KENNEDY

PROVIDENCE — Despite growing awareness of post-traumatic stress disorder, the military has failed to incorporate activities in basic training that prepare troops for the gruesome and terrifying realities of the battlefield, U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy said yesterday.

In a speech outside the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Providence, Kennedy said the incidence of PTSD could be reduced by exposing troops to simulated combat experiences before they are deployed.

Kennedy’s legislation for making troops “battle mind ready” — known as the Psychological Kevlar Act — was included in the most recent defense budget and requires the secretary of defense to institute preventative measures addressing PTSD.

Yesterday, Kennedy said the bill would result in greater use of combat footage and virtual reality technology by the Department of Defense for the “desensitization” of soldiers and Marines.

It also calls for educating soldiers and officers about mental diseases to assist in self-diagnosis and eliminate any stigma that would discourage a soldier from requesting medical care.

“We do so much to protect our soldiers through body armor,” Kennedy said, “we need to take further steps to protect their minds.”

PTSD is the “signature wound of Iraq and Afghanistan,” Kennedy added in his speech on Victory Day, commemorating the defeat of the Japanese in World War II. “It’s time our Department of Defense mounts an aggressive attack on this disease.”

One in every six Iraq veterans will experience symptoms of PTSD, Kennedy said. Of the troops who have sought government medical help after serving in Afghanistan or Iraq, 37 percent are expected to be diagnosed with a mental disorder, he said.

In Rhode Island, about 2,500 members of the military have been treated at the Providence VA Medical Center after fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan.

As many 800 — nearly one in three — required mental-health services, according to Michele Jackson, chief of patient services at the VA medical center.

As PTSD has become more common nationally, the military has directed greater resources to treatment, Kennedy said.

Earlier this month, for example, the Army created a “chain-teaching” program to help soldiers and their relatives identify the symptoms of PTSD.

Beginning Aug. 31, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs will operate a 24-hour, national suicide hot line.

“Combat is inherently brutal and difficult, and it impacts humans in different ways,” Gen. George Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, said in a recent statement. “We must aggressively work [on] research, prevention and treatment of these injuries and encourage soldiers and their families to seek treatment.”

In Rhode Island, Jackson said, VA medical center staff have begun hosting post-deployment meetings with troops to encourage the reporting of PTSD.

“It’s been a big effort, as opposed to prior wars,” Jackson said yesterday. “We have had a lot of effort to make sure they are aware of what the symptoms are and that they get the appropriate care.”

In his speech, Kennedy praised efforts at early detection of PTSD, and he said Congress had appropriated money for improved mental-health services for veterans. (Those efforts, he said, have been stymied by staffing shortages at VA hospitals, prompting an effort by Kennedy to grant some veterans access to private psychiatrists.)

The military, however, is “lagging behind” in developing strategies to prevent PTSD, Kennedy said.

Though the Psychological Kevlar Act relates to veterans, Kennedy says it could aid his effort to transform mental-health care for civilians, as well.

Improvements in the prevention and treatment of mental illness among troops will raise awareness of mental-health problems in other populations, Kennedy said yesterday.

That could bolster legislative efforts to compel insurers to improve coverage of mental-health care, he said.

“The veterans have been our battering ram to knock down the stigma,” Kennedy said. “If big, strong veterans, the archetypal heroes in our society, can suffer from psychological wounds, then it brings general acceptance in the society.”

bgedan@projo.com