General says problems will be diagnosed before soldier's get home

After a yearlong deployment in Iraq focused in part on seizing weapons and capturing or killing insurgents, a group of Fort Carson soldiers is preparing for a new mission - a safe and healthy transition home.

For the first time, soldiers in the 4th Infantry Division will receive physical examinations and mental health screenings before they return from the battlefield in February and March, Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond said from Baghdad on Friday during a video conference call with reporters hosted by Fort Carson.

The goal: detecting mental and physical problems and scheduling treatment right away.

"We're not going to wait 30, 60, 90 days for the problems to rise up," Hammond said. "We're going to meet their needs. We don't try to put on them, ‘Well this is the Army. Pack your bags. Let's go, follow me.' That's not the way we're going to do it this time. We are going to sit down and be good listeners as leaders."

The news came on the day new allegations surfaced against a 4th ID soldier accused in a gruesome murder - one of six 4th ID soldiers charged or convicted in murders in the past two years.

Spc. Robert H. Marko, charged in the Oct. 10 rape and murder of Judillana Lawrence, 19, is facing additional allegations of raping a 14-year-old girl and a third woman, the New York Times reported, citing a confidential summary of a military investigation launched after the Lawrence case.

Typically, medical and mental health screening would be done soon after the soldiers redeploy, when they are less likely to take the examinations seriously, Hammond said.

"The problem is, everyone has one thing on their mind: They want them to go home," he said. "They'll take any shortcut to get home. If you tell them, ‘No, you got to spend all day tomorrow getting a physical, these soldiers will find a thousand reasons not to get that physical. Or it could be worse, (they) get it done so they can get it done and go home."

Maj. Chris Ivani, the division psychiatrist, said efforts to ensure soldiers receive needed mental health care have increased contacts between soldiers and mental health providers two- or threefold. There have been fewer suicides and fewer soldiers with mental health problems severe enough that they must be sent out of Iraq for treatment, he said.

Hammond, who reviewed the division's successes in seizing weapons and bolstering security, also unveiled a June 6 target date for when the last elements of 4th ID will leave Fort Hood, Texas, for Fort Carson.
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contact the writer: 636-0366 or lance.benzel@gazette.com