Major General Dana Pittard, who blogged that soldiers who kill themselves are selfish, has had second thoughts. Battleland’s own Ron Capps, who served under him, said the comment was”probably the first dumb thing he’s said or done in his career.” Like lawmakers on Capitol Hill who get verbal do-overs all the time, the two-general now …
Troops
The Aftershocks of War
We’ve had a flurry of books written by troops recounting their battles in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now come the books detailing the battles fought once they got home.
Mike Scotti served with the Marines in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and saw war’s horrors up close and personal. When he came back home, he gradually felt himself being …
“Got Ya Covered…”
“If You Ever Wonder What a Deployment Is Like, Go to Prison”
Some soldiers get along, and others don’t. It’s the latter that make for the most interesting tales when they speak of their time at war. Army Major Ryan Ussery is a logistician – the guy who keeps the beans, bullets and boots coming to the troops on the front lines (motto: Sustinendum Victoriam). He has pulled three tours in Iraq, …
The President Wants Your Help in Re-Upping
President Obama’s campaign rolled out this “Sacred Trust” ad Wednesday. His re-election effort says it “highlights the President’s strong commitment to honoring our veterans.” It’s part of a $25 million, four-week ad buy in nine states: Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and …
Wait-Watchers
Despite the fact that the Department of Veterans Affairs Budget has more than doubled – to about $120 billion – since 2004, it and the Pentagon are falling further behind in assessing whether or not veterans are due disability benefits. This chart, from a Government Accountability Office statement released Wednesday, tells the …
Gimme 5, in Pashto
Honor, Stigma…and PTSD
I’m an old guy from the Vietnam era, a psychiatrist who studied violence in the 1960s, who treated survivors of trauma in the ’70s and who helped create and nurture the concept of post-traumatic stress disorder through the …
Trash Talk…
Trash can be deadly. You can get a hint of that from the contract solicitation issued Tuesday by the Defense Logistics Agency’s European disposition office seeking “hazardous waste services in southwest Asia.”
Lord …
Firefight Along Highway 1
“Listen Up, General Pittard.”
I want to make a couple quick comments on the furor over Major General Dana Pittard’s blog post that soldiers who kill themselves are being selfish, and his exhortation that those thinking of suicide should just buck up and face their problems like an adult. “Suicide is an absolutely selfish act,” he wrote to his official blog …
“I have now come to the conclusion that suicide is an absolutely selfish act. I am personally fed up with soldiers who are choosing to take their own lives so that others can clean up their mess. Be an adult, act like an adult, and deal with your real-life problems like the rest of us.”
Troop Mental Ills: Psychiatric or Organic?
There’s a continuing tension over whether mental disorders are “organic” or “psychological”. The first is easier to define — a brain injury caused by an insult, such as a bullet wound, blow to the head or bomb blast.
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