Young Marine Dies Of PTSD - And Neglect

[Bob Geiger]

Jonathan Schulze was a United States Marine.

He died earlier this month at the age of 25 -- not in Iraq, but back home, in Minnesota.

He died of wounds received during his seven-month tour of duty in Iraq, wounds different from the ones that earned Schulze two purple hearts. This young man died of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, of wounds to the soul and not the flesh. He died because the government that was there to send him far away to fight in 2004 wasn't there for him when he got home.

Schulze had a harrowing time in Iraq, spending time in the heated battles of Ramadi in April, 2004. While he was there, 35 Marines in his unit were killed, including 17 of them in just 48 hours of combat.

The young Marine was wounded twice in battle but returned home to rebuild his life and to cope with the things he had seen, things he had done and friends he had lost. But, by the time he was discharged from the Marines in late 2005, he was deeply troubled with images of combat and violence that he could not get out of his mind.

According to Minnesota press reports, Schulze went to the Veterans Administration (VA) center in Minneapolis on December 14, 2006, met with a psychiatrist and was told that he could only be admitted for treatment four months later, in March.

On January 11, 2007, accompanied by his parents, he went to the VA hospital in St. Cloud, Minnesota and told people at that VA facility that he was thinking of killing himself. They told Schulze that they could not admit him as a patient and sent him on his way.

The next day, January 12, Schulze called the VA, reiterating that he was feeling suicidal. He was told that he was number 26 on the waiting list.

A man who had risked his life in Iraq and done everything that was asked of him by the United States government, was told by that same government that his sacrifice would be repaid by being 26th on a list of Veterans similarly crying out for help.

"Jonathan wanted help so bad," said Marianne Schulze, Jonathan's stepmother. "At the end of the conversation, Jonathan got off the phone so distressed."

On January 16, Schulze called his family and told them that he was going to do it -- he was going to kill himself. His family called the local police, who raced to his house, kicked in his door and found him hanging from an electrical cord.

Attempts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful.

Having read about Schulze while on a trip to Minnesota, Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) brought the story to the floor of the Senate and read it into the record on Monday.

"The story is nearly unbelievable to me," said Dorgan in a speech on the Senate floor. "The newspaper description of the flag-draped coffin of this young marine who earned two Purple Hearts fighting for his country in Iraq contains a sad, sad story of a young marine who should have gotten medical help for serious psychological problems that were the result of his wartime experience."

The Marine's family says that he couldn't sleep, would have nightmares reliving the combat he had experienced and suffered from vivid flashbacks when awake.

“He was a delayed casualty of the Iraq war,” his father, Jim Schulze, a Vietnam Veteran, said of Jonathan.

Jonathan Schulze, who leaves behind his fianceé, a 6-month-old daughter and who had another baby on the way, was a machine gunner who wrote often to his parents about what he was experiencing in Iraq, the firefights, the bombings and dismembered bodies blown apart by Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).

“I pray so much over here and ask God to keep me out of harm’s way and to make it back home alive and in one piece,” he wrote to his parents in 2004. “I bet I easily pray over a dozen times a day and I always pray while I am on patrol as I am terrified of getting hit by an IED aka a bomb. Our vehicle elements and Marines on patrols are getting hit hard by these bombs the Iraqis plant all over and hide on the ground.”

He survived all of that only to come home and find neglect, the results of an administration big on tax cuts for the wealthy, but not real strong on taking care of Veterans returning home from the war created by the George W. Bush and, until this month, left unchecked by the do-nothing Republican Congress.

As is often the case when things like this happen, the VA is citing privacy laws and won’t talk about the Schulze family’s account of what happened to Jonathan or issue any comment at all.

But Senator Dorgan says he's going to press for answers.

"I am going to ask the inspector general to investigate what happened in this case," said Dorgan on the Senate floor. "What happened that a young man who was a marine veteran with two Purple Hearts turns up at a VA center and says: I am thinking of committing suicide, can you help me, can you admit me, and he is told: No, the list is 26 long in front of you?"

"Are there others who show up at a VA center and say: I need help, only to be told no help is available? I hope that is not the case. It is the unbelievable cost of war."

You can read more from Bob at BobGeiger.com.

[AndyA]

1. THIS IS HOW GEORGE BUSH AND THE REPUBLICANS SUPPORT OUR TROOPS.

It's a disgrace. These men and women are expected to go fight a war that is based on lies, without proper body armour, equipment, or care while they're on duty and when they return home.

We waste millions of dollars in Iraq, fly that nit wit * all over the world so he can cause more trouble, yet the people we're told we must support get treated like second rate citizens when they return home.

THE ONLY WAY AMERICA CAN SUPPORT OUR TROOPS AT THIS POINT IS TO BRING THEM HOME, AND TEND TO THEIR NEEDS IN A MANNER CONSISTENT WITH THE HEROES THAT THEY ARE.

Knowing that the GOP are all going to rot in hell is little comfort.

Sorry about the caps, but I'm so sick of the hypocrisy I could just scream. And no one in the media will call them on this fact. We have troops dying here at home, too. And it's all because of Bush's Iraq war, the optional war that we didn't have to fight. :mad:

[SaveOurDemocracy]

6. You speak for me too ...

"THE ONLY WAY AMERICA CAN SUPPORT OUR TROOPS AT THIS POINT IS TO BRING THEM HOME, AND TEND TO THEIR NEEDS IN A MANNER CONSISTENT WITH THE HEROES THAT THEY ARE."!!!


I was overwhelmed by grief and anger and was beyond finding the words. Thank you AndyA

[Danieljay]

2. We'll be reading a lot more stories just like this one....

My heart is saddened.

[Mabus]

19. Or writing them

I wrote of a similar incident in 2005, only it was someone I knew.

One of my best friends in the whole world lives in California. We were roommates and, in many ways, he is a soul mate. We'd be perfect for each other except I'm straight and he's not. We met at work and over the years we've helped each other through school, seen each other through some broken romances and cruised a lot of bars together. Over 90% of my telephone time is spent with him. So, sorry guys, as much as I love my fellow DU'ers I have to be here for my friend especially when he calls me up with the most gut wrenching sobs that I have ever heard and needs to talk. If this is a good enough excuse for you then stop. If you want to know what was going on, here is the story behind that phone call.

I need to back up a couple of days. My buddy (I'll call him Brian) called Friday afternoon. His old boyfriend (I'll call him Paul), the man he had wanted to spend the rest of his life committed suicide. Paul was in the NG and had been trying to get out of it for a while. He had been deployed to Iraq twice and when he returned this last time he began self-medicating with alcohol. We will never know what he saw or did, all we knew was that he wasn't the carefree guy that Brian had fallen in love with years ago. Paul had descended into a depression that seemed to get deeper every day.

A few months ago Paul was admitted to a mental hospital and was placed on "suicide watch" after one botched attempt. He was recently released from the hospital and was trying to figure out what he was going to do with his life when he left the NG. His release was still "in process" and he was afraid he'd get deployed before the paperwork came through. So it was good news when Paul called Brian a couple of weeks ago and asked Brian if he could move in with him and sort out his life. Brian was excited about it and said "yes" without hesitation. They'd been working on the details and arrangements since then. Last Thursday afternoon Paul called Brian and said he had mailed off the first boxes of his stuff. Naturally Brian called me and we breathed a sigh of relief that Paul was going to be all right. He would basically be moved to California by the time the release papers came. The next day Brian called to tell me that Paul had succeeded in a second suicide attempt. Yep, Paul killed himself this past Friday, on Veteran's Day.

As you can imagine Brian and I have been talking almost constantly since Friday afternoon shortly after he found out that Paul was dead. I told him that he could call me anytime and he has taken me up on it. He sometimes forgets about the two hour time difference. So I've been a little loopier than usual lately as Brian and I go through this news. I called Lauren, my Ditch Witch friend, who was out in California protesting Colin Powell's appearance with Cindy Sheehan so I called her to see if she could check on Brian. She used to work at a crisis center and, while she wasn't able to see Brian in person, she's been a great comfort to both of us.

Anyway, and here's my excuse for not making it Tuesday night, Brian called Tuesday afternoon. He had finally lost it when the first shipment of Paul's things arrived at his house. It hit Brian really hard. He'd actually been in the middle of making arrangements to get off work to go to Paul's funeral when the box was delivered. I spent most of the evening on the phone talking to Brian. I really would have rather been with all of you but I had an emergency.

Have I told you how much I fucking hate Bush and his cronies that have sent our family members, friends and neighbors over to Iraq?

While I will never know why Paul killed himself, a large part of me will always blame that fucking cocksucker Bush. Paul's first deployment took him out of a loving relationship, into war and then into therapy. His second deployment destroyed what there was left of him and drove him to suicide. I will never know what Paul was exposed to, what he saw, what he knew or how many friends and loved ones he lost.

I don't know if Paul was even aware that he was committing suicide on Veteran's Day. We've just chalked it up as another of the many ironies of Paul's life.

Yesterday, when the MSM was reporting what we already knew, that Cheney met with energy executives, I remembered the talk about the pre-war maps that had divvied up the Iraqi oil fields between the various companies and I wanted to scream. IS THIS WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT - OIL?!? It isn't worth it. All the oil in the world isn't worth one life much less over 2,000 of them. And fuck that number! This war and this so-called president have killed more troops than the current "official" death toll will count. How many hundreds of thousands of lives have been destroyed so that monkey could strut around in his flight suit and smirk at us?

Until my dying day, I will believe that Bush destroyed Paul's life by declaring this unjust and unholy war. And now, Paul's death has devastated those who loved him.

Sorry for the rant. I feel better now. I wasn't going to say anything but then I just felt the need to get this out of my system. I was telling MuseRider the other day about some of the fun stuff that's been going on in my life lately. It has been :crazy: to say the least. And just as things were leveling out for me, this happens. Oh well. Life goes on and there are so many good things to look forward to in the future. For instance, I got coffee in bed this morning and then had a long, wonderful walk with the three dogs and my husband; the BFEE continues its downward spiral; Woodward is ducking the press; I've got family and friends coming in for Thanksgiving beginning this weekend; and my Jayhawk basketball team is looking good!


FWIW, Brian is on his way to the funeral right now. He's meeting all of Paul's RW fundie relatives who told Paul that he was going to "rot in hell", called him a "sodomite" and blamed him and his lifestyle (like he had a choice?!?) for the upcoming Apocalypse. Thankfully Paul's mom and stepdad aren't like the rest of the family. Paul's mom was the one who called Brian and told him that Paul was dead. She was very supportive of their relationship and Brian has always spoken highly of her. Anyway she was the one who invited Brian to the funeral because she still considered Brian part of their family.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=153&topic_id=3037&mesg_id=3065

[no_hypocrisy]

3. This is deplorable on several levels.

First, from personal experience, when someone tells you that s/he is thinking of killing her/himself, they freakin' mean it. I called the cops on a patient who told me he was going to commit suicide if he couldn't speak to his psychiatrist. The psychiatrist refused to talk to him at 4 a.m. That evening, that guy was in the psyche ward of the local hospital, but alive just the same.

Second, there HAVE TO BE priorities even at budget-strapped VA hospitals. Suicide is "up there" in my opinion.

Third, when you are suicidal, and you reach out but are rebuffed, this rejection adds one more reason "to leave".

Fourth, these are soldiers who risked their lives on behalf of us (whether or not we wanted them to). They are owed a modicum of respect and care and here is the government telling them they don't matter.

Un-freaking real.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. Think of the rich kids, like the twins

partying around, having "better things to do", and getting tax breaks so that veterans like this don't get the help they need.

[democrank]

5. This is an example of

what`s happening while some of the fools in Congress argue in back rooms about the use of the word escalation vs. surge. It`s inexcusable. First, we ask soldiers to die for a lie, then we neglect many who are fortunate enough to make it back home. We should be ashamed enough to stand up and say, "ENOUGH, NO MORE."

[raccoon]

7. This is awful. Someone should write a book about it.

And promote it six ways from Sunday.

[SaveOurDemocracy]

8. I hope Keith Olbermann will cover this...

I'd like to see him do a special comment on how this government 'supports the troops'.

[rwork]

10. Could someone

Send this to Keith? I know he is overloaded,but he is our strongest to get the message out.

[Bluerthanblue]

9. this is so totally unacceptable- I wish he'd

been able to just walk into a regular hospital and get admitted.
Being a Vet shouldn't hinder you from the help you need.
We can't let this repeat itself again and again and again....

I know what PTSD can do to you. This poor soul needed a safe place to be as his overwhelmed mind and body tried to begin to cope with the hell he endured.

How DARE this country send one more person into the abyss, or keep them in it when this kind of shit is going to be happening to god knows how many more Vets-????????

I'm not surprised by this... but DAMN I'm sick at heart to be 'right' about the apathy and empty promises that wait for those who are going to find themselves in desperate need.

We have to hammer home to the 'powers that be' that we owe our Vets more than just lip service and pot-metal badges.

We cannot allow our brothers and sisters suffering to slide quietly into the silence of uncomfortable truths.

[merh]

11. .

:cry:


forgive us

[mopinko]

12. ya know, i don't know how much longer i can take this kind

of shit. the horrors that are piling up. what kind of fucking nightmare is this that we are living in?
when the va has no place to put him, why don't we put him wherever he needs to be and pay the fucking bill? send the fucking bill to haliburton.

maybe he should have gone and shot up some store windows, made a nice big scene, and gotten thrown in jail. somehow, we always have room in the jail. cook county jail is the largest psychiatric institution in illinois.

[SaveOurDemocracy]

13. Kicking ... this needs more attention.

:kick: This young man's death needs to count for something.

[lildreamer316]

15. I will not forget him.

Ever.

[Auntie Bush]

14. Well there were at least 26 at that one VA hospital and I'm sure the same

exists all over America. Geo.bush* and their whole ReThug party are shit faced liars when they claim to protect the troops and Dems are traitors!

"Are there others who show up at a VA center and say: I need help, only to be told no help is available?"

[Morgana LaFey]

16. I'm angry that Dorgan thinks this is so unusual

Very angry, and I usually like him quite a bit.

These people in Washington have GOT to get a clue -- they've GOT to start getting around and learning a little bit about real life in Amerika these days. As appalling as the story is, Dorgan's lack of knowledge about these conditions is even more appalling to me.

GET OUT OF WASHINGTON AND LOOK AROUND AND LET PEOPLE TALK TO YOU, you asses. Read a damn newspaper sometime, or get some staff people do that for you.

[Doctor_J]

17. The cost of the Iraq war will continue to accumulate for years

because of PTSD and other such things. Of course that assumes we're actually going to take care of the soldiers, which won't happen if the GOP is still in charge.

[Javaman]

18. This just plain sucks.

but I have to ask one question, if he was continually denied by the VA, why couldn't he seek out another therapist? Or even call a suicide hotline?

The fault certainly lies at the feet "our" fetid pResident*, but if it was my kid, I would find someone to help him and send the bill to the VA.

This fucking war. This goddamn fucking war.

[ripple]

20. There was a father on NPR's Talk of thhe Nation

this afternoon, talking about his enlisted son (I don't recall what branch)who is suffering from PTSD from his service in Iraq. He disclosed his condition and was treated by a military psyhiatrist and psychologist. Finally, he had a full mental breakdown while stationed in Germany and they airlifted him to Walter Reed, where he was placed on suicide watch. His deployment was supposed to be coming to an end, anyway, but stop-loss took care of that. A month after being on suicide watch at Walter Reed, he was patrolling Ramadi with a loaded gun.

It makes me absolutely sick to think about what so many of our soldiers are going through. What a waste. :(

[Jeffersons Ghost]

21. damn bush!

i hope new leadership in the House funds the VA adequately in the future. An aide to my congressman assures me that they intend to enhance funding. Those who risk their lives for America deserve only the best, when it comes to medical care.