yep, only the libs disrespect the troops.

This is sad. So when these soldiers roam the streets not eligible for VA care and unable to get medical coverage what are the chickenshiat hawks going to say when they start robbing, raping, or worse when their PTSD or other problems arise?

scruffy1: This is sad. So when these soldiers roam the streets not eligible for VA care and unable to get medical coverage what are the chickenshiat hawks going to say when they start robbing, raping, or worse when their PTSD or other problems arise?

They'll beat their chests and talk about how atheism and the secular movement are ruining the country's moral character.

scruffy1: what are the chickenshiat hawks going to say when they start robbing, raping, or worse when their PTSD or other problems arise?

That they were phony soldiers?

/I feel ashamed for even joking there
//Rush is an asshat

T-Servo: Rush is an asshat

Mass public shooting by PTSD suffering Iraqi vet in 5..4..3...

Everyone with one of those car magnets should be required to "adopt a troop" and pay their medical bills.

What was that? Their houses are all in foreclosure after their ARMs reset? Oh, well, scrap that idea.

Well that's pretty farked up right there

:sigh: once again a civilian who thinks the DOD is a big liable for everyone socialist nanny criticizes that which they don't fathom. The military relies on self reporting of mental illness at MEPS. If you lie, you get through, but that doesn't make you special and deserving of free treatment more than the honest sick.

Seriously, this Bush/DoD ad hominem shiat is getting out of hand.

Gelatinous

Everyone with one of those car magnets should be required to "adopt a troop" and pay their medical bills.

What was that? Their houses are all in foreclosure after their ARMs reset? Oh, well, scrap that idea.

Hey, go easy on those people. They have to pay for those huge SUVs they put the magnetic stickers on too.

Someone must have asked.

Subby, your'e doing it wrong.

SemperLieSuckah: :sigh: once again a civilian who thinks the DOD is a big liable for everyone socialist nanny criticizes that which they don't fathom. The military relies on self reporting of mental illness at MEPS. If you lie, you get through, but that doesn't make you special and deserving of free treatment more than the honest sick.

So wait, the military relies on **self-reporting** to determine of a potential soldier is mentally ill for purposes of military eligibility, but when it comes to medical benefits they thoroughly test for pre-existing conditions? Seems like something that should be done beforehand instead.

I'd be ok with this if they used those same standards when they were doing the predeployment screening, but you have to be barking-at-the-moon crazy for them to exempt you from combat duty. I saw a lot of cats who were NOT fit for deployment end up getting rubber-stamped through with nary a peep.

If you're sane enough to go to war in the first place, then obviously those "pre-existing" conditions weren't that bad, now were they?

Wait a second here?

Working behind the scenes, Sens. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., have written and inserted into the defense authorization bill a provision that would make it harder for the Pentagon to discharge thousands of troops.

A Repub and a Demo are getting along together? Unpossible.

/Actually, this is NOT one of the 935 counted earmarks in the bill.

and by the way, the whole PTSD VA benefits thing is the hottest scam going for greedy dishonest scumbags getting out. Very few guys actually get PTSD but it is really easy to fake and the disability check for it is huge. So yeah, Bush's fault, General Betray Us, Corporate greed, zOMG.

/stop reading "news" from people who have an agenda or don't know WTF they're talking about.

interesting.

SemperLieSuckah: Very few guys actually get PTSD

No doubt. Coming back from a war zone is a cake walk, and those few weaklings who have trouble with it are the exception.

Lee, do you know the practicality of a full personality assessment for every potential recruit? And even then, how do you qualify those who can cope or are only victims of environmental causes (bad family). Its best just to give them a chance and if they can't take it then let them back out.

believe me..there are plenty of crazy soldiers that DO have pre-existing mental conditions and have never seen combat

/plenty go crazy just from the stress of basic training
//like one from my platoon that was drawing bullseyes on other trainees' beds

SemperLieSuckah: and by the way, the whole PTSD VA benefits thing is the hottest scam going for greedy dishonest scumbags getting out. Very few guys actually get PTSD but it is really easy to fake and the disability check for it is huge. So yeah, Bush's fault, General Betray Us, Corporate greed, zOMG.

/stop reading "news" from people who have an agenda or don't know WTF they're talking about.

Actually I heard that this war had a higher propensity for PTSD. Mainly due to the higher use of IED cusing Hydraulic shock to the nervous system coupled with advanced medical care. Basically, comparable wounds that killed in past conflicts are no longer fatal in this one, but the damage to the nervous system is greater.

SemperLieSuckah: and by the way, the whole PTSD VA benefits thing is the hottest scam going for greedy dishonest scumbags getting out. Very few guys actually get PTSD but it is really easy to fake and the disability check for it is huge. So yeah, Bush's fault, General Betray Us, Corporate greed, zOMG.

/stop reading "news" from people who have an agenda or don't know WTF they're talking about.

And from armchair warriors who can, "tell it like it is!"

local, i've been there, and back. They'll live, quit being an enabler for self-pity with rare exception.

SemperLieSuckah: They'll live, quit being an enabler for self-pity with rare exception.

You're right, it's just a job. I get stressed out at my 9-5 too. Why should people in the line of fire be treated any differently than me?

my arm chair got blown up. Sorry.

haterade: believe me..there are plenty of crazy soldiers that DO have pre-existing mental conditions and have never seen combat

/plenty go crazy just from the stress of basic training
//like one from my platoon that was drawing bullseyes on other trainees' beds

No doubt considering it takes a mental deficient or a nutjob to wanna go to iraq and get whacked anyway, especially for that type of crap pay.

When are the idiots going to come in and trash on this bill because it's signed by barack?

SemperLieSuckah: and by the way, the whole PTSD VA benefits thing is the hottest scam going for greedy dishonest scumbags getting out. Very few guys actually get PTSD but it is really easy to fake and the disability check for it is huge. So yeah, Bush's fault, General Betray Us, Corporate greed, zOMG.

/stop reading "news" from people who have an agenda or don't know WTF they're talking about.
Yes, because we all know that when an individual gets a paycheck after they get farked up, it's all corporate greed.

VA Compensation for PTSDAs with other service-related injuries and diseases, the VA will pay eligible veterans monthly compensation for disability resulting from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). For a veteran rated at 10, 30, 50, 70 or 100 percent disabled, compensation payments can range from a few dollars to several thousand dollars a month - depending on the severity of your condition

VA Disability Compensation Table

Yes, it's all farked up, it's going to be that way for a while. But denying people what they need to help live a normal productive life is completely batshiat crazy.

SemperLieSuckah:
Seriously, this Bush/DoD ad hominem shiat is getting out of hand.

Bush/Cheney - God damn, you'd think he would make an EFFORT to not say "nukular". I hope he realizes he farked up in Iraq and takes responsibility for it.

SemperLieSuckah: and by the way, the whole PTSD VA benefits thing is the hottest scam going for greedy dishonest scumbags getting out. Very few guys actually get PTSD but it is really easy to fake and the disability check for it is huge. So yeah, Bush's fault, General Betray Us, Corporate greed, zOMG.

/stop reading "news" from people who have an agenda or don't know WTF they're talking about.

Communism and Socialism - Bad, but no one should be denied medical care.

sorry, had to do it :-)


/sorry, paet pieve

ianfer: When are the idiots going to come in and trash on this bill because it's signed by barack?

Did you already miss it? The word I used was unpossible.

Pre-existing or not, if you're sane enough to function before deployment, and you're not after you get back, then combat exacerbated the pre-existing condition, which is still grounds for VA compensation.

SemperLieSuckah: and by the way, the whole PTSD VA benefits thing is the hottest scam going for greedy dishonest scumbags getting out. Very few guys actually get PTSD but it is really easy to fake and the disability check for it is huge. So yeah, Bush's fault, General Betray Us, Corporate greed, zOMG.

/stop reading "news" from people who have an agenda or don't know WTF they're talking about.

So...is there profiteering go on in Iraq?

They have to cut the "fat" somewhere if they want to pay for tax cuts for the filthy rich.
Yes, I went there.

When one of these soldiers that were discharged for having a pre-existing mental condition does snap and kill people, What sort of lawsuits do you expect to see?

I expect to see the following lawsuits take place.

The diagnoser of the recruit and the trainer for involuntary manslaughter.
The military in general for teaching the recruit how to use a gun, with a known mental condition.

And the civil suit possibilities could just be boggling.

I've always liked Kit Bond. And Obama. Here's to hoping they get that bill through.

Ok, dammit, I was typing on my iPhone, but the keyboard is too small to make good responses to everyone so I had to get my ass out of bed and get my laptop.

YES, people get PTSD. But there are a fark ton of jackasses who never saw any action, or were not affected by what they saw and they're cashing in on it through benefits for nebulous disorders. THIS IS A FACT, and it is a big problem the VA is losing a lot of money to. They want to rectify it, but don't want to have to break the news to everyone that SOME VETS LIE.

MoonkYes, the proportion of PTSD in this war is HIGHER than in past wars because of a higher survival rate, but it is still a VERY SMALL NUMBER. It just makes great evening news, so everyone hears about it emphasized disproportionately.

As for letting in people with disorders, what the hell happened to personal responsibility? If you come into the military with a disorder you lie about, then get kicked later without any kind of penalty later, HOW ARE YOU THE GOVERNMENT'S PROBLEM? If they completed at least two years they STILL GET A LOT OF BENEFITS.

LocalCynic I see what you did there. And for MOST jobs in the military, shockingly enough, IT IS JUST A 9 to 5. Offices, chairs, coffee, everything. Few people ever get close to combat. Most people are desk jockeys.

Benni K RokThe DoD is NOT liable for people if they can't get their lives together after a discharge even though there are PLENTY of programs (government and non-profit) to help out vets. But you never hear THOSE reported...

MoonkAs for my profile quotes, that's not ad Hominem. Bush is an idiot, and for SPECIFIC REASONS. But he's not an idiot about everything because of his pronunciation of nuclear. Look up ad hominem. And yes, I a pro-universal health care... but until we have that the DoD isn't just liable for everyone it has come into contact with any more than I am liable for equipping my ex girlfriends with condoms.

ComicBookGuy yes, if by profiteering you mean corporations making money for providing services. Much like you probably profiteer every day at work. While I was in Iraq, I very much enjoyed these services, and I'm grateful we have them. And yeah, whenever corporations and governments get together some douche bag hippie somewhere will make a documentary about it. "Just look at them... exchanging money for goods and services. Capitalist pigs..."

And doyner thank you for that. I am afterall a heartless bastard who just wants to see legitimately disabled vets burn in hell for eternity. Or wait, is it just that I know WTF is going on because I COME FROM THE MILITARY and HAVE SEEN THE shiat HAPPEN. Yeah, most disabled vets are legitimately disabled, but I'm not going to throw up a blind protest about reforms to stop FRAUD because I hate the DoD and/or the President, which I do for both. But I won't ad hominem (there's that word again) them to death because I disagree with them.

OK, flame on. I'm going to sleep. Assholes.

Looking more like Vietnam every day.

They were all phony soldiers, they just didn't know it yet.

Oh, and final point. I am also a "disabled" veteran. Disability works on a percentage scale. If you hurt yourself in any way while you were in you probably rate a certain amount of cash for your percentage. I fractured my spine in two places (T7, L4) on a bad parachute landing because the Army (who we were jumping with) refuses to buy good safe God damn parachutes. Go hassle them, leave the VA alone.

Here's the thing - if a soldier is lying to get in, and the military can't tell, then how do they classify it as a pre-existing condition? And if they DO know the condition existed beforehand, then why are they deploying those troops into combat?

You can't have it both ways. It's either those troops are confirmed liars and they shouldn't have been deployed, or the origins of their condition aren't known and you have to trust that it's combat related.

doyner Oh no, I can get plenty of benefit money for it. The government's bureaucratic lunacy resulted in my parachute failing. It didn't invent crazy.


Ok, going to bed for serial this time... closing laptop. nnnnnow.

doyner ::checks profile:: Oh you're a GOD DAMN SQUID. I should've known. Get down to the farking ship store and get me a bag of cheetos and a boombox and a $30 DVD before I kick your ass down the well deck.

//farking squids.

Way to fark the soldiers. Nice to know you care about the bottom line more than the men and women who served.


/fark you bush.

As far as airborne goes, I'm going to have to defend the Army. Those rigs aren't like the stuff you see civilians using. They're designed for rapid descent. The longer you're hanging in the air, the better the odds of you coming down with a bunch of extra holes in you. So they're designed to bring you down at a speed that most folks will survive, somewhere above 20 mph, depending on wind speed and how much you weigh. That's why the first two weeks of airborne training are all PLFs (Parachute Landing Falls, or "how to fall down and not die").

Not everyone is designed the same. Some folks just aren't going to be able to hack it. That's why airborne school is optional. No one is required to chance blowing out their knees, crushing a disk in their back, or shattering an ankle, unless they want to do it.

So...let me get this straight...you are "good to go" and fight, but when they are through with you, and you are all farked up mentally, then they blame a "pre-existing" condition, boot you out, and you get nothing?


/wow..the huge balls of those in charge.

blah, I have PTSD

haven't applied for disability, i will most likely someday, but not just for this ailment

Re-experiencing the trauma: ooooohhhh yea, and i even creatively daydream/nightmare about situations i was never in

Emotional numbing: definately..can't complain about this one because the only emotions i have are joy and excitement...really affects relationships though and few can understand

Avoidance: hah! try finding me (when im not on the laptop) i dont answer or return phone calls..it gets deeper from there

Increased arousal: my sleeping pattern is variable, concentration is out the window, irritable and hypervigilance are definates also

/thanks for the free therapy, i'm good for another 3 months

We don't care about those suffering from medical ailments who helped out at ground zero. Why should we care about the veterans? This is nothing new, simply the same shiat on a different day and the public is too complacent to care.

I just discharged a thousand solders, and I'm pretty sure they all have pre-existing mental problems.

dameron: Hmmm...

"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to."

comes to mind...



I've wondered, who does this remind you of?:

"______ ____ was a forceful, ruddy man. Before the war, he had been an alert, hard-hitting, aggressive (oil) executive. He was a very bad (oil) executive. ______ ____ was so bad a (oil) executive that his services were much sought after by firms eager to establish losses for tax purposes. Throughout the civilized world, from Battery Park to Fulton Street, he was known as a dependable man for a fast tax write-off. His prices were high, for failure often did not come easily. He had to start at the top and work himself down, and with sympathetic friends in Washington, losing money was no simple matter. It took months of hard work and careful misplanning. A person misplaced, disorganized, miscalculated, overlooked everything and opened every loophole, and just when he thought he had it made, the government gave him a lake or a forest or an oilfield and spoiled everything. Even with such handicaps, Colonel Cargill could be relied on to run the most prosperous enterprise into the ground. He was a self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody."

Mordant [TotalFark] 2007-09-30 08:10:44 PM
yep, only the libs disrespect the troops.
///
Huh. All this time I thought Bush was a neo-con. Go figure....

SemperLieSuckah: Benni K RokThe DoD is NOT liable for people if they can't get their lives together after a discharge even though there are PLENTY of programs (government and non-profit) to help out vets. But you never hear THOSE reported...
You are correct. I haven't heard of most of them myself. Thank you for the information.

SemperLieSuckah: local, i've been there, and back. They'll live, quit being an enabler for self-pity with rare exception.

Wow. The depths of your knowledge of emotional and mental trauma are truly staggering. Do you teach your kids to swim by chucking them into the deep end and walking away, too? 'Cause that'd be pretty tough. No room for self-pitying whiners at the pool, right?

Free clue: people respond to trauma in different ways. Yours is not the only right one. Mental trauma does not equal weakness.

PTSD is a catch all term they use to cover a variety of mental disabilities. Some have what could better be descibed as disassociative amnesia, coupled with rage. Others get outright delusional. One is a livable condition the other... not so much.

/PTSD with amnesia
//you're much better off if your mind helps you forget.
///The state of medical care for combat veterans is in serious need of overhaul.

I think the truth is somewhere in the middle... there definitely are those that enter the service with psychological issues. The military has always been where you send confused young men to get some structure and discipline.. sometimes there's more wrong than just teenaged angst though... and that's not the DODs fault.

If you were a teacher and revealed that you had fantasies of harming children or something the school would certainly let you go. Maybe the stress of 23 6-year-olds would have "set you off", but I'm not sure that makes the school liable for harming you.

Yet another argument for socialized health care.

SemperLieSuckah: and by the way, the whole PTSD VA benefits thing is the hottest scam going for greedy dishonest scumbags getting out. Very few guys actually get PTSD but it is really easy to fake and the disability check for it is huge. So yeah, Bush's fault, General Betray Us, Corporate greed, zOMG.

/stop reading "news" from people who have an agenda or don't know WTF they're talking about.

Uh yeah. You're an idiot and have no idea what you're talking about.

SemperLieSuckah: I fractured my spine in two places (T7, L4) on a bad parachute landing because the Army (who we were jumping with) refuses to buy good safe God damn parachutes. Go hassle them, leave the VA alone.

I have to say it's the fault of whoever ordered you to jump out of an airplane; the only proper way to air deliver a Marine is to fire him from a 16-inch gun.
I've been in the VA system since '92; no problems with them, they do the best they can with what they have to work with. You just have to have a LOT of patience.

Bored Horde

Cut the kid a little slack - it takes a while for the younger ones to work all that Chesty Puller BS out of their systems. Baby marines are always quick to spout off a badass slogan or catchphrase, just in case someone's watching. They do it so much, you'd think they were getting paid for it.

After a few years in the real world, they're a lot less annoying. You just have to ignore them until they straighten out.

/What?

Okay, they're kicking out guys who have been in combat for "pre-existing" psychological conditions that just happen to have never become evident before?

That is the scummiest thing I have ever heard of, if true. I can't believe these people can walk around military bases without friggin' bodyguards.

I gotta see the details...

I mean I'm sure there are a few out there, but 22,000 in the last couple of years?

That's unconscionable.

JerkyMeat: SemperLieSuckah

You are simply full of shiat. You don't know anything, except the feel of your dick in your hand. You talk too much.


Lighten up, Francis.

Don't you ever get tired of saying that? Or are you laboring under the idea that it's somehow clever?

So the disabled combat veteran "doesn't know anything" about disabled combat veterans, according to the little boy squawking in the corner. Alrighty then.

Do they not farking get it? Between wars that have nothing to do with national defense and their general mistreatment of the troops, we're just going to run the well dry of people willing to volunteer. I just don't understand how people can support this administration and rag other people for being unsupportive of the troops.

SemperLieSuckah: Yes, the proportion of PTSD in this war is HIGHER than in past wars because of a higher survival rate, but it is still a VERY SMALL NUMBER. It just makes great evening news, so everyone hears about it emphasized disproportionately.

As for letting in people with disorders, what the hell happened to personal responsibility? If you come into the military with a disorder you lie about, then get kicked later without any kind of penalty later, HOW ARE YOU THE GOVERNMENT'S PROBLEM? If they completed at least two years they STILL GET A LOT OF BENEFITS.


Wait, I'm confused. Are you suggesting here that these guys, though few I understand, are joining the military WITH PTSD and not discovering it until they've been in combat?

/Your cart and your seem to be bassackward

HORSE! DAH!

/shiat

Here's the thing - if a soldier is lying to get in, and the military can't tell, then how do they classify it as a pre-existing condition?

Because they talked in the article about diagnosing people with a personality disorder (with a rubbish 45 minute interview). The list of personality disorders is short (ten) and specific, and part of the definition is there is a history of the behaviour back to late teens-early adulthood, and is not caused by physical trauma.

So you don't get to mid-thirties and "suddenly" develop something like Antisocial or Schizoid PD, even if you've been a miserable war. If you're being discharged from the military because they say you've got e.g. Paranoid PD, then pretty much by definition it's a pre-existing or non-service-related disorder.

Sounds like what they're doing is giving rubber-stamp tests in order to classify someone with a personality disorder instead of PTSD or depression, so they can say it's pre-existing.

PTSD is not a personality disorder.

SemperLieSuckah: HOW ARE YOU THE GOVERNMENT'S PROBLEM?

Put simply, even if they lied to get in, if they served a day of combat duty, they put their ass on the line for us... they should be punished (reduction in rank, pay penalty, something of that order), but that punishment should not diminish the risk they took for the country, or the countries obligation to deal with the medical and psychological repercussions from their service.

Your whole thing seems based on the concept that if they aren't punished in this way, then the alternative is "without any kind of penalty later." That's just a false dichotomy... there are plenty of punishments that fit this kind of behavior (should the behavior be knowingly and willfully committed), but this is simply not one of them.

if_i_really_have_to

I'm not specifically talking about PTSD - although you're right it's not a personality disorder.

But if you've got a mental condition so severe it bars you from further military service, then how did they not catch it earlier? You're evaluated during training, and again right before deployment. They specifically test you for psychological stability. If the shrinks say you're sane enough to go to war (and I've never seen them flag someone during predeployment screening) then how in the hell is it not their problem if you come back crazy? By any logic, you have to be crazier than when you left, since it wasn't a problem before you left, but it's a problem after you get back. If that's the case, then military service in some way aggravated your pre-existing condition, and if so you're entitled to disability benefits under VA guidelines.

Almost ten years ago I was discharged from the military for a preexisting personality disorder which was a total BS diagnosis made by quack. It took about five years fighting within the VA system (the Disabled American Veterans helped me fight and they rock!) for the VA to make a correct diagnosis (bipolar disorder severely aggravated by military service).

Most of the psychiatrists I've met in the military (Air Force, Navy) wouldn't have been able to diagnosis Hannibal Lecter.

Navigating and using the VA system requires lots and lots of patience, but other than the typical hurry-up-and-wait, I have never encountered any problems with the VA systems in Kansas, Oregon, or Colorado.

Having gone through MEPS and the other exams once you are in, intake mental health consists of a battery of multiple choice questions, where you only get a follow-up (maybe) if you choose the OBVIOUSLY wrong answers... I mean I still remember one of the questions vividly:

Why did you join the Air Force:
a) I want to serve my country
b) I want to help people in a different way
c) to blow things up and kill people
d) to learn new skills I can apply once I am out

the whole test is basically a battery of similar questions... frankly, it lacks any semblance of a real psychological examination. That... and to be frank, mental health care, even for relatively minor problems (I had a bout with insomnia so long I started to see happy little cartoon characters), is severely deficient... you're lucky if your 45-minute interview consists of more than 10 minutes of interaction... the other 35 minutes is note-taking and documentation, with you sitting quietly in the room.

stardyne: Navigating and using the VA system requires lots and lots of patience, but other than the typical hurry-up-and-wait, I have never encountered any problems with the VA systems in Kansas, Oregon, or Colorado.

It still pisses me off that probably 90% of the population thinks Walter Reed is and was a VA Hospital.

It's an Army hospital, who have their own set of very real policy problems.

Prospero424: It still pisses me off that probably 90% of the population thinks Walter Reed is and was a VA Hospital.

I agree 100%. I've never encountered a VA hospital or facility that was anywhere that farked up. Of course, years ago (as the old-timers always tell me), the VA wasn't a priority, so the facilities sucked. But, now, many facilities are state of the art, and they are almost always teaching hospitals for new doctors.

Rush just repeated the Phony Soldiers bit already published in an article a few days earlier.

As usual the hacks from the Media Matters/Soros crowd are only trying to do a hatchet job.

On another note congress has a bill on the table to allow ex servicemen to own a gun who are under treatment or have been treated for stress or other non threatening things.

As it is they are lumped into the same bin as psychotics and do not have the ability [ mechanism ] to defend themselves.

Are you sure you want the US government to be in charge of your very existence ?

stardyne

I've never encountered a VA hospital or facility that was anywhere that farked up.


Come out to California. I miss Walter Reed and Tripler AMC after dealing with some of these idiots.

Going from personal experience, I have seen many people I know go into the military and come out very different. Quite a few of them have been better off and maintain a discipline they didn't have before. A few of them though have come back batshiat crazy. I think it has less to do with combat and more to do with basic training. In training you are broken (much like a horse) and then rebuilt/retrained to follow orders and do the job at hand. I think some people never recover mentally from this process. Yes it's possible they had a pre-existing condition and that's why they don't recover. I wonder though if they had not gone into the military would their problems been as severe.

SemperLieSuckah: Oh, and final point. I am also a "disabled" veteran. Disability works on a percentage scale. If you hurt yourself in any way while you were in you probably rate a certain amount of cash for your percentage. I fractured my spine in two places (T7, L4) on a bad parachute landing because the Army (who we were jumping with) refuses to buy good safe God damn parachutes. Go hassle them, leave the VA alone.

hmmm, 8 years in the 82nd and i can honestly say that every accident i every witness and every injury i every observed (up to and including my own) was a result of the following:

1. the jumpers' failure to adhere to standard jump proceedure
2. the jumpers' failure to correctly perform a dynamic parachute landing fall

if the army truly provided you with a faulty parachute that resulted in your injury then you would have grounds for a very lucrative lawsuit. i would suggest starting with the VFW group in your area for immediate assistance with finding the proper legal consul.

larry00: As usual the hacks from the Media Matters/Soros crowd are only trying to do a hatchet job.

Oh yes, we all know that when Rush said "phony soldiers", he was only talking about this one guy he didn't even mention until after the original conversation.

He's such a victim...

sad, because the diagnosis of PTSD was created primarily so vets could get MH benefits.

noneoftheabove: Come out to California. I miss Walter Reed and Tripler AMC after dealing with some of these idiots.

That sucks. I guess you have your good and bad facilities. All the doctors and staff I've encountered in Kansas, Colorado, and Oregon, have been always helpful, knowledgeable, and professional. Maybe I can convince some of them to head out your way.

We, as a nation, cannot treat our veterans like shiat. Although, I was never in combat, I have talked with enough people who have been to have an inkling of how horrible war can be. If I were boss, I would at a minimum give VA care to all combat veterans. I've talked to really old vets who still remember their combat time like it was five minutes ago.

Preexisting conditions my ass. May be for some. Treatable yes, entitlement to long term health care yes, deserving of monetary compensation? No. Not because I'm a heartless bastard who couldn't give a fark, but because you can't put a dollar amount on it. No amount of money is going to make it better, would I have had a better life not having done and seen all that I've seen, probably... but if I'd gone to the Pratt Institute in NY instead of the Marine Corps I wouldn't have had any of those issues as well... You enter into it with the knowledge that shiat may happen. 2/3rds of the training is to mentally prepare you for the shiat that is proably going to happen. Call it stupidity, being young and niave, whatever, we signed our asses over and accept some responsibility for the result. No one forced me to give up my birthday. It was a great tour, I had a great farking time and met some of the most honorable individuals I'll ever know. Semper Fi. That said, U Signed the Motherfarking Contract. It's a package deal.

My helpful 10 step program should get any combat veteran back to being a productive member of society.

Step one: Go Machinegunning for Uncle Sam, get good at it.
Step two: Get into a combat situation that is totally farked and you witness and accomplish some pretty farked up shiat that you've somehow manage to survive.
Step three: Identify you have issues dealing with the farked up situation. Get out the Service.
Step four: Self medicate and exert your penned up anxiety and agression on others till you're awarded the asshole of the year award.
Step five: Contemplate killing yourself.
Step six: Get pulled over for failing to use a blinker.
Step seven: Get shiatty with the cop who discovers you have an outstanding traffic warrant from some no-name california town from like 5 years ago and arrests you.
Step eight: Sit in the drunk tank with a Vietnam veteran who has been doing it the way you're doing it for 50 years.
Step nine: Wake the fark up.
Step 10; Get some help.

There it is, 10 steps anyone can follow to lead a semi productive life. If you can accomplish those ten steps in 7-10 years, you're doing pretty good. If you can't, you'll likely revisit step five. No medical boards, no compensation... you only have to sit through the shiat long enough to be convinced that that killing yourself or somebody else is a really bad idea. That and check in once in a while when the scheming demons return. It's not a debilitating illness, but it can be life threatening. The problem is, it takes so damn long for any of us to actually man up and accept the fact that the mental bit is not natural and can't be controlled with alcohol and marijuanna.

You have to be a bit crazy, if you're not, they'll make you that way. If they don't, you're buddies will.

larry00
Funny, you seem to believe the US government is incapable of tying its collective shoelaces.

Yet, you are the biggest rah-rah cheerleader of a massive US government project some 12,000 miles away from home, and you seem automatically disinclined to believe veterans who might be entitled to disability compensation.

stardyne
I suspect the uniformed psychologists are told ahead of time what to diagnose.

firefly212
'The troops,' to conservatives, are only real if they are healthy and don't disagree in public with the conservative line. No, wait, minor disabilities are OK, provided you hew to the conservative line. After that, the Yellow Ribbon right doesn't give a fark about them.

stardyne

Aw hell, now I feel like a whiner. It's no biggie, I have a buddy that got out and moved to Portland, and he says the VA out there is pretty good, so I guess it's just a luck of the draw.

You're right about some folks not forgetting though. My dad is one of those Vietnam vets h3lx mentioned. I doubt he's gone 24 hours without remembering the war at least once. There are very few (if any) vets from this war that have a right to biatch as long as those guys are still around. This generation might be getting shafted, but it's nothing compared to the number they pulled on those guys. That shiat should have all of us hanging our heads in shame.

Everytime there is an article about the VA, it always claims that soilders don't get enough money, or none at all. This is insanely overexagerated. Some serial killer joins the marines, gets discharged and diagnosed with his schezophrenia he's had since the womb, and he will get benefits from the goverment till he dies. Not only that, but his kids will get benefits till they graduate college, and his wife will get his benefits after he dies.

RussianPooper , Shhhhhhhh... that was suppose to be a surprise!

yarnothuntin
I just discharged a thousand solders, and I'm pretty sure they all have pre-existing mental problems.

1,000? Sounds like you have a low soldier count.

Very sad. If you can't even take care of your own, what kind of a country are you? Those men and women deserve so much more.

Raditzdm: Looking more like Vietnam every day.

Really now? I was thinking the Philippines circa 1901 myself

But then most of you guys just use Vietnam because it makes you feel better or something /ponder

they should discharge all of them, then, 'cuz you've got to be crazy to join the military.

haterade: blah, I have PTSD
haven't applied for disability, i will most likely someday, but not just for this ailment
Re-experiencing the trauma: ooooohhhh yea, and i even creatively daydream/nightmare about situations i was never in
Emotional numbing: definately..can't complain about this one because the only emotions i have are joy and excitement...really affects relationships though and few can understand
Avoidance: hah! try finding me (when im not on the laptop) i dont answer or return phone calls..it gets deeper from there
Increased arousal: my sleeping pattern is variable, concentration is out the window, irritable and hypervigilance are definates also
/thanks for the free therapy, i'm good for another 3 months

haterade, I also have PTSD, and I have all of those symptoms, even after 10 years. (It's not from being in a war zone, thanks for caring, you a-holes). Therapy has been pretty useless. Prozac has helped. Pot helps, but sometimes I don't like the "side-effects" of being stoned. Sometimes I wish I could get disability, but since I'm not a vet, I don't think it would even be worth trying. (And it would aggravate my PTSD.) Some medicinal weed, now, that might be nice....

Oh, and people with personality disorders NEVER self-report mental conditions. It's part of their disorder--there's nothing wrong with them! It's everybody else's fault! And since they have trouble getting along with others, it's not surprising that they may join the military.

Rigamaroll: Everytime there is an article about the VA, it always claims that soilders don't get enough money, or none at all. This is insanely overexagerated. Some serial killer joins the marines, gets discharged and diagnosed with his schezophrenia he's had since the womb, and he will get benefits from the goverment till he dies. Not only that, but his kids will get benefits till they graduate college, and his wife will get his benefits after he dies.

Hmm, I look at it as once you accept someone, they're
your responsibility. If they were good enough to kill for
you, you need to fulfill your end of the contract - or
doesn't that enter into your idea of fairness?

Sounds like what they're doing is giving rubber-stamp tests in order to classify someone with a personality disorder instead of PTSD or depression, so they can say it's pre-existing.

Yup. They're very different types of disorders.

Although if you have PTSD badly enough, you might act like you have borderline personality disorder. *sigh*

/been there, done that.

ptsd. Guess it happens more to people who had very happy and satisfying childhoods. If you hit shiat early in life don't think there's gonna be that high of a chance you'll get ptsd from stuff later in life. Sheize is gona hit the fan at some point anyway might as well get used to it early on.

//start killin teh crazy hajjis

The difference between Catch-22 and this situation, is in Catch-22 the soldiers wanted to be discharged against the Army's wishes - in this case, the Army wants to do the evicting and washing it's hands of the problem it has created.

Disgusting.

I am tired of these phony soldiers and their entitlement agenda.

They just need to get over it and get back to work.

George Carlin was right. PTSD is so inhuman.

Where's the less-friendly term "shell shock" when you need it?

/This story is just awful, and it will be quickly buried, move along.

scruffy1
This is sad. So when these soldiers roam the streets not eligible for VA care and unable to get medical coverage what are the chickenshiat hawks going to say when they start robbing, raping, or worse when their PTSD or other problems arise?

It's happening now. Take a look at who's in your jail. It's costing taxpayers beaucoup money to house these people anyway.

Thats because the Veterans Administration is a complete and total clusterfark, and those that hold its purse strings are just as bad.

Vets are not getting the care they need, because there is not enough cash to go around, blame the politicians they say because they won't give them the money...

But the bonus's the upper officials get is in the millions. The office of the new director (just his office, not a new building or anything) cost 3 million bucks.

The government has nothing but respect for its military men, while they can still carry a rifle for them, after that... Not so much.

Mugato: Wow, this country really shiats on its veterans. Although they do get a discount at Hooters. So they have that going for them. Which is nice.

You can have my discount. Their food sucks, and I have a pair of my own that I can ogle.

SemperLieSuckah: OK, flame on. I'm going to sleep. Assholes.

That. Was. Awesome.

That's right. They were crazy to have gone into the military to begin with.

westbound pachyderm

Never thought I'd be using this here, but...

TTIWWP

larry00: As usual the hacks from the Media Matters/Soros crowd are only trying to do a hatchet job.

Why.. would they be trying to do a hatchet job?

/riddle me this

noneoftheabove: westbound pachyderm

Never thought I'd be using this here, but...

TTIWWP

This thread is just fine (minus the trolls obviously). Want proof? Check my profile.

SilentStrider: yup. so not shocked.

Nope, me neither. I can't believe anyone actually buys into the government's bullsh*t any more.

SemperLieSuckah: The military relies on self reporting of mental illness at MEPS. If you lie, you get through, but that doesn't make you special and deserving of free treatment more than the honest sick.

And, you've never known the military to try and fark soldiers over in order to save a few bucks??

What military have you been serving in?

Me thinks their discharged after they get hurt. Before their hurt, who cares. Fine job, Bush.

I Support our Troops!

And for just $1.95 you too can Support Our Troops! When you buy a cheap little magnent decal to put on your tailgate.

You can know that our troops, many of them who are in combat right now without the proper equipment needed to keep them safe and then will return home from combat with debilitating injuries and mental trauma, will be happy that you supported them with such a simple jesture.

Putting a magnent on the back of your truck is so much easier than writing your elected officials and demanding that they do something like actually Supporting Our Troops!

SchlingFo: SemperLieSuckah: The military relies on self reporting of mental illness at MEPS. If you lie, you get through, but that doesn't make you special and deserving of free treatment more than the honest sick.

And, you've never known the military to try and fark soldiers over in order to save a few bucks??

What military have you been serving in?

Don't feed the "recon" troll!

just here to mark my place in another fark flamewar

\PTSD is for pussies who can't handle murdering other people

Would the reverse be preferable?
Newest recruitment slogan:
"Can't find a job? Can't sleep? Chased by demons? Join the Army, and never have to work again for the rest of your life".

westbound pachyderm

That pic isn't sized for ogling, but point taken.

And assuming he's legit, it's a damn shame if one of the trolls happens to be a vet - particularly one with a VA rating.

I'm a vet (Grenada) and I use the local VA. Once I went in for a kidney test and they removed the tip of my left ear. Wrong chart. I honestly forgave them that because I have a really common name. So I went back in for the kidney test and woke up missing the tip of my right ear!

So now, I look like reverse-Spock. Thanks a hundred VA.

is anyone who is paying attention really suprised to read this? dissapointed? yes. but suprised? not really.

where are the conservative douchebags this morning, with quotes about "the best god damned country on earth" and "protecting our way of life"? blah blah blah.

i would love to see how someone like shaun hannity defends this. and i am sure we will find out, as soon as the white house faxes his talking points to him this morning.

danlpoon: I'm a vet (Grenada) and I use the local VA. Once I went in for a kidney test and they removed the tip of my left ear. Wrong chart. I honestly forgave them that because I have a really common name. So I went back in for the kidney test and woke up missing the tip of my right ear!

So now, I look like reverse-Spock. Thanks a hundred VA.

LOL! Pics or it didn't happen! =)

This thread needs more VA horror stories!

what_now

Oh lord, now you've done it ;)

You see anyone with a funny haircut hanging around your neighborhood, go back inside and lock the door.

This is nothing new. Althought it "might" be a new thing for mental illness, the military has, for decades, discharged disabled vets and done their best to prove that any disability is not "service related". That way they pass the cost on to the VA and the burden onto the Vet. The VA's main purpose, for the most part, is to work to save the government money, so proving your case is not easy.
If there are disabled vets out there, please contact any service organization (VFW, Legion, DAV), they have free services (ie service officers) to help you get your case heard and get through the maze that is the VA.

/PSA off...

Farking government.

How long til one of those ex-soldiers starts hunting the high-paid asshats who made that decision? Can't wait to read that article!

/let Dexter do it -- it's been 39 days since his last...

what_now: Noneoftheabove: ..to work all that Chesty Puller BS out of their systems...

Such a fantastic porn name.
Impressed.

/Good night, wherever you are
//Chicka-bow-wow
///Slashie, frozen Chosin pr0ns!

SemperLieSuckah: Oh, and final point. I am also a "disabled" veteran. Disability works on a percentage scale. If you hurt yourself in any way while you were in you probably rate a certain amount of cash for your percentage. I fractured my spine in two places (T7, L4) on a bad parachute landing because the Army (who we were jumping with) refuses to buy good safe God damn parachutes. Go hassle them, leave the VA alone.

Hoo hah chairborne ranger!!

/you only burn in if YOU didn't do it right, easier to blame the riggers though.

UnkleKrakker

If there are disabled vets out there, please contact any service organization (VFW, Legion, DAV), they have free services (ie service officers) to help you get your case heard and get through the maze that is the VA.

i definitely agree with this. there are tons of information out there that can help disbaled vets with claims, issues, etc for little or no cash. use the net, you can find them all over the country

It's OK everyone, because the people who are doing this to our veterans have yellow magnetic ribbons on their Lexus SUVs, and that means they support the troops.

There's a pre-existing condition that Bush/Cheney doesn't seem too interested in rooting out of the military...homosexuality.

It must mean homosexuals are just like any other soldier. But you would never hear this administration say that. And when they come home from Iraq, I bet homosexuals won't be allowed to marry or adopt or inherit property by this same Bush/Cheney administration.

gilgigamesh: SemperLieSuckah: :sigh: once again a civilian who thinks the DOD is a big liable for everyone socialist nanny criticizes that which they don't fathom.

Did you just suffer a stroke?

I think he landed head first in that one jump

/freakin cherry....

danlpoon

Serves you right for serving in Grenada.

/where did the far-left trolls go?

westbound pachyderm: noneoftheabove: westbound pachyderm

Never thought I'd be using this here, but...

TTIWWP

This thread is just fine (minus the trolls obviously). Want proof? Check my profile.

Nice boobs!

What percentage of those 22,000 are whiny biatches that are just homesick? I'm guessing about 20,000.

This is just a good way to get rid of the weenie boys without having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on expensive shrinks. In the old days, cowardice would get you executed.

Thousands of U.S. soldiers in Iraq - as many as 10 a day - are being discharged by the military for mental health reasons. But the Pentagon isn't blaming the war. It says the soldiers had "pre-existing" conditions that disqualify them for treatment by the government.
RELATED BLOG
Read more news and insight from the nation's capital in our DC Download blog


Many soldiers and Marines being discharged on this basis actually suffer from combat-related problems, experts say. But by classifying them as having a condition unrelated to the war, the Defense Department is able to quickly get rid of troops having trouble doing their work while also saving the expense of caring for them.


That just about says it all now doesn't it? There's a reason why people think that if you're served in the military, you're basically a TOOL, They use and abuse you until you're worthless, then they chuck you to the side once they're done.

This is why many war veterans become anti-war protester after they've served their time in the military. Its also why recruiters choose the young and ignorant.

But then again, with this war, you're not a soldier, you're a mercenary, fighting to protect oil fields and the profits of corporations, so what would you expect?

Mordant: yep, only the libs disrespect the troops.

FTA:
In the House, Rep. Phil Hare, D-Ill., is leading the effort to get similar legislation approved.

ORLY???

vandelay: westbound pachyderm: noneoftheabove: westbound pachyderm

Never thought I'd be using this here, but...

TTIWWP

This thread is just fine (minus the trolls obviously). Want proof? Check my profile.

Nice boobs!

I guess I set myself up for that one, didn't I? Nonetheless, thanks.

What says these people are lying to get through the screening process? Assuming for a second that the DoD is right, and that all these people are really suffering from pre-existing illnesses, then I ask this: Why is it automatically assumed that these people are aware of thier illnesses? What proof is there that they were aware and diagnosed with these illnesses, and yet lied to get into the service? And more importantly, if these people did in fact go to a professional for diagnosis and/or treatment of said conditions, would that not come up in prescreening? Does the military not check medical records for such things? Is it all truly some wierd honor system for the applicants to divulge all pre-existing medical problems? If so, then what nimrod thought up this policy and why is it not mandatory for enlistment to waive privacy to your medical history for purposes of prescreening?

matt2891: What says these people are lying to get through the screening process? Assuming for a second that the DoD is right, and that all these people are really suffering from pre-existing illnesses, then I ask this: Why is it automatically assumed that these people are aware of thier illnesses? What proof is there that they were aware and diagnosed with these illnesses, and yet lied to get into the service? And more importantly, if these people did in fact go to a professional for diagnosis and/or treatment of said conditions, would that not come up in prescreening? Does the military not check medical records for such things? Is it all truly some wierd honor system for the applicants to divulge all pre-existing medical problems? If so, then what nimrod thought up this policy and why is it not mandatory for enlistment to waive privacy to your medical history for purposes of prescreening?

If the troops had lied in their enlistment, they would be subject to prison time and hefty fines. The fact that none of them are pretty much shows how much BS the pre-existing story is.

doyner: Wow. It takes a real quack scumbag to discharge a PTSD veteran with a pre-existing personality disorder. Amazing how supporting the troops falls out of vogue once it becomes unprofitable.

This bears repeating!

Apoe: The government has nothing but respect for its military men, while they can still carry a rifle for them, after that... Not so much.

That statement is so true. I have not worked for almost 4 years due to an injury in the military, which i got discharged for the classic "injury prior to enlistment". So far this while upsetting is nothing new. Those that wish to try to fight the government to get what they deserve to get will be doing so for much of the rest of there lives.

SemperLieSuckah The military relies on self reporting of mental illness at MEPS

you're obviously not a veteran. The point of all the stress in basic is to see how you handle yourself. Once you are 'on the job', If you 'self report', you lose your clearance and end up in motor-pool (not a safe place to be in Iraq!).

and if you don't believe in PTSD or shell shock, come volunteer in the VA hospital. If it was still 75, I'd suggest you wear black pajamas, but today you can just wear a sheet.

h3lx, I see from your places visited map that you were in Somalia. Can't imagine that was a pleasure trip...

/draft is a comin' everyone
//thanks for the advice h3lx, a lot of Farkers may need it

I work with a psychiatrist who told me "When I worked for the military we were encouraged to find that an illness began prior to enlistment." So yes it happens. If not as written official policy then at least as de facto policy. He worked for the military during peace time so this is nothing new. If anything this de facto policy is probably encouraged even more now.

Same shiat, different war. We have always left vets at the curb on trash day, and we still are. "Support The Troops" is a meaningless slogan. How many abandoned vets whom the establishment has betrayed will go Timothy McVeigh or John Allen Muhammad on us?

Nidabriz: Farking government.

How long til one of those ex-soldiers starts hunting the high-paid asshats who made that decision? Can't wait to read that article!

/let Dexter do it -- it's been 39 days since his last...



*GOLF CLAP*

j0ndas
I guess the troops only matter to you if they don't need assistance. Of course, like most of the yellow ribbon right here on Fark, you served in combat, right?

Or maybe you're just a really good troll.

ptsd from a farked up jump b/c the army provided the shutes for ur recon unit jump wit em? am i the only 1 puzzled by this?

On one hand, I can understand the military's point of view. Between helicopter parenting, soccer moms, and the overprotective zealousness of parents that nothing is ever poor Johnny's fault they grow up to be some truly deranged people. Hell, 3/4 of Fark falls into that category. 99.99% are completely incapable of admitting when they're wrong.

On the other hand, legally speaking, these people currently in made it through the screenings and the military should be held accountable for their health once they made it past the physicals and psychological progiles. Frankly, I hope one of these soldiers starts a class action lawsuit and sues the living shiat out of them.

Friendly fire rocks.

Bit'O'Gristle: So...let me get this straight...you are "good to go" and fight, but when they are through with you, and you are all farked up mentally, then they blame a "pre-existing" condition, boot you out, and you get nothing?


/wow..the huge balls of those in charge.



Yeah. And what the hell are you going to do about it? That's what I thought.

When you have that type of power over the people, you can treat them with impunity and discard them like a turd down a toilet. And there's nothing you can do to stop it.

If you have a pre-existing condition that will exclude you from benefits, you should not be sent into a war zone in the first place. If you are sent to a war zone anyway, you should be covered.

Just my $0.02.

/flame on

haterade: believe me..there are plenty of crazy soldiers that DO have pre-existing mental conditions and have never seen combat

/plenty go crazy just from the stress of basic training

Are you saying that they ARE. IN A WORLD. OF SHIAT?

/not even a little obscure
//someone else grab a pic...please?

Sgt Otter: SemperLieSuckah: and by the way, the whole PTSD VA benefits thing is the hottest scam going for greedy dishonest scumbags getting out. Very few guys actually get PTSD but it is really easy to fake and the disability check for it is huge. So yeah, Bush's fault, General Betray Us, Corporate greed, zOMG.

/stop reading "news" from people who have an agenda or don't know WTF they're talking about.

I seriously want to know who is doing your guys' disability assessment. I know guys that got blasted with shrapnel so many times that they now have enough metal in them to qualify as cyborgs, can't walk a straight line, can barely hear, and they had to fight and appeal to get 10%.

In case you missed it:
If there are disabled vets out there, please contact any service organization (VFW, Legion, DAV), they have free services (ie service officers) to help you get your case heard and get through the maze that is the VA.

Seriously, tell them, service officers are trained to know the ins and outs, and they're free.

The whole 'You get nothing' is not entirely accurate. Even the shiatbirds who get the big chicken dinner get some benefits... These guys want a monetary number applied to their disability and the higher up are reluctant to do it because the whole entitlement system would be crippled by it. You EAS with benefits, the notable life at the VA bit, though arguably inferior (by location), among other significant entitlements... to squawk about getting nothing is a crock of shiat. (Unless they're really getting farked in which case where are they meeting and should I bring my own ammo). You get what you can get when you can get it.

/Shattered right knee, partial blindness in my left eye, damamged back, night sweats, sleeplessness, bad dreams, irritability, emotionally unstable, addictive tendencies, erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, greasy discharge with the inability to control it, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, overweight, not to mention the sand in my vagina, none of which were pre-existing and I didn't see a farking dime. Before the corps I was the pinnicle of divine health and afterwards, I became this mere shadow of my former self.
//Can I get a hug and some cake, may be some ice cream with some of those spinkles on it.

After years and years and years and years of stories of the govt screwing over the troops with regards to healthcare, why does anyone sign up for this crap anymore?
Why would anyone willing sign up for the armed forces, knowing they are going to be used like a condom and flushed down the toilet afterwards, IF they even live through it?

I knowingly enlisted with a pre-existing mental illness and I know that I don't deserve benefits.

Call me what you will.

mrsleep: After years and years and years and years of stories of the govt screwing over the troops with regards to healthcare, why does anyone sign up for this crap anymore?
Why would anyone willing sign up for the armed forces, knowing they are going to be used like a condom and flushed down the toilet afterwards, IF they even live through it?

Life sucks no matter where you go. At least when I was in, I had free (albeit incompetent) medical care, free food, and free housing. I also get to go to college for free because of the GI Bill, and I get veteran's preference for a lot of jobs. Yes, being screwed by the proverbial "big, green weenie" sucks (one of many reasons why I am no longer there), but besides that and the misdiagnosed, untreated asthma, I am glad that I enlisted. This is just a microchosm in the grand scheme of things.

Regardless if it was pre-existing or not the government should pay. These are human beings, take care of them. They are more than willing to pay an ass load more for a piece of weaponry yet to get a human being healthy that has attempted to support their cause no matter how asinine that cause is the government ejects them over fiscal reasons.

Give people the benefit of the doubt and help them. They spend so much more everyday on things that are mind blowingly stupid. I suppose they wanted to make sure they continued their current streak of doing nothing positive in the world.

Otter

Not sure if you should care or not, but...

http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=3101609

Hey....they're doing this to a friend of mine. Except they're doing it through the court system after his problems got too big for him to handle. He's been not-okay for years, I've known him for a decade and I couldn't believe the Army let him in. Even he admitted it was a fancy form of suicide, when I asked him why he'd joined up.

So, best case scenario, he gets dishonorably discharged due to his behavior (caused by his mental illness), and worst case scenario, he does a few years in military prison. Oh, gee, thanks, Army---nice one. I repeat, there is NO way a competent or legitimate mental health professional or regular joe MD could have missed his problems. As a non-military gal I don't know, but IS there even a screening process? Or do we need so many troops replaced that it's pretty much a free-for-all at this point?

Sigh.

I work for the VA, so I'm getting a kick...blah...blah...

/ actually do VA work
// not with claims, etc
/// this shiat is sickening

Oh, and people with personality disorders NEVER self-report mental conditions. It's part of their disorder--there's nothing wrong with them! It's everybody else's fault! And since they have trouble getting along with others, it's not surprising that they may join the military.

Yes. People with personality disorders don't usually know they have them. If they know that they have the symptoms, they don't know they have the disorder - a narcissist will acknowledge other narcissists exist, but he or she really IS that great! People with personality disorders don't tend to seek treatment. These people are not lying. They don't know they have a problem.

High levels of stress can also trigger latent conditions that would not have been triggered otherwise. That's as true for psychological conditions as for physical conditions. IMO, the insurance company or employer (in this case, DOD) should still be responsible for coverage if the triggering stress happened on the job.

The employees in this case submit to health screening before enrollment. This is a CYA for the employer/insurer. If an excluding condition was not discovered during screening, and if the employee had no knowledge of such an excluding condition, either the condition did not exist or the screening process was not good enough to catch it. In the first case, the insurer is clearly liable to cover the costs of care in the insurance contract. In the second case, in my opinion, the insurer is STILL liable. If their CYA left some A exposed, that's not the employee's problem.

Personal responsibility does not mean that individual persons take on the responsibility for the failures of government agencies, corporations, or other persons to uphold their own responsibilities and mitigate their own risks.

I spent 3 years as the doctor for a Marine infantry battalion, so I'm getting a kick out of these replies.

Here's my experience with this issue. In total, working with the Division psychiatrist, I made recommendations for administrative separation of perhaps 25 Marines for personality disorders. All of them were pre-existing conditions, and none of them were fit to deploy. You don't suddenly acquire a cluster B disorder after you join the military or deploy to a war zone. They develop over a lifetime.

I was fortunate enough to have a CO who simply did whatever I recommended when it came to medical issues. When we deployed to Iraq, we left behind 19 people that I said should be admin separated because their personality disorders made them liabilities. (Some other jackass actually deployed one of them to us as a combat replacement about 5 months later - his first act upon arrival was to assault another Marine with a knife.)

Typically, these guys were referred to me by their company 1st Sergeant because they were either disciplinary problems, screwups, in legal trouble, or all of the above. They never came of their own volition seeking help. None were career Marines - most had less than 1 year of service.

So anyway, don't immediately dismiss the claims that people are getting discharged for "pre-existing mental illness" as garbage ... lots and lots and lots of people with personality disorders (mostly antisocials) join the military. These thugs and criminals aren't going to be fixed by boot camp. Is it a failure of the entrance screening and boot camp itself that some of these people actually make it through and get assigned to units? Sure.

The 10-year veteran described in TFA, who was diagnosed with a personality disorder and railroaded out is not the norm.


Regarding PTSD, the biggest problem I had with treating it was identifying the Marines who needed help. Over two deployments, amongst ~2000 Marines under my care, I can count on one hand the number who came to me for help with combat stress related problems. Those Marines all got help - whatever they needed. Nondeployable billets and daily/weekly appointments with a psychiatrist, counselor, or whatever was appropriate.

Big problem #2 was that the peak window for mental health problems after a deployment starts about 90 days after they return. (The euphoria of being home is over, the combat pay is spent, and nothing's left for some except another brutal workup for the next deployment.) By this time, a huge number of my Marines had left the USMC or PCS'd to other units. It was simply impossible for me to follow up with more than 1/3 of my unit after we came home.

Finally, there's still a huge stigma attached to mental illness - even PTSD. It's especially bad in the Marines (where members pride themselves on being part of an elite Corps, and tend to think that they're immune), so very few come forward looking for help.

I had quite a few end-of-enlistment Marines with physical injuries try to minimize their problems, telling me they'd rather get out right away, than risk their discharge getting held up by seeking treatment. I'm sure that problem is even worse for mental illness.


Part of the problem with identifying and treating those with mental health problems is that military medicine is being systematically dismantled and outsourced, but I think I've typed enough for one post.

drp

The difference is, the article is talking about troops that were cleared for deployment. If these guys had been boarded out because of something that popped up during the predeployment screening, it wouldn't draw this kind of outrage. But instead they made it to combat, and made it back, THEN someone decided they were crazy. There's no defending that.

I'm glad you took your job seriously, and did it right. I can say from firsthand experience that not every unit operates the same way. I can personally attest not only to troops making it through the screening when they shouldn't have, but I personally witnessed soldiers that had already started med board separations having their paperwork "lost" or forgotten, and getting deployed in direct violation of DOD directives. It took congressional intervention in at least one case before someone higher-up got in trouble and the troops got sent home to continue medical treatment and finish their separation. This was done with the direct knowledge of the Division Surgeon, a Lt. Col.

I almost wish you'd stayed in. Lord knows they needs someone not only skilled enough to do the job, but honest enough to do it right.

My dad was wounded twice (real bullets and shrapnel) in WWII. Silver Star and a couple of Bronze Stars. Two purple hearts. Back to combat after being released from the hospital each time. As long as I can remember until he died he woke up yelling about once a month. I'm sure that was all pre-existing when he was drafted.

doyner: What I am arguing is that after sending a person into combat the window for identifying a disqualifying mental condition should be closed. A person may be unstable before spending a year in Ramadi, but I don't see how it can be proved that that year didn't screw them up [more].

I agree.

noneoftheabove: But instead they made it to combat, and made it back, THEN someone decided they were crazy. There's no defending that.

You're right.


Part of the problem is that the line encourages military physicians to think of themselves as officers first, doctors second. There's an awful lot of pressure to to not let the medical department get in the way of operations. I remember for one large training exercise which required flying the battalion from North Carolina to California, the command fought tooth & nail to bring along every single person. Didn't matter that some were injured and needed physical therapy 3x/week, someone had chartered the planes and Regiment had ordered that the seats be filled with bodies ... even if they weren't capable of participating in the training exercise.


Another problem, that is related to every other problem with military medicine, is that each service discourages physicians from staying in for a career. The logic goes that it will cost too much to pay for a lifetime of benefits after retirement, and that it's cheaper to pull in a civilian doctor for a few years with student loan repayment plans or lump sum bonuses. Furthermore, the ones who do stay in (and ultimately reach command) tend to be the admin track doctors as opposed to the ones who are skilled clinicians.

The military is deliberately breeding medical flag officers like the fool who returned $millions of Walter Reed's budget unspent, despite glaring deficiencies in infrastructure, just so he could cite his "efficiency" in his fitness report, and pick up another star.