Thursday, May 12, 2011

Family says Pfc. Kyle Brooks would still be alive if he was helped

Pay really close attention to this part.


“They were treating him for PTSD while he was still over there (in Iraq),” said Mark Charters of Midland, Brooks’ uncle. “They gave him an honorable discharge, a month’s worth of pills and then told him that he wasn’t eligible for help at the VA hospital because he hadn’t served 24 months of active duty.”

When you are done screaming, read more because it gets worse.
Family seeks changes to VA treatment rules following soldier's death
Published: Monday, May 09, 2011, 9:00 AM
By Holly Setter
Booth Mid-Michigan

BAY CITY — U.S. Army Pfc. Kyle Brooks didn’t die while serving his country in Iraq, but his family says the experience is what ultimately killed him.

Now, family members are taking action and speaking out about the soldier’s death, hoping to prevent further loss of life.

Brooks, a 23-year-old Bay City native, served in Iraq from November 2008 to June 2009. He returned home suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, a form of anxiety that can occur after a person has seen or experienced a traumatic event.

In February, Brooks committed suicide, leaving behind a wife and 2-year-old son. His family buried him April 25 in St. Patrick Cemetery in Bay City.

Family members say Brooks still would be alive had he received the care and support he needed.
read more here
Family seeks changes to VA treatment

11 comments:

  1. 1st, I want to thank you for posting this. We are trying to get the word out. I am Kyle's father , Steve Charters. We are hoping a follow up story will be done, but more importantly we are hoping that our going public with this very painful story will help at least one soldier get the treatment they need and DESERVE. One follow up piece of info that was a further OUTRAGE is that the VA has now denied Kyle's headstone. I understand from my brother that the Michigan Patriot Guard has asked to pay for it. Please continue to support our troops and get the word out !
    Steve Charters
    Bethlehem, GA

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  2. I am so sorry for your loss but even more so for the way you lost your son.
    I've tracked all of these reports for almost 20 years now and this is the first time I heard about a soldier already diagnosed and treated for PTSD by the DOD being told his service wasn't long enough. There have been plenty of stories about other problems but this one really got to me.
    Now you have to battle for his headstone? This is wrong on so many levels!
    Please keep the pressure on the media and you should contact Senator Patty Murray's office (Chairwoman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee) about this since congress wrote the rules a long time ago. Your son deserved so much more than he got.
    He went for help while he was in the military and should not have been denied help afterwards.

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  3. I was in Kyle's platoon since he first came in the Army till the day he left. I regret to inform you that Kyle did not have PTSD due to actions in Iraq. He may have been depressed but he did not have PTSD. Our tour was entirely non-kinetic. Not once were we shot at, blown up, or did we personally engage anything with our weapons. Kyle was our PSG's driver. Our tour consisted of guard and more guard. Kyle did not complete that entire tour because he was Honorably discharged for testing positive for Marijuana along with 3 other soldiers. Kyle was helped out when he was discharged due to the fact that he was given an honorable instead of dishonorable discharged. The Army had nothing to due with the death of Kyle Brooks and neither did PTSD. Depression was the cause. You may say who am I to say this. But I knew, worked with and lived with Kyle and we were both good friends. But I don't want negative blame shifted to the Army for ignoring a non-existing problem for reasons that never happened. The VA is denying payment for anything because they know why Kyle was dishcarged and refuse to assist. I don't want to be the person to tell you this but I feel that you must know the true reason why kyle was kicked out and dishcarged. During his tour and service he never saw a chaplain or mental health once to assist in any depression that he may have had. SSG Nick Betts

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  4. Nick,
    I cannot argue with you over what happened or did not happen. You were there and I was not. The same should be said about Kyle. Why would you judge what was happening inside of him? Are you a mental health professional? I do not say that lightly.
    Aside from my husband having PTSD since Vietnam, I've researched it and tracked it for almost 30 years. I know a lot more than some "experts" but there are things I do not know and leave it in the hands of the experts. Often I can suspect PTSD in someone but I cannot, nor would I attempt to, diagnose them.

    His family says that he was treated for PTSD and given medication so that means he was seeing a doctor/mental health professional.

    Maybe you were listening to the wrong people because being "busted" for pot will not get you treatment or an honorable discharge. They are still discharging troops under "less than honorable" under "personality" discharges. The "two year" rule is true. I checked with several service officers about this rule. While they said there were ways around it to get disabled veterans the help they need, too many times this rule keeps them from getting help.

    If you still doubt Kyle was suffering, then explain why he took his own life. Unless you were very close and he felt he could open up to you, there are things you would never know. We can live with someone and never really know them unless they want us to.

    PS just saw my reply with the error of "almost 20 years" but since I started in 1982, that is obviously a typo.

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  5. I would like to say that while I feel the loss of Kyle was utterly tragic, blaming the Army is definitely wrong. I was also in Kyle's platoon and I know SSG Betts also and what he says is true. He DID test positive for marijuana and was subsequently discharged from the military. There were also zero shots fired in combat that tour. It is NOT fair to blame the Army for Kyle's actions.
    -SGT Golden

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  6. SGT Golden,
    As I said before, I do not know what happened but there seems to be a lot of defending the Army against Kyle who is no longer here to defend himself. The fact there were 32 suicides in the Army alone for July should prove that the actions of his family are to stop these suicides so that other families will not have to bury their family members needlessly. That is the only reason a family comes forward.

    When men like my husband came home from Vietnam, families lived in silence until the veterans fought to have PTSD treated. None of the suffering going on is new but now people are talking about it so that no one has to suffer in silence anymore.

    One of the worst things the DOD did was come out with "resilience" programs basically saying that if you end up with PTSD, it is your fault because you didn't "train your brain to be tough enough" to prevent it. The data is in and this approach does not work. They've been doing this since 2003 and the numbers have gone up.

    One thing the DOD should have done is use the research from civilians proving that PTSD comes after traumatic events and you don't have to be where"it" happened-when it happened. Maybe Kyle feared for his life beyond what you can see as a real threat? Think of the people in New York nowhere near the Twin Towers ending up with PTSD. Think of the people when the earthquake happened in Washington and all they could think of was an attack by terrorists again because they were not prepared for an earthquake to happen there.

    As for substance abuse, there are some just wanting to get numb for whatever reason and there are some who have to find something to numb what they don't want to feel anymore. Maybe he used pot and maybe he didn't but again, he's not here to defend himself. His family is fighting for everyone so that more lives will be saved and I have to tell you that I've read too many stories of suicides to know the Army has a huge problem. Look at what happened at Lewis McChord just last month alone and know lives are being lost that did not need to happen.

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  7. Along with Sgt Golden and SSG Betts, I was also in Kyle’s platoon in both Germany and Iraq. I would like to make a few comments in reference to what I've read here in this blog. To begin, everyone that enlists in the army does so under contract. It states very clearly that you must complete half of your obligation (2 years) to receive any sort of benefits post-service. In this case, Kyle didn't even make it to his two year mark in the army, so why should he have been able to receive anything that the VA provides? I myself did 4 and a half years before I was honorably discharged, and currently go to college on the GI Bill, receive free health care and enjoy all the other benefits that I have earned. Kyle signed his contract as a full grown adult and knew and understood what his obligations were and what he had to do to receive any benefits he may have been entitled to. But like with anything, there are rules. Unfortunately, Kyle broke some rules which resulted in his being discharged early. There is no difference between his situation and all the other soldiers that were discharged early: you break the rules you get punished. And as punishment, Kyle lost his VA benefits. The army is not to blame here. As a leader in his platoon, I was good friends with his direct supervisors and not once did he ask to see a chaplain or mental health. So how was the army supposed to treat something they have no idea is supposedly going on? We had soldiers seek advice from the chaplain and others go to mental health and not once was someone ever chastised for needing help. The second word in PTSD is "traumatic", and in my belief, you need to experience something traumatic to have this problem. We could have brought squirt guns out into sector and would have been completely safe, and anyone that was with our platoon, or our entire company for that matter, will agree with me. I feel like the army is being unfairly blamed for Kyle’s death, which I do find tragic. No one came out of that deployment with PTSD that didn’t already have. The army would have held up it's end of the bargain had Kyle held up his. Kyle not being able to seek free VA help on the outside is a direct result of decisions that he made. There are multiple organizations that are available for ex-soldiers to use, has anyone ever heard of The Hopeline? Because he wasn’t being treated by the VA doesn’t mean he couldn’t be treated somewhere else for whatever it was that he was feeling. It’s a shame things happened the way they did.
    Spc. McManus, John F.

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  8. Spc. McManus,
    So what I'm reading in these comments against Kyle is that his family must then be lying. Isn't that what you're all trying to say while defending the Army? They said he was treated by the Army for PTSD and given medication. You say it isn't true.

    Part of what you wrote about PTSD is true with it comes from trauma and that is the only way you can end up with it. The term itself actually means "after wound" because Trauma is Greek for wound. What you are not seeming to get is that it comes after a long list of events. One of them is abuse and it does not have to be physical. Verbal abuse can cause it. It has been found in children verbally abused by a parent.

    There are many different levels as well as different types of PTSD. The military and law enforcement folks experience a totally different type of PTSD because of the number of exposures and the fact that neither group is just surviving traumatic events. They participate in them. It is a whole different type of PTSD and harder to treat because these same folks are usually the last ones to ask for help.

    I am still wondering why all the comments defending the Army on this when Kyle is dead and cannot defend himself. You have all raised some good points but then again, teaming up on someone who is defenseless is also attacking a grieving family. Saying that he did not have PTSD, did not get help and it was not the Army's fault means his family means very little in all of this.

    Back to the two year rule and the "contract" I'd like to hear you say that to a soldier after being exposed to the burn pits and dying as a result of the exposure he didn't live up to his contract. What about non-combat wounds like the ones caused by vehicle accidents? Do you expect them to accept the "two year rule" as well?

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  9. Kyle does not need to be here in order to defend himself because we are not attacking him in any way. Everything that has been written was factual and personal assumptions (which were stated). I never doubted that kyle was depressed but I did state that he did not have PTSD. If he had PTSD from previous events in his life then so be it. But what I read is that the Army is to blame for his condition. And I know for a fact that that was not the case. He was never verbally or physically abused during his stint in the military....I know because I was with him. His family may say that he was on medication and treated for this condition of his. If you're someones team or squad leader it is mandatory that you know every medication that your soldier is on and every time he seeks medical attention of any kind. The only medication he was on was for a condition he had with his heart. That was it. Bottom line. In my PERSONAL opinion Kyle lied to or deceived his family regarding his chaptering from the military and the reason for it because he was embarrassed. The Army would not notify my parents or family if I were to get discharged for any reason other the honorable. They treat us like men and therefore has no need to send a report card to our parents hoping we will get reprimanded for poor behavior. As far as your comment "Saying that he did not have PTSD, did not get help and it was not the Army's fault means his family means very little in all of this." This is not the case. The only thing I am stating is that his family KNOWS very little about Kyle's Military service. His family means very much in the matter and I am saddened that they had to deal this this. And lastly your comments regarding the "burn pits" and vehicle accidents......I can't take that seriously. All in all, I am not a mental health professional, never claim to be. I have 6 years in the Army and counting and I've seen my fare share of PTSD and depression. Kyle was simply depressed and not suffering from PTSD *I am not a mental health professional* His depression stemmed from either his childhood or post Army service. It was not a direct result of his time in the military. My question is If we are looking to the VA to compensate and treat his depression while he was in. What treatment did he receive at home when his depression worsened and eventually led to his decision? was he not neglected then? I know for a fact and without a shadow of a doubt that Kyle Brooks was NOT treated for PTSD or depression and was never given medication to help those illnesses. Kyle was on one type of medication and it had nothing to do with depression treatment. Kyle's illness was a result of situations outside the military and outside it's control. SSG Betts

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  10. Nick,
    The burn pits and accidents was in regards to the "two year rule" meaning if a soldier was discharged due to these but not given a discharge tied to them then they would fall under the "two year rule" too. There have been many suffering from breathing/lung problems as reported for a couple of years. That was all I wanted to point out with this rule.

    Back to Kyle. Let's say that Kyle lied to his family about this. He went to the VA for help and they turned him away. He took his own life. All this means something happened to him but no one can be sure what it was then. His family knows only what he told them. So you are right on that point but you don't know what else they know.

    From what I gather, this is a family coming forward with nothing to gain for themselves. They came forward because they want to do what they can to stop these suicides. Do you know how much pain they are in yet managed to think about others?

    This is why I cannot understand all these comments attacking Kyle. Yes, no matter how you want to view it, these are attacks against him because you and others say it was because of pot but he cannot dispute what you say.

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  11. I am deeply troubled by these comments and thinking about his family. I can't imagine the pain these comments will cause them so unless a comment comes in from them, there will be no more comments on this post.

    I allowed for your thoughts to be posted but the end result is still the same. This young man is gone and his family is trying to help others. He cannot fight against the comments made about him and my attempts to point that out have failed. I feel as if I have failed him as well. I apologize to his family for not being worthy in their grief.

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