Sunday, Sept. 9, 2007 | 1:22 a.m.
The military is not yet commenting about the death in Iraq of Army Pfc. Travis Virgadamo, other than to say he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at a post outside of Baghdad.
Family members in Pahrump, however, are outspoken about what they think contributed to the death of the 19-year-old soldier.
Katie O'Brien, Virgadamo's grandmother, says she thinks Army commanders knew he was suicidal. She told the Las Vegas Sun that Virgadamo had experienced bouts of anxiety and depression dating to his boot-camp days in 2005.
"He didn't want to be there. He was so scared. Then they put him on Prozac," she said.
Rebecca McHugh, the late soldier's aunt, says bluntly, "They gave him Prozac and sent him back to Iraq."
A soldier who informed the family on Aug. 30 of Virgadamo's death said the Army will conduct a complete investigation. The family is rightfully insisting that the investigation include details about what the Army knew of Virgadamo's mental condition before it assigned him to combat duty, and how that condition was treated.
A full accounting of how the Army screens soldiers before and during their combat duties, and how it treats soldiers found to be suffering acute mental illness, is long overdue.
Recent reforms in military health care have improved mental health treatment for those returning from combat, but what happens when soldiers exhibit mental illness before their tours are completed? Is it common for them to be prescribed an antidepressant and sent back into battle?
From childhood, Virgadamo had talked of being a soldier or police officer, his family said. He joined the Nellis Cadet Squadron as a teen growing up in Las Vegas.
His perspective changed when he was in uniform for real. Deployed to Iraq in May of this year, he was allowed a 15-day leave in July. His family thinks the leave was granted to help him deal with his war-related anxiety. Family members and friends said he told them he did not want to return to the war, and that he had received psychiatric counseling from the military while stationed stateside and in Iraq.
Virgadamo also told family and friends he had been prescribed - presumably by military psychiatrists - antidepressants , including Prozac. This is a drug that has been linked to suicidal tendencies, especially in children and young adults.
Such a prescription would be consistent with what The Hartford Courant, a Connecticut newspaper, reported last year in a lengthy investigative story. "The military relies increasingly on antidepressants, some with potentially dangerous side effects, to keep troops with known psychological problems in the war zone," the paper reported.
Las Vegas Sun reporters Ed Koch and Mary Manning have written several stories about Virgadamo over the past week. In addition to interviewing his family and friends, they talked with a number of medical experts, including Las Vegas psychiatrist Mark Collins.
Anyone on Prozac needs to be checked regularly for 90 days before being "returned to combat - the most stressful of all situations," Collins said.
Did the Army, whose suicide rate is the highest in almost 30 years, know that Virgadamo was suicidal? Should it have known? Did it put him on a regimen of antidepressants? If so, did it follow the protocol outlined by Dr. Collins?
The Virgadamo family needs to know the answers to these and other questions. And so does the public.
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