BELLMORE, N.Y. -- Kristofer Goldsmith was so distressed about the prospect of returning to Iraq that he decided he was willing to kill himself to avoid serving a second tour.
Just as Goldsmith's three-year Army contract was to expire, it was extended under the military's "stop loss" program, and his unit was set to deploy to Baghdad to take part in the troop surge. On the day before he was to ship out in May 2007, he took a dozen Percocet painkillers, washed down with more than a liter of vodka.
Soon after Goldsmith was admitted to Winn Army Community Hospital at Ft. Stewart, Ga., a senior non-commissioned officer from his brigade visited the young sergeant, along with an Army psychologist, to discuss discharging him from the military.
"We all agreed that it was for the best that my Army career come to an end then," said Goldsmith, 22, who added that he'd scrawled the words "stop loss killed me" in marker on his body before his suicide attempt. "It was a few days later when they told me that they were going to come at me for faking a mental lapse."
Goldsmith's case illustrates the complex decisions facing the U.S. military, which says it is eager to address the mental health problems plaguing its troops while maintaining its warrior ethos and respect for the chain of command.
Malingering
The rear detachment commander of Goldsmith's unit, Maj. Douglas Wesner of the 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, quickly initiated an administrative punishment known as an Article 15 against Goldsmith for malingering--that is, feigning a mental lapse or derangement or purposely injuring oneself--to avoid being deployed to Iraq.
Eventually his commanders dropped the Article 15, but not before removing Goldsmith from the service on a general discharge. Because he did not receive an honorable discharge, Goldsmith was stripped of his Montgomery GI Bill benefits, which he'd been counting on to help pay for college.
Goldsmith's tough treatment is not unheard of.
Twenty-one soldiers in Iraq have been punitively discharged since 2003 after being convicted of malingering, according to the Army.
Goldsmith remains adamant that he did not fake a mental illness. After Goldsmith's discharge, a psychologist with the Department of Veterans Affairs diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Wesner declined to comment. A 3rd Infantry Division spokesman said Goldsmith was provided legal counsel and received a medical evaluation before his discharge but declined further comment.
Sitting in his parents' home, Goldsmith said his mental unraveling began when he returned in 2005 from a yearlong tour in Iraq. He said he was addled by depression and self-medicated with alcohol.
The collapse accelerated, he said, after he learned he would be affected by "stop loss."
Since his discharge last August, he has been jobless except for a brief stint delivering pizzas. "I went from being a sergeant responsible for six peoples' lives and millions of dollars in equipment to becoming the pizza delivery boy," he said.
Goldsmith, who since his discharge has been an active member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, is one of at least 40,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans diagnosed with PTSD, according to the Pentagon. People with PTSD, an anxiety disorder that can occur after surviving a traumatic event, often endure relationship problems, despair and various physical symptoms.
The Pentagon's figures account only for those who have sought help; a recent study by RAND Corp. put the number closer to 300,000.
Suicides up
Last month, the Pentagon reported that 115 U.S. troops had committed suicide in 2007, the highest yearly toll since the military has tracked the figures. The Pentagon acknowledges that 12 percent to 15 percent of military personnel in the war zones are taking antidepressants or sleep medication.
Recently Defense Department officials have poured millions of dollars into programs to help troops deal with PTSD--including yoga and reiki therapy--and have acknowledged that more needs to be done to remove the stigma of PTSD in the military community. Last month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced a policy under which troops no longer have to divulge previous mental health treatment to receive security clearance.
The magnitude of mental health problems is something the Defense Department is only starting to confront, according to some lawmakers.
Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, the Army's top medical officer, also acknowledges that the Army needs to improve facilities and has too few providers of mental health care.
"I think we can say as a nation that our mental health facilities and access to mental health providers is not adequate to the need right now," he said. "So part of the problem that we as a military are suffering is a shared national problem."
Goldsmith said that even before his suicide attempt, he was suffering from severe depression and anxiety attacks after returning from his 2005 deployment in Iraq, where he served much of his tour in the Shiite slums of Baghdad's Sadr City.
Residents of the enclave frequently attacked U.S. troops, and the area was a central front in sectarian fighting.
U.S. troops regularly found corpses of tortured Sunni men in Sadr City. Goldsmith was given the task of photographing them, and those images deeply disturbed him, he said. Although he was a strong supporter of the war when he signed up for the Army, he came back from Iraq convinced the presence of U.S. forces was doing more harm than good.
When he returned to Ft. Stewart, Goldsmith fell into a deep depression.
At first he refused to seek help, saying he thought he would be ostracized or punished. He suffered from anxiety attacks, one so severe that he rushed to the hospital fearing he'd had a heart attack.
"Before we were heading back to Iraq, [a senior non-commissioned officer] said that if we tried to use mental stress as a way to get out of going, he would see to it that we'd become his personal IED [improvised explosive device] kicker," he said. "No one wanted to be stigmatized."
Goldsmith thought he hit bottom when one night he became so irritated by a man at a party that he choked him unconscious. After that incident, Goldsmith said he realized he had to seek help
Group counseling
He was ordered to attend mental health counseling and ended up in a group session where the patients' needs differed widely, Goldsmith recalled. "It was almost more destructive than helpful," he said.
Some of the soldiers who worked most closely with him have written letters to the Army on his behalf requesting that his discharge be upgraded to honorable. His company and platoon commanders gave him high marks and even recommended him for a Bronze Star.
"If I were to go to war tomorrow, I would want Kris Goldsmith to go with me," Capt. Edward McMichael, who was Goldsmith's company commander in Iraq, said in an interview. "I don't think Kris would fake it."
Before he was discharged, Goldsmith said military lawyers told him that he was eligible to re-enlist, and try to earn an honorable discharge and win his GI Bill benefits.
But he has no intention of going that route. He feels he already has served honorably.
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