Fascinating piece in Miller-McCune, a new and valued journal that asks tough questions, even if it can’t always come up with the answers. In Beyond PTSD: Soldiers Have Injured Souls, writer Diane Silver peers into soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder and suggests something else may be amiss:
What sometimes happens in war may
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A Department of Defense Inspector General investigation into Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (USD P&R) Clifford Stanley, “one of the Pentagon’s most senior and powerful appointees, could pose the first significant personnel challenge for new Defense Secretary Leon Panetta,” National Journal’s Megan Scully wrote …
Just when you’re thinking the Army may have turned the corner on its troops’ killing themselves, a new number has surfaced that dashes those hopes. On Friday, the Army said it suffered a record 32 suspected suicides in July, the most since it began releasing monthly data two years ago.
The Army is waging war on suicide just as …
Once again, the Congressional Research Service has badgered a federal agency – in this case the Department of Veterans Affairs – and come up with snapshots about how U.S. vets seeking VA services are faring (CRS reports are not officially released to the public – dammit, you paid for them, and Congress works for us, so why does …
Just an update as promised to my quest for benefits from the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) related to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. On July 21, I had my Compensation and Pension(C&P) examination at my local VA medical center. That was exactly 366 days after I had first filed for benefits.
Let me explain what has happened to …
Last week was pretty hectic for me, so I’m just catching up on some housekeeping. I wanted to comment on my colleague Mark Thompson’s post about the suicide of Marine Sergeant Ian McConnell. Mark commented that that “Ian’s blood is on our hands,” and that “home, for many of our veterans, is a theater of war.”
These are …
Well, it’s been 365 days. A year ago I filed for benefits with the Department of Veterans Affairs for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I filled out the application on line, collected up all of my documentation – orders, efficiency reports and awards, medical records – authorized all of my doctors and counselors to release information …
Progress. Yesterday I received a letter from the Department of Veterans Affairs about my nearly year-long quest for disability benefits. I was irked to find that it looked suspiciously like the last letter I received from them, on April 21. These letters all begin with a salutation followed by a note that “We are working on your claim …
Army Capt. DJ Skelton lost his left eye and can’t use his left arm because of a rocket attack in Fallujah. He went on to advise Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on wounded warrior issues.
Skelton has some interesting thoughts about the new White House policy, announced last week, to begin to send condolence …
White House aides emphasized Friday that President Obama’s announcement this week to send condolence letters to some troops who commit suicide was designed to patch a hole in a policy President Obama inherited. It’s part of a broader effort to recognize and address the common mental wounds of war, but it is also starting to feel to …
The Pentagon seems to be distancing itself from an increasingly bungled-looking effort by the White House to use condolence letters to acknowledge military suicides as legitimate casualties of war, according to a statement sent to TIME.
President Obama announced on Wednesday that the White House would reverse a longstanding policy and …
Some veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and their families are vexed by the seemingly arbitrary, location-based limits of a new White House policy to use condolence letters to acknowledge military suicides as legitimate casualties of war.
The disappointment is particularly palpable among family of troops who committed suicide after …
Looks like I goofed. Last week I wrote here that I had submitted my claim for VA benefits ten months ago. That’s not quite right. Mea culpa. To correct the record, I submitted my claim over eleven months ago, on July 21, 2010. My claim has languished in the VA’s Baltimore office for 351 days. I promised to keep readers updated on the …
