TNT Major Crime was against veterans with PTSD

TNT Major Crime was against veterans with PTSD
by Chaplain Kathie
Wounded Times Blog
August 14, 2012

'Major Crimes' focus could be a major mistake on USA had the right title but not the right mistake.

 The criminals on this opener were, you guessed it, veterans with PTSD!

Reloaded "criminals" this time were from different branches of service and the team had to figure out where they all came together. First it was a gun range, then a game and finally they figured out that they must have all met in treatment. Yes, treatment. The only "thug" to survive was a veteran plus the son of a veteran, coming from a long line of other veterans. The veteran cop/Dad said his son was "doing better" and Provenza started to think "better than what" so he asked the Dad about his son. That's when they figured out the son was not only the mastermind but got the rest of the group killed and when one of them survived, he pulled the trigger on the survivor.

Why is it that James Duff couldn't think of a better way to introduce this spin off? Did he figure he could just take the easy way out and pull some obscure news reports about some veterans with PTSD going bad? He sure didn't put much thought into what it was really like for veterans coming home from endless tours of duty with Combat PTSD more likely to kill themselves than harm anyone else. He didn't think about the fact that while over 2 million have served in the two wars over the last 11 years, there are very few veterans committing "major crimes" against anyone.


In the Closer there were three innocent Army Rangers gunned down coming out of a club.

THE CLOSER “War Zone” Review It started with Brenda going up against the US Army, the FBI, and Pope in order to try to solve the murders of three soldiers just returned from Afghanistan. It turned out to be a case of mistaken identity between twin brothers. How does one brother join the army while the other ends up in a gang? I guess they both “joined up” in their own way, albeit in very different organizations.

This was good because it showed respect and care for the service members but most shows have to tie veterans to crimes they commit, not crimes committed against them.

I loved the Closer, just as I love Criminal Minds. The problem is when they decide to make veterans with PTSD the topic of their shows and end up feeding into the image of a crazed veteran committing crimes and blowing people away.

If you read Wounded Times with any regularity, you know that few commit crimes and if you watch the TV shows with a veteran as the topic, you know how reprehensible it is to know a writer decided they needed a criminal and right away thought of a veteran using PTSD as an excuse. They know about veterans about as much as I know how to fix my car.

Let's put it this way. My check engine light came on and it ended up costing me $90 for diagnostics just because I didn't close the gas cap tight enough!