DOD and VA PTSD Programs F.U.B.A.R.

I know this won't sound professional but considering I work for free, here it goes. Duh!

Report: DOD, VA don't adequately track success rates of PTSD treatment
By LEO SHANE III
Stars and Stripes
Published: July 18, 2012

WASHINGTON — Despite millions spent treating post-traumatic stress disorder, defense and Veterans Affairs officials have little idea how effective those programs are because they don’t track cases closely enough, a new report contends.

Officials from the Institute of Medicine, which issued the report last week at the request of Congress, said the departments need a better handle on what treatments work.

“All of the services have some type of PTSD treatment program, but no single source within DOD or any of the service branches maintains a complete listing of such programs, tracks the development of new and emerging programs, or has appropriate resources in place to direct servicemembers to programs that may best meet their individual needs,” the report says.
read more here

Now here comes the rant of the day. This is coming from me as a person and right now, not a Chaplain, simply because I am not feeling as if I'll be doing much forgiving on this. What the hell is wrong with them? Everyone lined up with their hands out to "treat PTSD" when they didn't have to prove a damn thing and those hands were stuffed with cash by politicians and bureaucrats needing to pretend they were doing something.

Troops came back after the Army study proved repeat deployments increased the risk of PTSD by 50%. How did they plan on fixing this? They came out with Battlemind telling them they could "train their brains" to become "mentally tough" and then they could prevent PTSD. HOW DARE THEY TELL THE MEN AND WOMEN SERVING THEY ARE MENTALLY WEAK AND HAD TO TRAIN THEIR MINDS TO BECOME TOUGH? Did anyone ask them how they thought this would help anyone? No! Did reporters? Did other politicians? Did the VA ask the DOD about this before they took on the same failed program? HELL NO!

I am considered an expert only because of how long I've been doing this. 30 years gives me a pretty strong record on being right only because I've paid attention all along. If I figured out this F.U.B.A.R. "program" was doing more harm than good, where were all the people getting paid to know? They all have dirty hands on this and the families of the veterans they buried due to suicide should be demanding someone is held accountable.

This isn't political because these failures started with the Bush administration and kept right on going under Obama. While Obama has done more for veterans, his advisers in the Pentagon suck.

I've read so much nonsense coming out of the DOD and the VA over the last ten years that it is a wonder how they manage to train kids to go into combat as part of the best military in the world when they don't understand them at all.

Top these miserable results off with the fact there are now more veterans charities in this country than ever before and while most collect a great deal of money from the American people, the results produced by the majority of them has been disgraceful. Anyone asking accountability from them?

Great groups don't have the time or the money to hire a PR firm because they spend all their time helping veterans and not themselves. Veterans don't know where to turn anymore because there are groups all over the Internet and especially Facebook claiming to be experts when they just got their head out of the sand on this last week, giving bad advice and held accountable by no one.

NO ONE IS WATCHING ANYONE!

No one including ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN and FOX, all too busy covering politics all these years than what is really important. There used to be actual reporters on these stations earning their pay and wanting to do something to make a difference. Now they want to score points and most don't even know if a politician is telling the truth or not, so the American public is left to figure it out for themselves.

I'll leave you with this last thought going back to the original opening

"Despite millions spent treating post-traumatic stress disorder, defense and Veterans Affairs officials have little idea how effective those programs are because they don’t track cases closely enough, a new report contends."