Stop linking two shootings at Fort Hood Together

Stop linking two shootings at Fort Hood Together
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
March 4, 2014

It already started. People are comparing the two shootings at Fort Hood together and trying to link both to PTSD. After all, why would they bother to actually think about any of this?

The shootings in 2009 were committed by a Major. Not just a Major but a psychiatrist. Not just a psychiatrist but one in a position where he was supposed to help soldiers even though it turned out he hated them. Any clue what that did to soldiers going to him for help? Any reporter even attempt to find out what he told them? If he misdiagnosed them? If he gave them medications they should not have taken? Any idea?

The shootings that just happened left people jumping all over the place trying to beat everyone else with the scoop. The problem is, no one got any of it right.

Now it seems that things have just gotten worse. Considering the latest article on Stars and Stripes asking this question.

Have the Iraq and Afghanistan wars created American-grown human time bombs with grievous mental and physical wounds that the military and veterans’ health-care systems can’t adequately track and treat?

Any clue what even asking that question does to veterans?

I am 54. Old enough to remember what it was like when my Dad (Korean War Veteran) and Uncles (WWII Veterans) were like. I am also old enough to have invested more than half my life helping veterans heal because this year makes 30 years of being married to a Vietnam veteran. We've been together since 1982, long after he came home without getting help and it took many more years to get him to go to the VA. I remember it all too well and it makes me sick to my stomach that during a time in our history when there is so much potential to do good, the press decides they would avoid asking questions.

Veterans are less dangerous than civilians. Veterans are less selfish than civilians. Veterans with PTSD are less dangerous to others than civilians. Veterans with PTSD are more dangerous to themselves, not others.

The suicide rate proves that. The arrest records prove that. The number of veterans in this country and the percentage of crimes they commit prove that. We have about 23 million veterans in this country yet we read about a small percentage being charged with violent crimes while at the same time we read about a higher percentage of them committing suicide.

As long as the people want to talk about things they know absolutely nothing about, the more veterans will suffer instead of heal.