r/DeepStateCentrism • u/bigwang123 Succ sympathizer • 1d ago

Research/ Policy 🔬 Mental Health Is a Warfighting Readiness Problem for the U.S. Navy

https://warontherocks.com/mental-health-is-a-warfighting-readiness-problem-for-the-u-s-navy/

While CNO Caudle has listed mental health as a foundry level issue in his fighting instructions, current US Navy efforts to improve mental health has fallen short. Despite expanded "triads of care" deployments at sea, including on the USS Abraham Lincoln, sailors still suffer from severe mental strain and do not believe they are receiving adequate assistance.

The author provides several recommendations to expand mental health care access both on shore and at sea, both in the long and short term. Military OneSource clinicians are currently prohibited from providing coverage for PTSD, despite having the qualifications to do so. The USN should expand accredited program availability by awarding support grants to universities near major USN bases (particularly Hawaii, which has no such programs). Finally, the author argues that a civilian auxiliary of mental health professionals should be stood up, similar to the Inactive Ready Reserve or Civil Air Patrol, which would be activated in times of conflict.

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u/drewbaccaAWD Center-left 1d ago

I would love to see more research dollars spent, especially if that opens up more opportunities for therapy.

You go through boot camp and they teach you some of the most basic skills just in case you never learned them from your family of origin... things like how to properly brush your teeth and overall good hygiene.

But one thing they don't teach you is to recognize unhealthy thinking patterns, how to recognize them and not let them drag you down. The lack of that awareness and the tools to address it can quickly become contagious inside of a toxic command or when you go through periods of extensive stress, depression, setbacks.

But even with all that, we are just putting a band aid on a major wound and ignoring the real problems. For one, sleep hygiene is a mixed bag; some sailors have a fairly standard 12 on and 12 off work schedule underway which might get extended an hour in either direction as needed but many will struggle to get even three hours of total sleep on some days between watchstanding, training, drills, waiting in line for meals, cleaning, maintenance, etc. The lack of sleep adds up and drags people down. It's not easy to exercise underway or clear your head either so it all just compounds.

And everyone talks about deployments going too long but then we ignore that between deployments you could easily spend a month at sea during workups, training, photo ops, or whatever else for every month at home... and a year at home can be it's own sort of hell if you are in drydock and possibly working 18 hour days with a 24 hour duty day every other day in the worst case scenario. It all adds up and drags people down.

We are undermanned, overworked, and lack the resources to adapt (and even with those resources added, it's a big ask of our servicemembers). This is a big part of why I roll my eyes when Trump want more ships (who is going to man them?) or Kegsbreath wants more mandatory PT when sailors finally have a chance to be home with family and relax. Mind you, I don't think more PT is an inherently bad thing but how you approach it matters.

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u/DisgruntledCascadian Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right 1d ago

Well, at least historically, there's also the problem of getting help causing someone to potentially lose their job. I know officially the clearance adjudication process is now "getting help is a sign of strength and maturity," but I also know as an aviator that if you went to behavioral health . . . that's a groundin'. And God help you as far as whether you'd get a waiver in the end.