What motive does the Army have to misdiagnose PTSD?

What motive does the Army have to misdiagnose PTSD?
A reluctance to diagnose post-traumatic stress disorder could be about the money, and about the need for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Editor's note: Read the story of Matthew Marino, who was diagnosed with anxiety disorder instead of PTSD and sent back into combat in Afghanistan, here. Read about "Sgt. X" and his secret tape of an Army psychologist (and listen to the recording) here; read about the Army's investigation of that tape -- and the Senate's failure to act -- here.

By Mark Benjamin and Michael de Yoanna
April 10, 2009 In two stories published this week, Salon has described how a soldier secretly taped a psychologist saying that the Army was exerting pressure not to diagnose soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder. Psychologist Douglas McNinch of Fort Carson, Colo., twice states on the recording that the Army discourages PTSD diagnoses.

If what McNinch says on the tape is true, why is it happening? Why would the Army purposely diagnose soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder with something other than PTSD? Combat stress is as real as your big toe. Why would the Army want to deny, or at least minimize, a known consequence of combat? The truth might rest in math.

Soldiers with PTSD present the Army with two problems, both involving scary numbers. First, soldiers suffering serious combat stress should not be returned to combat, and if they cannot fight they represent a significant manpower loss for an already stretched military. A recent Rand Corp. study estimates that nearly 20 percent of those Army troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan might suffer from PTSD or major depression. If they were all barred from the battlefield, the Army could lose as many as one out of every five combat troops while trying to fight two wars.


Second, if soldiers are identified as suffering from PTSD and thus disabled, the Army may have to separate those soldiers from the military and pay benefits -- benefits that are extensive and can last a lifetime. The direct costs to the Army for treating soldiers with PTSD are potentially astronomical.

If you are a soldier who is officially disabled, you are entitled to collect a percentage of your base pay each month. The percentage depends upon your level of disability. Though this doesn't happen in every case, the proper disability rating for PTSD is 50 percent, according to an Army memo that is now part of a class-action lawsuit by the National Veterans Legal Services Program. So let's say, for example, that a 25-year-old private first class was discharged from the Army because of combat-induced PTSD and lived to be 75 years old while collecting benefits at the proper rate of 50 percent. The PFC would receive $784 a month, or half of $1,568 base pay (based on 2009 pay levels) for 50 years. That's $470,400.

go here for the rest of this

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/04/10/ptsd/

Focus on this part of the story for now and think about it.

Last month, the Army announced that the trend continues. Forty-eight soldiers have already killed themselves this year. If that pace is not slowed, at least 225 soldiers will be dead by their own hands by the end of 2009.

It is more than "they are expendable" when they are useful to fulfill the needs in a time of war. Should they perish by the hands of an enemy bullet or bomb, they are laid to rest and the duty of the nation ends with the widows and orphans. If they should die because of the wound they carry within their body, the wound of PTSD, then there are all kinds of steps they take to avoid taking responsibility for being the cause of this wound. When we are talking about soldiers willing to lay down their lives for the sake of this nation, it should never be translated into the minds of the brass they are willing to die because of what this nation fails to do.

When they end up suffering because of this wound, they are betrayed by the same nation that sent them into combat. This betrayal compounds the residue of war because had they not served the nation, they would not have been wounded by PTSD. PTSD is the result of an outside force and does not begin with the mind. It is called an anxiety disorder because mental health professionals have yet to fully grasp the heart and soul of the soldier. PTSD attacks all that makes us human. The military however uses them like machines.

If they lose a limb, then they manufacture one to replace it. The soldier is still useful to them because the mind is intact, able to function like a machine programmed to react. Should they decide to return to civilian employment, then the military does not have to pay for a full disability claim. They only have to pay for the body part lost. How do they pay for a life for the rest of their lives? They don't have to if they claim it was not because of the service given to the nation.

This betrayal is as bad as when the seven deadly sins listed sloth among them. The ancient Greeks knew this was not a sin but more a part of illness.

Sloth (Latin, acedia)
Main article: Sloth (deadly sin)
More than other sins, the definition of sloth has changed considerably since its original inclusion among the seven deadly sins. In fact it was first called the sin of sadness or despair. It had been in the early years of Christianity characterized by what modern writers would now describe as melancholy: apathy, depression, and joylessness — the last being viewed as being a refusal to enjoy the goodness of God and the world God created. Originally, its place was fulfilled by two other aspects, acedia and sadness. The former described a spiritual apathy that affected the faithful by discouraging them from their religious work. Sadness (tristitia in Latin) described a feeling of dissatisfaction or discontent, which caused unhappiness with one's current situation. When Thomas Aquinas selected acedia for his list, he described it as an "uneasiness of the mind", being a progenitor for lesser sins such as restlessness and instability. Dante refined this definition further, describing sloth as being the "failure to love God with all one's heart, all one's mind and all one's soul." He also described it as the middle sin, and as such was the only sin characterised by an absence or insufficiency of love. In his "Purgatorio", the slothful penitents were made to run continuously at top speed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins

All this week, the History Channel has been focused on the Seven Deadly Sins. Last night it was sloth. There was a time when mental illness was considered a "sin" and even today, there are "healers" treating it as a demonic possession. In a way, it was easy to jump to this conclusion because when someone has PTSD, it is like living in hell. What makes all of this worse is when another sin by the government, bearing false witness, is their answer to this wound. That is exactly what they are doing when they know the truth, know the full extent of what suffering the veteran of combat is carrying within them and what caused it but deny any responsibility for it.

The loss of hope is what kills the PTSD wounded. Take away hope of healing and hope of being able to provide for themselves and their families while they know exactly what the truth is and this betrayal is causing the suicides and attempted suicides of ten thousand veterans per year. Ever wonder what would cause a combat veteran to take their own lives? Think about the fact they were in danger during their deployment and fought to stay alive as well as protect the lives of the men they served next to. Out of danger, out of harms way supposedly, they end their own life. The DOD has removed hope, dishonored their service and devalued their lives. The VA has been doing the same thing when claims are denied that should have been honored. When does this suffering end for them? How many more will feel so hopeless, so betrayed, they take their own lives?