Healing Suicidal Veterans: A Video Interview With Vic Montgomery

Thursday 14 January 2010

by: Robert Corsini, t r u t h o u t | Video Interview

VIDEO: Healing Suicidal Veterans
(Photo Courtesy: Vic Montgomery; Edited: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t)

Vietnam-era veteran Vic Montgomery III, author of "Healing Suicidal Veterans," spoke with Truthout's Robert Corsini about the growing tsunami of veterans' mental health needs. A specialist in crisis intervention and addiction therapy, Montgomery outlined the urgent need to address this crisis that he witnesses as a counselor first hand.

 The stress of multiple deployments and overall combat have led to a 26 percent increase in suicides, mostly among veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, a new report from the Department of Veterans Affairs revealed this week. Montgomery emphasized, that in addition to Veterans affected by recent wars, delayed onset of mental illness is common among veterans of past wars who are now seeking help sometimes for the first time. Montgomery's emphasis on the need for more clinical support for veterans is being discussed today on Capitol Hill as the 2010 DoD/VA Suicide Prevention Conference finishes up.  

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Robert Corsini is a documentary filmmaker, producer and writer. Born and raised in Los Angeles, he is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a former Peace Corps volunteer in Togo, West Africa. Mr. Corsini has produced television news and various incarnations of "reality" television for nearly twenty years with dozens of national credits with NBC News, Discovery Channel, TLC, PBS and PAX to his name.

Comments

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Just one more in the series

 Thu, 01/14/2010 - 16:30 — eval (not verified)

Just one more in the series of national disgraces we are living. Our owners are great at empire building; too bad for them the American people aren't. My argument against foreigners that claimed the US was out to take over the world was that our people don't have the stomach for it.



The best way to help

 Thu, 01/14/2010 - 20:27 — David (not verified)

The best way to help soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan is to help them become honest about their participation in illegal wars of occupation and empire building. They should also be given opportunity to ask forgiveness for the harms that they caused innocent civilians. They will feel better if they now work for peace, perhaps by going back to those countries to do humanitarian work. But if these returning soldiers are told that their military career was honorable and good, they will continue to suffer. Deep down, anyone with a conscience knows that what the US has done to Iraq and Afghanistan, and the real reasons we invaded those countries, was not a just cause, but was a bona fide war crime. In their honest moments, soldiers who still have a conscience will feel guilty for the wrong they did, angry at themselves for joining the imperial army, and shellshocked from the horrors of war which they volunteered to experience. It is a moral issue, not a matter of spending billions for fancy psychologists and psychiatric pharmaceuticals.



I had sent this to a knowing

 Thu, 01/14/2010 - 21:22 — Syd (not verified)

I had sent this to a knowing person- here is reply:
This guy Chernus is talking out both sides of his ass. He claims that Hamas is ready to make peace with Israel when they won't even make peace with Fatah & the PLO. And he jabbers about Israeli bellicosity when it is Hamas that has fired close to 10,000 rockets and mortars at Israel, Hamas which constantly attempts to kill and kidnap Israelis, and Hamas (not to ignore Fatah & Hizb'allah) in general are war-mongering provocateurs whose clearly stated written goals (see, for example, the Hamas Charter) are to wipe out Israel and kill all the Jews. En passant, they've pretty well wiped out the local Christians, too.

Chernus ignorantly manages to interchange cause and effect. Like some ivory-tower genius, he has no accurate notion of where first causes actually lie. He represents the kinds of vapid intellectuals who give universities their bad names. If the peace-loving democratic republic of Gazastan had any interest in peace at all, it would have already been in place. When Sharon withdrew all settlers and forces in the much-espoused "land for peace" initiative, Hamas ensured that any industries left by Israelis which would provide jobs, income, and stability were all demolished in the first 48 hours of their "freedom" by Hamas to destroy any incentive for peace. Hamas is determined to obliterate Israel. I think mindless echoers of untruths and wishful fantasies like Chernus should be sent to invented staff positions in Gaza so they can show their unity with the peace-and-harmony lovers of Gaza. As a purveyor of deception and misrepresentation, Chernus is first-class. As an accurate interpreter of the political and religious scene of the Middle East, he's a zero. Actually, he's a negative number, since he gets so much absolutely backward from the truth.

R -



As the Roman Empire drew to

 Thu, 02/11/2010 - 05:56 — asshole (not verified)

As the Roman Empire drew to a close, the poet and satirist Juvenal wrote about an infantilized populace that had surrendered its birthright of political involvement.

Current Military
$965 billion:
• Military Personnel $129 billion
• Operation & Maint. $241 billion
• Procurement $143 billion
• Research & Dev. $79 billion
• Construction $15 billion
• Family Housing $3 billion
• DoD misc. $4 billion
• Retired Pay $70 billion
• DoE nuclear weapons $17 billion
• NASA (50%) $9 billion
• International Security $9 billion
• Homeland Secur. (military) $35 billion
• State Dept. (partial) $6 billion
• other military (non-DoD) $5 billion
• “Global War on Terror” $200 billion [We added $162 billion to the last item to supplement the Budget’s grossly underestimated $38 billion in “allowances” to be spent in 2009 for the “War on Terror,” which includes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan]

SCUM OF THE EARTH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AHAHAHAHAH

AHAHAH YEA RIGHT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MILITARY MEN ARE NOTHING OTHER THAN DUMB STUPID ANIMALS TO BE USED AS

PAWNS IN FOR AND BY MANUFACTURE ORCHESTRATED PRE.EMPTIVE FOREIGN POLICY

HENRY KISSENGER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YUP YOU JUST THE KIND OF DUMB ANIMAL THEY PANDER TO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

anon “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength, and Debt is Recovery or is it PEACE IS WAR, SLAVERY IS FREEDOM, IGNORANCE IS PROFIT , DEBT IS WEALTH

WOOORHHH YEEEHAAAAA WANK !!!!!!WANK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YEA I GET IT APPARENTLY I AM SUPPOSED TO HAVE SYMPATHY FOR A HIRED PROFESSIONAL (VOLUNTARY) KILLER AKA A MERCENARY

BOOOOHOOO I HAVE NONE , THEY DESERVE EVERYTHING, SO PLEASE KILL YOURSELVES AS THEY HAD NO SECOND THOUGHT ABOUT ABUSING AND DESTROYING AND KILLING OTHER PEOPLE WELL JUST BECAUSE SOME IDIOT A$$HOLE TOLD THEM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OHHH I FORGOT "THEY WERE FOLLOWING ORDERS" IS THAT THE EXCUSE

AMMM DON'T WANT TO BE THE BEARER OF NON.SENSE N.E.W.S.

THAT EXCUSE IS NOT ACCEPTED IN ANY "LAW" COURT MILITARY OR OTHERWISE !!!!!!!!!!!!

ERGO MOOT !!!!!!!!!!!

- The people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions, and all else, now concerns itself no more, and longs eagerly for just two things - bread and circuses! Juvenal