Stunning report on enlistments and mental health

It seems as if the military is still playing games with discharges by hiding behind "anxiety" disorders when PTSD is an anxiety disorder!

Stunning report on enlistments and mental health
December 11, 2010 posted by Chaplain Kathie
Waivers do not match the number of discharges so there is a clear problem still going on in the military. While “personality disorder” discharges dropped, it looks like they are still trying to get rid of “problems” instead of taking care of them. We would have to believe that the mental health tests are all flawed to have allowed men and women into the military when they had mental health problems already, training them to use weapons to kill and sending them into combat. This would also mean they didn’t care about the rest of the troops enough to prevent mentally ill recruits from entering into the service.

Troops booted for pre-existing mental issues
By Kelly Kennedy – Staff writer
Posted : Friday Dec 10, 2010 15:26:26 EST
From 2003 to 2008, more people were separated from the military within their first year of service for “pre-existing” psychiatric conditions than for any other reason, according to a military report.
Those discharges do not qualify a service member for medical benefits or medical retirement pay after leaving.
Twenty-two percent of soldiers who were given “existed prior to service,” or EPTS, discharges had psychiatric conditions, while 42 percent of Marine Corps EPTS discharges fell under that category. The figures for the Navy and Air Force were 24 percent and less than 1 percent, respectively.
Whether the Marine Corps is not screening its new recruits for mental health issues as well as the other services, or whether other factors are at work, is not clear.
“I guess that means the services have knowingly been enlisting and sending to war individuals who have significant mental health disorders,” said Andreas-Georg Pogany, a Colorado-based veterans advocate who has tried to help combat veterans fight military efforts to discharge them for pre-existing mental conditions.
According to the 2010 Accession Medical Standards Analysis & Research Activity Report, the Army approved 1,231 waivers for anxiety, dissociative and somatoform disorders from 2004 until 2009, and another 522 for depressive disorder.

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Stunning report on enlistments and mental health