WESTERN SKIES - October 4, 2005

*** OPERATION JUST ONE SOLDIER ***

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello

MARCUS (ON SPEAKER PHONE): Hello, this is Marcus calling.

WOMAN: Hi Marcus, we're just in the middle of describing the barriers to service, as far as... [fade under]

ERIC WHITNEY: About a month ago, several mental health professionals from around Colorado Springs gathered to talk about forming a new network to help soldiers in the Colorado Springs area. The meeting was organized by Andrew Pogany, a retired Gulf War veteran.

ANDREW POGANY: We're asking providers to provide free services, mental health care services to active duty service members, their families and also discharged veterans.

WHITNEY: Pogany works with the National Gulf War Resource Center, based in Washington, DC. Steve Robinson is its executive director. Robinson says the Center has heard from a lot of soldiers from the Colorado Springs area, and that it's obvious they need help.

STEVE ROBINSON: About a year and a half ago actually, I came out here to talk with soldiers who had called me in Washington, DC, based on Congressional testimony that we gave that indicated that the Department of Defense was slow to provide mental health care to returning combat veterans. And, the numbers of the calls were so great that I actually flew out to Colorado and met up with Andrew, and we went and talked to the soldiers. And they numbered in the hundreds. And we took that information, went back to Washington, DC, told the House Armed Services Committee about it, and they sent two senior staffers out here. But they didn't act on it, and so since that time, we've continued to receive the calls, continued to hear that there are problems, and so Andrew recognizing that it wasn't being addressed tried to find a solution and has developed this program.

WHITNEY: "This program" is called Operation Just One Soldier. And the Gulf War Resource Center's Robinson flew out to help launch it last Friday in the Springs. The idea is to get health care providers, counselors, therapists, chiropractors (basically anybody in the healing professions) to agree to care for just one soldier each, for free. Organizers say that so far about seventy-five providers have signed up to offer their services in the Colorado Springs area. They hope the idea will catch on nationwide.

One therapist said he and all the other providers he talked to jumped at the chance to give something back to the soldiers who are putting their lives on the line to protect the American way of life. Fort Carson, however, hasn't shown much enthusiasm for Operation Just One Soldier. Andrew Pogony.

POGONY: For two weeks I placed calls into them and I got no answers. Then the final phone call that I made to them, I got the answer that they're not interested in what it is that we're doing.

WHITNEY: A Fort Carson spokeswoman says the base has no official involvement with Operation Just One, and therefore couldn't comment on its activities.
Pogony says he's disappointed that Fort Carson hasn't gotten on board with the program, but he says he doesn't want the effort to be perceived as a knock on the base or the Army.

POGONY: We're not saying, and I have never said, that the Army is not providing services. The Army is providing services, but, Soldiers are reluctant to access them. And again, that is not my information. That is data that is given out by the Department of Defense. Soldiers are reluctant, not everybody, a certain percentage, so this program is designed to give an avenue to the ones that are reluctant, because they fear stigma, they fear ridicule, they don't want their careers to be impacted by seeking treatment for mental health issues. And it's purely designed to aid the Soldiers in their reintegration and return process when they come back.

Ultimately what this will do is it will produce healthier Soldiers. And ultimately what this means for the Army, or for Fort Carson if we want to talk about Fort Carson, is it will return healthy troops to the units. It's a force multiplier.

WHITNEY: Pogony says Operation Just One Soldier is about helping military people and their families, and he doesn't want to be about politics. But the organization did court support from Colorado Springs Mayor Lionel Rivera.

MAYOR LIONEL RIVERA: When they came and visited with me and discussed their program, reaching out to the Soldiers, trying to provide services to them on a pro bono basis, it sounded like a good idea to me.

WHITNEY: So Pogony and the Gulf War Resource Center's Robinson invited Mayor Rivera to come to the project's launch ceremony and read a proclamation declaring last Friday Combat Stress and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Awareness Day. Rivera initially agreed, but...

RIVERA: After returning from a weekend trip, and seeing the proclamation that they asked me to sign, I wasn't comfortable, nor could I verify some of the statements that were in the proclamation. So I did not feel like going forward with it.

WHINTEY: Rivera says he was uncomfortable with the proclamation's opening statement that "Initial signs imply that ongoing wars are likely to produce a new generation of veterans with chronic mental health problems associated with participation in combat."

RIVERA: Frankly I don't know whether or not that's true. I have no way of verifying that. There's a couple of other statements in the proclamation I have no way of verifying. So, again, I don't put my name on something unless I know the information is one hundred percent accurate.

WHITNEY: Pogony and Robinson say they sent Mayor Rivera information that backs up the opening statement of the proclamation. They say they also sent him material to support other proclamation language about how post traumatic stress negatively impacts families, increases sexual assault, and is best treated early.

RIVERA: Well, that's not accurate. They certainly did provide, I think, background information on one of the "whereas's" in the proclamation, but I could not verify the other information that was in there.

WHITNEY: Pogony sent Western Skies copies of what he says he sent the Mayor. One document appears to be an email from Fort Carson's command staff to sergeant majors reporting an increase in drug abuse and domestic violence on the base recently. Another document is a study from the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

But Steve Robinson says they were even willing to abandon any controversial language just to get the mayor on board.

ROBINSON: Let's find something that you can understand and support. Maybe something as simple as, "Today is combat stress awareness day, and I as the mayor support awareness for returning veterans," and we could have made it just that simple.

WHITNEY: Colorado Springs Mayor Lionel Rivera.

RIVERA: Yeah, they did offer me the option of writing my own proclamation and putting in there what I thought I'd feel comfortable with. But frankly, this is their claims, their statements, so they need to provide me the information I can look at.

WHITNEY: Mayor Rivera's claims don't wash with Steve Robinson, and he said he confronted him about it.

ROBINSON: "Why are you withdrawing your support? Has someone called you and told you to withdraw your support?" And he would not either verify or deny that he spoke with anyone, but he went back to the idea that he couldn't verify that these problems exist.

WHITNEY: I asked Mayor Rivera if anyone had contacted him and encouraged him to withdraw his support for Operation Just One Soldier.

RIVERA: Well, like I explained to Steve Robinson before, when I read his proclamation on Tuesday before the Friday that they were holding the press conference, I couldn't verify the information that was in the proclamation. And like I said before, I'm not going to sign something unless I am one hundred percent positive that the information someone's asking me to sign is accurate.

WHITNEY: Mayor Rivera says he, and Colorado Springs, have always backed community-based efforts to help local Soldiers. He says if health care providers in the area want to provide Soldiers services for free, their efforts might be better organized through a formal relationship with a specific military installation. He mentioned a similar effort being organized by the Colorado Psychological Association with Buckley Air Force Base in Denver.

As for Pogony, Robinson, and the National Gulf War Resource Center, they say they don't need the support of Fort Carson or Mayor Rivera to be successful, and they'll continue with their efforts. They said they signed up their first Solider last Friday, just after the conclusion of their kickoff meeting.