Vietnam Veteran Lived After Police Officer Cared

If you think that anything is new with PTSD then you haven't been paying much attention. This article pretty much proves that one. It also proves that with all the talk about raising awareness, it is more talking about what they get wrong instead of the truth.

Veterans call for attention to 'invisible wounds'
Detroit Free Press
Curt Smith, Lansing State Journal
June 28, 2016

LANSING – In police circles it’s called “suicide by cop” and Kent Hall saw no other way out.

It was 1985, and the nightmares that had tormented him since his service with the Army in Vietnam would not go away. Although he doesn't talk about the day in detail, he describes it this way:

“I was saved by the actions of an officer,” he said Monday on the steps of the state Capitol. “And then I got a lot of help along the way.”

Marine Corps veteran Rod Thayer (from left) and Army veterans Dale Brown and Bruce Whipple stand for the singing of the national anthem by The Old Skool Fella's at a rally Monday at the state Capitol called "Visible Honor For Invisible Wounds." The event was designed to bring attention to the challenges veterans have when struggling with post traumatic stress

(Photo: Robert Killips | Lansing State Journal)

Today, Hall of Williamston is vice president of a small veterans advocacy group called Honor for All. The core mission of the Royal Oak-based group is to erase stigmas attached to the term “post-traumatic stress disorder."

Its members want the word “disorder” dropped and replaced with the term “injury.” Hall likens the condition to a wound of the arm or leg — invisible but just as debilitating.

Hall didn’t die on that day 31 years ago, but his struggle didn’t either.
read more here

The article talks about "22 a day" and the event publicized that even though it is not even close to reality. It also talks about calling PTSD "PTSI" for injury instead. Do they really think that will make a difference at all? It won't.

They have been mulling the title around for decades and the wound is still the same wound. Veterans suffer the same way all the other generations did. The most sickening thing of all is that folks are getting famous off that suffering.

Would be great if they would stop talking about what they get wrong and then maybe veterans would trust then to help them heal for the right reasons.