At Fort Hood, Some Violence Is Too Familiar
By MICHAEL MOSS and RAY RIVERA
NY Times: November 9, 2009
FORT HOOD, Tex. - Staff Sgt. Gilberto Mota, 35, and his wife, Diana, 30, an
Army specialist, had returned to Fort Hood from Iraq last year when he used
his gun to kill her, and then took his own life, the authorities say. In
July, two members of the First Cavalry Division, also just back from the war
with decorations for their service, were at a party when one killed the
other
That same month, Staff Sgt. Justin Lee Garza, 28, under stress from two
deployments, killed himself in a friend's apartment outside Fort Hood, four
days after he was told no therapists were available for a counseling
session. "What bothers me most is this happened while he was supposed to be
on suicide watch," said his mother, Teri Smith. "To this day, I don't know
where he got the gun."
Fort Hood is still reeling from last week's carnage, in which an Army
psychiatrist is accused of a massacre that left 13 people dead. But in the
town of Killeen and other surrounding communities, the attack, one of the
worst mass shootings on a military base in the United States, is also seen
by many as another blow in an area that has been beset by crime and violence
since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began. Reports of domestic abuse have
grown by 75 percent since 2001. At the same time, violent crime in Killeen
has risen 22 percent while declining 7 percent in towns of similar size in
other parts of the country.
The stresses are seen in other ways, too.
Since 2003, there have been 76 suicides by personnel assigned to Fort Hood,
with 10 this year, according to military officials.
A crisis center on base is averaging 60 phone calls a week from soldiers and
family members seeking various help for problems from suicide to anger
management, with about the same volume of walk-ins and scheduled
appointments.
In recent days, Army officials have pledged to redouble their efforts to
help soldiers cope with deployment. The base, which uses some of the most
innovative approaches in the military, plans to expand a help center set up
in September that provides a variety of assistance to soldiers, including
breathing techniques for handling combat stress and goal-setting skills upon
their return.
"Fort Hood is very attuned to this," said Col. William S. Rabena, who runs
the help center known as the Resiliency Center Campus. "It's the only thing
to do."
The Army has also sent an array of specialists to Fort Hood to help soldiers
and their families, including chaplains, social workers, combat stress
specialists, counselors and experts in crisis and disaster behavioral
management. Army officials said more such assistance might be sent to the
base.
But interviews with soldiers who have deployed one or more times to Iraq or
Afghanistan, and with family members of those who died violently back here
in Texas, show that the Army's efforts are still falling short. Even some
alarm bells rung by the Army leadership have gone unanswered.
In July, two weeks after Sergeant Garza's death, Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch, then
the base commander, told Congress he was in dire need of more mental health
professionals. "That's the biggest frustration," he told a House
subcommittee. "I'm short about 44 of what I am convinced I need at Fort Hood
that I just don't have."
Among the medical personnel brought to Fort Hood to help deal with the
growing mental health issues was Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who arrived in
July. Major Hasan is accused in the attacks last week, but little is known
about what might have driven him.
"Our soldiers are coming back and not getting the help they need," said
Cynthia Thomas, an Army wife who runs a private assistance center for
soldiers in Killeen called Under the Hood Café. "Whether it's
self-medicating, anger or violence, these are the consequences of war, and
you have to think about all the people affected by soldiers coming home, the
parents, spouses, children, brothers, sisters, aunts and cousins."
Pfc. Michael Kern, of Riverside, Calif., said he tried unsuccessfully to
obtain help for stress last year in Baghdad, but was ridiculed by an officer
in front of his tanker unit. "He said he would have to impose mandatory
sleeping times," said Private Kern, 22, "and that health care was for people
with serious problems."
Back at Fort Hood, Private Kern said he had a breakdown that led to
hospitalization and is now awaiting discharge at his request. If he had
received therapy in Iraq, he said, "I might not be in this situation now."
Military officials say the crime and violence associated with Fort Hood must
be viewed with the base's size in mind. With 53,000 soldiers assigned to the
base, it has become the largest facility in the country, and much of the
surrounding area is tied to the military through family or business.
Col. Edward McCabe, a Catholic chaplain at Fort Hood, said signs of fatigue
and other strains are "rampant" on the base. "The numbers of divorces I've
had to deal with are huge, the cases of physical abuse," Colonel McCabe
said. "Every night in my apartment complex some soldier and his wife are
screaming and shouting at each other."
The Army influences nearly every aspect of life in Killeen, a cotton town
until the base moved in during World War II. About 55 miles north of Austin,
the town straddles U.S. 190 and is split by a long corridor of strip malls.
Most of the 102,000 residents are soldiers, their families or Army retirees.
Business here and in the surrounding smaller communities like Belton and
Harker Heights ebbs and flows around the first and 15th of each month -
military paydays - and around deployments.
At The Killeen Daily Herald, which covers the base with a sympathetic ear to
its military readers, employees see similar patterns play out with each
troop rotation.
One day, it is a homecoming, with hundreds of families waving flags and
homemade signs along T. J. Mills Boulevard leading into the base's main
gate. The next day, crime reports increase, especially cases of domestic
violence. "Unfortunately, you see the trend every time there's a homecoming,
when the divisions come home," said Olga Pena, the paper's managing editor.
Nicolas Serna, the managing attorney of the local legal aid office, said
requests for protective orders had steadily increased over the last several
years.
He questioned whether Fort Hood was doing nearly enough for soldiers or for
victims of domestic violence. A few years ago, he said, the base refused the
group's offer to provide legal assistance and to help with protection orders
for families on Fort Hood.
Some social workers in the area see it differently. The Army, while not
perfect, has been trying to address the situation, said Suzanne Armour, the
director of programs at the Families in Crisis shelter in Killeen.
Michael Sibberson, the principal of Killeen High School, which has 1,880
students, a little over half with military parents, said in one sense the
wars had helped the students relate to one another. On the other side, Mr.
Sibberson said, the students are not getting the parental guidance they need
because so many have parents deployed. That has led to poor grades, and more
behavioral problems.
"Kids are not getting the support at the dinner table they need because Mom
or Dad is not there," he said, adding, "When you call the house you are
likely to get Grandma, or a mom who says, 'I am so full I don't know what to
do with him anymore.' "
Henry Garza, the district attorney for Bell County, which includes Killeen,
said increases in crime might reflect the town's rapid growth, though the
federal crime data is adjusted for population changes. But the data may be
understated because it does not count crimes prosecuted by the military
authorities, who sometimes handle serious felonies and misdemeanors by
active-duty soldiers even when they occur off base.
Base officials declined to release crime data without a Freedom of
Information Act request.
Whether civilian or military official investigate deaths, the proceedings
often leave families frustrated by the lack of clear answers.
The list of medals awarded to Sergeant Garza (no relation to the district
attorney) tell of a good soldier. After two tours in Iraq, he shared a tight
bond with unit members and missed them greatly when the Army sent him to a
base in Georgia for additional training after a second deployment. He was
troubled by a breakup with a girlfriend. And though he seldom spoke with his
family about his combat tours, he once confided to his mother that he had a
killed a person in Iraq. "He said, 'It was him or me,' " Ms. Smith said.
"But you could tell it troubled him."
His family believes he did not get the care he needed, despite signs he had
fallen into despair.
In June, he left the Georgia base without permission, and the Army tracked
him to a hotel room in Paris, Tex. In a suicide note he sent to a friend
before leaving, he said he wanted to end it close to his friends. Among his
purchases was a shotgun.
Sergeant Garza was brought back to Fort Hood and committed for psychiatric
care, first to a civilian hospital because there was no room at the base
hospital, said his uncle, Gary Garza, who lives in Killeen. After three
days, he was transferred to the base hospital. He was released after two
weeks and assigned to take outpatient counseling.
"We thought he was doing better," said his grandfather, Homer Garza, a
retired command sergeant major who served in Korea and Vietnam and who
himself had silently suffered for decades with post-traumatic stress.
In fact, Sergeant Garza had shared misgivings about his treatment at the
base hospital with his uncle.
"He said he felt like he was getting really good treatment at the civilian
hospital," his uncle said. "He said the civilian doctors seemed to care
more. And for the military doctors, it was just like a job for them."
True or not, on July 7 Sergeant Garza received a message on his cellphone
canceling what was to be his first outpatient appointment.
Though his family says the Army was supposed to be checking his apartment
for guns and alcohol, that Sunday he put a pistol to his head and pulled the
trigger. His mother later listened to the message.
"They said, 'Sorry, we don't have a counselor for you today,' " Ms. Smith
said. " 'If you don't hear back from us by Monday, give us a call.' "
***
From: Sherry Banz
BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND!!
The Get Lit Players return to Tim Robbins' WTF
FESTIVAL - for a Special One Night Performance!!!
Thursday, November 12th, 8 PM - 9:30.
The Actors Gang Theater,
9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City
Donate what you can.
Don't miss it!
"There are no other young poets like the Get Lit Players. They take the
Great Poems of the past and commit them to heart, then give them back to
us - along with their own powerful original responses. The result is a
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-- Carol Muske-Dukes, Poet Laureate, California
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