Officer sees 'perfect storm' brewing in military's mental health

[spindrifter]

care system


By Allison Batdorff, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Friday, September 22, 2006

YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — Gaps in care — combined with the stress of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan — are creating a “perfect storm” within the U.S. military mental health system, according to a Navy commander who spoke at Yokosuka Naval Base on Wednesday.

Quick to say that his opinions are unofficial — the product of his 24-year military career and not the U.S. Navy or Department of Defense — Cmdr. Mark Russell gave a well-attended lecture called “Broken Promises: The Unspoken Truth of Mental Health Care in the DOD” during the final day of the Multinational Medical Conference.

Russell, a child psychologist and director of Educational and Development Intervention Services for bases across Japan, painted a picture of unmet needs and unrecognized opportunity stemming from the global war on terrorism.

“We are in a crisis situation,” Russell said. “And it’s going to get worse.

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http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=40219

[Monkeyman]

1. Yep mine just fell off Great Article GO NAVY

[Shipwack]

3. feh.... FTN nt

[Monkeyman]

4. Mine was FTA all the way

[Shipwack]

5. lol... I never realized that we were not the only service...

...with an abbreviation like that. It makes sense, though.

True story:

There was a convenience store robbery in Orlando (back when it was home to a Navy base). The news gave out a description of the thief, and the reporter on the scene said that she believed that his initials were "FTN", since that was written on the toes of both his sneakers.

Immediately, some guy runs into the camera and whispers into her ear. She immediately turns red, and says to the camera that the letters most likely were an abbreviation for something else, but she wasn't allowed to say what for on the air....

[patrice]

2. As much as one might live on Idealism, it's got to be pretty hard

to learn that you are an expendable resource on some people's spreadsheets.