PTSD cases, fear of fraud growing when caring should have

While some in the blog world are fixated on this,,,,

In tide of PTSD cases, fear of fraud growing - Army News, news ...
By The Associated Press Moved by a huge tide of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress, Congress has pressured the Department of Veterans Affairs to settle their disability claims

The stories like this are the ones I think about

Vet who committed suicide fought depression, PTSD
DAYTON — In the three years since his discharge from the Army, Jesse Huff never fully revealed the furies of his demons as storm cloud after storm cloud gathered over his life.
In 2008, his mother, Sharon Nales, died from an accidental drug overdose. His father, Charles Huff Sr., has had several convictions for cocaine possession. He rarely got to see his adored young daughter, Gabriella. He suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and his injuries from a roadside bomb in Iraq left him with chronic, severe pain in his lower back and legs.

But that isn't anything new for this blog. I remember stories going back for over 25 years and over 9,000 other stories on this blog alone.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

PTSD 'If you get shot in the soul ... no one can see it'
'If you get shot in the soul ... no one can see it'
By Steve Youngsyoung@argusleader.comComment Print Email PUBLISHED: January 20, 2008The stress of war is no stranger in South Dakota.It lies in the memory of a self-inflicted gunshot blast that ended Staff Sgt. Cory Brooks' despair on an April day in 2004 in Baghdad.And it troubles a community of military and health care officials back here at home who know that one of every four suicides in this state involves a veteran - but aren't sure why."It is troubling," says Rick Barg, state adjutant/quartermaster for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. "If you get shot in the arm or leg and you lose that arm or leg, people can see that."But if you get shot in the soul, you bring it home and no one can see it."Of 750,000 U.S. veterans who have marched off to Afghanistan and Iraq since 2003, 100,500 have come home with a mental-health condition, said Dr. Ira Katz of the Department of Veterans Affairs' Office of Mental Health.

You can find more stories like these using suicide or military suicide in the search field. You can go to my web site www.namguardianangel.com and take a look at the video Death Because They Served or click on the Power Point to read more of their stories. Collecting reports for this I found over 400 of their stories.

But aside from all of that, there are hundreds of other stories no one will ever hear about. Veterans trying to figure out what was wrong with them, then when they discover it is connected to their service they are told they have to prove it. Ok, fine, but even when they did, the claim was denied and they had to file an appeal. After fighting to have their claims honored, after suffering without help and more stress added onto them financially, their claims were finally approved. What happened then was that the PTSD caused by combat was fed by the delay in honoring their claims as well as the assault on their character.

These men and women didn't want to file claims. They wanted to do their duty, do what was asked of them and then go back to the lives they had before. Most had no intention of becoming a lifer in the military. They just wanted to help. Some were drafted and forced to go but they served the same way the enlisted did. With courage and commitment to their brothers. Yet they came home with PTSD trying to claim them after they survived the physical part of combat.

Marriages fell apart. Jobs were hard to get and harder to keep when they were drained from nightmares or zoned out with flashbacks. Mood swings left co-workers complaining and bosses frustrated. But they carried on, waiting for the day they would just get over it and get back to the lives they had before. How they thought this would happen after they were exposed to hell is something they were never able to explain. It was just a dream they wanted to believe was possible.

Ask any real veteran with PTSD if they would take a pill to wipe all of it away and they would take that deal in a heartbeat. You have to remember these men and women know the harshest conditions there are. They risk their lives daily 24-7, knowing any moment could be their last. They see people die, their enemies as well as their friends and innocents. They hear the pounding of weapons, the helicopter blades, machine guns just as much as they hear orders and screams. To ask them to do a civilian job after would be like a vacation.

It would be if the war was not trapped inside of them eating them alive. They see their buddies getting on with their lives and wonder why they cannot do the same. Instead of them receiving help right away to ease the trauma, they have to carry on fed by adrenaline until they are out of perceived danger, only to discover the danger to their lives is inside of them.

For all the attention the "report" on false claims has created, I regret that the real suffering, the real stories of these men and women never came close to getting the same kind of attention from the same people now blaming the veterans. The truth is, it is a sad case when a veteran tries to get what they can instead of what they need because the vast majority of them still need what they cannot get.

Congress has to deal with the fact that our veterans are dying because they cannot get the help they need to heal. They are dying by their own hands. They are suffering while they wait to have their claims approved. It is all falling apart because some people thought that they could look the other way all these years because it was not in their own interest politically to publicize the suffering. Where was all of this attention when the reports first started coming out about Iraq and Afghanistan veterans dying for their attention?