A George Carlin Classic on Combat PTSD

Back in my flight attendant days, I generally bid to work the first class cabin. Not only were there fewer seats giving you fewer mouths to feed and water in that section of the plane, every so often you'd get to mix and mingle with some of the greatest (and worst) and/or famous (and infamous) people on the planet.

I met Muhammad Ali this way and Jonas Salk. Lady Bird Johnson, Pele, Walter Payton and Jesse Jackson. Billy Joel, Bobby Vinton, Cheap Trick, Amy Grant, Dream Theater, Ozzy Osbourne, Daryl Hall, Smokey Robinson. Oprah Winfrey, Weird Al Yankovich, Lee Majors, Anita Hill. The Toronto Blue Jays immediately after they won the World Series. Morley Safer, Bill Wallace, Lesley Stahl, Ed Bradley...the 60 Minutes gang on separate flights and times.

Frankly, I crossed paths with so many over my 15-year career that I can't even remember all of them anymore. And, looking at the brief list of names above, I can see I'm dating myself. Now you hardly ever see a meal even in first class, and even rarer still are celebrity sightings -- many fly on their own (or shared) leased aircraft these days if at all possible.

But back in my day, one celeb that I kept running into (not one, not two, but three separate times during my career) on my flights from Chicago to New York City was comedian George Carlin. He always had the same vibe on board as he has on stage (I've seen him there, too): a little rough around the edges, a compelling if no nonsense figure, mischievously witty and sharp as a tack.

And always, always a bit annoyed.

Carlin is known for his colorful delivery and razor-sharp examination of the English language -- and the humans who use and abuse it -- in all of its quirky wonder. Here's a classic bit (fortunately, a Sunday morning-friendly passage) on combat PTSD, a selection called 'Euphemisms' from his Explicit Lyrics CD.

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for more...

I don't like words that hide the truth. I don't like words that conceal reality. I don't like euphemisms, or euphemistic language. And American English is loaded with euphemisms. Cause Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent the kind of a soft language to protect themselves from it, and it gets worse with every generation. For some reason, it just keeps getting worse. I'll give you an example of that.

There's a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It's when a fighting person's nervous system has been stressed to it's absolute peak and maximum. Can't take anymore input. The nervous system has either (click) snapped or is about to snap.

In the first world war, that condition was called shell shock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables, shell shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves.

That was seventy years ago. Then a whole generation went by and the second world war came along and very same combat condition was called battle fatigue. Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn't seem to hurt as much. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. Shell shock! Battle fatigue.

Then we had the war in Korea, 1950. Madison avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called operational exhaustion. Hey, we're up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase. It's totally sterile now. Operational exhaustion. Sounds like something that might happen to your car.

Then of course, came the war in Viet Nam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years, and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it's no surprise that the very same condition was called post-traumatic stress disorder. Still eight syllables, but we've added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-traumatic stress disorder.

I'll bet you if we'd of still been calling it shell shock, some of those Viet Nam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I'll betcha. I'll betcha.

Related Posts

• What Is It About Combat PTSD?
  
• 'Until We Send Robots to Fight, We'll Always Have PTSD'

Nation's First 'Veterans Court' Comes to Order

A welcome counter to today's NYT report from The Buffalo News:

A small army of veterans advocates is putting the finishing touches on what is believed to be the country’s first Veterans Court, where military veterans having problems adjusting to civilian life will get special attention.

The goal is to intercept troubled veterans before they plunge further into an already overwhelmed criminal justice system, which lacks the resources to help them get their lives back on track.

“Rather than be reactionary, we thought if we could be proactive, we could design a system that would better serve our community, the veterans and their families,” said Buffalo City Court Judge Robert T. Russell Jr., who will preside over Veterans Court when it starts Tuesday.

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for more...

In the interest of education, article quoted from extensively.

Continuing:

In some ways, this court is similar to the Drug Court and Mental Health Court that Russell already supervises, offering defendants a chance to wipe the slate clean and avoid time behind bars so long as mandated treatment programs are followed.

The Veterans Court, operating in Buffalo City Court, will be open to all Erie County veterans who commit nonviolent offenses, even if the crimes occur outside city limits. That’s because judges in other jurisdictions have the option of referring veterans to this special court.

And there’s no question of the need. A recent study determined more than 300 area veterans, many of them who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, entered the criminal justice system in 2007.

The move to create the new court for veterans was praised by West Huddleston, president of the National Association of Drug Courts in Alexandria, Va.

“It’s certainly the first designated veterans court in the United States, and it is a step in the right direction for veterans with post-traumatic stress, emotional and mental health issues,” Huddleston said, adding that the local judicial system is recognizing that these individuals, who sometimes turn to drugs and alcohol, require “help not punishment.”

Court officials here said that historically the criminal justice system has not done well with returning war veterans.

“Vietnam vets did not have this kind of service. The system was ill-prepared, and we’re hoping to learn from our mistakes,” said Henry G. Pirowski, a former Marine, social worker and project director for City Court.

Working with Pirowski on establishing the court, which will be in session every Tuesday, are Jack O’Connor and David Mann, co-founders of the Western New York Veterans Project. Veterans need the special judicial attention, said Mann, who also works as a Buffalo police lieutenant.

“Nationally, we’re seeing an increase of domestic violence, child abuse and neglect among veterans. We also know that there are higher rates of drug and alcohol abuse, which sometimes leads to arrests,” Mann said.

In this mix of behavior, Pirowski said, are war-related psychological wounds.

“There’s a lot of self-medication with drugs and alcohol, and when you throw in post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injuries, it’s a formula for failure and unacceptable behavior,” he said. Compounding the problem, Pirowski said, is that the veterans who need the help the most are the least likely to find it on their own.

“They have a warrior mentality. Treatment is for the weak, and so they don’t seek it,” he said.

But part of the message in Veterans Court is that there is no shame in accepting help. And the help will be comprehensive, going beyond drug and alcohol treatment and counseling from mental health experts:

• Homeless veterans will be placed in lodging.

• Unemployed veterans will receive job training and education at Erie Community College.

• Volunteer mentors will be assigned to work with the offending veterans.

“What we hear a lot in court is that ‘no one understands me,’ ‘they don’t know how I feel,’ and ‘I no longer fit in,’” Pirowski said. That won’t be the case in Veterans Court.

“We have close to 20 veterans who are volunteering as mentors to help them readjust to civilian life,” Russell said. “It’s amazing to see how one veteran talking to another veteran can help in encouraging treatment.”

The judge witnessed this first hand through a pilot program of Veterans Court over the last year, in which more than 160 veterans, many from Iraq and Afghanistan, were assisted. ... [T]hose who embrace the second chance offered by Veterans Court, the prospects of staying out of trouble with the law are better than those of the typical criminal.

“The overall national average for recidivism is 60 to 80 percent. With vets we’ve worked with informally over the last three years, the rate has been 4 percent,” Pirowski said. And there’s another big plus.

Dr. Terri Julian, manager of the VA’s post-traumatic stress residential program in Batavia, says this type of early intervention will save lives that might otherwise be destroyed.

“If we can introduce opportunities for a healthier alternative, like treatment to deal with emotional problems and alcohol problems, then we are doing the veteran a service and society as well,” Julian said. There’s no disagreement on that point.

Pirowski says that while the criminal justice system lacks the resources to treat veterans, it will make a difference with the Veterans Court. “In the old days it was search and destroy,” said Pirowski, referring to his military service and that of other vets. “Now it’s identify and help.”

I absolutely love this type of proactive community involvement.


 Related Posts

• Combat Veterans, PTSD and Prison
  
• Alternative Sentencing Considered for Minnesota's OEF/OIF Veteran First-Time Offenders
  
• Veterans, Violence and Society
  
• Wisconsin Law Enforcement Proactive in Meeting Needs of Veteran and Community

121 OEF/OIF Vets Charged With, Committed Murder Following Return to States

From the New York Times, the first in a series ('War Torn') looking at some -- statistically but the slightest sliver of those who have served and returned without incident -- of our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who have been charged with or committed murder, murder/suicide, manslaughter, etc.

This is difficult information and should not be used to demonize our veterans. Rather, we need to use such accounts to better understand our collective role in not doing more to ensure our returning troops have all the tools and help necessary to make their post-combat deployments as successful as possible.

Town by town across the country, headlines have been telling similar stories. Lakewood, Wash.: “Family Blames Iraq After Son Kills Wife.” Pierre, S.D.: “Soldier Charged With Murder Testifies About Postwar Stress.” Colorado Springs: “Iraq War Vets Suspected in Two Slayings, Crime Ring.”

Individually, these are stories of local crimes, gut-wrenching postscripts to the war for the military men, their victims and their communities. Taken together, they paint the patchwork picture of a quiet phenomenon, tracing a cross-country trail of death and heartbreak.

The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment — along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems — appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction.

Three-quarters of these veterans were still in the military at the time of the killing. More than half the killings involved guns, and the rest were stabbings, beatings, strangulations and bathtub drownings. Twenty-five offenders faced murder, manslaughter or homicide charges for fatal car crashes resulting from drunken, reckless or suicidal driving.

About a third of the victims were spouses, girlfriends, children or other relatives, among them 2-year-old Krisiauna Calaira Lewis, whose 20-year-old father slammed her against a wall when he was recuperating in Texas from a bombing near Falluja that blew off his foot and shook up his brain.

A quarter of the victims were fellow service members, including Specialist Richard Davis of the Army, who was stabbed repeatedly and then set ablaze, his body hidden in the woods by fellow soldiers a day after they all returned from Iraq.

And the rest were acquaintances or strangers, among them Noah P. Gamez, 21, who was breaking into a car at a Tucson motel when an Iraq combat veteran, also 21, caught him, shot him dead and then killed himself outside San Diego with one of several guns found in his car.

The Davis case mentioned above went on to be the basis of last year's must-see Paul Haggis film, 'In the Valley of Elah.'

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for more...

In the interest of education, article quoted from extensively.

Continuing:

The Pentagon does not keep track of such killings, most of which are prosecuted not by the military justice system but by civilian courts in state after state. Neither does the Justice Department.

To compile and analyze its list, The Times conducted a search of local news reports, examined police, court and military records and interviewed the defendants, their lawyers and families, the victims’ families and military and law enforcement officials.

This reporting most likely uncovered only the minimum number of such cases, given that not all killings, especially in big cities and on military bases, are reported publicly or in detail. Also, it was often not possible to determine the deployment history of other service members arrested on homicide charges.

The Times used the same methods to research homicides involving all active-duty military personnel and new veterans for the six years before and after the present wartime period began with the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

This showed an 89 percent increase during the present wartime period, to 349 cases from 184, about three-quarters of which involved Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. The increase occurred even though there have been fewer troops stationed in the United States in the last six years and the American homicide rate has been, on average, lower.

The Pentagon was given The Times’s roster of homicides. It declined to comment because, a spokesman, Lt. Col. Les Melnyk, said, the Department of Defense could not duplicate the newspaper’s research. Further, Colonel Melnyk questioned the validity of comparing prewar and wartime numbers based on news media reports, saying that the current increase might be explained by “an increase in awareness of military service by reporters since 9/11.” He also questioned the value of “lumping together different crimes such as involuntary manslaughter with first-degree homicide.”

Given that many veterans rebound successfully from their war experiences and some flourish as a result of them, veterans groups have long deplored the attention paid to the minority of soldiers who fail to readjust to civilian life.

After World War I, the American Legion passed a resolution asking the press “to subordinate whatever slight news value there may be in playing up the ex-service member angle in stories of crime or offense against the peace.” An article in the Veterans of Foreign Wars magazine in 2006 referred with disdain to the pervasive “wacko-vet myth,” which, veterans say, makes it difficult for them to find jobs.

Clearly, committing homicide is an extreme manifestation of dysfunction for returning veterans, many of whom struggle in quieter ways, with crumbling marriages, mounting debt, deepening alcohol dependence or more-minor tangles with the law.

But these killings provide a kind of echo sounding for the profound depths to which some veterans have fallen, whether at the bottom of a downward spiral or in a sudden burst of violence.

Thirteen of these veterans took their own lives after the killings, and two more were fatally shot by the police. Several more attempted suicide or expressed a death wish, like Joshua Pol, a former soldier convicted of vehicular homicide, who told a judge in Montana in 2006, “To be honest with you, I really wish I had died in Iraq.”

In some of the cases involving veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, the fact that the suspect went to war bears no apparent relationship to the crime committed or to the prosecution and punishment. But in many of the cases, the deployment of the service member invariably becomes a factor of some sort as the legal system, families and communities grapple to make sense of the crimes.

This is especially stark where a previously upstanding young man — there is one woman among the 121 — appears to have committed a random act of violence. And The Times’s analysis showed that the overwhelming majority of these young men, unlike most civilian homicide offenders, had no criminal history.

“When they’ve been in combat, you have to suspect immediately that combat has had some effect, especially with people who haven’t shown these tendencies in the past,” said Robert Jay Lifton, a lecturer in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Health Alliance who used to run “rap groups” for Vietnam veterans and fought to earn recognition for what became known as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

“Everything is multicausational, of course,” Dr. Lifton continued. “But combat, especially in a counterinsurgency war, is such a powerful experience that to discount it would be artificial.”

Few of these 121 war veterans received more than a cursory mental health screening at the end of their deployments, according to interviews with the veterans, lawyers, relatives and prosecutors. Many displayed symptoms of combat trauma after their return, those interviews show, but they were not evaluated for or received a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder until after they were arrested for homicides.

What is clear is that experiences on the streets of Baghdad and Falluja shadowed these men back to places like Longview, Tex., and Edwardsville, Ill.

“He came back different” is the shared refrain of the defendants’ family members, who mention irritability, detachment, volatility, sleeplessness, excessive drinking or drug use, and keeping a gun at hand.

Big applause to the NYT today, at long last.

While the information is difficult to look at head-on and discuss, as they expertly explain below, we need to look at all of the realities our military families are facing as they work towards putting their lives back together again following combat. We shouldn't expect them to have to deal with these issues on their own.

My ePluribus Media colleagues and I have been tracking such reported cases in the PTSD Timeline since 2005 with no budget, a few hands, many good hearts, and little time to do the work properly. But, at least we tried (...and ended up scooping both the mighty NYT and CBS News by nearly 2 1/2 years, tracking a story that was staring them in the face had they only wanted to see).

As CBS News finally stepped in late last year to dig deeper into the issue of returning veteran suicide, it's good to see the New York Times is also now using some of its massive resources to help our society better understand where we are on this issue; hopefully the data -- as difficult and unwelcome as it is -- will lead us to where we need to go with our thinking and our actions.

Continuing:

The troubles and exploits of the returning war veteran represent a searing slice of reality. They have served as a recurring artistic theme throughout history — from Homer’s “Odyssey” to the World War I novel “All Quiet on the Western Front,” from the post-Vietnam-era movie “The Deer Hunter” to last fall’s film “In the Valley of Elah.”

At the heart of these tales lie warriors plagued by the kind of psychic wounds that have always afflicted some fraction of combat veterans. In an online course for health professionals, Capt. William P. Nash, the combat/operational stress control coordinator for the Marines, reaches back to Sophocles’ account of Ajax, who slipped into a depression after the Trojan War, slaughtered a flock of sheep in a crazed state and then fell on his own sword.

The nature of the counterinsurgency war in Iraq, where there is no traditional front line, has amplified the stresses of combat, and multiple tours of duty — a third of the troops involved in Iraq and Afghanistan have deployed more than once — ratchet up those stresses.

In earlier eras, various labels attached to the psychological injuries of war: soldier’s heart, shell shock, Vietnam disorder. Today the focus is on PTSD, but military health care officials are seeing a spectrum of psychological issues, with an estimated half of the returning National Guard members, 38 percent of soldiers and 31 percent of marines reporting mental health problems, according to a Pentagon task force.

Decades of studies on the problems of Vietnam veterans have established links between combat trauma and higher rates of unemployment, homelessness, gun ownership, child abuse, domestic violence, substance abuse — and criminality. On a less scientific level, such links have long been known.

“The connection between war and crime is unfortunately very ancient,” said Dr. Shay, the V.A. psychiatrist and author. “The first thing that Odysseus did after he left Troy was to launch a pirate raid on Ismarus. Ending up in trouble with the law has always been a final common pathway for some portion of psychologically injured veterans.”

The National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study, considered the most thorough analysis of this population, found that 15 percent of the male veterans still suffered from full-blown post-traumatic stress disorder more than a decade after the war ended. Half of the veterans with active PTSD had been arrested or in jail at least once, and 34.2 percent more than once. Some 11.5 percent of them had been convicted of felonies, and veterans are more likely to have committed violent crimes than nonveterans, according to government studies. In the mid-1980s, with so many Vietnam veterans behind bars that Vietnam Veterans of America created chapters in prisons, veterans made up a fifth of the nation’s inmate population.

As Iraq and Afghanistan veterans get enmeshed in the criminal justice system, former advocates for Vietnam veterans are disheartened by what they see as history repeating itself.

“These guys today, I recognize the hole in their souls,” said Hector Villarreal, a criminal defense lawyer in Mission, Tex., who briefly represented a three-time Iraq combat veteran charged with manslaughter.

Brockton D. Hunter, a criminal defense lawyer in Minneapolis, told colleagues in a recent lecture at the Minnesota State Bar Association that society should try harder to prevent veterans from self-destructing.

“To truly support our troops, we need to apply our lessons from history and newfound knowledge about PTSD to help the most troubled of our returning veterans,” Mr. Hunter said. “To deny the frequent connection between combat trauma and subsequent criminal behavior is to deny one of the direct societal costs of war and to discard another generation of troubled heroes.” ...

Unlike during the Vietnam War, the current military has made a concerted effort, through screenings and research, to gauge the mental health needs of returning veterans. But gauging and addressing needs are different, and a Pentagon task force last year described the military mental health system as overburdened, “woefully” understaffed, inadequately financed and undermined by the stigma attached to PTSD.

Although early treatment might help veterans retain their relationships and avoid developing related problems like depression, alcoholism and criminal behavior, many do not seek or get such help. And this group of homicide defendants seems to be a prime example.

Like Mr. Strasburg, many of these veterans learned that they had post-traumatic stress disorder only after their arrests. And their mental health issues often went unevaluated even after the killings if they were pleading not guilty, if they did not have aggressive lawyers and relatives — or if they killed themselves first.

Of the 13 combat veterans in The Times database who committed murder-suicides, only two, as best as it can be determined, had psychological problems diagnosed by the military health care system after returning from war.

“The real tragedy in these veterans’ case is that, where PTSD is a factor, it is highly treatable,” said Lawrence W. Sherman, director of the Jerry Lee Center of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania. “And when people are exposed to serious trauma and don’t get it treated, it is a serious risk factor for violence.”

At various times, the question of whether the military shares some blame for these killings gets posed. This occurs especially where the military knew beforehand of a combat veteran’s psychological troubles, marital problems or history of substance abuse.

In some cases, the military sent service members with pre-existing problems — known histories of mental illness, drug abuse or domestic abuse — into combat only to find those problems exacerbated by the stresses of war. In other cases, they quickly discharged returning veterans with psychological or substance abuse problems, after which they committed homicides.

The Times piece includes a number of incidents they've found. Be sure to read it in full before it's archived.

Also well worth a reading and listen, a companion audio interview with the most wonderful Dr. Jonathan Shay, noted author and VA counselor whom I had the great honor and pleasure of meeting and dining with last month in Washington, D.C.


Related Posts

• Veterans, Violence and Society
  
• PTSD Timeline: The Latest Incidents
  
• Combat PTSD Timeline: 41 Stateside OEF/OIF Suicides
  
• Combat PTSD: Incident Database for Reporters, Researchers
  
• Casualties of War: Tracking US PTSD Violence

Vets' Legal Challenge to VA Health Care System Shortfalls Allowed to Proceed Forward

Latest updates on this and related VA/Army lawsuits posted in "As Second Legal Attempt Fails to Force VA Hand on Disability Claims Processing, Army Sued Over Discharged Veteran PTSD Disability Ratings." -- Ilona Meagher, 12/17/08

Good to see our veterans will get their day in court. From Time:

When veterans of America's two current wars — Iraq and Afghanistan — tried to sue the Department of Veterans Affairs for failing to process thousands of claims for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the Department waved them off saying they had no right to do so. The VA said that Congress had set up an administrative — not judicial — process for evaluating individual disability claims. The veterans, it declared, just had to wait for bureaucracy to take its course — no matter that it has a backlog of 600,000 unresolved claims, each of which can take up to six months or more to process.

Now, however, a federal judge in San Francisco has cleared the way for a dramatic challenge to the constitutionality of the VA's claims system. Judge Samuel Conti of the Northern District of California ruled that the administrative system is not "adequate" for reviewing claims of organizations suing on behalf of a broad class of veterans (the class-action lawsuit was filed in July by two veterans organizations). Nor is that bureaucratic process empowered to grant the kind of relief sought by the veterans groups: systemic changes in the VA's processing of disability claims, strengthened rights of individual veterans to press their claims and immediate medical and psychological help for returning troops complaining of PTSD symptoms.

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for more...

In the interest of education, article quoted from extensively.

Continuing:

The suit claims that the VA violates the constitutional rights of PTSD victims by denying them medical care and benefits as well as the power to hire outside attorneys and obtain records in their disability petitions. Proponents of the suit point out that the VA's immense backlog of claims leads to delays in treatment, often compounding PTSD symptoms, contributing to substance abuse and suicide.

"VA first mistreated hundreds of thousands of veterans, then took the position that the vets could not bring their grievances to court to be heard," said Melissa Kasnitz, whose non-profit law firm, Disability Rights Advocates, represents the veterans groups. "Today, VA's shameful effort to keep these deserving veterans from their day in court was rejected."

More from the San Francisco Chronicle:

U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti, a conservative jurist and a World War II veteran, rejected Bush administration arguments that civil courts have no authority over the Department of Veterans Affairs' medical decisions or how it handles grievances and claims.

If the plaintiffs can prove their allegations, Conti said, they would show that "thousands of veterans, if not more, are suffering grievous injuries as the result of their inability to procure desperately needed and obviously deserved health care."

He said federal courts are competent to decide whether those injuries were caused by flaws in the health care system and the VA's grievance procedures.

Conti did not rule on the adequacy of the treatment system, which will be addressed in future proceedings. But he decided one disputed issue, finding that veterans are legally entitled to two years of health care after leaving the service. The government had argued that it was required to provide only as much care as the VA's budget allowed in a given year. ...

In seeking dismissal of the suit, the Justice Department argued that Congress had barred federal courts from hearing complaints about the VA system when it established a special Court of Appeals for Veteran Claims in 1988 to review grievances over treatment and benefits. But Conti said the special court can examine only individual cases and has no power to consider "systematic, constitutional challenges." He said those belong in regular courts.

Conti also said the VA system, originally intended as an informal procedure to help veterans resolve their claims, has morphed into an adversarial process in which claimants have to comply with formal legal rules, often without a lawyer.

"It is within the court's power to insist that veterans be granted a level of due process that is commensurate with the adjudication procedures with which they are confronted," Conti said.

Details from Disability Rights Advocates:

January 10, 2008: A federal court in San Francisco today cleared the way for a major national class action lawsuit on behalf of disabled veterans to directly challenge the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The ruling affirms the rights of veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to sue in federal court over the huge backlog of claims, the lengthy waiting time that veterans face in receiving needed mental health care, and the inadequacy of care for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The complaint, filed in the United States District Court in July, seeks a judicial finding that VA’s system of handling claims and appeals is so dysfunctional that it violates veterans’ constitutional and statutory rights. The suit also calls for court orders requiring VA to provide immediate medical and psychological help to returning troops and to screen them for risk of suicide.

Read the Press Release [MS Word file]
Read the Order [pdf]
Read more about the Case

Related Posts

• As Second Legal Attempt Fails to Force VA Hand on Disability Claims Processing, Army Sued Over Discharged Veteran PTSD Disability Ratings
  
• Controversial VA Email Accepted into Evidence in Veterans' Rights Class Action Lawsuit Case
  
• Full Trial Moves Ahead in Lawsuit Against VA, OEF/OIF Veterans with PTSD Sought
  
• Testimony Begins in Class Action Lawsuit Against Veterans Administration
  
• Bush Administration: Vets Have No Legal Right to Expect Specific Types of Medical Care
  
• Government Moves to Dismiss Class Action Lawsuit Against Veterans Administration
  
• Veterans Issues in Sharp Focus Today in Hearings, Reports and Lawsuits
  
• Class Action Lawsuit Brought Against VA

What Will 2008 Hold for Returning Veterans?

Happy belated New Year to everyone.

Apologies for being so silent on this end over the holiday season. While the media has this past year done a better job of investigating and reporting on the issues that concern our returning troops and military families, I've been able to take some much-needed time off following an incredibly busy year.

Last month's weeks of completing finals, preparing and testifying before Congress, my birthday, the holiday rush of commitments and gatherings, and being under the weather for most of that period, was a remarkable culmination of an even more incredible year for me personally -- and for the issue of combat PTSD.

Remarkable, yes, but exhausting, too!

And so, I'm late in posting my review of all we've accomplished in 2007, but hope to have that for you soon. What will 2008 hold for our returning veterans? We now find their needs examined and more fully brought to light in the public sphere.

Will we be smart enough to act on what we've learned?