Marine Corps to closely monitor local troops
For nearly seven months, they’ve seen friends die or have their limbs shredded by crude roadside bombs.
They’ve hunted insurgents in the hills and valleys of Afghanistan’s Helmand province, in searing heat and freezing temperatures.
They’ve seen more casualties ——- 25 killed and more than 150 wounded —— than any similarly sized battalion in the nearly 10-year-old war.
In April, members of Camp Pendleton’s 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment will come home to their wives, girlfriends and children. They will bring with them what they saw, heard and felt in some of the heaviest fighting of the war.
Officials expect that some troops will have a hard time sorting all that out, so they’re assigning a host of mental health professionals to help them and their families in an intensive fashion never done before.
“Our goal is to make sure that when anyone goes forward and goes through what these guys have gone through, it not be at the expense of their families or their own mental health,” said Rear Adm. C. Forrest Faison III, commander of Navy Medicine West and Naval Medical Center San Diego.
Military officials say the unit’s psychological recovery from the carnage is as crucial as its physical health. What those specialists provide in the coming weeks, Faison said, may become a new standard for post-combat care in the Marine Corps.
“The 3/5 has gotten a lot of attention, and we’re going to continue that,” Faison said. “When they come back, we’ll embed mental health professionals with them. We’re surging people to Camp Pendleton in ways we’ve never done before because we want to make sure we are meeting their needs.”
Faison said the goal is to intervene before troops develop post-traumatic stress disorder or act out in a destructive manner.