Salon.com > Camp Lejeune

A predictable suicide at Camp Lejeune

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:54:00 +0000

Marine Sgt. Tom Bagosy stepped out of his black GMC Sierra pickup and onto the gray, speckled pavement of McHugh Boulevard, a busy thoroughfare in the heart of Camp Lejeune, N.C. He held a pistol in his right hand.

The military police car that had pulled him over idled on the shoulder a safe distance behind him. The midday traffic stopped. Bagosy stood for a moment on the warm pavement under a cloudless May sky. Then he raised the pistol, pointed it to the right side of his throat just below his jaw, and pulled the trigger.

The bullet sliced through his jugular vein, traveled through his skull and exited near the top left side of his head. He crumpled down in the road. Even if the bullet had failed to rip through his brain, shooting through the jugular was solid insurance. He would have bled out in minutes anyway.

Bagosy, 25, who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, had become another statistic in the war-fatigued military and its steadily escalating suicide rate. Last year, 52 Marines committed suicide. The suicide rate among Marines has doubled since 2005, and the Corps has the highest suicide rate in the military. The circumstances of Bagosy's death, however, provide a particularly poignant case study in what many critics say is the military's inadequate response to that suicide crisis.

Joint Commission official visits Camp Lejeune

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 23:01:00 +0000

The Joint Commission, the nonprofit healthcare accrediting organization that inspects the quality of patient treatment at hospitals, has dispatched an official to assess potential problems at Naval Hospital Camp Lejeune.

"Yes, we do have a surveyor on site," said Elizabeth Zhani, spokeswoman for the commission, confirming that one of its officials was at Camp Lejeune on Friday.

Zhani wouldn't divulge details on just what the commission was investigating, but confirmed that the review was based on a specific complaint about patient care at the hospital. "We go in and we assess the healthcare organizations according to our standards related to patient safety and quality of care," Zhani said. "We did receive some information that led us to conduct the survey on site today." She added only that this review was focused on "assessing patient needs, planning care treatment and services, providing care treatment and services, and coordinating care treatment and services."

All’s well at Camp Lejeune, Navy says

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:16:00 +0000

Rep. Walter Jones is rejecting new claims by the Navy that all is well with mental health care for Marines back from war at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

In an interview last week, the North Carolina Republican told Salon that his office is flooded by complaints about Marines receiving poorly managed mental health care. Many of the complaints echo those made public by Dr. Kernan Manion, before the psychiatrist was fired from Camp Lejeune. Marines say they face harassment or disciplinary action at Camp Lejeune when their underlying problems lead to troubling behavior, instead of getting the help they need.

“I’ve gotten new information,” Jones said about the reports coming in to his office. He described an "explosion" of suicides and violence among returning Marines. He said years of straining to maintain a fighting force while troops go through multiple combat deployments has contributed to the emergence of a toxic military culture of hostility and retribution. "We are breaking the military," Jones worried. He asked for an investigation into Manion’s termination -- and the Pentagon has committed to doing it.

House Republican asks for probe of Navy whistle-blower’s firing

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:04:00 +0000

A House Republican wants a new, high-level, independent probe into the firing and alleged smearing of a psychiatrist who blew the whistle on what he says was poorly managed mental health care for Marines back from war at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

North Carolina Rep. Walter Jones also says the psychiatrist who worked there, Dr. Kernan Manion, might have been right about his complaints in the first place.

Jones wrote Secretary of Defense Robert Gates Jan. 25 expressing “serious concerns” about the Navy’s own, completed investigation into Manion’s case and calling for a new review by the Defense Department inspector general.

“I am compelled to request an additional investigation by the Department of Defense IG’s office,” Jones wrote Gates, insisting that the new probe be kept out of the Navy’s hands. “I believe this should be a priority, given the additional strain our country is placing on our service members during this time of war.”

See Manion’s before and after personnel records

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 02:01:00 +0000

First set starts here

Second set starts here

Navy supervisor doctored whistle-blower’s records

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 02:01:00 +0000

Internal documents and e-mails show that Navy officials unfavorably doctored a psychiatrist’s performance record after he blew the whistle on what he said was dangerously inept management of care for Marines suffering combat stress at Camp Lejeune, N.C. The internal correspondence, obtained by Salon, also includes an order to delete earlier records praising the work of the psychiatrist, Dr. Kernan Manion, who was fired last September after lodging his complaints.

Now top Navy officials are tangled up in the blackball campaign. Soon after Manion was fired, Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., asked the Pentagon about Manion’s concerns about healthcare at Camp Lejeune. In a Dec. 17 letter to Jones, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus panned Manion’s ethics and professionalism, presumably based on information Mabus received about Manion from Camp Lejeune.

But Salon has obtained internal Navy documents and correspondence that suggest officials at Camp Lejeune altered Manion’s favorable personnel records after he went public with his concerns, adding new, derogatory remarks similar to some of the information in Mabus’ letter to Jones.

Camp Lejeune whistle-blower fired

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 02:01:00 +0000

Last April, two Marines at Camp Lejeune predicted to a psychiatrist that some Marine back from war was going to "lose it." Concerned, the psychiatrist asked what that meant. One of the Marines responded, "One of these guys is liable to come back with a loaded weapon and open fire."

They weren't talking about Marines suffering from a tangle of mental and religious angst, like news reports suggest haunted the alleged Fort Hood shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. The risk they reported at Camp Lejeune was broader and systemic. Upon returning home, troops suffering mental health problems were getting dumped into an overwhelmed healthcare system that responded ineptly to their crises, the men reported, and they also faced harassment from Marine Corps superiors ignorant of the severity of their problems and disdainful of those who sought psychiatric help.

As Dr. Kernan Manion investigated the two Marines' claims about conditions at the North Carolina military base, the largest Marine base on the East Coast, he found they were true. Manion, a psychiatrist hired last January to treat Marines coming home from war with acute mental problems, warned his superiors of looming trouble at Camp Lejeune in a series of increasingly urgent memos.