More than 240,000 deployed received counseling at veterans centers

72,000 American casualties: toll of war on terror
IAN BRUCE, Defence Correspondent January 25 2008

A second request to the Veterans' Administration, the government-funded body responsible for taking care of ex-servicemen and women, showed 263,909 soldiers with experience of the two 21st-century wars have so far received treatment for everything from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to the aftermath of amputated limbs.

It also showed 52,375 veterans had been diagnosed with PTSD and 34,138 have received approval for disability claims for the psychological disorder. As of October 31 last year, 1.6 million Americans have been deployed overseas since 2001.

Harvard University estimates the cost of caring for Iraq and Afghan veterans over the next 40 years will amount to between £125bn and £350bn, depending on the long-term effects of trauma.

More than 240,000 of those deployed have received some form of counselling at veterans' centres.

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What happened to the other 18,237 veterans diagnosed with PTSD but not granted disability? What happens to all the 240,000 other veterans with their claims still tied up in the system like the veterans who had to go to veterans centers for help? You have to assume that none of them are included in on the figure released. It is bad enough there hundreds of thousands of claims tied up in the backlog but when you understand these are not just claims, they are for the most part, wounded veterans waiting for care and for compensation.

Whenever the government releases information, it's usually a good thing to follow up and ask them what happened to the others. The next point to appreciate is that with 240,000 of them going to the veterans centers for help, it is more beneficial to them to ramp up veterans centers all over the country because this is where they want to be.

We need to look back at the data from Vietnam because these are the same numbers that came back from what was considered "combat zones" all through the years. It produced 500,000 diagnosed cases of PTSD by 1978, 300,000 homeless veterans and between 150,000 and 200,000 suicides, Agent Orange illnesses, and that was just the beginning. We are still seeing Gulf War veterans, Vietnam veterans, Korean War veterans along with WWII veterans seeking treatment for PTSD today.

Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
www.Namguardianangel.blogspot.com
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington