Do We Care?

Over the past couple days, I’ve been listening to a story on NPR about soldiers coming home from our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Make no mistake, conditions are improving where they were when the Walter Reed scandal broke. However, there are still problems. The Army is often hesitant to classify soldiers with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which raises questions of cost-cutting or public relations.

Of coruse, the Army had also ordered Veterans’ Affairs representatives not to help soldiers complete disability paperwork.

To me, the worst part is that we are killing some of our own soldiers with shoddy prescription instructions. Take the case of Sgt. Robert Nichols, who was found dead at Brooke Medical Center this past January.

Susan Nichols said that several times before he died, Robert Nichols asked his doctors to reduce the medications “because he felt like he was a zombie and he could only function for a small portion of the day.”

Stories abound. Of course, you’ll have a hard time finding them in certain circles. I have heard and even been part of conversations in which it’s been considered smearing troops to talk about mental health issues and flawed military care. Some have even accused me of just trying to smear President Bush or the United States.

In reference to Bush — if we find that he ordered or encouraged any such deception, then let’s take steps. I have no such evidence, so I don’t see this as having much to do with him. Except, of course, that he could be taking more-active steps to look into this.

To the US — this line of argument is an obscene perversion of patriotism. If the US is treating its soldiers as worn-out boots, then the attack is valid. If the truth ever becomes un-American, then there is something seriously wrong.

I have to admit that I nearly had to pull over and cry when listening to this story on Friday. PTSD is one of those problems that we need to address honestly. Much of society, especially the flag-wrapped pundits who haven’t actually ever fought a battle, say that those who talk about PTSD are accusing our troops of weakness. I don’t know how to express calmly my feelings about those people and what they say. I don’t know that you want to see my suggestions about their eternal living arrangements.

By this kind of pressure, we are furthering the stigma of mental illness, and denying troops the care that they deserve.

Let me make this abundantly clear: We sent these people to war. Yes, they volunteered. Good for them. But they didn’t volunteer to be used and thrown away. They volunteered to serve their country. Our country.

Us.

We owe them the best care we can possibly give. Our troops have offered to do things that most of us would find unbearable, and risk their lives, their health, the wholeness of their bodies, and many other things. We owe them, at the very least, the care to help them return to the lives that we have. Yes, that’s expensive. It’s part of the cost of going to war, and if we as a society aren’t willing to pay it, then we have no moral business sending our troops anywhere.

Our men and women should not be coming home to moldy rehab wards, they should not be poisoned because their doctors can’t keep the prescriptions straight, and they should certainly not be classified as having anxiety disorder when they’re fighting PTSD. That’s like saying that a soldier has a lingering splinter in his toe when he’s lost a leg.

Do we care?

Are we willing to pay what we owe?

Do we want to help the soldiers who have risked so much for us, or are we just going to pay lip service to them while we really cast them aside?

I do, by the way, need to give credit to a member of the Bush administration. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has come out encouraging soldiers to seek treatment for PTSD and is taking steps to make sure that treatment for mental health won’t be as likely to cost a person his/her security clearance.

At least he indicates that he’s aware of the procedural problem. The greater problem is that we as Americans seem to be content to avoid the issue. Instead of looking at the moral and ethical obligation we have to these troops, it’s easier to get caught up in slogans.

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