So a conversation with a buddy a while back got me to wondering about how we as a military keep track of the operationally routine exposure to heinous stuff that guys will see. BLUF, I'm looking to know if we have / what are our best practices for documenting such things in a manner that allows for it to be referred to later?
We know some things about mental health. We know that mental health disorders can be wholly unpredictable, and that someone can go through years and years of stuff and not struggle with any of it, and then down the road becomes sensitized to some particular trauma or exposure and feels effects. We know that it can take years after a particular exposure before it manifests itself as a mental health problem. My own tour is almost ten years behind me now, and I can't remember what data was captured in our post deployment screening. Now I'm not asking because I'm personally affected by anything, but more because as a leader, and as someone engaged in mental health stuff, and seeing how guys struggle to prove things to VAC, I worry about the 'if it's not written down, it never happened?'
I'm not talking about the really obvious stuff, necessarily - your platoon gets ambushed, a couple of guys get badly hurt, it's all well documented, etc. But more the incidental stuff that's almost part of the background noise... Torn up dead bodies, maybe videos the local army/police show you in training of some of the shitty stuff they saw/did, the 'forced to watch' stuff our UNMOs might see and document in some report to the UN that they'll never see again or have access to... Basically, how does a switched on MCpl or Sgt make sure that if his guys see some rough stuff, that it's documented in a pers or medical file somewhere so that if it becomes relevant years later, that information is recoverable and accessible? Not from the standpoint that we expect guys to be messed up, because most will see and experience this stuff and be fine, but really in the same precautionary manner that we would track things like workplaces that exposure excessive noise, fumes, stuff like that. Purely an occupational health and safety perspective.
I know in the police world, my organization at least, people are getting better about documenting potentially traumatic exposure on our equivalent to the DND663 or CF98. Plus by the nature of it usually there's going to be some sort of investigative reports for serious violent offences, human deaths, etc, so a lot more documentation is inherent to the event.
So- those in the know, what do we have for this? To what extent are junior leadership briefed/educated about using it if it exists? We take a lot of kids without much life experience, train them up, and send them to some bad places to see and do bad things. Are we capturing that data adequately when those same individuals may need to prove it years later?
We know some things about mental health. We know that mental health disorders can be wholly unpredictable, and that someone can go through years and years of stuff and not struggle with any of it, and then down the road becomes sensitized to some particular trauma or exposure and feels effects. We know that it can take years after a particular exposure before it manifests itself as a mental health problem. My own tour is almost ten years behind me now, and I can't remember what data was captured in our post deployment screening. Now I'm not asking because I'm personally affected by anything, but more because as a leader, and as someone engaged in mental health stuff, and seeing how guys struggle to prove things to VAC, I worry about the 'if it's not written down, it never happened?'
I'm not talking about the really obvious stuff, necessarily - your platoon gets ambushed, a couple of guys get badly hurt, it's all well documented, etc. But more the incidental stuff that's almost part of the background noise... Torn up dead bodies, maybe videos the local army/police show you in training of some of the shitty stuff they saw/did, the 'forced to watch' stuff our UNMOs might see and document in some report to the UN that they'll never see again or have access to... Basically, how does a switched on MCpl or Sgt make sure that if his guys see some rough stuff, that it's documented in a pers or medical file somewhere so that if it becomes relevant years later, that information is recoverable and accessible? Not from the standpoint that we expect guys to be messed up, because most will see and experience this stuff and be fine, but really in the same precautionary manner that we would track things like workplaces that exposure excessive noise, fumes, stuff like that. Purely an occupational health and safety perspective.
I know in the police world, my organization at least, people are getting better about documenting potentially traumatic exposure on our equivalent to the DND663 or CF98. Plus by the nature of it usually there's going to be some sort of investigative reports for serious violent offences, human deaths, etc, so a lot more documentation is inherent to the event.
So- those in the know, what do we have for this? To what extent are junior leadership briefed/educated about using it if it exists? We take a lot of kids without much life experience, train them up, and send them to some bad places to see and do bad things. Are we capturing that data adequately when those same individuals may need to prove it years later?
