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The failure of the “Super Committee” has the Department of Veterans Affairs scrambling to figure out how to pay for and support soldiers with PTSD and brain injuries. Already strapped for cash, the VA is facing deep cuts when a mandatory $600 billion is slashed from the Department of Defense budget. The budget cuts were automatically triggered when the “Partisan 12” failed to set aside Party agenda for national security. Between the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, PTSD and associated depression sends nearly 10,000 new cases to VA Hospitals each quarter, with an estimated total of 800,000 patients expected as soldiers return home from the war.
PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) is a psychological disorder that causes nightmares, anti-social behavior, flashbacks, suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, anxiety, and an array of other debilitating symptoms. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, diagnosis of PTSD criteria includes, but is not limited to:
“A. The person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which both of the following were present:
(1) The person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others
(2) The person’s response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror.
Note: In children, this may be expressed instead by disorganized or agitated behavior
B. The traumatic event is persistently re-experienced in one (or more) of the following ways:
(1) Recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event, including images, thoughts, or perceptions. Note: In young children, repetitive play may occur in which themes or aspects of the trauma are expressed.
(2) Recurrent distressing dreams of the event. Note: In children, there may be frightening dreams without recognizable content.
(3) Acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring (includes a sense of reliving the experience, illusions, hallucinations, and dissociative flashback episodes, including those that occur on awakening or when intoxicated). Note: In young children, trauma-specific reenactment may occur.
(4) Intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event
(5) Physiological reactivity on exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event
C. Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness (not present before the trauma), as indicated by three (or more) of the following:
(1) Efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma
(2) Efforts to avoid activities, places, or people that arouse recollections of the trauma
(3) Inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma
(4) Markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities
(5) Feeling of detachment or estrangement from others
(6) Restricted range of affect (e.g., unable to have loving feelings)
(7) Sense of a foreshortened future (e.g., does not expect to have a career, marriage, children, or a normal life span)
D. Persistent symptoms of increased arousal (not present before the trauma), as indicated by two (or more) of the following:
(1) Difficulty falling or staying asleep
(2) Irritability or outbursts of anger
(3) Difficulty concentrating
(4) Hypervigilance
(5) Exaggerated startle response
E. Duration of the disturbance (symptoms in Criteria B, C, and D) is more than 1 month.
F. The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.”
(Read more at http://ptsd-symptoms.org/ )
The problem with the VA’s diagnosis process however, is a great number of soldiers wait an average of 14 days or more to receive treatment, as a result, many soldiers forgo seeking treatment at all; what’s more, with definite budget cuts on the way this wait may very well become indefinite. Additionally, the military’s overall health care and retirement benefits will be affected; leaving American heroes and their families to struggle in a nation they unselfishly sacrificed and fought for. Is this the thank you American soldiers and Vets deserve? Is this how America welcomes home our heroes? If it is, it is a pitiful attempt at “Thank You”, and we all should be ashamed!
A more staggering fact is, the $600 billion cuts to the Department of Defense will put many American soldiers at a higher risk for PTSD and death by halting training activities that properly prepare them for battle, and discontinuing the purchase and production of life-saving equipment needed to keep soldiers and America safe from foes.
“Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned…cuts in spending estimated at $600 billion from fiscal 2012 to 2021 would be “completely unacceptable”… [Suggesting], “If that happens, it could trigger a round of dangerous across-the-board defense cuts that would do real damage to our security, our troops and their families, and our ability to protect the nation” (David Alexander and Jim Wolf, 2011).
9/11 should have taught America a valuable lesson that WE are not untouchable, and our safety is not secured; however, cuts to defense say we have learned nothing! Military officials continue to fight the sequestration triggered by the “partisan 12”; however, President Obama said he would veto any attempt to repeal. What does this mean for the Department of Defense? According to George Little, it means “the smallest Army and Marine Corps in decades, the smallest tactical Air Force since [that branch of the service] was established, and the smallest Navy in nearly 100 years” (Cheryl Pellerin, 2011). Feel safe yet?
Well, if that little tidbit of knowledge is unsettling, the following information will not comfort either. According to a Web Memo published in February 2011 by the Heritage Foundation,
“…the army is “unable to buy four new CH-47 Chinook helicopters for the Army’s 13th Combat Aviation Brigade… army leaders have said there “would be no money to refurbish Humvee utility vehicles, and officials could be forced to shut down production lines at the Red River Army depot in Texas and the Letterkenny Army depot in Pennsylvania… The air force is considering the possibility of “grounding some of its F-15E fleet” due to funding shortfalls… A delay in the purchase of Active Electronically Scanned Array radar for F-15Es “will increase the risk that we might have to ground a portion of our F-15E fleet because the existing radar system is dependent on parts that are obsolete and not available. … Without kicking off that modernization program this year, as originally scheduled, we are significantly increasing the risk that parts on those radar will fail and be irreplaceable. That has significant operational effect” (Eaglen, 2011).
What’s next, the military laying our heroes to rest in a landfill somewhere because they either won’t or can’t pay for a proper burial service? Oh, that’s right –they are already doing that! Officials argue this practice was the standard of disposal at the time, but no one expects their loved one to be dumped in a trash pile by the very people they died for! It is bad enough when soldiers get injured and are refused funding for treatment, but it is egregious to be so ungrateful that the fallen (who will no longer “strain” military funds) can’t even get a respectful funeral service! Bin Laden received a more proper burial than these 274 + American soldiers. What the Hell kind of gratitude is that?
In conclusion, if the current administration would have given $535 Billion to the Department of Defense instead of Solyndra, America’s security might not be at risk; what’s more, PTSD and brain injury patients would receive proper treatment in an acceptable time period. Additionally, taxpayers would have been more secure in their investment. America MUST take care of the heroes that fight, die, and come home injured; furthermore, their benefits should be the last to suffer budget cuts –period! Finally, World War 3 is lingering in the minds of America’s foes; do we really want to be unprepared for battle?
(To All My Heroes: I don’t know you, but I OWE you –Thank you for your sacrifice!)
References
Alexander, D., Wolf, Jim. (2011, August 3). Panetta warns against sweeping
defense budget cuts. Reuters.com.
http://www.reuters.com/assets/print?aid=USTRE7725GY20110803
Eaglen, M. (2011, February 14). Defense cuts in FY 2011 would hurt troops.
The Heritage Foundation. No. 3153.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/02/defense-cuts-in-fy-2011-would-hurt-troops
Pellerin, C. (2011, September 15). Additional budget cuts would devastate
military, spokesman says. American Forces Press Service.
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=653554
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COMMENTS ( 2 )
posted on 12 December at 12:50
Thank you so much for your wonderful, well thought out comment Aruna. I am always thrilled to read your responses :) I always learn something from you. I prefer life as well. I am looking to read “Child of Our Time”, as you have sparked my interest. Thank you.
Stephanie Ann Kinzel
posted on 10 December at 20:01
The story of British war poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon has many lessons. They met here in Edinburgh nearly 100 years ago in a hospital that enlightened people created for shell shocked soldiers when other soldiers were executed for desertion when suffering the symptoms you describe. Both poets are usually offered as anti-war poets yet the whole story is more important. Wilfred Owen discharged himself in 1918, not to protest as a pacifist, but to join his colleagues in the mud and blood of Flanders, believing his duty was to stand beside them. He was still seriously ill. Less than a week before the armistice, he was killed in action, in a futile attack on a bridge. In WW2, my father served in the Air Force, bombing German women and children in their cities, in what is now internationally recognised as a war crime, but was then considered valid revenge for the Blitz by most British people, and seeing the highest causality rate of any section of the armed forces. Of 120 000 flying crew, 60 000 died. At war’s ends, Churchill and Atlee washed their hands of the carnage in the German cities, and my father’s branch, Bomber Command, was the only part of the armed services who did not get a specific medal acknowledging them. In 1943 my father was shot down and spent the remainder of the war as POW. His life was saved by an Australian doctor as he walked from his final camp in Lithuania across Europe so the guards could surrender to the USA or UK armies not the Soviets. The British column was targeted by a US Mustang, as the Germans failed to follow the Geneva Conviction and mark the POW column with a red cross. American bullets killed a close friend of my father, who had been walking alongside him. The subject of Shell Shock, which was viciously denied again in WW2 by the British Commanders, is also covered by Virginia Wolfe in her novel, Mrs Darraway, when a crippled veteran commits suicide, due to inept medical practice, despite a caring doctor. My father’s PTSD rebounded on his children, as doctors, learning nothing from the Edinburgh hospital I described at the beginning, dealt with my father’s distress by giving him powerful addictive drugs. He raped me many times while under their narcotic influence. Later when I tried seeking help from doctors for my own severe multiple violent trauma, I discovered worse than ineptitude. They always denied their prejudice, but since the worst violence occurred in my project to help sexually exploited women, when my family were murdered, most doctors and social workers didn’t want to help. I was given drugs, and no doctor or other worker could understand me when I pointed out that they reminded me of the ones my father took. “O these are very different.” I mentioned suicide earlier, and the doctors here need to face that they might have killed me off too. I agree that veterans must receive the correct help, but everyone deserves this. I disagree that the problem is the name of the party in Government, nor the budget, but is more fundamental. My father died in 1989, 44 years after WW2 ended, and suffered all his life. WW2 was described as “the only just war”, and I had the chance to talk to two prominent men who responded to Hitler and the Nazis in very different ways. When the Nazis cracked down on Jews, in what became known as Krystal Nacht, and the Holocaust began, Michael Tippett and Mike Reynolds had powerful reactions. Mike, later a right wing MP, joined the army well before conscription, or the war began. Michael renounced war and spent time in jail during the war as a result. He wrote the great anti-war piece “Child of Our Time”, using racial themes involving negro spirituals. Later he became a personal adviser to the British Queen. Both men really felt the same, yet ended up opposing each other. So what is the answer? I allow another man to provide it. Initially, Scots Gaelic poet Sorley MacLean seemed to agree with Michael Tippett. But after his beloved women, The Woman With The Orange Hair, left him, he joined the army too, and wrote poems of North Africa, describing the same guns being used by both sides to kill each other. He answered the question, the solution lay with the never acknowledged heroes whose perfect skin absorbed poison in the bomb factories, or as he said in his wonderful poem, The Cry of Europe, when he plainly calls Hitler a rapist, A WOMAN’S KISS IS MORE POWERFUL THAN THE VIOLENCE OF FASCISM. The gold is in our hand, and men fail time and again. Cannon to the left, Cannon to the Right, into the valley death rode the 120 000. How many more will need therapy for Shell Shock, before wisdom walks free. Wisdom remember needs no budget, nor a majority in the elective college. Wisdom is an idealist, and a traditionalist. Wisdom can be found alongside love, as Wilfred Owen went to be alongside his colleagues. But Wisdom prefers life to death. As do I.