By Ariana Pekary, producer
The men and women who knowingly endanger their lives to serve our nation are heroes and should be treated as such. The fact that they are being denied medical care for wounds they endured while in combat is beyond comprehension (unless, of course, you factor in that the medical care not paid by the military and department of veterans affairs saves them upwards of $12 billion dollars). Read the details in Joshua Kors’ three part series, found here on his web site. You can also join the Facebook page which currently has almost 4,500 members.
Also, support the veterans through these non-profit groups, Veterans for Common Sense and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.
Don’t forget that the most tragic consequence of not getting proper healthcare to our veterans is suicide. In late April, Army Times reported that every day, eighteen veterans take their own lives. “Access to care appears to be a key factor, officials said, noting that once a veteran is inside the VA care program, screening programs are in place to identify those with problems, and special efforts are made to track those considered at high risk, such as monitoring whether they are keeping appointments.”
But if soldiers are being denied health care, that leaves them vulnerable to PTSD and depression. It seems to be an inevitable (but unnecessary) downward spiral for those who risked their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I was a psychiatric corpsman in the Army 40 years ago, and have worked in mental health for most of the years since. I believe that most people who truly have a personality disorder would be unable to make it through basic training. The American Psychiatric Association defines personality disorder as, "an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the culture of the individual who exhibits it". If adequate screening were done prior to enlistment, most persons with a personality disorder would be denied entry into the service. But I guess the all volunteer military needs warm bodies and doesn’t care much who they are. The VA uses various dodges to deny veterans PTSD disability claims. Denial due to a personality disorder is just the latest denial strategy. A number of years ago, a strategy was to deny the PTSD diagnosis unless it was made by a physician employed by the VA. Another dodge was to tell claimants that their service records couldn’t be located and might have been destroyed by the 1973 National Archives fire in St. Louis. By some miracle, many of those records were located elsewhere when claimants pressed the issue
It’s interesting that we can use deficit spending to wage wars, but don’t have enough money to compensate the people who fight them.