Expect 800,000 PTSD veterans out of Iraq and Afghanistan

Iraq veterans deserve more than post-combat negligence
By Stacy Bannerman

Special to The Times


WHEN the appalling conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center were made public, accompanied by grim photos of moldy walls, crumbling ceilings and dirty, bug-infested rooms, it sparked a national outcry and immediate action. Unfortunately, it has been comparatively quiet about the nearly 300 Iraq war veterans who have committed suicide, and thousands more who have attempted it.

America cannot afford the price of failing to care for veterans with combat-related mental-health problems. The systemic breakdown in mental-health care is so profound that military families and veterans groups have filed lawsuits against the Department of Veterans Affairs. Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth have filed a class-action suit on behalf of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who are dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The suit claims there are as many as "800,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans said to suffer or risk developing PTSD." The groups charge the VA with collaborating with the Pentagon to avoid paying PTSD benefits.
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Last year, it was about 400,000 we were worried about. The beginning of this year, it was 700,000 we were worried about. Now add in at least 100,000 more. Why? Are you shocked? You shouldn't be and the government shouldn't be either. After all it was already predicted in 1978 when the DAV commissioned a study showing Vietnam produced 500,000 diagnosed cases, as well as acknowledging the numbers would rise as more information came out and the symptoms of PTSD grew stronger. Even back then they knew PTSD did not always show up right away. So why is it no one was ready for what was to come now? They didn't care.

It needs to be pointed out as much as possible that when the Army did their own study finding the redeployments increased the risk of developing PTSD by 50%, this should have sounded a shrieking warning bell across the country and emergency measures should have been driven in overdrive, but no one did anything about it. As a matter of fact, the Bush administration cut back funding, along with Nicholson, in 2005, with two occupations producing more wounded minds daily. To have their lives still at risk after their tours have ended is sickening, is wrong, and there is absolutely no excuse for any of this appalling lack of preparedness. You would think that a nation able to fund hundreds of billions of dollars over and over again on emergency basis, would be able to place the same sense of urgency when it comes to saving their lives, their futures and their families, but they do not. You would think that knowing what the experts have been saying all along would hold more weight than rhetoric and slogans when it comes to the seriousness of this, but it didn't. The problem is they didn't think and they didn't care enough to think about any of our troops or what would happen to them when they became veterans or wounded veterans needing care.

Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com