ptsd Just Say No To Personality Disorder!

[free_spirit_etc]

http://obama.senate.gov/

Obama, Bond Applaud Senate Passage of Amendment to Expedite the Review of Personality Disorder Discharge Cases

Friday, March 14, 2008

Printable FormatFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Michael Ortiz (Obama) or Shana Marchio (Bond)

Budget provision provides resources to speed correction of military records and upgrade discharges

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senators Barack Obama (D-IL) and Kit Bond (R-MO) today praised the Senate's passage of their amendment to the FY 2009 Budget Resolution to expedite the military's review of cases in which service members may have been improperly diagnosed with a personality disorder and subsequently discharged. According to reports last year, the Department of Defense (DOD) inappropriately and inconsistently discharged service members who suffered combat-related psychological injuries such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or closed head injuries such as Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBIs). Over the last six years, Defense Department records indicate that over 22,500 personality disorder discharges have been processed; or on average 10 service members have been discharged per day, every day in that time. Such discharges can result in the loss of some benefits and care for wounded veterans.

In December 2007, Obama and Bond, along with 13 other senators, called on President Bush to temporarily halt this practice and to create a Special Review Board to examine these cases.

"With thousands of service members suffering from the less visible wounds of war, reports that the Pentagon may be improperly diagnosing and discharging service members with personality disorders are unacceptable," said Senator Obama. "These heroes have made incredible sacrifices for our nation, and they should not have to face another battle at home to receive the care and benefits they have earned. I am proud that this amendment will add resources to expedite the review of such cases. We will continue to demand that the Administration and the Pentagon halt this practice until air-tight procedures are in place."

"The federal government has a lifelong responsibility to care for volunteers who have served honorably in combat, whether their injuries are physical or mental. It is time for our government to accept the visible guilt in their failure to treat our wounded veterans' invisible injuries," said Bond. "This review is essential to give all our troops a chance to have their stories heard, their benefits restored, and any stigma taken off their records."

With increases in combat-related psychological injuries (such as PTSD) and closed-head injuries (such as TBIs), there appear to be instances in which service members suffering from less visible combat wounds are being misdiagnosed with a pre-existing personality disorder, which can result in the loss of some benefits and care. When these wounded warriors subsequently decide to seek a correction of their records, they can encounter significant delays and red tape at their respective military Boards for Correction of Military Records.

While fundamental improvements are still necessary to the military's management and care for our wounded warriors, this important amendment provides additional resources for the Boards for Correction of Military Records to expedite the review of such discharge cases.

The Obama-Bond amendment is supported by the National Veterans Legal Services Program, Veterans for Common Sense, and Disabled American Veterans.

[SLEDGE]

Put it this way;

Everything that congress does to speed up the claims process can, and is, used to add to the mounds of paperwork and EXTEND the claims process for all.

What are vets going to do when the new diagnostic requirements actually, erroneously reinforce the crap that has been going on for many decades?

If after the review you still have the PD diagnosis, what can you do?

sledge

[tssnave]

At the risk of sounding reasonable - why doesn't the service just do a quick psych test and/or questionaire BEFORE you enlist to determine if you have a personality disorder or not. That way, if it is determined you have a pd, then they shouldn't take you. That's a better alternative than enlisting you, sending you into combat and then not granting sc for combat related PTSD because of a supposed preexisting pd.

The military needs to play fair on this and they don't.

Plus, when you're a kid is a lot better time to try to figure out if you have a pd than 29 years after the fact. Were you a trouble maker or good kid? For that matter, I know a lot of "trouble makers" who just needed a good dose of grow up and that's exactly what the military gave them so it would be tragic to stamp them w/ a pd label when they are young.

However, I still think the military should evaluate for pd BEFORE enlistment since they are using it as an out to keep troops from getting disability benefits later on down the road.

Since this is and has been such an issue I simply do not understand why they don't make it a part of the enlistment process much like they do figuring out if you have flat feet or not.

I think this is a particuarly odious bit of VA law for those who were drafted. They didn't even have a choice of joining or not and for those vets, the pd stamp is even more wrong to me. We'll yank you out of your life whether you want to go to war or not and then we'll decide you were too broken to begin with so we just won't pay for your PTSD. That is BS. If this country ever has another draft the American public won't let the whole pd discharge continue to fly. I think our Vietnam vet brothers didn't have the power of the internet and were the last generation that Uncle could do this to. Just look at how the internet has helped us all here at hadit.

Either stand fast on the presumption of soundness and evaluate disablities fairly across the board or figure out before somebody raises their right hand and is sworn in if they have a pd and then stand fast and don't let them in service. The current system is not fair to veterans.

I don't think the bill goes far enough. They need to fix the underlying problem.

JMHO,

TS Snave

Edited April 4, 2008 by tssnave