I will have a new blog tomorrow. Sorry, but I've gotten a lot of good responses on this particular blog.
I just watched a House hearing on the VA and PTSD patients, of which much was quite informative.
However, I have to say that Dr. Sally Satel of the American Enterprise Institute threw me for a loop with her testimony. Admittedly such testimony had to be extricated with a pair of verbal tweezers by the ranking Democrat, but the point was that she had written a number of treatises on how (or more appropriately, how not) to treat PTSD soldiers.
Admittedly, she does have an MD from Brown so she's not stupid, but her concepts were, and it just goes to show that one cannot trust a Republican held House to bring in people to testify without taking into consideration where they work and whether that institution has ulterior motives.
I spent two years as Eastern District Commander of AmVets for the state of Virginia two years before she got her degree. I had already been working on such problems as PTSD, Agent Orange, and changing the Bureau of Veterans Affairs to a Cabinet level position before this woman finished her schooling.
For you see, Dr. Sally Satel works for an institution which promotes all of the Republican talking points, and even extrapolates those talking points to include things that the politicians never even thought of.
In this instance, she has written extensively on why there are extenuating circumstances that should allow the VA to simply ignore the health and welfare of a qualified veteran. Her idea is that after a certain amount of time before a Vet comes forward for treatment, it is possible and likely that they no longer qualify for treatment because of the time lapse, suggesting that such ancillary problems as drug or alcohol addiction place these deserving Vets outside of the support structure the VA was designed to accommodate.
I absolutely refuse to accept this. I don't think there is a veteran alive who would accept such a concept unless they had never seen combat because all those who have know that you don't leave a brother behind.
Not on the field of battle, nor in American society. The results of our efforts and redeployments of our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan deserve better than a treatise that suggests mental problems are easily recognized by those that have the mental problems.
We don't leave our brothers behind. Our military has designed systems to evacuate our wounded because they know a couple of things that Dr. Satel apparently doesn't know.
The military only moves as fast as the slowest person, which means you either leave your wounded brothers behind, or you hunker down to protect them, even if it means the death of all.
Hence we developed solutions that move wounded out of the field of combat as quickly as possible so that the mission can continue. But it's even more than that because the military understands that the psychological well being of the team is adversely effected if one is left behind to die a lonely death or perhaps be captured, tortured and killed.
More than one soldier has died in order to allow the mission to go forward rather than slow the unit down waiting for that soldier to die. We're not talking about a criminal offense, we're talking about war, and we're talking about relief from imminent death, pain and possible capture.
Other than these extenuating circumstances, the military has made tremendous strides in making certain our wounded get to medical care as soon as possible, which is evidenced by the number of surviving wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan as opposed to the dead in Vietnam. We lost 58,000 lives in Vietnam, and more than 4400 in Iraq. We traded severely wounded for dead, and in doing so, we have no right to assume that those psychologically and adversely affected by being in a war zone aren't qualified to receive treatment, at any point in their lives.
Dr. Satel doesn't believe this to be the case, and as she is a member of AEI, I understand her position. I simply reject her position and her opinion. She has no basis in fact to assume that any Vet should be allowed to be left behind here in America when we won't leave them behind in a war zone. Her opinions negate the best about the military in favor of containing costs at the risk of losing yet another Vet to PTSD, despair and suicide without a second thought.
Don't get me wrong. The military needs to have cuts, but the VA isn't a part of the military and needs to have a massive infusion of dollars in order to help our Vets who have had two, three, four or more tours of both Iraq and Afghanistan. After all, we sent them off to war, and we did so when we weren't prepared with the best equipment and parents were buying body armor for their children, much of which was confiscated with untold numbers of dead due to the lack thereof.
When a soldier has to ask the question of the Secretary of Defense about why they have to scrounge up metal to provide some armor for their vehicles, one doesn't need to hear "you don't go to war with the Army you want, you go with the Army you have."
Obviously Donald Rumsfeld never read Sun Tzu. If fact, you never go to war unless your ability to wage that war with the least cost in lives is the consideration. Otherwise, you build up your systems, hone more swords, load more bullets, provide armor, and send people into war with good boots, food and qualified medics.
Ten years after 9/11 we have allowed the warriors to be called into question for their service. Some apparently think that cuts in spending might be extended to the VA because not all of our returning warriors are cognizant of their ailments.
Dr. Satel doesn't recognize the fact that one day, when these guys signed up for military service, they were one person, and when they came back, they were somebody else. Why would they recognize such a condition? They came about that change honestly, having lived the life, day by day, required of them by their government. Is it required that they also recognize that they might not be the person who jumped on the plane to go to war? I don't believe it's possible to recognize the difference between point A and point B, simply because the person has a consistency of "self" for which must be accounted.
However one wishes to view it, there are no acceptable reasons to allow treatment for our veterans to lapse based on some outside imposed concept of when a soldier should recognize his or her problems. If it takes 20 years, then fine, they qualify, regardless of what the American Enterprise Institute would like to claim.
Addendum
After I had posted this article on 8/16/2011, I was surprised by this Op Ed in the NYTimes on the 20th, by Dr. Sally Satel. Below is the reference URL.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/opinion/the-wrong-way-to-help-veterans.html?hp
I doubt seriously that her NYTimes Op Ed was any way in response to the previous portion of this article, but one does have to wonder how her response answers some of my questions about her desire to promote the American Enterprise Institute's Republican agenda.
For instance, her article states
"Consider a real-life case, a young soldier returning from Afghanistan, whom I’ll call Joe. He is 23 years old and suffers from classic P.T.S.D. He is plagued by bloody nightmares. When awake, he can barely concentrate, twitches with anxiety and feels emotionally detached from everything and everybody. He fears he’ll never be able to hold a job, have a family or fully function in society. He applies for “total” disability compensation for P.T.S.D., about $2,600 a month. The only humane thing to do, it would seem, is to grant the poor man those benefits.
But it’s more complicated than that. In fact, total disability is probably the last thing Joe needs, because it will confirm his fears that he will remain deeply impaired for years, if not for life."
I hate it when a professional describes a "real life" situation and then prognosticates upon it with speculation. How real life is the situation, and how much of her time was spent on the "In fact, totaly disability is PROBABLY the last thing..." (emphasis mine).
I'm sorry, but I don't know many professionals who utilize "real life" situations when they apparently aren't personally involved with the case. The normal situation would be to apply an analysis of a published "real life" case, which still makes the assumption that real world analysis was applied using all the available information on that case, including originating circumstances including battle field conditions, any psychological evaluations included in the field files, seperation counciling and recommendations, amongst other factors.
So if Dr. Satel has access to all of this material to suggest that it is "probable" that approved full disability payments could be detrimental, it is likely that she would be guessing. And that is what she is doing.
One doesn't surmise a likely outcome based on some few circumstances or statistics. One does field study, one follows after action reports and medical paper trails, and one continues through the problem until all the facts are incorporated where "real life" solutions can be determined and applied.
Her methodology also applies a one size solution fits all in her Op Ed, but really she doesn't address any of the problems in determining who needs care. She suggests that immediate care be applied for some ficticious period of a year or so, as if any or all of the treated will respond favorably during that period, and then they can be turned out, miraculously cured, to a valuable life as a member of society.
Yeah, a member of society whose only job has been killing human beings. I'm not arguing about the necessity for war one way or the other. Once we moved to a voluteer military, all of the ancillary support jobs our military supplied were contracted out, and the focus has since been to take a normal person and make them a killing machine. Then we're supposed to put them on a plane home, and the next day they are happily playing with their children without a care in the world.
These are all false assumptions made by people without the knowledge of war. The assumption that maybe 20% of the returning troops have PTSD is widely off the mark. Better to say that all of them have PTSD, but the difference is how they handle their personal situations.
It is one of the reasons that most soldiers with career considerations usually don't have a wife and kids. They are so well trained for a war environment that normal everyday life seems a little off to them, and being as they are trained for conflict, is it any wonder that family conflict is the first cause for concern for coming home?
You can't have it both ways. Either every returning troop has some level of PTSD and simply has different levels of observable effects, or the concept of PTSD isn't true. We know with 40 years of PTSD study that it does exist. We know the results from the Vietnam War, and we know the differences in a drafted military and a volunteer military.
Add them up and make up your own mind. Do you trust Dr. Satel's statements?
Sorry, but I find nothing real world about them. Nothing at all.
Hello Roger. I'm not sure if you'll ever see this comment, but I felt compelled to write. It is 8/26/11 @ 11:25am EDT. I first read a comment you had posted to the NYT regarding the story of the redaction by our CIA & a book authored by Ali H. Soufan regarding his actions & views in the intelligence arena. You had posted 3 links at the bottom of your comment, and that is how I found this. I read your blog above and I was and still am personally moved of your opinion of our Veterans in our country. I want to personally thank you for blogging about these men & women who have served our country. I am so moved, in fact, that I'd like to ask for your guidance in selecting an organization that me & my wife can volunteer at to help Veterans. We live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania at this time, and I would just ask of a personal recommendation of a facility that we can possibly spend time with Veterans, and even run errands or donate goods to. Please, I hope you read this and contact me @ madinpa@yahoo.com - My name is Mark Dickson & my wife is Teresa Kennedy - I'll be 40 here in October, T is 32. We have the best thing I think that we can donate, and that is our time. Please guide us to a worthy cause so that we may have a positive impact on - even just one of our Veteran's lives. Thank you & We hope to hear from you soon. †
Posted by: D | August 26, 2011 at 08:40 AM