| Questions raised about tests, help for GI stress
By Erin Emery and Eileen Kelley
The Denver Post
MONUMENT -
Just three weeks home from Iraq, a decorated Fort Carson Green Beret shot himself to death Sunday, moments after his wife frantically called 911 for help.
The death of 36-year-old William Howell, a Special Forces soldier, has sent shock waves through the military community and forced many around the Colorado Springs-area Army post to ask if Howell was given the help he may have needed to beat combat stress upon returning from the war last month.
Howell, a chief warrant officer, had been in Iraq for roughly 10 months, officials said Tuesday. Under military policy, returning troops are to be screened for post-traumatic stress disorder and other combat-related disorders before arriving stateside. The policy was enacted after four military wives were killed in 2002 by their husbands at Fort Bragg, N.C. Those special-forces soldiers had recently returned from Afghanistan.
"It is my understanding that (Howell) did go through the mandatory pre-return screening and counseling, and that kind of stuff that is generally done before they return to the continental United States," said Maj. Rob Gowan, spokesman for the U.S. Army Special Forces Command at Fort Bragg.
"If the 10th Special Forces Group had any idea he was having a problem they would have tried to help. That is what we do in any case, is try and help somebody," Gowan said.
Still, soldiers say, the screening can be ineffective because troops answer questions quickly and sometimes dishonestly, so they won't delay their homecoming.
"It's not thorough enough. They need to be individually geared," said Ralf Zimmermann, a 20-year Army veteran, military historian and analyst who lives in Colorado Springs. "Everyone is a ticking time bomb. Everybody has a different trigger."
In one case, a plea for help turned into a well-publicized, six-month legal battle.
Georg-Andreas Pogany, an interrogator for the 10th Special Forces Group, was charged with cowardice after suffering a panic attack after seeing a dead body in Iraq and asking for help. The cowardice charge was dropped, but Pogany's case at Fort Carson is unresolved.
Howell's suicide is especially troubling because he served in the same unit as Pogany, said Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center, an advocacy group for veterans of both conflicts in Silver Spring, Md.
"If the command climate is 'We're going to charge you with cowardice if you come forward asking for help,' I don't know that many people will come forward," Robinson said. "We've reached a tipping point in war. We've got the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, Somalia, Haiti, we've got World War II. We have to recognize that there are consequences other than bullets and bombs, and we have to aggressively rehabilitate people when they come back from these traumatic experiences."
In the year since the war started, 23 service members committed suicide in Iraq and five other cases remain under investigation, according to Robinson, who has been tracking suicides.
He said at least six service members, not counting Howell, have committed suicide since returning stateside, but "we estimate that, in understanding that the military doesn't often make the connection (with trauma from war), that there could be as many as 10 to 15 suicides in the stateside numbers that they are not counting."
Before 9:30 p.m. Sunday, Laura Howell and her husband started fighting. He punched her. She punched him back. When he went for a gun, she ran to the front yard with a cordless phone and called 911, El Paso County Sheriff's Lt. Clif Northam said.
Monument police were dispatched immediately. While dispatchers were talking to Laura Howell, the call was disconnected. The El Paso County sheriff's dispatch center returned the call and it was answered by a male who advised that there was no problem at that address.
Monument police arrived three minutes after the call. An officer ordered Howell, who was in the front yard with a .357-caliber revolver, to put down the weapon; instead, Howell shot himself. When Howell fired, one of the Monument officers fired from a distance of 60 to 70 feet. The officer's bullet struck Howell in the right arm.
Three children, a 13-year-old boy and two infants, were inside the home the couple had purchased in the new subdivision in May. The children were not physically harmed.
An autopsy showed Howell had been drinking, although the El Paso County Coroner's Office would not provide his blood alcohol content. Howell had no criminal record.
The 4th Judicial District Attorney's Office and El Paso County sheriff's detectives are investigating because of the officer-involved shooting.
"The military is going to say that this is not related to service in Iraq. They're just going to automatically assume that nothing that this guy saw or did was in any way a trigger event" for his suicide, Robinson said.
"People who go to war and kill other people experience something that is very unique and very disturbing to some. While I can't say that every suicide or every crime that will be committed is in some way connected to the war, I can say that we could do a much better job of providing a safe outlet for soldiers when they return by recognizing that they will be forever changed." | |
