I've been absent and I apologize to my 4 readers for that :-). I'm actually in the final drafting stage of my thesis. I can't believe it - I imagine this is what giving birth, watching your child grow and then having them leave home is like. When I handed the draft to my professor this morning it was with a sigh of relief but also with some trepidation...hard to explain really.
The flip side of this is how emotionally difficult this has really turned out to be. To read almost every day about how we are basically throwing a whole generation of men and women away is beyond overwhelming. You have these people who basically sit at the top of the food chain and decide who gets service and who doesn't. It's shameful and I don't know how these people sleep at night. Here are some facts that I've recently become aware of:
* One in four suicides in South Dakota is a veteran
*Although a soldier may present with many different issues, they will only get rated by the Army on one of these and it probably won't be the most severe issue
* "Personality Disorder" discharges have increased 40% in the Army since the invasion of Iraq.
* Surgeon General Gale Pollock is a LIAR - first she said her office thoroughly and thoughtfully went through 295 cases of personality disorder discharges and that they were all diagnosed correctly. When pushed she admitted that there had only been one reviewer. This man was the author of a memo that actually encouraged doctors to "get rid of dead wood" meaning soldiers that couldn't perform due to emotional injury. When pressed a little more by Congress she admitted that there was never a review done at all.
*The VA's inaccuracy is at an all time high - 81% of claims filed in 2006 were re-opened for appeal.
*The current disability payment rating system was set up in 1945
*Last year over 10 million dollars that was earmarked for Mental Health services within the VA didn't get used. People are still waiting as long as 6 months for an initial appointment.
*27% of Army personnel found medically unfit for duty between 2000 and 2006 were assigned 0% disability ratings - that's 13646 soldiers found too disabled for military service but not disabled enough to receive any military benefits.
The VA is a mess - and there have been plenty of commissions to study just how much of a mess but no actual work has been done on fixing it.
It's clear to me that the military is eating their own - they live in their own world of "honor, courage and suck it up" and it's sickening.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - if we can't treat them we shouldn't send them. It's really that simple.
If anyone thinks I'm wrong I'd love to hear from you. Maybe I've misinterpreted the whole mess? Somehow I really don't think so.
4 comments:
It's fucked because the government is in charge, plain and simple. Ever see anything to run properly when the politicians get involved.
Don't forget, any dollar they spend on helping people recover and get their lives back together ... is a dollar less that they have to spend on bombs
In public high-school teaching here in Ontario, the main use of long-term work disability benefits is to handle work-triggered mental illness.
Also, an MSF person once said to me that the intensity of war requires that people be rotated and have rest periods: it really reduces the long-term stress effects. That's an administrative thing which could be easily taken care of if there were the political will.
This really is sad. And they wonder why enlistment is so low. These young men know that if they do get hurt, they are going to get pushed to the side when they come back to the states.
What a fucked up country this has become.
I hope that we can turn things around soon.
Post a Comment