Word: baseness
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...following the worst disaster in SEAL history, in June 2005: a Chinook helicopter filled with eight SEALs and eight Army aviators was shot down while trying to rescue four comrades trapped by a Taliban ambush in the Kunar Mountains in Afghanistan. Waddell, who was stationed at the unit's base in Virginia Beach, had the agonizing task of sorting through the remains of his dead men - young warriors he had fought beside, mentored and led into battle. He also had to tell their families of the deaths. One wife, he recalls, "just ran away from me, ran down the street...
Care varies from base to base. The previous commander at Fort Carson, Major General Mark Graham, became an advocate for improved mental-health care for soldiers after he lost two sons in military service - one in Iraq and the other to suicide. At Fort Carson, the base hospital is expanding its facilities for mental-health and family therapy, with regular counseling sessions for soldiers and their spouses. But it takes a while for a general's orders to trickle down to the ranks, where platoon leaders are supposed to steel their troops, physically and mentally, against the enemy. Says Colonel...
...says Marshéle, "you need an environment where the warrior can be vulnerable." Typically, that's not a military base. Waddell speaks of what he terms a "break in the covenant" between those who volunteer to fight and the society that sent them into battle and then forgot about them. "It's not enough to give soldiers free tickets to NASCAR races," he says. "It has to be something more, a deeper way of honoring the sacrifices these men and women have made...
...troubled military families in their congregations. Neighbors help with babysitting so that a couple can get reacquainted after a long tour of duty. Nonprofit groups have stepped in to give veterans and active-duty service members the kind of confidential help they feel they cannot get on base. On the assumption that a soldier is more likely to reveal buried traumas to someone who has also experienced combat, the Pikes Peak Behavioral Health Group has lined up vets who can steer the combat-bruised troops through their personal troubles and the VA's cavernous bureaucracy. (Read "Purple Hearts for Psychic...
...Colonel George Brandt, behavioral-health chief at the base hospital, a cure means "being able to get on the floor and play with your kids. Then you know you're home." For Waddell, it may take longer. He says, "Even though Marshéle and I are still in a dark valley, we haven't built our house here. We're just passing through...