US Veterans Suffering From Head Trauma May Become Violent and Dangerous, Says DoD

Susanne Posel, Contributor
Activist Post

US Army statistics show that the suicide rate among military personnel is rising exponentially. Last July, an estimated 38 suicides were “confirmed or suspected” by soldiers making that month the deadliest time in Army history.

Active duty suicides have climbed up to 22% with 116 deaths so far in 2012. Veterans are in most danger of committing suicide. While the Army has traditionally viewed younger soldiers as “at risk” for suicide, since the majority of deaths are occurring with veteran and older soldiers, that assumption is shifting.

Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, US Army vice chief of staff, said:

Suicide is the toughest enemy I have faced in my 37 years in the Army. And, it’s an enemy that’s killing not just soldiers, but tens of thousands of Americans every year. That said, I do believe suicide is preventable. To combat it effectively will require sophisticated solutions aimed at helping individuals to build resiliency and strengthen their life coping skills. As we prepare for Suicide Prevention Month in September we also recognize that we must continue to address the stigma associated with behavioral health. Ultimately, we want the mindset across our force and society at large to be that behavioral health is a routine part of what we do and who we are as we strive to maintain our own physical and mental wellness.

Leon Panetta, US Defense Secretary testified before Congress about solider suicides, saying “that this is an epidemic . . . something’s wrong.”

Doctors have classified Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) as an incurable brain disease that soldiers returning from war suffer from. After having injured the brain during battle, soldiers are being touted as displaying large bursts of anger and depression while having their vital motor skills and memory impacted. With CTE, veterans can be singled out as suffering from this condition which is being linked to massive suicides occurring in the military.

CTE is a progressive and degenerative disease which manifests from repetitive brain trauma (i.e. constantly being hit in the head), triggers progressive degeneration of brain tissue. The effects can come months or even years after the last traumatic event. Symptoms of CTE are recognized as memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, impulse control problems, aggression, depression, and, eventually, progressive dementia.

Air Force Lt. Col. Randall McCafferty, chief of neurosurgery at the San Antonio Military Medical Center, explains: “We don’t fully understand the incidence of CTE with the occurrence of traumatic brain injury. But we may be able to learn that early treatment of the initial acute [brain] injury may avoid this cascade from brain injury to CTE.”

US veterans, being diagnosed with traumatic brain injury (TBI) are being tracked by the Department of Defense (DoD) because they may display personality changes that could come on without warning and effect their ability to acclimate back into American society.

Researchers are claiming that even mild TBI can develop into CTE, which will cause veterans to possibly become a danger to themselves and those around them.

Dr. Ann McKee, a neuropathologist and co-director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy in Boston, says that microscopic evidence of protein build up in the brains of military veterans show that this mental effect is “a problem”. McKee said:

Four years ago we really did not understand this injury at all. Now we know it exists. But we have no idea of the level of risk. All we can say is we have identified it and it is a problem with some individuals.

McKee’s focus on this “progressive disease” is devising pre-emptive measures to treat the disease “so [that] we don’t have individuals who suffer these injuries coming down with a devastating disorder later in life.”

The National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke are working on clinical trials for head injury effects on personality and mental capacity. Correlating head injury, brain trauma and mental deterioration is a major point of this project in an effort to create the prospect that US veterans may become a danger to society.

At Fort Detrick, the Army Combat Casualty Care Research Center is conducting clinical trials on 2,000 patients to devise a medical procedural test to detect an individual’s propensity of developing CTE by measuring biomarkers. More clinical trials are being performed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

The Army is expecting the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve their clinical test for TBI/CTE. Army doctors want soldiers identified with TBI/CTE to be treated by recovery centers provided by the US armed forces.

The University of Indiana School of Medicine was given $3 million to come up with a pharmaceutical to combat suicides in the armed forces. Dr. Michael Kubek, associate professor of neurobiology developed an anti-suicide nasal spray that releases a neurochemical called thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) that is touted as being euphoric, calming and has anti-depressant properties.

This spray utilizes “nanotechnology delivery systems” that may extend to the civilian population as well as become a staple for the US armed forces. TRH can cross the blood-brain barrier when administered through the nasal passages. Human clinical trials using soldiers is slated to start soon. The NIH are interested in the findings of the human trials and have already allocated funding to use TRH to treat the general population who are diagnosed with bipolar and other depressive disorders.

Kubek explains: “This is far from a soldiers-only solution. Potentially, if this works, we have an entirely new type of pharmacology.”

While patients taking Zoloft or Prozac wait 3 weeks for the drugs to take effect, this nasal spray may have more immediate results that would “stabilize them right away, while they wait for the [antidepressants] to do their job,” according to Kubek.

This therapy is purported to replace spinal taps that soldiers have been forced to undergo in order to inject anti-depressant medication to reduce suicides.

In 2009, the Office of Intelligence and Analysis published a report entitled Rightwing Extremism, wherein domestic extremists were proposed to be the newest and most dangerous threat to the US since al-Qaeda.

While admitting that they had no definitive proof that “domestic rightwing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence, [however] rightwing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues. The economic downturn and the election of the first African American president present unique drivers for rightwing radicalization and recruitment.”

Mainstream media has spun the propaganda perfectly by asserting that “the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks.”

In the recent Sikh shooting we were introduced to Wade Michael Page who was a US veteran from Fort Bragg with neo-Nazi ties according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

A plan is unfolding that connects US veterans to the probability of committing horrendous acts of violence. The MSM provides the social dialogue while various federal agencies in collaboration with the US Army are using a medical condition to justify the coming accusations. We have seen this before.

The Oklahoma City bombing was supposedly committed by Timothy McVeigh who was a veteran.

When the US government rolls out marital law, the biggest threat to their total lockdown of America will be the US veteran. Former active duty soldiers are trained in tactical procedures and pose a real risk because they can easily combat the US military that will show up in every city across the entire nation.

These brave Americans people have given everything to protect the US and fought in coercive wars without their prior knowledge. The ones who are lucky enough to come back are now being turned into the newest Boogeyman; replacing al-Qaeda and other state-sponsored terrorist groups. The demonization of our veterans is a part of the plan concerning martial law and eventual conversion of our Constitutional Republic to a Fascist Dictatorship controlled by the global Elite.

Susanne Posel is the Chief Editor of Occupy Corporatism. Our alternative news site is dedicated to reporting the news as it actually happens; not as it is spun by the corporately funded mainstream media. You can find us on our Facebook page.