I am at a loss as to why our government would not see the benefit in treating its veterans who are suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder the same as it does those suffering physical injuries. Nathan Ketsdever at Compassion in Politics discusses an article in the Washington Post that states mental health care of vets is haphazard at best:

Years later and our treatment of our troops is still deplorable. Its an ethical outrage for a double standard of that sort to allow our mentally wounded troops to slip through the cracks. Whether you support the war or don’t [honestly I’m not a big fan and never have been] this feels like a grave crime against our armed forces and soldiers who have sacrificed their lives in service of our freedom. And its no hyperbole to say that soldiers with mental illness have a pattern of showing up as poverty and homeless statistics. How American is that? How can we abandon them like that? How compassionate is that? How human is that? (h/t to the Washington Post. It requires a free login, which is a bit of a pain)

It’s time for the whole stigma of having mental and emotional illnesses to be done away with. Just as a diabetic deals with chemical changes in their body if they are exposed to that which is toxic to it, medical science proves there are physical changes that occur in the brain when a person is exposed to prolonged trauma.

I dated a guy who suffered from PTSD after having been in the Special Forces in Iraq — a wonderful guy who will never be the same after that experience. His suffering isn’t visible if you just look at him. He isn’t in a wheelchair or walking with a cane. However, his wounds run deep, and it affects every relationship, every job, every aspect of his life for the rest of his life. Our government OWES it to the veterans — and their families and loved ones — to do everything possible to help these people.

Surely, we can do better than this.