the other patrol group that was actually searching for the raid’s target. I remember that night vividly. It was a clear, hot night and everyone was joking around that our unit finally got put on security and wasn’t leading the charge. It was dark and well past curfew, the streets were desolate.

About 2 a.m. an Iraqi man appeared out of the darkness and started walking toward us. The gunner assigned to guard that corner started yelling in English and broken Arabic for the man to stop. He just kept coming. He was close when the gunner fired a 5 round burst, with at least 2 tracers, right in front of the man to get him to stop. He just kept walking. At this point we all had our weapons trained on the man and I remember switching the safety off on my weapon.

Then something peculiar happened… no one fired a shot. The man walked right through our check point, disappeared into the darkness without even acknowledging our presence. As soon as he walked by me I recognized the man as a local homeless guy who we always saw standing in the middle of an intersection down the street.

To be honest not firing that night was probably the most foolish risk our unit took while we were in Iraq. I spent the rest of the night listening to our patrol’s senior leadership berate the lower enlisted for not shooting a man who was out beyond curfew and not responding to verbal or physical warnings to stop. My team leader and the oldest of the enlisted laid it our very sternly, “We were (expletive) very lucky this time, if he was suicide bomber most of us would be dead right now. Remember we are fighting a war and your enemy won’t show you any mercy. Next time take the shot dammit!” Although I hated to admit it, he was right.

That stern sergeant spent most our tour in Iraq keeping our guys in line and focused. I can say honestly that he saved my life more then a couple times. This man was one my best friends over there and he was mentor to me and to our entire patrol team. I looked up to him as any soldier looks up to an outstanding Noncommissioned Officer (NCO).

Unfortunately, the next time I saw this sergeant was this past Memorial Day weekend and he was laying in casket. Just over two years after being home, he took his life and was found floating in a boat on a lake. He had sent a text message cry for help to someone at the armory, but when they went looking for him it was too late.

As a unit we came together for the funeral and many of us spent the weekend pondering how this well-respected NCO and our emotional bedrock while we were in Iraq could find himself so isolated from the rest of the world. The consensus in our unit was that the emotional callousness that a soldier must don with their body armor each morning was a lot harder for this sergeant to take off when he returned. I have heard it called psychological Kevlar. The numbness that worked so well in Bagdad became a severe hindrance at home.

This hearing is about cooperation between the Departments of Defense (DoD) and Veterans Affairs (VA) in reintegrating our Reserve and National Guard forces. These departments have taken great strides over the past 7 years to help our returning citizen soldiers. But we are far from the finish line. As a National Guard soldier, this sergeant was both the responsibility of DoD and VA and he fell through the cracks.

We must do better. Luckily, model programs are already in place.

When the Minnesota National Guard returned home from a 22-month deployment in Iraq, the single longest deployment of any unit in this conflict, the leadership of that unit realized they an innovative reintegration plan. Their “Beyond the Yellow Ribbon Program” focused on the returning soldier and their families, and brought the full resources of this government together in one coordinated effort. This program included:

• mandatory mental health counseling and training for the servicemembers and their families;
• information about VA/DoD health care, jobs, and education benefits; and
• an opportunity for the unit to come together again in a non stressful environment during those critical first three months.

This program was so successful that the Beyond the Yellow Ribbon program was included in last year’s National Defense Authorization Act (Public Law 110-181). However the Department of Defense has failed to implement the program, because it was authorized but not funded. IAVA believes that Congress must work with DoD to accelerate implementation of this effective program.

Only holistic approaches like the BtYR that focus on the servicemember and their family will ensure veterans are prepared to reintegrate into civilian life. But I’d also like to speak briefly about the key components of any reintegration program.

Mandatory Confidential Screenings Are Needed

When my unit returned home October 2005, the Post Deployment Health Reassessment (PDHRA) did not exist. It was over a year and a half before I started receiving phone calls from the Army asking me to fill out a PDHRA. When I tried to fill out the form online I was told I had missed my window of opportunity. When they eventually got in touch with me over the phone, I remember having to answer very sensitive questions as I was walking through the aisles of a Barnes Noble Bookstore, desperately trying to find a section devoid of people. The person interviewing me was not a mental health professional but rather a physician assistant with a couple days of on-the-job training.

IAVA believes that’s every returning servicemember should be required to receive confidential face-to-face counseling with a licensed mental health professional within 6 months of returning home. My friend the stoic sergeant asked for help when it was already too late. We can not afford to keep waiting for veterans to self identify that they need help. Requiring mandatory counseling sessions is not a new concept. Many law enforcement and fire departments require such sessions after any type of traumatic event. We should be providing nothing less for our men and women serving in harm’s way.

I have heard the Department of Defense has started implementing immediate after action reviews with counselors for servicemembers who experience traumatic events in theatre. While I cannot comment on the efficacy of this program, I can say from personal experience that counseling will be most effective when it comes time to take off the psychological Kevlar, and that is during the months after returning home.

VA Needs to Expand Outreach Programs

IAVA has advocated for years that the VA needs to stop being a passive system that waits for veterans to come in with their problems. Any successful outreach program would involve a multi-pronged approach that develops a relationship with the veteran before they need help, much like a successful college alumni association that starts developing ties with students before they even graduate.

We are very encouraged to hear that the VA has listened to our recommendations and implemented a plan to contact every veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan who is no longer on active duty and has not approached the VA for health care needs. This almost informal check-in has already yielded encouraging results and we look forward to hearing from the VA about what they learned from these calls to almost half a million veterans.

This call program must be a first step in building a relationship with our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and not the entire outreach program,. There have been a number of efforts to free up the VA from bureaucratic rules that supposedly prevented them from launching a mass media campaign to start bringing in new veterans into VA care programs. Section 1710 of the National Defense Authorization Act clarified this issue and IAVA implores the VA to launch a mass media campaign that educates and honors the service of our fighting men and women.

DoD and VA Need to Declare War on Mental Health Stigma

The Department of Defense and VA have stated publically that battling mental health stigma is one of their top priorities. IAVA was pleased to see DoD start a series of stigma reduction programs within the military, and very publically change the questions to their security clearance forms to ensure that servicemembers were not penalized for seeking counseling.

However these forays have amounted to minor skirmishes in a larger campaign to battle stigma. IAVA believes that new Center of Excellence for PTSD should greatly expand DoD and VA’s stigma reduction campaign. We at IAVA are also doing our part. To de-stigmatize the psychological injuries of war, IAVA has recently partnered with the Ad Council to conduct a three-year Public Service Announcement campaign to try and combat this stigma, and ensure that troops who need mental health care get it.

Conclusion

Guard and Reservists straddle the uncomfortable line between the VA and DoD. Only through joint coordinated efforts between these two departments will we ensure that veterans like my friend no longer fall between the cracks.

Respectfully Submitted.