The US has always failed it's war veterans. Back in the late 70's and early 80's I had a very good friend who was a social worker at a VA hospital in NYC. She would tell me about the awful conditions and systemic failure to provide adequate care for the then Vietnam Vets that needed mental health care. I guess some things never change...
Schulze, who earned two Purple Hearts for wounds sustained in Iraq, was initially reluctant to turn to the VA. Raised among fighters—Schulze's father served in Vietnam and over the years his older brother and six stepbrothers all enlisted in the military—Jonathan might have felt asking for help didn't befit a Marine.
But when the panic attacks got to be too much, he started showing up at the VA emergency room, where doctors recommended he try group therapy. He resisted; he didn't think hearing other veterans' depressing problems would help solve his own. Then, early last month, after more than a year of anxiety, he finally decided to admit himself to an inpatient program. Schulze packed a bag on Jan. 11 and drove with his family to the VA center in St. Cloud, about 70 miles away. The Schulzes were ushered into the mental-health-care unit and an intake worker sat down at a computer across from them. "She started typing," Marianne says. "She asked, 'Do you feel suicidal?' and Jonathan said, 'Yes, I feel suicidal'." The woman kept typing, seemingly unconcerned. Marianne was livid. "He's an Iraqi veteran!" she snapped. "Listen to him!" The woman made a phone call, then told him no one was available that day to screen him for hospitalization. Jonathan could come back tomorrow or call the counselor for a screening on the phone.
When he did call the following day, the response from the clinic was even more disheartening: the center was full. Schulze would be No. 26 on the waiting list. He was encouraged to call back periodically over the next two weeks in case there was a cancellation. Marianne was listening in on the conversation from the dining room. She watched Jonathan, slumped on the couch, as he talked to the doctor. "I heard him say the same thing: I'm suicidal, I feel lost, I feel hopelessness," she says. Four days later Schulze got drunk, wrapped an electrical cord around a basement beam in his home and hanged himself. A friend he telephoned while tying the noose called the police, but by the time officers broke down the door, Schulze was dead.
Source: How U.S. Is Failing Its War Veterans - Newsweek National News - MSNBC.com
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