The attack at Fort Hood, Texas on Nov. 5 was a tragedy and a wake-up call.

The United States government has for too long been lax about fulfilling its responsibility to our servicemen and women.

While veterans do receive benefits, soldiers on active duty still do not seem to be getting the psychiatric help they need after experiencing the horrors of war.

Not enough attention is being paid to how the war affects soldiers psychologically while they are in the field.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have resulted in the largest number of non-combat related deaths in American military history.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the U.S. Army reported that there have been five times as many suicides in Iraq than the Gulf War, and the current suicide rate for active duty soldiers is 11 percent higher than during the Vietnam War.

The lack of a draft and having an all-volunteer military has presented an unfortunate situation in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Many soldiers are forcibly sent back for multiple tours of duty and forced to relive experiences that many of us could never imagine.

There has been a stigma in the military that a soldier is weak if they seek psychiatric help, which is an extension of the general American stigma that existed for many years that a person is mentally unstable or psychotic if they seek psychiatric help.

Floyd Meshad, president of the National Veterans Foundation, said in an article for the LA Times, “We have a system that has a catch-22, and it’s time the military faced it. These soldiers would like to see a therapist. But there must be a way where it can be confidential.”

The Real Warriors program, initiated by the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, states on its Web site: “Campaign combats the stigma associated with seeking psychological health care and treatment and encourages service members to increase their awareness and use these resources.”

The LA Times reported that the Army devoted $500 million in July to study suicide and mental health issues in military personnel. This is a start.

The Army has started taking these problems seriously and has announced that it will begin instructing soldiers in emotional-resilience training in an effort to combat the battles that take place within the minds of the troops.

This is, again, just a start and more needs to be done to ensure that the men and women sent overseas are adequately prepared for what they will see and experience when they arrive in a war zone.

Far too many soldiers are ignoring their own symptoms or do not know how to identify them. In 2008, the Rand Corp., an independent research group, released a study stating that nearly 20 percent of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan reported having symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or depression, but only half of those sought treatment.

Now that it has been pointed out, this staggering dichotomy needs to be dealt with if we continue to send soldiers to fight for our country.

Our service members deserve better than the treatment we have been giving them, and they need to take their own mental health seriously. Many soldiers decline treatment from the military because they are afraid it will appear on their permanent records. There are alternatives for soldiers who fear contempt from within their ranks.

Programs like The Soldier Project offer free, confidential psychological treatment to all members of the military service community, including active duty soldiers, reserve soldiers, veterans and their family members.

It’s important that service members know about these programs and are encouraged to take advantage of them without fear of being chastised for seeking help.

If not, more events like the one at Fort Hood are inevitable.