Exclusive: The Army is putting mental health back in the closet

Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll shows he is fully onboard with turning back the clock on progress in the military and a simple memo stigmatizes mental health once again

There was brief hope

Since Pete Hegseth took over the Department of Defense it’s been one embarrassment after another from constant palace intrigue and backstabbing to his clear incompetence. Something which was so prominently displayed with the Signal fiasco when he confidently declared they were, “Clean on OPSEC” before the opening attacks on Yemen to a chat that included a reporter.

Meanwhile, the various service secretaries have been chugging along quietly under the radar of the national news. When Dan Driscoll was named as Trump’s nominee for Secretary of the Army there was some note of concern that he was a classmate and friend of J.D. Vance’s at Yale with little experience managing any large organizatins.

But, many at least took solace in his brief service in the Army and deployment to Iraq.

As journalists dug in to his past he had expressed concern with the politicization of our national security. A story in Military.com noted that in an interview with Jewish Insider when he was running for Congress in North Carolina in 2020, Driscoll said he was,

"terrified" of polarization in D.C., particularly when it comes to national security matters. "That's a place where, I think, as a veteran in particular, I am uniquely well-suited to work across the aisle to keep Americans safe.”

Since taking office he had generally avoided overt political actions but didn’t push back publicly against directives from Hegseth rolling back policies or firing appointees to boards or commands. But, hope remained.

That hope is now gone as in very short time he has leaped happily into the dismantling of the systems, traditions, and honor of the service. The most recent you may have heard about was his firing of a newly hired professor at West Point, Jen Easterly, thanks to Laura Loomer and memos that pulled down the way command boards have been conducted.

But, under the radar to the public, and even many that serve, has been the most disturbing to many of us who have fought the military for decades on the stigma surrounding mental health. This month Driscoll shockingly waived most outprocessing mental health evaluations for departing soldiers from the service.

It feels like a minor little change but for those who have tracked the devastating suicide and addiction epidemic in the Army, he just turned back the clock and the fall out will be paid for years.

Simple memo, big impact

Two weeks ago an active duty source in Army mental health care sent me a short memo that has dangerous consequences and impact for those who serve today, and future veterans.

I am protecting their identity for fear of backlash for speaking out.

It’s such a nondescript little document mostly made up of addressees and references to other regulations.

There is just a couple of actual guidance sentences around lots of addressees and references. The memo is titled simply, “SUBJECT: Mental Status Evaluations” with references to the various regulations that guide the process of a soldier leaving the Army.

The relevant lines are simply,

2. In accordance with my authority under 1.f., I hereby approve an exception to policy to reference 1.f. regarding the requirement for a mental status evaluation upon separation.

a. Reference 1.f., paragraph 1-33b states that in addition to medical examinations, mental status evaluations are required for Soldiers being processed for separation under chapters 10, 13, or 14 (sec III).

b. Other than for Soldiers defined in reference 1.a., paragraph (a)(1) and (2), the requirement for a mental status evaluation is waived.

3. The above exception does not affect any other existing requirements for physical or mental health assessments, including those prescribed by references 1.b. through 1.f.

4. All other provisions related to enlisted administrative separations under reference 1.f. remain unchanged.DAPE-ZA (AR 635-200a2)

5. This exception to policy will remain in effect for 12 months, unless superseding guidance is published, or it is other

So, it probably seems like no big deal. The references he is citing talk about the process for leaving the service and the requirement added only in the last few years of a mental health examination along with a physical examination.

So, what are Chapters 10, 13, and 14. Here is some info:

Chapter 10: Discharge in lieu of trial by court-martial

• Basis: A soldier facing court-martial charges that could result in a punitive discharge (bad-conduct or dishonorable discharge) can request an administrative discharge in exchange for avoiding trial.

Chapter 13: Unsatisfactory performance

• Basis: A soldier may be separated if it's determined they are unqualified for further military service due to unsatisfactory performance. This can include criteria such as being untrainable or a disruptive influence. It also includes cases of soldiers who, without medical limitations, fail two consecutive Army Physical Fitness Tests (APFTs) or are eliminated for cause from Noncommissioned Officer Education System (NCOES) courses, unless the commander decides to impose a bar to reenlistment.

Chapter 14: Misconduct

• Basis: This chapter encompasses a broad range of misconduct reasons for separation. These include:

  • Minor disciplinary infractions: A pattern of such infractions.

  • Pattern of misconduct: This can include discreditable involvement with civilian or military authorities, or conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline, including violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), Army Regulations, civil law, and time-honored customs and traditions.

  • Commission of a serious offense: A single act that could be punished by a punitive discharge under the UCMJ. This includes offenses like drug abuse, sexual offenses, domestic violence, assault, driving while intoxicated, dereliction of duty, disrespect, violation of a lawful order, maltreatment, false official statement, fraud/larceny/theft, reckless endangerment, communicating threats, extramarital sexual conduct (adultery), and fraternization.

  • Conviction by civil or foreign court:

  • Desertion and Absence Without Leave (AWOL)

Whew…that’s a lot. Essentially what this means is that soldiers that have been accused of misconduct in uniform, failing a physical fitness test, or a range of minor offenses can be kicked out of the Army by their commander. In the end these types of Chapters usually end in an Other than Honorable discharge which means in the eyes of the law you are not a “veteran” upon discharge.

That means you will get no veterans healthcare or benefits. You are just a civilian with a criminal record that often makes it hard to get jobs.

You are probably thinking, well, who cares? Clearly they are bad soldiers and this just means they can be processed out quicker to save the unit time being stuck with a malcontent or trouble maker on the books.

You would be wrong.

Some truth

For framework, many veterans advocates worked tirelessly for decades to get the military to recognize that mental health injuries and issues were as important as physical ones and manifested in different ways than a bum knee.

Through much of the Global War on Terror if a soldier had PTSD, depression, or developed addictions from their experiences they were more often than not treated as bad troops and punished for the problems that came out of their mental health issues.

If a soldier acted out with alcohol or marijuana, became too depressed to work effectively, or attempted suicide it was treated as a discipline problem and they were often punished and drummed out of the service.

We even developed a term for it all called “Bad Paper Discharges” that meant soldiers who had mental health issues that desperately needed treatment were instead treated like criminals to be disposed of as quickly as possible. This lead directly to the suicide crisis that we still wrestle with today.

We fought to get a military that is based on a “macho” sensibility of playing through the pain and never letting down the team to recognize that mental health injuries were as serious as physical. The goal was to get people help instead of sky high divorce rates, alcoholism, drug addiction, affairs, and domestic abuse as soldiers wrestled in secret with their challenges.

A big part of that was recognition that the veterans suicide crisis started in the military so adding a mental health evaluation to outprocessing along with physical checks would hopefully catch challenges with the difficult transition and help veterans before they were in crisis.

He just wiped that away for the very people who need it the most.

The impact of the change

With this new memo outprocessing mental health checks will essentially be only be mandatory among this population of soldiers who have seen a deployment in the last two years, have reported being sexually assaulted, or already have DOCUMENTED cases of PTSD or Traumatic Brain Injuries.

It seems like just a minor administrative change for the next year to Army outprocessing requirements. Except it’s really a big deal and will cause a lot of potential harm to soldiers who stepped up to serve their country and have found difficulties in service.

We know that in Pete Hegseth’s ‘Warrior’ DOD we can’t have “weak” people or, god forbid, “DEI hires” in the ranks. So, they have been on mission to purge anyone that doesn’t meet their perception of the warrior mindset. If you look at that list of reasons above for discharge under those three chapters you can see how they don’t want those people in uniform.

There is a RAND study out there that shows clearly that using these punitive discharges has always impacted black and brown soldiers far more than white ones. It’s a history of discrimination we have battled for years.

Now in the Hegseth military they see mental health issues as a weakness. This is why we have a suicide problem in the military and veterans communities.

Why the new parameters are wrong

First of all, the military is a mind bogglingly dangerous business even outside of combat. I lost more fellow aviators and friends in peacetime training, six in all of my 22-years of service, than in combat where two of my men were killed on a mission.

I assure you that those losses hurt just as much. Whether they were at war or in Hawaii or the Land Between the Lakes, death is death. So, saying that only soldiers who have been to war RECENTLY need mental health support is wrong.

It presumes only combat is the driver for mental health injuries. Let’s not even talk about how veterans only account for about 8% of PTSD in the United States so clearly, war isn’t the only source of the affliction.

Second, there is that ‘recently’ part. PTSD doesn’t have a timeline. I lost men in combat in 1991. I lost my wife and unborn child in 1994. My interpreter was beheaded on camera in 2004. My Iraqi partner was murdered in the clinic I built for him in 2011. My Iraqi mentee in the Joint Headquarters was assassinated on his doorstep. I muddled along in self pity, self destruction, and suicidal ideations for decades.

I was finally diagnosed with PTSD for the first time in 2018 and was given disability by the VA for it in 2024. As a student in grad school at Harvard, I went to the highly qualified psychologists and psychiatrists there when I reached my mental limit and was on the edge of disaster. We decided I was just depressed and stressed because it was hard and I was going directly back to Iraq when I graduated.

Not PTSD.

In addition, most soldiers with PTSD will often not know it, like me, and often deny it so they can continue to be part of the team. Same goes for Traumatic Brain Injury. Something that wasn’t even recognized as a thing until the last two decades at all. Many soldiers with TBI never know they have it. They have personality changes, mood shifts, and other issues and never even know why.

So, a senior leader or soldier with many years in the Army and multiple combat tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, or other places may have been successfully coping for all those years with PTSD or TBI. Finally, it catches up with them. They get caught in a DUI checkpoint, gain weight from eating their depression, fail a PT test at a school house, or blow their top at their family and get charged with domestic abuse.

The entire house of cards collapses.

A mental health evaluation at separation might catch them. Now it won’t.

So this arbitrary two-year deadline is ludicrous and has nothing to do with the mental health of the actual soldiers. It’s about kicking people out fast for the next year.

Another aspect is the framing of a reported sexual assault. If anyone knows anything about sexual assault it is almost never actually reported. In the military even less so. If a soldier is raped by a senior person they are often too scared to report it. If a male soldier is raped by another man they hide in shame.

More often than not they express their suffering in misconduct, discipline problems, or abuse of drugs and alcohol abuse that leads to the three types of Chapter actions above.

Again, the very people that desperately need mental health evaluations won’t get them in the name of speed to kicking them out.

Finally, the one year waiver. Why one year? We know they are eager to kick out all of the transgender service members as fast as possible. They are also blatantly politicizing the military and firing highly qualified soldiers of color and women.

Is this meant to give them a year to quickly flush as many soldiers as possible without delay? We don’t know. They certainly haven’t explained it that arbitrary number or is it simply a technique to get it on the books and simply extend it every year?

We don’t know.

I am worried because historically it’s a common practice for commanders at every level to simply ‘Chapter’ out “bad” soldiers as fast as possible to get rid of them and not address their underlying issues. Many chafed at the long outprocessing system with a shortage of mental health providers already.

Driscoll has just greenlighted them to go back to using the Chapter process as a way to get rid of their problems and wipe their hands of a problem child. We will again see this as a way to get rid of the old list of trouble makeers

They don’t care what happens once they are out of their hair inconveniencing them. They will also be the same tough guy veterans that do pushups and selfie videos decrying the “suicide epidemic” and wearing “No More 22-A-Day” t-shirts for the number of veterans that are estimated to kill themselves daily.

It’s actually 17 but that has not slowed down the branding.

Honoring their “brothers” that they lost when their own actions are the reasons they ended up lost in the first place.

What it really means

Simply put this means that those soldiers most likely to become veterans with suicidal ideations, addictions, or danger of falling into poverty and homelessness will be deprived of the opportunity to address their issues before being thrown out on the streets.

It will also mean less veterans for the VA to handle since they won’t qualify for any services at all. It will mean a rise in suicide and homelessness. More addicted veterans. More problems long term that so many have fought for decades to fix.

They don’t care. In the “lethal” new Department of Defense losers that suffer from that experience are weak and must be thrown out.

This is a dangerous move by the Army and must be rescinded. Convenience to boot people out shouldn’t override their health and future. This isn’t just about that soldier. It’s about their family, community, and the nation that will have to step up or lose them.

You can’t cry about the suicide epidemic on one hand and then act to make it worse on the other.

That’s what this simple memo does. It’s wrong.

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I have been a little quiet this week as I am on a short vacation visiting Olympic National Park with my youngest son. We have been going all day every day to see the far western side of the peninsula and the incredible sights to visit including a long drive to Cape Flattery yesterday. The westernmost point of the continental United States. The trip was well worth it. I will be back home Friday.

Cape Flattery on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington

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