Oversight Hearing on Mental Health Problems from Iraq and Afghanistan

Numerous reports indicate that a large percentage of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering from mental health problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder. The Oversight Committee is currently holding a hearing with afflicted soldiers and their families, and examine the ability of the DOD and the VA to screen, treat, and track returning soldiers who are at risk, and assess the impact that these illnesses are having on military readiness and military families.

Watch the hearing live >>

Rep. Braley: "This issue is very personal to me. My father enlisted in the Marine Corps when he was 17. He served in Iwo Jima, came home and raised a family. When I was in high school, he suffered two severe bouts of depression that nobody in our family could understand..."

Army Specialist Thomas Smith and Army Specialist Michael Bloodworth give opening remarks on their experiences:

Army Specialist Thomas Smith: "Even with this non-deployable profile I deployed to the National Training Center and was almost deployed to Iraq. I had already endured this injury during the first deployment."

Richard Coons, father of Sgt. James Coons whose suicide after suffering from PTSD and neglect remains mysterious, gives testimony on behalf of himself and his wife:

Richard Coons: "What happened to my son? Does anyone really know? We begin to wonder, and I wonder why, if they know, won't they tell us? What we did know is this: Jimmy was doing his tour of duty in Iraq. He was always rocksteady. He was strong-willed and a good spirit all his life. But in April/May of 2003, his emails and phone calls from Iraq took on a completely different tone, a tone that alarmed us. On June 12th, 2003 in an email to his mother, he said, 'This place has really put a beating on me. I've found myself struggling to understand and deal with my own personal demons. I don't know what started this downward fall I'm in, I'm just ready to come home. I love you, Jimmy'."

Army Gives Family 'No Answers' in Suicide

Theola S. Labbe, Washington Post - November 11, 2004

Carol Coons keeps her son's dog tags and framed photo in the living room, on the same shelf as the dried roses from his memorial service.

She keeps her file folder in a kitchen drawer. "I call this my investigation folder," she said, pulling it out, dog-eared and thick with research, scribbled names and notes from her many phone calls to Washington officials. "We just had all these questions, and they had no answers."

On June 21, 2003, the Army evacuated Master Sgt. James Curtis Coons, 36, from Kuwait after he overdosed on sleeping pills. He told doctors he was seeing the shattered face of a dead soldier in the mirror. They diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder, sent him to a hospital in Germany and then to their premier treatment facility, Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Northwest Washington. By July 4 he was dead, hanging from a bedsheet in his room at Mologne House, a hotel for outpatients and families on the grounds of Walter Reed.

Nineteen months later, Carol Coons and her husband, Richard, have not given up their quest for answers. Why wasn't her son admitted as an inpatient? Why, after four days of worried phone calls, did it finally take a 2 a.m. call from his wife to get someone to check on him? How long had he been dead before his body was found?

James's widow, Robin, has another question, not about how her husband died but how he is remembered. Today, as the nation honors the service and sacrifice of its veterans, she wants to know: After 17 years of military service, after a Bronze Star awarded for Operation Iraqi Freedom, why is the name of James Coons not counted among the Iraq war dead?

"That really makes me angry. How can he not be put in there as a casualty of war? I don't understand that," Robin said. "It's like, because he did that to himself, he's forgotten."