Veterans still fighting for health care

I think the thing that bothers me the most about the false uproar over the VA choice pamphlet, is that a lot of veterans already feel like the VA just wants them to hurry up and die. I know it's not the case, but given what they have to go through and how much time it takes to have a claim approved, you really can't blame them for feeling that way.

Even once they are in the system with a ranking of a service connected disability, what is done for them is really "better than nothing" in most facilities. Veterans end up getting better results going to a Vet Center than they do going to the VA in some states.

Families are also a huge part of this but they are left out of all of it. There used to be support groups at the VA hospitals for the families. Even back then, they were told only the basics, but at least they found someone going through the same things. They were able to learn from each other. Understanding PTSD better, they were also able to help their husbands. Women veterans, well, they were pretty much forgotten about when it came to PTSD. It didn't seem to matter that a lot of nurses ended up with PTSD.

With all the talk going on now about the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans needing help, Vietnam veterans end up being forgotten yet again but they waited a lot longer. Do any of the new groups understand that had it not been for the Vietnam veterans, there wouldn't be anything there for them either? Veterans came back from wars with the same wound but it took the Vietnam veterans to fight to make it all happen.

If the VA were really serious about doing what our veterans needed, they would listen to the Vietnam veterans and their families to make sure all these years of mistakes were not simply repeated.

Veterans still fighting – for health care
by Melissa Suran
Aug 26, 2009

The heavy smell of Asian food was in the air. Street vendors were selling fresh groceries, parents were buying their children cheap good-luck charms, and the chatter of everyone could be heard throughout the square. It was like any other day for Sgt. Gil Rivera, who vividly recalls the midday scene.

Suddenly, Rivera heard some voices speaking in Vietnamese. A soldier in the Vietnam War, he was ready to kill the passersby, whose voices were coming closer and closer.

But he didn’t have his gun. And he wasn’t in Vietnam. In fact, he was in New York – in Chinatown.

The incident occurred about 30 years after the Vietnam War. Rivera, who served in the U.S. Army, said what happened to him was a reaction caused by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, a mental illness that can result from being in a terrifying situation where one’s physical well-being is threatened.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is not to be confused with Post Traumatic Stress, or PTS, which results directly from a traumatic event or from trauma. Although many who suffer from PTS personally underwent a terrible experience, PTS can also be caused by witnessing a traumatic event. Patients are diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder when PTS symptoms last for a month or more.

Although many experience PTS, it does not always rise to the level of a being a disorder. Symptoms of PTS include being angered easily or having unpleasant emotions triggered by sensory perception such as sound or smell.

It took Rivera three decades to get the help he needed and is now fully pensioned. Unfortunately, his case is an all-too-common one.

“I hadn’t heard Vietnamese spoken since Vietnam,” said Rivera, 63, who now lives in Prince Frederick, Md. “Honestly, if I had a gun who knows, maybe I would have shot those people.”

Rivera is one of more than 1 million veterans who suffer from PTSD. But Rivera is lucky that he received any help at all.

On Aug. 17 at the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention in Phoenix, President Barack Obama said he plans to do more when it comes to veterans’ health care.

“We are a country of more than 300 million Americans. Less than one percent wears the uniform,” he said. “As we protect America, our men and women in uniform must always be treated as what they are: America’s most precious resource.”
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Veterans still fighting for health care