how's that yellow ribbon working out for you?

[zenithblue]

Once again had a screaming fit in the car when I heard the recent bullshit attempt to deny veterans proper care.

I'm glad the Department of Veteran Affairs has stepped in to insist that this one rogue administrator has nothing to do with their official policy. I'd love to believe them but given the Walter Reed scandal, and the institutionalized neglect and denial that plagues military mental health care, I've gotta say I'm feeling a little thin on trust these days.

Is it sick for me to say I'm almost glad we lost our family's Iraq War soldier, rather than see him come home broken and violent and unstable? To see him come home with a sense that to be a man one must suck it up and never ask for help?  To see him come home and raise a son into a paradigm where pain and suffering signify nothing more than weakness? Yes. It's sick for me to say that. But it's a sick fucking world, kids. It's a sick war, and a sick military, and above all a sick country. Here's hoping we can get our hands on some kind of moral penicillin in the near future.

Happy Memorial Day weekend.

Comments

I so hear you...

[librarygrrl]

as my brother is currently at a rehab center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, with one leg fewer than when he went to Iraq. It's taken them nearly 4 years to get him the help he needs for the PTSD - I hope it actually helps.

Grr.

Re: I so hear you...

[blozor.livejournal.com]

Losing a leg? That's not traumatic or stressful. Just ask House.

Re: I so hear you...

[zenithblue.livejournal.com]

No no, easy come, easy go, surely. :(

Re: I so hear you...

[librarygrrl]

Of course not...

*sigh*

BTW, can I please steal your icon? I love it!

Re: I so hear you...

[blozor.livejournal.com]

Sure, I didn't make it.

Actually I did make the icon, but it was based on a larger picture that said the same thing.

Re: I so hear you...

[zenithblue.livejournal.com]

Yikes. I'm so sorry to hear that.

If they treat him correctly, most PTSD patients have a really good success rate. But then, getting correct treatment is always the problem. I'm sure I must have ranted at you at some point about my schizophrenic cousin who was told to "man up" by her military psychiatrist. WTF?

But I definitely hope your brother gets the help he needs.

Frankly, I'm willing to foot the bill, damnit. Fucking raise my taxes if that's what it takes. I mean, optimally we could divert some funds from, say, weapons development, over into VA services, but if you must eat your stealth bomber and have it too, just raise taxes. Maybe then anti-tax republicans will think twice before hitching their wagons to the war hawks next time someone's itching to wage an unjust war.

[lagizma.livejournal.com]

It seems that the DOD and Bush Administration have a policy of throwing one guy out to the wolves (Lynddie England anyone?!?) and insisting despite all evidence to the contrary that nothing is a systemic problem.

[zenithblue.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we sure do like burning effigies to scare away evil demons. But our effigies are pretty lame.

[blozor.livejournal.com]

You know, just because a person is in the military doesn't mean they adhere to those paradigms. They could realize how profoundly defunct the whole philosophy that the military is based upon is and just develop a severe depressive anxiety disorder instead.

At least I never lost my individuality while I was in, so I think it's a fair price.

[zenithblue.livejournal.com]

You're pretty much one in a million, if you haven't noticed.

My cousin's husband was a really nice guy when I knew him, before he served in Iraq. But everything I was hearing about him was distressing. He was determined to "toughen up" their son, didn't like him being a "mama's boy." This is a six year old we're talking. It was really sad to me. I know he loved his child and was doing what he thought was best, but it made me sad to hear that that old upright military discipline was more visible in their household than affection.

[bluescissors76.livejournal.com]

There was some thing on This American Life about it a few years ago - how one guy had been diagnosed with PTSD and everyone else in his squadron or whatever it was thought less of him, even though they sort of all had it too, and he got shit assignments, or SOMETHING. I can't remember. But I'm not surprised about this, and I don't get the impression it's a one-off.

Ugh. This makes me mad.

[zenithblue.livejournal.com]

I think this is a subject that actually makes me more angry than any other part of this dumb war (well, that and the amount of damage we've done to a vulnerable country). People sitting at home arguing pros and cons, that's just rhetoric. But these are very young boys--most of them lower class or lower middle--who haven't gotten enough experience of the world to realize what we're getting them into, and they're lied to and manipulated and then on top of that we won't support them properly. And then how much else do they affect when they come home and are too hurt and damaged to be fathers and husbands and brothers and friends, etc.?

Of course the people at the top end of the war-machine never have to see this fall-out. But it sure does ripple across the bottom end, especially if you live in a military-heavy town.