Even within the combat zone, the Army's mental health advisory team reported this spring, "there is no single, joint tracking system capable of monitoring suicides, mental health evacuations and use of mental health and combat stress services."
Schoomaker, the Army's top medical officer, told defense reporters Tuesday that the Army does not systematically track soldiers who have lesser forms of stress than PTSD.
He acknowledged that he does not know how many additional soldiers suffer from lesser symptoms of combat stress such as hyper-vigilance, sleeplessness and irrational anger, and he does not know how many of these soldiers are receiving treatment.
He also acknowledged that the Army has inadequate facilities and too few mental health care providers to meet the need.
"As a nation, our mental health capability is not adequate to the need," and the Army suffers from the same problem, Schoomaker said.
He said the Army recognized it is short 300 top mental health professionals to care for the growing numbers of soldiers suffering from severe stress. It has managed to fill only 180 of those positions, he said.
Schoomaker said the Army is seeking to impress on soldiers and their families that emotional reactions to stress are normal and should be expected, and that stress is treatable if it is identified early. Although the Army has recently begun requiring mental health assessments for soldiers six months after they return from a combat deployment, in order to catch late-developing symptoms of stress, the Army relies on spouses and other family members to be alert to soldiers who are not adapting well to "normal" life.
"We are in our infancy right now in knowing the extent" of the number of soldiers who are suffering from stress, he said.
Based on its studies in the field, the Army expects that as many as 30 percent of soldiers will return from Iraq or Afghanistan with some symptoms of combat stress.
Currently, there are about 155,000 troops in Iraq, including Army soldiers, Marines, Air Force and Navy personnel, and some 33,000 in Afghanistan.
david.wood@baltsun.com
