{"id":1143,"date":"2009-04-23T09:31:03","date_gmt":"2009-04-23T15:31:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/?p=1143"},"modified":"2010-02-24T14:16:22","modified_gmt":"2010-02-24T21:16:22","slug":"support-the-post-deployment-health-assessment-act-of-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/?p=1143","title":{"rendered":"Support the Post Deployment Health Assessment Act of 2009!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Urge your Senator to support S.711, the &#8220;Post Deployment  Health Assessment Act of 2009&#8221;<\/strong> <strong> <\/strong> <strong>Background<\/strong> The mental health needs of the 1.64 million troops who have  served in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to make headlines.\u00a0 Over 18 percent of  troops who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan, nearly 300,000 troops, have  symptoms of post traumatic stress or major depression.\u00a0 Another 19 percent have  experienced a possible traumatic brain injury.\u00a0 Further, only 53 percent of  service members with PTSD or depression sought help over the past year.\u00a0 The  suicide rate among our military is at its highest point in 26 years and our male  veterans are twice as likely to commit suicide than civilians.\u00a0 Additionally,  the stigma that has long been present in the military creates a situation where  mental health needs are not adequately tended to by professionals.\u00a0 \u00a0 Senator Max Baucus recently introduced S. 711 to implement a  mental health screening program throughout the military. \u00a0This legislation is  based on the premiere program in the country for caring for Montana National  Guard members suffering from PTSD, which was extraordinarily successful. \u00a0S. 711  will require mental health screenings before deployment, upon return home, and  every six months for two years.\u00a0 This basic and effective program will help  safeguard the mental health of our entire military.\u00a0\u00a0 <strong> <\/strong> <strong>Action Requested<\/strong> Please contact your Senator and ask him or her to support this  critical legislation. \u00a0If your Senator is already a cosponsor of S. 711, you can  send him or her a thank you note.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Urge your Senator to support S.711, the &#8220;Post Deployment Health Assessment Act of 2009&#8221; Background The mental health needs of the 1.64 million troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to make headlines.\u00a0 Over 18 percent of troops &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/?p=1143\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[161,162,58,65,143,28,119,99],"tags":[129,125,126,120,123,175,165,122,124],"class_list":["post-1143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-combat-stress","category-combat-trauma","category-dept-of-veteran-affairs","category-overcoming-combat-traums","category-preventing-combat-suicide","category-ptsd","category-suicide-prevention","category-veterans-issues","tag-benefiting-veterans","tag-depression","tag-likely-to-commit-suicide","tag-new-senate-bill","tag-post-deployments-health-assessment-act","tag-preventing-combat-suicide","tag-ptsd","tag-s711","tag-troops-served-in-iraq-and-afghanistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1143"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1879,"href":"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143\/revisions\/1879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sgtbrandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}