October 2, 2010

Random Soapbox for Saturday 10/2/10

I don't mean to go off on a rant here, but ...

... in the business that is the war machine, we need a little more of the "stand up and deliver" from the DoD for those veterans dealing with all of they've seen and survived "over there". I recognize that PTSD is a modern understanding of the side-effects of war (and even that phrasing sounds way too clinical for the horrors involved in these conflicts), but when the expose hit that there was a tendency to discharge those who served for personality disorders over diagnosing them with PTSD because (follow the money trail here) personality disorders were deemed a pre-existing condition and therefore excused the government from providing follow up health care, all of us should have been in an uproar.

Thanks to advances in modern medicine, more and more soldiers are surviving who would have died in previous battles -- which simply increases the amount of after-care we must provide to those permanently changed with TBIs or PTSD symptoms.

Don't take the easy way out of this obligation, DoD, as those with whom you're dealing most certainly didn't! Shame on you and shame on us for not decrying your practices earlier or more loudly!

THE RECENT NEWS STORY:
http://www.stripes.com/blogs/stripes-central/stripes-central-1.8040/personality-disorder-discharge-problems-persist-1.118432

FROM A VETERAN's GROUP's POV:
http://www.swords-to-plowshares.org/newsDetails?id=226

SUPPORT OPERATION HELMET:
http://www.operation-helmet.org/

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