All language subtitles for Thank.You.for.Your.Service.2015.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+5.1.H.264-SiGMA.[eng]

(ringing and swooshing tones)

(phone beeping)

- [Operator] 911 was
is your emergency?

- [Female] Somebody's
just killed themselves.

(gasping)

- [Operator] Somebody's
tryin' to hurt themselves?

- [Female] No he killed himself.

- [Operator] He did?

- [Female] Yes, he
isn't breathin' now.

Oh god!

(crying)

- If there's a flaw
in the approach

that we have taken to wars,

it is this feeling
that once we go to war,

we limit what we're
prepared to do.

(thump)

(shouting)

- We were very focused
on the combat side,

we didn't give much
time to mental health.

- You couldn't have drawn up

a more catastrophic way to fail

to meet mental health needs,

than the blueprints that
were followed in this war

and that were followed
in previous wars.

(boom)

(shouting)

- 55% of veterans
treated by the DA

have been diagnosed with
a mental health disorder.

55%.

There's not a single
veteran that I know

who doesn't know somebody
who has committed suicide.

The numbers are staggering.

- We don't even know
what's gonna hit us

in the next 10 years as a result

of the past decade or
dozen years of war.

(poignant orchestral music)

- I always wanted
to be a soldier.

I wanted to be a marine.

A good marine is somebody
who can get the job done,

look death in the face
and run right at it.

The salt flats have
this feel to them,

it reminds me a lot of Iraq.

You really can't tell distance.

The mirages confuse you.

All of a sudden
it's a combat zone

and you're running
for your life.

Your adrenaline's going
and your blood's pumping

and you just wanna
fight something.

It's kind of exhausting

feeling like you're under
attack all the time.

You try to rationalize it,

so that you can just live
a productive, happy life.

It's,

it's really hard to do.

When I got back from Iraq,

I was still tryin'
to make it big.

I had a beautiful wife,
had beautiful children,

had a great job.

On the outside,
man I looked good.

But on the inside I was tore up.

I didn't really understand
what I was going through.

I just broke down

and that's when it got
outta control for me.

I've been tryin' to dig
outta that whole ever since.

There were other
marines in my unit

having problems as well,
because of what had happened

and what we as marines had done.

(truck rumbling)

Had a real hasty order.

Said, "hey you guys are gonna
walk and clear this city."

"You're just gonna
walk down the blocks."

- We got off of our
trucks outside the city

and started patrolling.

- The civilians were warning us,

Saddam many many,
Saddam many many.

- "Police compound up ahead,
you don't wanna go there."

We're goin' there.

- We started hearing gunshots.

(shouting)

And one of the platoons
is completely under fire.

- I remember running
towards an alley

going up to that position,

and hearing the rounds
flying over my head.

- Me and Vidanya were
the radio operatiors,

it was our turn to
run across the street.

(thump)

All of a sudden, it sounded
like somebody hit Vidanya

in the head with a sledgehammer.

He just dropped like
dead meat, just like pft.

- When we heard that
one of us had gone down,

it just kinda
really became real.

- We were firing at the
enemy across this open field,

takin' small arms fire,
takin' sniper fire.

I was up on a building that
was our makeshift command post

and I see these vehicles
coming down the road.

- We had received
word that the enemy

was stopping vehicles,
getting in the vehicles

and then coming towards us.

- One of the vehicles came out

and started turning,
right at my building.

- I felt like we
were about to die.

- I picked up my rifle.

- I ran up some stairs.

- And we all opened up.

(machine guns rattling)

- We heard yelling
from the vehicle.

They were waving a
flag of some sort,

screaming, "we are peace
people, we are peace people."

They were innocent civilians

and the girl from the vehicle,

her husband and two sons
were shot and killed.

Their wailing, this
complete painful cry.

"You killed my son,
you killed my son."

- We didn't have time to care.

We didn't have
time to process it.

We still had to do our job.

It's really sad because I
feel proud of how we did

and I'm so ashamed of what
we did at the same time,

so what do you do with that?

- My interest in
traumatic stress injuries

began during my childhood.

My father was a marine,

I lived on a marine
base during the height

of the Vietnam war.

That stuck with me,

in trying to understand the
affects of war on human beings.

(helicopter rumbles)

In 2003, our field hospital

added on some innovative,
proactive ways

of identifying
battlefield evacuees

who might have some kind
of a combat stress reaction

and did some early intervention
that seemed to be effective.

What really opened
my eyes in this war,

when Admiral came to
our field hospital.

We gave him this short
dog and pony show.

Basic lessons in, how you
meet mental health needs

during a time of war.

This is something we thought
should be replicated.

Admiral took it in
and stood up and said,

"you guys did a great job,

"but unfortunately
it'll all be forgotten

"and somebody else is
gonna have to rediscover it

"in the next war."

(poignant music)

As a marine,

made me feel like that
was an absolute betrayal.

That unlike battlefield
lessons in war strategy,

the lessons of war
trauma aren't important

to listen and learn from?

Why do we not do
everything possible

to try to meet the mental
health needs of this generation?

Why?

(drumming music)

- As our troops deployed,

we knew it would be critical
to have a robust network

of mental health
resources in place.

But preparation on a
broader and deeper level

was not a welcome topic.

(rousing music and cheering)

- Thank you.

My fellow Americans.

Major combat operations
in Iraq have ended.

- Our political leaders
thought this was going to be

a very short war.

Cake walk was one of the
phrases that was used

and so our military of course

served within that framework.

We were not allowed to speak
of the unseen wounds of war,

we were not allowed
to prepare for them.

It was incredibly distressing.

- What really got me,

I did a survey of
mental health providers

and asked them,

"what kinds of training
have you received

"on understanding and
treating combat stress?"

Out of 133 clinicians, 90%
have not received any training

on any of the top
treatments for PTSD.

(unsettling string music)

- The next few days
after April eight,

that's when the
pain started for me.

What we must've done
to those families.

For a while I was not really
wanting to think about

that we had just
killed human beings.

They weren't human beings then.

I was...

Pretty fucking cold.

I started having
recurring nightmares

of a car driving down the road,

we're yelling at it for it
to stop and it keeps coming,

so we shoot it.

And I look inside
and it's my family,

it's my kids that are dead.

I actually went to a
psychologist while I was in Iraq

who said, "do you
feel suicidal?"

And I said, "yes I do."

They had me talk to a
Corpsman who I didn't know,

didn't trust, asking me
extremely personal questions

and I lied to him,

because I didn't
know who he was.

I didn't wanna talk with
him about everything

that was going on.

You know, who the
fuck are you dude?

No I don't wanna kill
myself of course not,

only wussies do that.

The whole stigma.

You don't do that, you suck
it up and you carry on,

you don't do that.

So you're broken.

- The military
knew in 2003, four

there was a very serious
mental health care crisis.

There were suicides
in the war zone,

suicides back at their
military installations.

- [Reporter] After just
three months in Iraq,

TJ shot and killed himself.

- [News Presenter] Army
specialist Cody Baker

took his life
earlier this month.

- [Reporter] Daniel Silmers,
Sergeant shot himself.

- [News Presenter] Staff
Sergeant Jared Hageman

committed suicide.

- [Reporter] Kevin Graham 21.

- [News Presenter] Part
of a growing problem

among our nation's fighters,

as the number of them committing
suicide continues to rise.

- I was deployed
as part of a team

called the mental
health advisory team.

To look at home
mental health services

were being delivered in Iraq.

There were problems
with the way in which

mental health professionals

were distributed
on the battlefield.

There was difficulty
with access to them.

- I lost my best friend
in a mortar attack,

while he was sleeping.

I had walked in and seen him
splattered all over his room,

after I had been
out for three days.

And nobody ever came and
asked me a thing a about it.

There wasn't a
Chaplin showed up,

there wasn't a psychiatrist,

there wasn't anybody.

- The most important
finding in this study

was the data on stigma
and barriers to care.

Very few who needed care
were accessing care.

- There is this message we send,

if you raise your
hand and ask for help,

your career is over.

First of all you
lose your clearance

and then if you don't
have your clearance,

you don't have much of a future.

(poignant bell tones)

- The study was also
the first snapshot

of the prevalence related to
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,

before deployment
and after deployment,

showing the
startling difference.

- Doctor Hogue and
others certainly

had alerted the leadership
to what was going on,

but those measures,
however necessary,

they were insufficient.

- The diagnosis of PTSD
is this absurd idea

that you can reduce the
human response to trauma

to a single diagnosis.

- It shows you how far behind

we are the rest
of medical science

in understanding these injuries.

- There is substance abuse
and depression and suicide.

Those things aren't
covered in PTSD.

What it's like to lose
somebody close to you,

or see somebody killed
in front of you.

We're not including
the whole spectrum.

And the consequences, many
people are gonna be missed.

And these crisis
will perpetuate.

- [Kenny] Hello?

- Oh, so good to see you.

So thankful for you.

You look wonderful.

- Oh well thank you.

Growing up, my relationship
with my religion

was everything to me.

Religion was everything.

- I wasn't happy that
you had been called out

to go to Iraq.

I had taught you the
gospel of Jesus Christ.

Not ever knowing that
you would ever have

to be in a position to shoot
anybody or kill anybody.

I was thankful to have you home.

(train honking)

- After 2003, I was going
insane inside of my own head.

The turbulence I had with
my morals being violated

the way they were.

I couldn't make sense
that I wasn't a murderer.

It would actually make me upset

when people would
come up to me and say,

"oh thank you for your
service, welcome home."

I would get angry and I'd
be like, "what do you know?

"What do you know
about being home?

"And coming back from a war,

"and living with these memories?

"Don't thank me."

It's interesting, just looking
back know, going to combat

and not being
prepared whatsoever.

(poignant piano music)

- When you are in combat,

you actually leave your
ordinary world behind.

You actually enter
in a different space.

I call it the sacred space

because what you're
dealing with is death,

your own death or you're
taking the lives of others,

that's the act of a god.

Then you come back.

How does the human psyche handle

trying to come to terms
with what have I done?

- I needed to
reevaluate who I am.

What have I become?

And I saw that I wasn't that
same person that I was before.

It bothered me at night.

It bothered me when I looked
at myself in the mirror.

It wasn't just trauma, it was
something more going on here.

- We have a label for
it today, moral injury.

That type of a wound,
it's devastating,

but as a mental health
provider in the military,

I'd never even heard
of moral injury.

How do you help people
who've come to your office

when they've killed?

- We don't have shells,
we're not turtles,

we take the hit.

So you're gonna come to
terms with it someday.

But it'll sit there in your
psyche until you deal with it.

- After I was out
of the marine core,

I started feeling the
void of no comradery.

The whole time, you're
saying to your brothers,

"I'll die for you."

When that was gone,
it was heartbreaking.

So I started looking up
our unit online constantly.

Anything that I thought
would give me a thread.

(gunfire rattling)

(slow droning music)

(shouting and chanting)

- It was about a week after
Saddam's regime had fallen.

The city was in a state
of absolute pandemonium.

I was just driving
around Baghdad

and I saw an enormous
crowd outside this hospital

and they were trying
to get inside,

so I said, "well
let's go in there."

A doctor walked up
to me and he said,

"there's a really sad case here

"that I wanna tell you about."

So I followed him to the back

and there sat a
young Iraqi woman,

her name was Nora Khachadoorian.

Her mother was there, Margret.

The American's got into a
firefight with the Iraqi army

right in the middle
of their neighborhood.

There were bullets everywhere,

so they took a turn and they
went into an intersection

and before they knew it,

the three male members of
the family were killed.

- [Marine] It was the first time

that I heard a voice
of the victims.

Their side of the story.

- I was so happy
to have Louis home.

He didn't look any
different to me.

It wasn't until probably
months later that you realized

that he had changed.

- Louis was always
the protector,

until he got back from
Iraq and all of a sudden

we had to start
worrying about him.

- The dad's name is James,

the son's are
Nicolas and Edmund.

It puts the human aspect back
into your thought process.

I wanted to try to
find the Kachadoorians.

I wanted to talk to them, I
wanted to get to know them.

They tell you in the
marines, be no better friend

and be no worse enemy.

You're told to
protect and to defend,

but you don't stop doing that

just cause you're
not over there.

I found a wealth of
knowledge on the internet.

At the time I was
videoing the journey.

I came across this
site, rehumanise.us

about the Iraqi civilians
who were killed in 2003,

I go down to April 8th and
it smacked me in the face

that it was real.

James, Nicolas, Edmund dashed
in front of the family car

which contained the father.

Margaret was the
woman and the daughter

and her name's Nora.

(poignant piano music)

- The whole nation
builds the rifle.

Pays the taxes, puts it together

and decides through it's
representative bodies

where that rifle will be used.

The veteran is the person
that pulled the trigger.

But what happens is when
the veteran comes home,

it's like the veteran was the
only one that did the killing.

We've gotta change
that attitude.

They wonder why
veterans feel alienated.

If there's an unconscious
feeling on the part
of the country

that, well, he did it,

that's going to go a long way
toward making that veteran's

healing way more difficult.

What the issue is,
when you get back home,

how fast are you going
to be able to heal

so that you can
have a normal life,

so that you can have a family?

And we're failing at
that healing part.

- I met Phil before he went
on his first deployment.

He was full of life,
full of ambition,

he was a hopeless romantic.

On his second deployment, I
remember getting this envelope

and look at this thing.

(chuckling)

It looks like it
had been to war.

Dear Margerie, I'm
headed to Al Fallujah

which is still very active
with enemy insurgents.

By some chance I never get
to tell you how I feel again,

Margerie I have loved
you since the day we met.

I knew from the moment
I laid eyes on you,

that you were special.

I love you Margerie

and I can't wait to see
you when I get home.

(gunfire rattling)

- Thanksgiving day,

we were patrolling
this one neighborhood.

We found a weapons cache
in a house that was wired.

A few guys in our unit,
Benson, Marku, Rodriguez,

Hodges and Holmes were supposed
to clear three buildings up.

I stayed with the Lieutenant,
the radio operator

and squad leader.

And we started hearing shooting.

We thought it was Holmes and
those guys clearing by fire.

But they had actually
entered this building

and walked right into an ambush.

(gunfire rattling)

We could hear the
firefight going on.

They were stuck in this house

and there was nowhere for
them to defend themselves.

We tried going over the wall,

but as we got to the top we
had incoming machine gun fire.

I was like, "fuck this I'm
gonna get on the rooftop

"and start engaging."

Lookin' down I
could see them all

down in the courtyard screamin'.

It was Holmes and Markus voice,

"we need help, we need help."

I was yellin' back,
"be still, be quiet."

Every time they would
yell, rounds would go off.

I was tryin' to engage the enemy

but it was just chaos.

Next thing we know,

Holmes had a grenade land on him

and Marku was hit
with a tracer round.

I watched him burn to death.

My exit with the marine
core was very quick.

"Best of luck to ya son."

That was what my CO said,
"best of luck to ya."

- I knew that first night

that there was
something really wrong,

his anxiety was just terrible.

Before we even went
to bed he said,

"if you have to wake me up,

"don't touch my upper body.

"Just hit my feet
or touch my legs."

- He couldn't sit still, he
had to be moving all the time.

In the house I mean he
couldn't sleep in a bed,

he had to sleep in a chair.

- I was mad

that he couldn't get it
together and get rollin'.

You know I'd advise
him to do stuff

cause that's what dads do.

It was like he was
just blowin' me off.

- He couldn't
engage with family.

- He felt guilty
that he was home

with me and his family

and he'd lay with David and
just kinda put him on his chest

and he would say, "god
there are some guys

"that'll never know what
it's like to be a father."

- Was it just me
and my training?

The guys around
me protecting me?

What was it that kept me alive

when other guys
weren't so fortunate.

- The conversations
about the guys that died

always came in the
form of a fight

or in the middle of the night
right after a nightmare.

He would blurt out, "you
don't know what it was like

"to see your friend
burned alive.

"You don't know what it's like

"to hear those
screams in your head."

I wanted to know more about
it but he wouldn't let me in.

He just wanted to escape.

(slow poignant music)

I started completely
blaming myself.

What am I doing?

What am I not doing?

It was a year into our marriage

and we were already
falling apart.

I would say, "what happened
to you, where are you?

"Where's the Phil that I know?"

And he would say,
"he's dead, he's gone."

(sighs)

- I had no idea how
to make it work.

So, it ended up not working

and we split up.

- This isn't how this
was supposed to end.

- [Phil] Why didn't the military

after hundreds of years of
experience with veterans,

give us more insight on
what was likely to happen

when we got home?

- At that point in time,

nobody ever told us about
PTSD or what to expect

and then when it
started comin' out

what PTSD, well you didn't
wanna seem like you had PTSD.

Didn't talk to anybody about it,

but the guys that were there.

- The military needs to make
it okay to go seek counseling.

To do that you have to
break down a male ethos

that goes back 5000 years.

- Just make it mandatory.

You will go check
up with the shrink.

Everybody goes and
so there's no stigma.

The general goes and
the private goes.

- We have to start from day one,

when they join the military,

that it's part of the culture,

it's part of what
they learn about,

it's part of what
they're evaluated for.

- But you're gonna have
to have enough shrinks.

That's the issue.

- I used to cringe whenever
the VA went on a hiring rampage

on behavior health specialists

because they would end up taking

many of the civilian
behavior health specialists

that I had in the military,

would be lured over to
come and work with the VA.

The problem is, the country
does not have enough.

- Well the military could've
done one very simple thing

when the generals went to war,

they could've
drafted more doctors.

They could've put the word out

that colleges and universities
need to be training more

mental healthcare providers
to meet the demand.

- During our time in Iraq,

we had, about halfway through,

combat stress training,

which actually I conducted
for our battalion.

I certainly am not,
A a medical doctor

or B an expert on Post Traumatic
Stress or readjustments.

- We knew that we were behind

and when I initially
brought this up I was told

that since I was a psychiatrist,

I was clearly just trying to
featherbed my own profession.

- On this base,

I was the only credential

mental health provider
for 6000 marines.

And not only meeting
the needs of the marines

and the sailors on the base,

but also the children
and the adolescents.

These marines were coming
right back from Iraq

and Afghanistan.

They'd fly right out of the
war zone in literally one day.

I carry a pager 24/7, 365 days.

(beeping)

It was very common to
get pages and phone calls

in the middle of the night

about drunken, suicidal marines

or a domestic violence incident

or somebody threatening
to kill somebody.

I asked for help
from headquarters.

I sent many point
papers up the chains.

Never amounted to much.

(phones ringing
and pagers beeping)

The workload doubled every year.

I could not keep up
with the numbers.

I would squeeze in as
many patients as possible.

But even then, follow
ups would be a month

or two months later.

Marines were quite
upset and very tearful,

that they needed help right now

and there was nothing
I could do about it,

there was no other resources.

A lot of these marines never
got the help that they needed

and left the Marine Corps
in a lot worse shape

than they ever could've been in.

It led me to file
a formal grievance

of the Department of Defense
Inspector's General Office

for gross mismanagement
that was harming

hundreds of thousands
of veterans.

I didn't get a favorable
response from it.

I didn't get any
response from it.

- The government
doesn't love you.

(chuckling)

The government isn't
designed to love you.

Government agencies
don't love people.

They treat people like numbers

and they treat people
like statistics.

(gunfire rattling)

(explosion banging)

- What makes this set
of wars different,

is the level of combat exposure.

- [Soldier] Go!

- Orders of magnitude above
what any of our troops

spent in World War I, World
War II or even Vietnam,

as difficult as
those conflicts were.

- This is the first long war

that our country has fought
with a professional force

where individuals truly
do volunteer for service,

rather than being drafted.

- There was a draft.

It was the most unfair draft
in United States history.

And the draft was stop loss.

This is involuntary,
totally involuntary.

- They'd been asked repeatably

to do multiple deployments

in a very non-linear
kind of fight

where you can't escape
the enemy at any time.

They spend a year
followed by another year

followed by another year.

- Another day man, another day.

- This was one of the
differences that I had

with some of the
senior army guys,

they said, "these guys know
that this could happen to them."

But I felt like,

if a guy thinks the end
of his tour's comin' up

and he's planning for that

and his family's
planning for that

and then all of a sudden to
be told you gotta stay in,

has gotta be a morale
downer of it's own.

- I'm a three time
Iraqi Freedom,

Operation Enduring
Freedom veteran.

I served for six years with
the 101st Airborne Division.

This is the first time I've
seen my plaque on the wall.

Between my second and
third tour I was lost.

It was really hard to
gear up for another one

and to get back into
that frame of mind

and put everything else aside.

And have to see it
cycle after cycle

was very difficult to deal with.

I had two children
that were born

while I was overseas on
two different occasions

and kinda got too much.

Pretty soon it gets
to a point where,

how many times can
you roll the dice?

Or you start seeing
guys get hit.

Your friends don't
come back with you

and that sort of thing

and you start asking
yourself, how many times?

(somber music)

Just because somebody
dedicates their life

and service to a cause,

doesn't mean you have
to call them out on it

over and over and over again.

You just feel it coming,

it's like a black
shade coming over

you can't do anything about.

- What troops went through
with extended tour,

with repeat tours is reminiscent

of what prisoners
of war went through

who were in Vietnamese
camps, year after year

with this constant sense
of helplessness and anxiety

that just never went away.

(poignant music)

- The anniversary was coming up.

The weeks leading up to that

I didn't sleep for five days.

Went to the doctor,
they gave me pills.

It was a way to escape.

It was a way to numb.

It became all I cared about.

It's too easy to just
hand out the pills.

And the number of pills
these guys are taking.

They've got pills to
get to sleep at night,

they've got pills to wake up

they've got pills to stay alert.

(somber piano music)

- There is a tendency
to use medication

when you don't have enough
behavior health specialists

who can do the treatments
that do not include medication

that have proven to be
very very effective.

- Psychotropic drugs
does not bring them back

into a social setting.

Does not bring them back
into a quality of life.

In fact I think that
that is a leading cause

of this fog we're going through.

We have to remove the
pathology associated with this

and realize what these service
members are going through

are normal human reactions.

- As soon as we define
it as a medical problem,

it's easy to
dismiss the soldier.

There's something
wrong with his brain.

We have to stop referring to
veterans who are traumatized

as sick, and look
at them more as,

they are holding
something for us.

The guilt.

The shame.

The confusion.

The fog of war.

How do we approach it in
a non-medical, social,

political way?

- Somehow we've got the idea
that combat is like football.

When people come
back from a war,

it's not something
that you cheer about

like your team just won
the state championship.

When you win the
state championship

there aren't dead kids
and destroyed cities

and maimed bodies
and dead friends.

There shouldn't
be cheering ever,

it's not something
to cheer about.

- Several years ago,

I was visiting a well respected
psychologist at the VA

and he just had
this sort of dark,

kind of foreboding look
and I pulled him aside

and I said, "what's up?"

And he shook his head, he said,

"this generation is
going to be lost."

He felt they were
just shoveling people

through the system.

People weren't getting
what they needed.

The waits were too long.

- The VA and the
DOD, even to this day

have difficulty
working together.

So this took a long
time to coordinate,

not only between the domestic
world and the military

but even within the military,

between the VA and the DOD.

There was not a lot
being spoken about.

- We knew of horrific
first hand accounts,

of veterans who went to
VA one, two, three times,

trying to get mental
health care, only to go out

to a VA parking lot and
literally blow their brains out

in their car.

- I remember my first
cabinet meeting.

The Secretary of
Veteran's Affairs

comes up to introduce himself

and I said to him, you
must be overwhelmed,

I know we are in DOD.

And he said, "no we've got
it completely under control."

Any head of a
government department

that says he's got
everything under control

is either a liar or delusional

and I don't think
this guy was a liar.

- Even in the Navy
in 2005, 2006,

and I'm the head of the
Navy at this point in time,

mental health wasn't
something that was out there

on the front pages at that
particular point in time.

- I kept reading about the
VA and military officials

testifying that
everything was fine.

I got fed up with it.

In 2006 I was
invited to go speak

at a large medical
military conference.

I decided to take
that as an opportunity

to publicly speak out

and I knew the military is
not gonna take very kindly

about someone who's speaking
out in a critical nature.

But the Navy has
a code of conduct

about honor, courage
and commitment,

being always faithful.

I felt we were not
being faithful.

We were leaving people behind.

I would not be a true marine

if I did not speak out.

I knew eyes wide open

that if this repeats itself,

I am as responsible as the folks
who could've done something

and didn't.

(rousing orchestral music)

There were 200 military
medical professionals

in the audience

and I pretty much laid it out.

How we are failing to implement
basic war trauma needs.

Stars and Stripes runs the story

and then USA Today picked it up.

I received an email from
my commanding officer

to cease any other
communication with the media

and headquarters was preparing
a Public Affairs Guidance

in how to deal with the
communication aspects

of my message.

It has several pages worth
of distortions and some spin

and some outright lies.

"Navy Marine Corps leadership
are committed at every level

"to the issue of mental health.

"They are proactively
addressing mental health needs

"with early
intervention and work

"to build resilience prior
to combat deployments."

That is not true.

"Navy medicine is working

"to increase the number of
providers where needed."

Categorically false,

because next month
I get this memo,

informing us that the Navy
was going to eliminate

it's social workers.

Military social workers,

that are no longer
gonna be employed.

- The part of the Department
of Defense that I had

the biggest problems with,

the whole four and a half
years I was secretary

was Personnel and Readiness.

All these problems come
under their auspices

and it was a source of
continuing frustration.

And it's the one area
where I feel like

I failed to get
the changes there

that I thought were necessary.

- If you killed
yourself 121 days

after you were discharged
from the military,

we don't even count you
as a suicide statistic

in the military.

Too many young ones kill

themselves beyond
that 121 day mark,

their suicide is
directly related to
their military service.

(poignant string music)

- I had lost everything
that I'd ever had.

My marriage had disintegrated,

I'd lost my children.

I'd lost my job.

I had been through all these
changes with my beliefs.

I went from searching for
god, to searching for science,

to searching for humanity

and that was about the time

when we started saying
why did we go to fight?

And that started
messing with my head.

Destroyed everything I wanted.

And I didn't really
know who I was.

I had a 357 revolver

and I put two rounds in
the cylinder and I spun it.

And uh...

It hurt right here, in my heart.

I didn't wanna shoot my face,
I didn't wanna shoot my head,

I wanted to get shot
right in the chest.

I wanted my heart to explode.

So, I spun the chamber and I
pointed the gun to my chest

and I pulled the trigger and
it fell on an empty cylinder.

And then I pulled
the trigger again.

Then when it came
down to pulling the
trigger a third time,

the shot that
would've killed me,

I couldn't do it,
I was too scared.

- The Pentagon and the
VA are losing the battle

on mental and behavioral health.

- Part of it is bureaucratic,
part of it is systems,

part of it is just
the complicated.

- You can't imagine what it
sounds like to hear that.

Bureaucratic.

I mean if you're in this system

that's not the word
you wanna hear.

- Part of the problem is,

that when the congress wants
to take a look at a problem,

they wanna first find
somebody to blame.

The congress I think has
very little understanding

about how bureaucracies work.

In 2010, I saw the
war supplementals

were going to disappear.

PTS programs, family programs
in those supplementals,

I moved them all
into the base budget

believing that we would
need these programs

long after these wars were over.

Well go figure.

These programs to help our
warriors and their families

under sequestration are
cut at the same level

as the least important thing
the defense department does.

It's madness.

- It just felt
like there was no,

no way of reasoning
with the system

who's bureaucracy was set up
to support business as usual,

rather that to support
the troops and the war

that we were
currently engaged in.

- The nature of
military mental health

is that it's a completely
fragmented, disconnected system.

There needs to be a
priority established

for military mental health
care, that is not there.

(rousing music)

In the military we have
things that are called Corps.

For each profession
that show an identity

that there's a priority
developing these professionals.

There are dozens of
centers of lessons learned

policies of lessons
learned about what worked,

what didn't, to incorporate that

into institutional memory.

To have that become
part of the DNA.

Every branch of the service

has a Medical Corps,

a Nursing Corps,

a Chaplain Corps,

a Legal Corps,

a Supply Corps,

there is no Mental Health Corps.

We don't even identify it
as something significant

or important enough to
have it's own Corps.

Mental health
professionals are split.

Psychiatry is assigned
to the Medical Corps.

The psychologists and
the social workers

go into what's called the
Medical Services Corps

and they're lumped in
with 20 some odd different

types of professionals.

Many of them are administrators
running the hospital.

Social workers,
psychologists, psychiatrists

don't have a coordinated
policy on training.

Or provide the same kind
of standardized care

in terms of how do you
assess and diagnose?

Nobody's in charge
of mental health.

- In order to have

as much emphasis put
on behavioral treatment

as is on physical treatment,
needs to be broken out

and it needs to be separate.

- I was on a lockdown ward
for almost two months.

They had me on eight
medications at a time

and cognitive therapy.

It just wouldn't click for me,

wouldn't click, wouldn't click.

When I got out I
wasn't able to really

integrate with society too well

so I went and lived
in the mountains.

I slept outside.

I slept more nights on the
ground than I did in a bed.

I came back here, got online
and first thing I read

was how Lou had found
the Kachadoorians

and how he was gonna
go and meet them.

I was shocked.

- Hello Nora.

I was a member of Fox Company,

Second Battalion, 23rd Marines.

One night when I
wasn't sleeping,

I decided to send a video
to the Kachadoorian family.

I often think of that day

and I feel like I have a
chance to actually reach out

and meet you.

I hope you understand that,

for me it's not a
question of whether or not

me and my friends did the
right thing that night

or if we could've tried harder

not to shoot at your vehicles.

None of that to me
could be changed.

I need to talk to
you if you'll let me.

I didn't hear anything
back for a week.

Two weeks.

I needed to take another step.

- I noticed a message from
a guy named Lou Lobello.

"Dexter can you please get
in touch with me, please.

"I think it would really
help me if you did, please."

(plane engines roar)

(barking)

Hey I'm Dexter.

He said, "look I've been trying
to kind the Kachadoorians

"for years, I've done
a lot of work on this

"and you could tell he
was just obsessed. "

Come on in.

He said, "I'm not really sure

"but I think the Kachadoorians
are just living up the road

"like an hour and a half
from here, in California."

"So I just can't go
knocking on that door.

"If it is that
Kachadoorians you know

"maybe they're gonna
wanna shoot me."

And he's just like, "I'm afraid
to do it, can you help me?"

You can practically
see the demons

just raging around
inside of him.

It really hurt
him what happened.

It just fractured him in
a really fundamental way.

And he just was like,
"I gotta do this,

"even if it's gonna
hurt, I gotta do it."

One way or another I got the
Kachadoorian's phone number.

I said, "look there's somebody
who wants to meet you."

Nora's husband was
very uncomfortable
with the whole thing.

He said, "you know if anybody
did this to my family,

"I'd kill 'em."

In the middle east you
know, an eye for an eye

and boy in Iraq
like nowhere else.

- I advised him
not to go for it.

Let's see, somebody
comes and kills your mom,

your dad, your brother
and your sister

and then they come back
and see you 10 years later

and say hey can you forgive me?

What exactly do you
think you would say?

- I said, "you know he's
just got a big heart.

"He's a sensitive guy, he
really really wants to come."

They said, "okay, let him come."

(mysterious music)

Lou was terrified,
I was terrified.

I just thought this is
either gonna go really well

or it's gonna go really badly.

- [Lou] As I walked up,
I see the door's open.

I see Margaret and
Nora lean over.

- The moment Lou saw
them, he started crying.

- [Lou] I said, "I'm sorry.

"I just wanna
recognize your loss."

- [Dexter] There on the
mantle right next to us

was the photograph
of the three men,

Margaret's husband and her
two sons who'd been killed.

- They asked, "why
did you shoot?"

I said, "we didn't want
our friends to die.

"We love our friends."

And the mom kind of made it.

She said, "so do you
feel better now?"

- Lou said, "look, I suffer,
I'm suffering because of this."

Margaret would say, "well
I suffer more than you."

And he'd say, "but
I never sleep,"

and she'd say, "I never sleep."

And he's like, "I'm
haunted by this,"

and she's say,
"you have no idea."

- I knew that no matter what,

Nora would live the
rest of her life

watching her kids
grow up thinking

I wish my dad was
here to see this.

I wish my brother
was here to see this.

- He just kept dragging it
out and it was excruciating.

We traveled a million
miles in that room.

But the ice started to crack.

You could almost see
their hearts opening up.

Taking him in.

Margaret looked at Lou
and looked at her children

and said, "you remind me
of my son, you remind me."

She said, "I'm not kidding,
you're just like him."

(poignant ethereal music)

- [Lou] They teach
you in the marines,

you don't leave anyone behind.

And they were a part of our
Marine Corps experience in Iraq.

They were with us
on April 8th 2003.

If I stay true to my word

and treat them as I would
my family and my friends,

then I feel like I've
done a good thing.

It's an integral
part of my recovery.

- I can't imagine it.

I mean seriously, I'd
wanna freakin' kill us.

- But they don't feel
like that though man.

I think it helped them
a lot, meeting me.

Because it's not just
about you anyways.

- No it's not.
- It's also about them.

- I'm so proud of
what Lou has done.

Being able to go and get this
closure that's so important.

But I would not have
the balls to do that.

I don't know what to do.

I'm freakin' lost out
there, feel empty.

- These kids have a
terrible time adjusting.

You adjusted them to go there.

Don't you think you should
add a little readjustment

to get them back here?

- If when I got out there had
been some kind of program,

and I think it ought
to be mandatory.

You're not done with
military service.

You're just no longer active.

Now you're in the
re-constitution phase

and part of that is
re-constitution bootcamp.

(orchestral music)

- [Male] That's what they
found out in World War II.

The military was just
discharging people into society

and their families
and counseling centers

couldn't keep up with it.

They're overwhelmed.

President Roosevelt
mandated the military

provide mental health
treatment before discharging.

The goal was to help people

get as well as they could,
before they leave the military.

- [Voiceover] Here,
the patient learns

to understand
something of the basic

causes of his distress.

- The film let there
be light documented

what the army was doing for
soldiers who returned back home

with what we call today,
Post Traumatic Stress.

- [Voiceover] Now a new
way of living begins,

very different from killing
and trying not to be killed.

- The movie shows how,

by having some kind
of reintegration camp,

that many do recover when
they receive maximum benefit

of treatment before discharge.

(drumming music)

- [Marine] Men, may your lives
as civilians be as worthy

as your record as soldiers.

- That process for
exiting the military,

I don't think has been
redesigned for quite some time.

Can we disrupt that process

to really rethink
how we cut the cord?

And what does reassimilation
need to look like

and who needs to
play a roll in that.

(rousing music)

- You have to look at the good
non-government organizations

and foundations that have popped
up in the last dozen years

that have been
filling a lot of gaps

and serving a lot of the
needs of our military

and their families.

- I really didn't know too
much about the programs

like Save A Warrior.

I'd never been to
a non VA program.

- Gentlemen, this program

was only designed for you,
just you, the warrior.

Because you deserve that.

You know we all this face on,

we're trying to keep it together

and I understand that.

I do this work because I
love the way it makes me feel

and my role in life is
not to share it with you.

I was going into a real
dark place in my own life,

I was suicidal for a long time.

I looked at some non
traditional healing modalities

and I thought, there's
resources available

that maybe aren't being
utilized to break the strategy

of a competitor,

in this instance the
competitor being suicide.

- Carlos.

Are you open?

- [Carlos] Yes.

- Stand up and get open then.

Kenny are you open?

- Definitely not closed.

- Alright, well are
you open though?

- I don't know I was a lineman.

There was a reason

why they didn't let
me touch the football.

(chuckling)

- So every single person in
this room is here to heal.

This is not the medical model.

You're going to learn by doing.

You're gonna be able
to practice by doing.

- What is suicide strategy?

Isolation.

Frustration.

Resentment.

Anger.

Hurt.

Fear.

So how do I break it's strategy?

(cheering and whooping)

- [Male] There you go.

- [Jake] There's three
protective factors.

- [Male] Take your time Rick.

- Sense of usefulness.

Sense of belonging,

avoidance of the pain of death.

- [Male] Go with your left foot!

- Just one of those
protective factors

is enough to keep you here.

(cheering)

But once they're gone,
your fate is sealed.

You're gonna pick your moment

and that's where
I was in my life.

- [Male] Come on Kenny!

- You got me?

- [Male] You can
trust me brother.

(whooping)

- [Jake] The ropes
course builds community.

- Dude don't worry
about it, he's gotcha.

- [Jake] There's
the sense of safety

and I'm back in the
circle of warriors.

- [Male] Nice job.

(grunting)

- Yeah!
- Nice!

- Relax your arms man.
- Aye yai yai.

- There you go.

(heaving breathing)

- Take a break man.
- Take that load off your arm.

(groaning)

- [Kenny] I wanna come down.

(whistling and clapping)

- [Male] Good job.

- There's historical
precedent for this work.

Warriors did this in times past

and where we've really
short changed ourselves

is moving away from
some of the more

powerfully spiritual
warrior type ceremonies.

(airplane engines roar)

- Flew into Rapid City
and met up with Phil.

- Will?

- Yes sir.
- Nice to meet ya.

- [Will] Nice to meet you.

Went driving through
South Dakota.

(western twanging music)

[Phil] Man this is a
beautiful place isn't it?

Absolutely beautiful.

It's awe inspiring really.

A lot of veterans carry
those war wounds back

and there's not much of a
place to share those wounds.

We still have to go
through a healing process.

We are gonna do Lakota style
and see how deep we can go

with one another as brothers.

- Whenever we have a veteran
that comes back from war,

the community gathers together
for a healing ceremony.

A lot of times our warriors
come back unbalanced,

they're not the same.

Once they see something
that's not used to seeing

on a daily basis, their spirit
is separated form their body.

So these ceremonies are done
to call their spirit back.

That way they can
go back into society

without having any problems.

- A man maybe full of tears,

but he never had
to learn an avenue

how to share those tears.

So if we want to kickstart
that emotional communication

channel that can
open us up inside.

(chanting and singing)

- In the Lakota culture,
it is a warrior society,

so there is an honoring
their automatically.

The veterans lead
different ceremonies.

The veterans are out
front and honored.

- Nowadays and the
days of my ancestors,

the community always
stood together

in support of one another.

- The lack of rituals in our
society really affects guys.

They're built up on
a squad mentality

and then they get
out as individuals

and now what do you do?

- The battleground's right here.

- [Male] We're gonna be
doing a wild horse round up

over the next couple days.

The horses out here
are rescue horses

that have been
neglected, abused.

- We'll be going
through them one by one,

photographing them.

And keeping their
information current.

- [Phil] We're
sureing up the fences

so the horses don't break
out and scatter to the wind.

- Everybody working as a team,

everybody communicating well,

it was just like having a
successful mission in the army.

All the skills I
learned as a young NCO

that I had tried
to forget about,

sometimes they're applicable
all over our lives

in such a positive manner.

(distant stampeding)

(engine rumbles)

(rousing drumming music)

- A horse herd is a lot
like a military unit.

They run together,

they are very aware of
what's going on around the,

and they all act as one.

- This experience really pulled
me out of my comfort zone.

I felt part of a squad again.

(cheering)

Nobody does this on their own.

(cheering and whooping)

- In the morning we all
helped set up a fire

for the traditional sweat.

A bunch of the elders
heat up these rocks

in the middle of the
road and it gets hot.

You're sitting in a
pool of your sweat.

- All warriors go
through this sweat

to purify the mind and spirit

so that we can walk in balance.

- The stones represent life

and the medicine is
put on these stones

and the steam cleanses us.

It's an energy that is healing.

It's like being in
your mother's womb.

- [Will] You feel so
isolated with your thoughts.

Caused a lot of
looking back at past

and things that have happened.

- You're expelling
all your fears.

All the negative inside
you is coming out.

In breathing the steam,

you're breathing
in that new energy.

You're breathing in new life.

Never felt like that before.

It was almost like I
was given a clean slate.

- I've messed up a lot of
relationships since I came back.

I went through two
divorces after this war

and I haven't always done
the right things you know?

And it forced me to
have to look at that.

After a couple tries,
you know it isn't them.

And the ability to be
authentic and to open up

and to have to look at that,

I think is very
healing in itself.

(native wailing
singing and drumming)

- In the past, I've
never felt safe to sleep.

The dreams kick in.

And at times I've been afraid

to go to sleep

for what I'm gonna
have to go through.

(exhales)

Last night was the first
time I've actually slept

and felt like I
didn't have to worry.

- It had been a long time
since I saw an 18 year old Phil

and when he talked
about South Dakota

I saw 19 year old Phil.

It was nice to see
peace in his eyes again.

- Warrior meditation has been
around for thousands of years.

Since the time warriors
have gone into battle.

It allows a person
to dive within,

it's very blissful
it's very relaxing.

- [Kenny] You let
go of everything.

Concentrate on your breathing

and just accept the thoughts
that come into your head

and not judge 'em.

Which was a new concept for me.

- It's one component but
it's a powerful component

because it gets you to a place
where there's some peace.

It doesn't come in a pill,

it's not addictive other
than wanting to feel good

and some of these guys haven't
felt anything in years.

(mysterious rousing music)

- [Male] Doing great Carlos.

- [Male] Stand up mate.

(cheering and whooping)
- [Male] Oh yeah!

(laughing and applauding)

- [Jake] That pole is
a terrifying obstacle.

- Take your time,
you're all good buddy.

- It puts back in
that protective factor

of fear of the pain of death.

It presents it to that warrior.

And if he completes that move

in front of his brother
warriors because he feels safe.

That's how a guy
gets his life back.

(whooping and cheering)

- [Male] You're safe
brother, your safe.

- [Male] Play like your
life depends on it.

- This is the fear to
live for right here.

- [Jake] That's it Kenny,
that's the fear to live for.

- I'm terrified.

- [Male] Good,
means you're alive.

- [Jake] Just breathe.

- Awesome bro!
- There it is.

(exhales)

- [Male] Next foot up.

Up as a wave Kenny.

- [Male] Come on Kenny.

- Jesus.
- One step brother.

- [Male] Show me how to do it.

- This is.

This is terrifying.

- [Jake] You're safe man,
you are totally safe.

Totally safe, you're
goin' nowhere.

- I've gotta move.

I've gotta move my leg.

I've gotta do this.

- [Male] There you go.

- [Male] You can
do this big man.

- [Male] Put your
hand on your knee.

- [Jake] Look at
that horizon Kenny.

- Look up.
- Right there.

- [Male] Stand up
Kenny, just stand up.

Don't grab anything.

- Straight up.
- Stand up.

(cheering and whooping)

(rousing music)

(whooping)

- If something like this
would've been in place

when I got home, I know
lives would be saved.

If you were with
people who understand

and people who can
tell you that it's okay

and that there is hope.

- You guys played full out,
you had a lot of courage,

you walked through
a lot of pain.

Do me two favors, just breathe
and meditate twice a day.

Think about what you're
doing to pay it forward,

even it's to yourself because
your family will benefit.

- There have been some
amazing experimental efforts

at various military
posts around the country.

It was a combination of
unorthodox treatments.

They were having
tremendous success.

The problem was, how
do you scale something

that works for a
few dozen soldiers

into something that could work

for a few hundred
thousand or more?

- One trillion dollars
annually between the DOD,

the VA and the Veteran
Services Organization

and you've got a
10 tour Green Beret

eatin' out of a dumpster,

hours off a plane
from Afghanistan?

It goes beyond verbal.

There should be no shortage
of this kind of a resource.

(slow melancholic string music)

- The biggest function we have

is vetting all these existing
organizations out there

so that we can find the ones

that are the most efficient,

the most legitimate
and those that actually

have the biggest
impact on these lives.

How many lives can
we really affect?

How many people's
lives we can improve.

- Thank you for playing like
your life depended on it.

Thanks for letting us love you

and thanks for lovin' us back.

Thanks for opening your
heart and your soul to us.

You're a beautiful spirit.

- Alright brother.

(cheering and applauding)

Whoever said that you can't
teach an old dog new tricks,

(chuckles) ...didn't know shit
about this program.

I'm gonna continue
spreading the word

and I'm gonna
start with my sons.

I don't want anybody else to
have to wait thirty years.

(applauding)

- The Vietnam generation
lost 150,000 to suicide.

150,000 names that are not
on the Vietnam Memorial wall.

There's 54,000 that are.

The more I look at it,

the more I see my
generation of veterans

going down the same road.

And something's gotta give.

- You'd need a
congress to reread

article one of the constitution

where it says that
congress is responsible

for the health, welfare and
care of the armed forces

of the United States.

And legislate the change.

- We were not ready
in World War Two,

we were not ready in Vietnam,

we were not ready
in the Gulf War,

we were not ready in the
Iraq, Afghanistan conflicts.

If we send our troops
to war ever again,

it has to be something we
talk about from the beginning.

- We have catastrophic
system-wide failure

due to chronic
neglect essentially.

We cannot provide even
basic mental health needs

during peacetime right
now, let alone war time.

(drumming music)

There's nobody in charge,
there's nobody accountable.

We need a Behavioral
Health Corps

doing anything otherwise
will perpetuate crisis.

- [Speaker] I need
six volunteers.

- Phillip Straub United
States Marine Corps.

- William Rodriguez,
United States Army.

- Detail, attention.

Present

arm.

(ordering)

- [Speaker] Lets hear
it for our military,

we'd like to thank you.

(cheering)

(pulsing mysterious music)

- So this is their home.

We are going to meet
the Kachadoorian family.

Lou tells me that they
would like to meet me,

so I would like to
meet them as well.

This wasn't even an option
a few months ago for me.

And now I'm actually
looking forward to it.

It's gonna be scary to
step onto this pole.