On Losing a Veteran Son to a Broken System
Member of U.S. Army National Guard's Tactical Human Intelligence Team commits suicide; his suicide note says he was forced to commit "war crimes, crimes against humanity" in Iraq. ● Daniel returned home in the fall of 2007. In conversations over the next few months, he told us that he had made several attempts to get medical treatment for an array of health problems. Because his National Guard unit was still in ready reserve status, the Veterans Affairs Department medical center in Phoenix refused him treatment because he was not yet officially a veteran. The local Defense Department health care facility denied him services because he was not on active duty. He told us that he had suffered innumerable concussions in the course of more than 400 missions in the turret of a Humvee. He spoke of having flashbacks, and he appeared tense and nervous in person. But for the most part, he hid the severity of his symptoms from us. When he was finally deemed eligible for veterans benefits, he began treatment at the Phoenix medical center in February 2008. There, he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury, and given a disability rating of 40 percent. By the end of that year, Daniel was so frustrated with the problems with his care, including long wait times for appointments and turnover in health care providers, that he sought treatment from outside providers at his own expense. From time to time he attempted to re-enter the Veterans Affairs system, only to experience the persistent problems of access and availability. Daniel took his own life on June 10 of this year, a block and a half from his Phoenix home. He left the family a letter listing the many roadblocks to care he had encountered in the Veterans Affairs system.