The president supports the troops? Not so much.
If you don’t want to be angry and depressed, stop reading right now. The Washington Post has a very disturbing piece about how the VA is treating — or failing to treat — Iraq veterans who suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder:
Army Spec. Jeans Cruz helped capture Saddam Hussein. When he came home to the Bronx, important people called him a war hero and promised to help him start a new life. The mayor of New York, officials of his parents’ home town in Puerto Rico, the borough president and other local dignitaries honored him with plaques and silk parade sashes. They handed him their business cards and urged him to phone.
But a “black shadow” had followed Cruz home from Iraq, he confided to an Army counselor. He was hounded by recurring images of how war really was for him: not the triumphant scene of Hussein in handcuffs, but visions of dead Iraqi children.
(snip)
At a low point, he went to the local Department of Veterans Affairs medical center for help. One VA psychologist diagnosed Cruz with post-traumatic stress disorder. His condition was labeled “severe and chronic.” In a letter supporting his request for PTSD-related disability pay, the psychologist wrote that Cruz was “in need of major help” and that he had provided “more than enough evidence” to back up his PTSD claim. His combat experiences, the letter said, “have been well documented.”
None of that seemed to matter when his case reached VA disability evaluators. They turned him down flat, ruling that he deserved no compensation because his psychological problems existed before he joined the Army. They also said that Cruz had not proved he was ever in combat. “The available evidence is insufficient to confirm that you actually engaged in combat,” his rejection letter stated.
Yet abundant evidence of his year in combat with the 4th Infantry Division covers his family’s living-room wall. The Army Commendation Medal With Valor for “meritorious actions . . . during strategic combat operations” to capture Hussein hangs not far from the combat spurs awarded for his work with the 10th Cavalry “Eye Deep” scouts, attached to an elite unit that caught the Iraqi leader on Dec. 13, 2003, at Ad Dawr.
In Vietnam, as many as 30 percent of all combat of combat troops became afflicted with post traumatic stress disorder (according to the National Institute of Mental Health). Current studies indicate that at least 17 percent of soldiers returning from Iraq are suffering from PTSD (this number is likely to rise, unfortunately, as more Iraq veterans are diagnosed with the disorder — the American Psychological Association estimates that about a quarter of Iraq combat vets suffer from some psychological disorder).
In light of all of this, does it really make sense to close the psych ward at the Candaigua veterans’ facility? The rationale for closing it is that veterans could go to Buffalo or Syracuse instead to seek treatment. The story of Jeans Cruz may be instructive here:
Veterans Affairs will spend $2.8 billion this year on mental health. But the best it could offer Cruz was group therapy at the Bronx VA medical center. Not a single session is held on the weekends or late enough at night for him to attend.
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This is abhorrent. Also, the military atmosphere makes it unlikely that soldiers who actually are in need of psychological services actually seek them because they are seen as weak. We’re deemed unpatriotic for dissent but the true lackof patriotism is found in failing to help our soldiers recover from the war Bush ordered.