Her name doesn't show on any official
list of American military deaths in the Iraq war, by hostile or non-hostile fire, who died in that country or in hospitals
in Europe or back home in the USA. But Iraq killed her just as certainly. She is Jeanne "Linda" Michel, a Navy medic. She
came home to her husband and three kids (ages 11, 5, and 4), delighted to be back in her suburban home of Clifton Park in
upstate New York. Michel, 33, would be discharged from the Navy in a few weeks, finishing her five years of duty. Two weeks
after she got home, she shot and killed herself.
"She had come through a lot and
she had always risen to challenges," her husband, Frantz Michel, who has also served in Iraq, lamented... and he asks why
the Navy didn't do more to help her. Michel's story has been probed by reporter Kate Gurnett in Albany Times-Union.
kgurnett@timesunion.com It's headlined, "A casualty far from the battlefield." And yet, in many
ways, not far at all.
Why did it happen...? "Like thousands
of others returning from Iraq, her mental state was fractured," Gurnett explains. "
And it went
untreated. Within two weeks, Linda Michel would become a private casualty of war.
Re-entry into the world of peace can be
harder than deployment, experts say. Picking up where you left off doesn't just happen. ... "Women experience
stronger forms of post-traumatic stress disorder and have higher PTSD rates, experts say.
In response, the Veterans Affairs Department
launched a $6 million study of female veterans. Seeking treatment -- seen by some as a weakness -- may be even tougher for
women, who still feel the need to prove themselves to men in military service." In fact, three months before Michel shot
herself, three veterans in New York's Adirondack region committed suicide within three weeks, according to Helena Davis,
deputy director of the Mental Health Association in New York. Michel has served under extremely stressful conditions at Camp
Bucca in southern Iraq, a U.S-run prison where guards shot four inmates dead in a 2005 riot -- and an episode of female mudwrestling
drew headlines. Michel was treated for depression and prescribed Paxil, but they took her off that medicine when she returned
home. Her husband was not informed. "I just wish the Navy would have done some more follow-up, instead of just letting her
come home," Frantz, from the division staff of the Army National Guard, told the reporter. "If somebody needs Paxil in
a combat zone, then that's not the place for them to be. You either send them to a hospital or you send them home and then
make sure that the family members know and that they get follow-up care." He has pressed the Navy for answers: "Why wasn't
she sent to a facility to resolve the issues...? Not keep her in Iraq and give her some antidepressant medication and then
just send her home. So those are the answers that I don't have. Which makes me a little angry because I know what is supposed
to occur." On November 2006, The Times Union carried another lengthy story, by Dennis Yusko, on post-traumatic stress syndome
(PTSD) and Iraq veterans. "The number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans getting treatment for PTSD at VA hospitals and counseling
centers increased 87 percent from September 2005 to June 2006 -- to 38,144, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs,"
Yusko revealed. "At least 30 percent of those who fought in Iraq or Afghanistan were diagnosed with PTSD, up from 16
percent to 18 percent in 2004, said Charlie Kennedy, PTSD program director and lead psychologist at the Stratton Veterans
Affairs Medical Center. Of the 400 Capital Region vets in the program, 81 served in Iraq or Afghanistan, Kennedy said, and
that number is growing. 'This kind of warfare is devastating,' Kennedy said. 'You don't know who is your friend and who
is your enemy.'"
Maybe someone
can set up a (legal) fund for Jeanne "Linda" Michel' family...
