http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/04/va-debated-pr-plan-on-vets-suicides/ a radical newsletter in the struggle for peace and social justice Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:02:09 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.1 http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/04/va-debated-pr-plan-on-vets-suicides/#comment-19224 Tommy Fri, 25 Apr 2008 03:25:32 +0000 http://www.dissidentvoice.org/?p=1897#comment-19224 A quarter of a million Vietnam vets committed suicide after returning home from Vietnam. Few even know this fact. Now we have two more dumb resource wars because the lessons of Vietnam were not learned. Neither was the moral dilemma resolved, and now Iraq and Afghanistan vets run into the wall that is the VA. If this country has to keep having these dumb wars, it needs to learn how to behave in a halfway moral manner to those who serve. There are a ton of Vietnam vets with PTSD who are still fighting the VA for disability compensation because the VA thinks we are malingerers. Many of us used work to avoid our PTSD symptoms and now we're retiring and coming into the VA system. It's not just about Iraq and Afghanistan vets. It's all vets who are currently living. War causes PTSD. If this country isn't willing to take on that responsibility, it needs to stop sending people to war. When I came home from Vietnam in 1970 there wasn't yet a PTSD diagnosis at the VA. By the time there was, I had had debilitating PTSD for almost 20 years. Now they talk about healing PTSD, if they catch it soon enough. Well, they didn't catch it soon enough with us, and we're going to die with it kicking our butts. A quarter of a million Vietnam vets committed suicide after returning home from Vietnam. Few even know this fact. Now we have two more dumb resource wars because the lessons of Vietnam were not learned. Neither was the moral dilemma resolved, and now Iraq and Afghanistan vets run into the wall that is the VA. If this country has to keep having these dumb wars, it needs to learn how to behave in a halfway moral manner to those who serve. There are a ton of Vietnam vets with PTSD who are still fighting the VA for disability compensation because the VA thinks we are malingerers. Many of us used work to avoid our PTSD symptoms and now we’re retiring and coming into the VA system. It’s not just about Iraq and Afghanistan vets. It’s all vets who are currently living. War causes PTSD. If this country isn’t willing to take on that responsibility, it needs to stop sending people to war. When I came home from Vietnam in 1970 there wasn’t yet a PTSD diagnosis at the VA. By the time there was, I had had debilitating PTSD for almost 20 years. Now they talk about healing PTSD, if they catch it soon enough. Well, they didn’t catch it soon enough with us, and we’re going to die with it kicking our butts.

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