BernieHund: The Political Watchdog

Some months ago NPR presented a story about soldiers suffering PTSD returning to Fort Carson and other bases after military duty in Iraq.  The soldiers were sometimes being sent back to Iraq for a second tour without being evaluated or given the care they needed.  Initially, the bases disputed the story.

However, when soldiers began calling in to back up the charges against the military, the original song and dance given by representatives turned into the two-step, acknowledging a few errors and saying that some soldiers tried to use PTSD to avoid being sent back into the war zone.   

Most soldiers are probably not actively seeking the care they need because of being labeled weak, a sissy, or less than macho.  So, I’m guessing that while the Army tried to say that many soldiers looking for help were attempting to fake their way out of duty, many more didn’t seek help because no one wants to admit they have a problem, even when face to face with it.

We really shouldn’t leave it up to a soldier to self-diagnose.  How many people in the world suffer from mental issues and because of those very issues don’t believe they have a problem?  Or, how many people in the world are ashamed of being sick, physically or mentally? 

The Army, the Navy, the Marines and the Air Force should provide evaluations and follow-ups for all returning military service people.  Whether it’s PTSD or depression resulting from a family falling apart while the soldier was on his tour, it doesn’t matter.  The VA should be a first stop on the return of our service people.

Not so many years ago, a friend who had served in the first Iraq war died.  He returned home from his tour and went about his life for several months before developing a shortness of breath with rapid weight gain.  Now, I don’t know exactly what his final diagnosis was, but I know it took several years to get the military to admit that his condition was a direct result of his service in Iraq.  By that time, he had to be put on oxygen and could barely get around on his own.  By the time the VA decided the condition was their responsibility, he was a few months from death.

That was a physical condition that was visually obvious.  Now, we are dealing with PTSD that often comes with no visible signs of change.  Perhaps, only family or close friends notice a difference in behavior or personality.  And, most probably attribute it to adjusting to coming home from a war and reintegrating into society.  Well, that has to be hard enough but what about the visions of death, bodies blown apart before the soldier’s eyes, the sounds of rounds going off over and over again?  Who among us could exist in those conditions for a year or fifteen months, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and not be changed?

Many of the service people are young men and women, barely old enough to vote and many not old enough to buy beer in the states.  Parents talk about their college age kids like they are children.  Parents offer advice and check on the progress of their children when they get that first job straight out of college.  And yet, we expect our children, the same age as your college student to take a gun and walk through the streets of Baghdad, being ever watchful for a suicide bomber or an insurgent with a gun.  We expect these young people to patrol Iraq in vehicles that are not properly armored, ever alert for IED’s.  And, we expect these same kids, who went to their high school senior prom two or three years earlier not to be affected by the war experience.

We watch on the television as a student shoots and kills fellow students on college campuses or a young man who has become unbalanced through life experiences shoot and kill shoppers in a mall.  And, we sit in front of our television sets and feel sympathy for the fallen innocents and pity for the family of the shooter.  We talk for a couple of days about what could have been done to prevent such a horrible incident from taking place.  And, we are horror struck.

Yet, when our soldiers return from twelve or fifteen months of twenty-four hour a day alert, we expect them to just go about life as normal.  Most mothers remind their college age kids to get plenty of rest, to take care of themselves, and to eat right, and by all means be careful on the highway.  Many of the returning veterans are the same age as these kids.  But, during the course of their days, they don’t get plenty of rest.  They try to take care of themselves, their buddies, and Iraqi citizens.  They try to eat right, but it isn’t mom’s home cooked meal.  And, be careful on the highways?  Be as careful as they can, there isn’t much resistance to an IED.

So when our soldiers… our veterans…. come home, they take a number if they are lucky and get in line at a VA hospital.  Well, for some of these veterans, a VA facility may be miles and miles away.  It isn’t like running down to your local emergency room when you cut your finger.  And, when they get into the VA chances are they have been shamed into hiding the mental images that haunt them.  I’m not suggesting that it is intentional.  I am suggesting that “Army tough” applies to mental health as well as physical health.  And, the health care for the mental stresses goes without notice or without care.  Or, they get to take a number.

According to an NPR report today:

A federal judge begins hearing testimony in a lawsuit filed by the California-based Disability Rights Advocates against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs on Monday in San Francisco. The suit seeks to force the VA to provide immediate mental health services to suicidal veterans.

The VA sought to have the suit tossed out on the grounds that the VA has the right to prioritize its health care without outside “civilian” interference.

The judge — a conservative World War II veteran himself — overruled the VA on that point and, starting Monday, he will hear testimony from experts on PTSD and other veterans’ mental health issues.

Let’s hear it for the judge.  He gets a big “HOOOOO-AH!”  It’s time the VA stop thinking that it is separate from the people, the citizens.  It’s our tax dollars that support the Veteran’s Administration.  A service man or woman is still a citizen, and if anything, a citizen who deserves more respect, not less, than those of us who sit and cheer.  So, while the VA is happy to send the wounded to a rat and mold infested building at Walter Reed to wait for health care and then lose track of the patients or take a year to eighteen months to get the patient the care he or she needs, maybe it’s time for “civilian interference.”

Our service people have been treated like third world citizens long enough.  These human beings who were brave enough to go into the heat of battle deserve the best… not good, but the best… healthcare available, and that includes mental health care.  We cannot continue to allow the VA or the government to use the people until they have used them up and then toss them onto the trash heap.  If it takes civilian interference, that may be the best thing we can do for our military.

And, for the judge who is willing to listen…. one more “Hooooooo-ah!”