Who failed this soldier?
Jul 10th, 2008 by David Anderson
The soldier who was pictured caring the Iraqi child died from PTSD related complications. His family tried to have him committed, but were turned down. Does this bring back the larger issue of the efficacy our mental health system?
David, you must be asleep this morning. The man was turned down, so the “efficacy” of our mental health system to treat our mental casualties of war has not even been tested in this case, in too many cases unfortunately, as judged by the large number of suicides (Army: Suicides up 20% in 2007) http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/01/31/army.suicides.ap/
We were in denial about PTSD in our returning veterans after Vietnam, and apparently have not learned our lesson and stepped up for them this time. War is indeed torture!
Of course, it would be better to avoid unnecessary wars to begin with. There appears to be a weakness in the American psyche that focuses on violent solutions to disputes, to our dishonor and ultimate defeat over and over again unless we CHANGE! Our love affair with guns is an element of this national disease, in my view.
I don’t like war. It is at times necessary and when it isn’t it needs to be avoided.
What I mean by efficacy our system is the fact that this man was in the system. He had been under treatment. When the family saw a relapse where he had an hallucination which caused him to crash his motorcycle, they went back to the system which turned them down. How effective is our system of commitment? How effective is our follow up?
I think our mental health delivery system has systemic problems, and as this case shows much of our treatment philosophy does as well. Remember my post on happiness?
your President failed him.
had we never gone to war in Iraq my guess is he would be alive. Ah to dream though…
David, I have to agree with Donviti.
The buick, I mean the buck has to stop at the top.