VBA Getting New Director, Marines Getting Lousy Care for PTSD.
November 21, 2009 by John Allen · 3 Comments
In today’s New York Times we read that the Veterans Benefit Administration will soon get a new chief. Rear Admiral Patrick Dunne, USN (Ret.) is leaving the position. The story entitled Troubled V.A. Agency Will Get a New Chief is here.
In this editorial, the New York Times explains President Obama’s unprecedented deference to the Chinese as a recognition of a global shift in power now taking place in the world.
In this Op Ed piece entitled An American Catastrophe, Bob Herbert explains our dead and dying manufacturing base and laments why we let it get this way. In this Op Ed entitled In Defense of New York, Charles Blow tells us that the average New Yorker lives with the threat of terrorism every day so the 9/11 trials should go forward as a matter of course. They don’t see this as a big deal.
In this Op Ed piece by Ray Madoff entitled Protect the Farm, Tax the Manor , Mr. Madoff argues for protecting the family farmer from huge taxes while at that same time making sure that the wealthy carry their fair share of the tax burden.
This has special implications for us as veterans.
Very rarely do the very wealthy have family within the armed forces, yet the armed forces fights and dies for the aims of the wealthy and their business ventures very much like the Roman Legions did for Rome. This must end. Paying their taxes is the least that they can do!
In this piece entitled Jobless Rate Up in 29 States, Hitting Records in 4 of Them, we look at the data. It ain’t pretty.
In today’s Washington Post we find an article entitled Hasan had intensified contact with cleric, which is self exlplanatory. In this article entitled Hackers steal electronic data from top climate research center, climate change skeptics hack into the email accounts of several world class climate- change scientists and publish unflattering emails they have sent to each other deriding the skeptics. Illegal? Sounds that way to me. In an article entitled Christian leaders take issue with laws, we see that Christian leaders of several prominent denominations have signed a document urging Americans to practice civil disobedience relative to any laws that they find objectionable. In this unusual piece entitled In Indiana, practice for ‘civilian surge’ in Afghanistan, State Department employees attend a training camp where they learn to work with Afghanis and the U.S. Armed Forces with the help of real Afghanis and real troopers. In a very odd story entitled Fired therapist: Stressed Marines get shoddy care, we learn that combat PTSD marines attempting to get therapy had some real complaints about the surroundings. Here is an excerpt: "The noise from training exercises "shook me up real bad. I couldn’t take it. I almost ran out of there a couple of times," said a Marine patient who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the media. "My mind couldn’t focus on the treatment. I couldn’t tell the difference between the combat zone and the non-combat zone." We obviously have a long way to go in veteran and combat injured DoD health care. Get informed and stay informed. An informed veteran is a comfort to his friends and a danger to his adversaries. CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)
Yeah, I remember a lonng time ago when I was evaluated for my PTSD (still refused BTW). The counselor took me to the VA’s dining hall and inside they were banging on pats and pans and this was an indicator of, if the noise did not bother me then I didn’t have PTSD.
He didn’t understand that Aircraft Carriers have very large dining halls (called mess decks) and the noise there is much louder than what I heard. But even so I have never heard of a pot attacking me, but I have known of an airplane that had my name in mind. I remember one time in the middle of the afternoon, the whole ship stopped launching and recovering A/Cs, nothing was moved, no traffic, no radio noise nothing, AND I woke up, listened for any noise and thought to myself “hmmm, wonder if I’m in hell? but uhh, if I am why did I take the carrier with me”? So I got up and walked around the ship till I saw someone else (who didn’t look ’spiritual) and then I went back to bed. Told my guys about it and they thought was crazy.
Things have change and we Veterans must fight back.
http://www.mistreatedvets.com
Shame on our government for wanting to give the Blue Water vets a rediculously hard time just because we served on board ship. I wonder how some of them would have reacted if they had heard “Gentlemen, you’re now in the war zone”. What would have gone through their mind everytime darkness became light from fire fights all night long as you did missions on the coastline? Would they so readily accept that agent orange couldn’t possibly have drifted past the shoreline? After witnessing first hand VA’s snails pace and lack of decency in treatment of “all vets”, I have to say I’m no closer to trusting them than I was 39 years ago. God bless our troops and our vets.