United Stress Army

Do not rely on his soft eyes. Nor the chubby face of this young man, barely 23 years old, crossed sometimes by a bright smile. Michael Kern is a military man adrift, a U.S. soldier shattered by war. For a year, he traveled the streets of Baghdad and suffered almost daily attacks in the district of Sadr City. As a member of the 4th Infantry Division Tanker, he saw two section chiefs die and dodged the bullets of snipers and mortar attacks. He said he fired a lot and on anything that moved. He has also killed at least seven Iraqis, according to his recollection. These seven include a 6-year-old boy who ran to his house after an explosion.

On March 9, 2009, on his return to Fort Hood, based in Texas, where his unit was stationed, he is entitled, like all soldiers of his rank, to four days of rest. On the fifth day, Michael Kern was, like all others who returned from Iraq or Afghanistan, in a large room before a doctor with a senior officer of the army. “He asked me if everything was fine,” said the young soldier. “I told him of course and said yes due to the lack of privacy for such a conversation.” A few weeks later, Michael Kern requests an emergency appointment with a psychologist. He says he is having nightmares and talks about his alcohol abuse and desires to commit suicide. He was offered an appointment, but only two months later.

This is where Kern cracks. He suffers from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), equivalent to traumatic neurosis, a very specific psychological condition. He is moved to the base hospital. He was given painkillers and sleeping pills. One day, he said he was offered to sign a sheet on which it was written that, under certain circumstances, his conversation with a therapist might not remain confidential. The document refers in particular to transgressions of military law.

He agrees, but says nothing. For ten months, he will meet with a psychiatrist at Fort Hood. Ten long months during which he will not say a word regarding the death of a young Iraqi or attempted rape that he witnessed. “How do you talk about such things if you’re thinking that there is a risk of being prosecuted?” Kern says, crushing his cigarette.

Michael Kern is not an isolated case. For months, many soldiers, lawyers and health care professionals expressed concern about the leaking of information that exists within the U.S. military between the work of therapists, their patients and the military hierarchy. Rules that are too porous and unsuitable, according to experts, interfere with the proper administration of healing sessions. In the media, more and more soldiers simply refuse to share some disorders. Many have refused to sign the same paper presented to soldier Kern.

In total, more than 2 million American soldiers have been sent to Iraq and Afghanistan. One in five, or more than 400,000, according to specialists’ estimates, suffers from depression, addiction or PTSD. Facing them, the army has just over 400 psychiatrists. Stephen Stahl, Professor of psychiatry at the University of California, believes this figure is well below actual needs. “The pressure on these army psychiatrists makes for a terribly stressful environment,” says the author of an assessment of care provided at Fort Hood. There is a distrust of psychologists and stigma from soldiers who do not see them. Individuals who have the potential to derail as a time bomb one day. “I do not know how to detonate these time bombs, but the threat is there.” This is a common concern, even made by the chief physician of the U.S. Army, Lieutenant General Eric Schoomaker, who expressed concern Monday, April 26, about the “medicalization” of soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In July, Sgt. Justin Lee Garza, 28, suffering from stress after two stays on the front, committed suicide in an apartment of a friend outside of Fort Hood, just days after learning that no therapist was available for assistance. The same month, two soldiers of the First Cavalry Division, decorated for their services, returned from Iraq and went to a party, when one of them suddenly shot his sidekick. Since 2003, nearly 90 soldiers from Fort Hood have committed suicide, according to military sources. There were already 10 since the beginning of the year, a rate never before achieved.

Michael Kern knew two of them. Like others, he said that these figures just mask the resurgence of violence visible all around the military base, the largest in the country. In Killeen, a city adjacent to Fort Hood, with 102,000 inhabitants, the rate of domestic violence has increased by 75 percent since 2001. During the same period, this city without a soul has experienced a resurgence of crime by 22 percent, while this figure was down 7 percent in cities of similar size.

On November 5, 2009, the shooting that Major Nidal Hasan committed had already raised the issue of monitoring of military psychiatrists. Hasan, an army psychiatrist, opened fire in a building on the base used for briefing soldiers just before they left the front desk or at home. Thirteen people were killed, 43 injured. A crisis unit was set up. About 60 phone calls per week recorded.

A specialized center, the Resiliency Center, had even opened a few days before the massacre. “This did not work,” says Cynthia Thomas, who runs a meeting place in Killeen to aid soldiers and victims of mental disorders. She said twenty civilian psychiatrists have already been hired in recent months, but their duration of stay on the base is limited to a few weeks before changing stations. “Confidentiality, again, remains hypothetical.”

A meeting was held in January with military officials at Fort Hood and support groups for victims. “Unfortunately it did not help,” says Cynthia Thomas. “The meeting focused only on the shooting in November. Nothing was said about the broader issues related to psychological wounds of soldiers and their support.”

Today, Michael Kern says he will get out because he knows he will leave the army in a very short time. “They pay for my university studies and that is the only reason I did not go forward.” He had decided on September 11 to enter the army to avenge the crimes committed against his country, but has gradually transformed into a peace activist. The first war against Iraq has led to more and more wars.

He also said he would like to become a psychiatrist, even if he now refuses all interviews with a therapist. “I’m tired of all this.” At night he still has nightmares and he continues to take sleeping pills.