War Veterans Receive Poor Treatment for Combat-Induced Mental Illness, Says VFA Study

On Thursday, Veterans for America (VFA) stated that as the result of its aggressive investigative program that sought out deficiencies in the treatment being given to soldiers with regard to service-connected neurological and mental health problems, it has identified a number of interrelated trends that are adversely affecting soldiers and veterans suffering from the "signature wounds" of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The "signature wounds" are traumatic brain injury (TBI) and psychological traumas.

VFA investigators paid visits to every demobilization site in the United States and overseas and observed the treatment given. The VFA has been disappointed with its findings of often poorly given mental health medical treatment by military facilities. There is little consideration given to TBI or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) within the military justice system.

Behavioral problems caused by these mental wounds can make it exceedingly difficult for war veterans to be re-integrated into society.

The VFA cites lack of capability to treat mental wounds, inadequate adherence to the Congressional inquiry process, and a lack of willingness among the military leadership to treat PTSD and TBI as the reasons for the poor quality of treatment.

According to many war veterans and psychiatrists who have treated war veterans for mental health problems, nearly every war veteran comes back from war with mental and emotional, even if no physical, scarring, and there is simply no way for most human beings, no matter how well prepared or trained, to equip themselves adequately to deal with the psychological stress of being constantly engaged in destroying, killing, and avoiding sudden death.

War has been called by those who have experienced it everything from Hell on earth to the world's most powerful aphrodisiac. It is the subjectively experienced extremism of warfare that so readily contributes to the onset of mental or emotional illness, they say.

This writer listened to one war veteran tell of coming home and drinking a case of Jack Daniel's every day.

However, there are critical journalists and psychological professionals of these notions who say that PTSD and TBI are typically greatly exaggerated claims in both intensity and scope. They say that the uninformed public and war veteran sympathizers are always too ready to turn normal, even if intense, human emotions into medical conditions, and they chastise many of their professional colleagues for aiding and abetting them in this delusion.

They point out that it takes tremendous strength of will and emotion to be a soldier or to endure through any highly traumatic situation, and easy diagnoses of TBI or PTSD assume, and even glorify, weakness.

These critics recommend that more sympathetic understanding is needed for most war veterans who are showing strong emotional reactions to their experiences, foremostly on the part of friends and family. Prescriptions of drugs or "therapy" usually don't get to the heart of the matter and can have the reverse effect of making a war veteran feel that he is truly sick when he wasn't, they opine.

Some among their ranks have accused false diagnoses and resulting needless or wrong treatments for a previously mythological "Gulf War Syndrome" of actually creating the condition. The Gulf War Syndrome was widely reported on in the early 1990s and was supposedly suffered by veterans of the U.S. war against Iraq in Kuwait in 1991, many of whom believed that the Iraqis might have used biological weapons against them.

"VFA's report...demonstrates the enormous needs of and responsibilities to our wounded servicemembers... that [far exceed] our current capability," stated retired Brigadier General Dr. Stephen N. Xenakis, former Commanding General of the Southeast Regional Army Medical Command.

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