Posted on 01/08/2009 1:32:41 AM PST by ComputerGuy
The Pentagon has decided that it will not award the Purple Heart, the hallowed medal given to those wounded or killed by enemy action, to war veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder because it is not a physical wound.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2015291/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-vetscor/2023146/posts
> to war veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder because it is not a physical wound.
By the same logic, mental illness is not really an illness. And if it happens as a result of war, it’s not serious enough to deserve a Purple Heart.
What a backward finding. The hack who decided this ought to be bastinadoed.
Not to minimize the suffering of soldiers afflicted with PTSD but if you come home physically intact, you didn’t earn a purple heart. That’s not to say that they didn’t earn disability and benefits though.
> I got mine the old fashioned way. I bled a lot.
Fair enough — I have never served in the Armed Forces. I do know that stress-related illness is no joke and it can be thoroughly incapacitating, requiring weeks or months of ongoing treatment which may / may not help.
In my view, that’s easily as bad as a physical injury. It’s an odd distinction for the military to be making: harm somebody’s body in battle and that’s worth a medal. Harm their mind — the most important part of their body — and it’s “oh well, too bad, so sad, cry me a river.” No matter how I slice it, it just makes no sense.
Agreed
It’s God’s awards that will matter most when each soldier stands in front of Him. He knows the hearts and souls and who put everything they had on the line in service to protect others. Battles in this world are fought on many fronts. Thank you to every soldier who defends our liberties. I pray for you all to be blessed richly.
My lovely bride of 21 years went home in June of 2004 because of cancer ... and let me tell you brother, I'm just as screwed up still.
Who do I sue .. what medal do I get?
And to put your argument away ... you're going to reply, "I'm truly sorry for your loss .. etc."
PTSD can be financed .. my grief can't be ... where's the justice?
> And to put your argument away ... you’re going to reply, “I’m truly sorry for your loss .. etc.”
Naturally, I am deeply sorry for your loss, as you have anticipated.
More than that, tho’, I am concerned at the thought of you having to carry around all of that grief — are you receiving any help or treatment for that?
> PTSD can be financed .. my grief can’t be ... where’s the justice?
PTSD can also kill, as can grief. And in that there is no Justice. All that we can do is help those who suffer to contend as best they can. One way of doing that is to acknowledge their suffering.
I have to agree with the Pentagon on this. The Purple Heart is awarded for physical wounds serious enough to require the attention of a medical officer (sorry, John Kerry). It also shows the recipient was under enemy fire.
A friend of mine had PTSD when she returned from Operation Iraqi Freedom. She never saw combat, was never under fire. She was an MP guarding isolated crossroads and looking for roadside mines. Yes, it was stressful.
I believe the whole purpose of the move to include PTSD is so it will be classed as a “wound”, and the number of wounded our “esteemed” media report can be increased.
> A friend of mine had PTSD when she returned from Operation Iraqi Freedom. She never saw combat, was never under fire. She was an MP guarding isolated crossroads and looking for roadside mines. Yes, it was stressful.
Interesting... why do you believe that your friend should not be entitled to a Purple Heart for her PTSD? If it is the real thing, she is quite likely to require ongoing medical treatment, possibly for the rest of her life. And while she wasn’t fired upon by the enemy, she wasn’t driving desk, either: the mines she was looking for would have been placed by the enemy, and the crossroads she was guarding were to be guarded against the enemy.
I struggle to see the distinction, but perhaps you can clarify my thinking on this.
That would allow far too much playing of the system. I am thinking of one particular person who managed to receive the Purple Heart three times. All three wounds together did not amount to either of the wounds my father received. Dad turned down the PH both times because neither was "bad enough." They were both treated and then he returned to duty.
Ironically, dad was sent home on a hospital ship for a broken leg he got after VJ Day.
I know that this is going to sound like flip remark — but I really don’t intend it to be. So let me throw out my thinking on this.
1. Stress is part of serving in a combat zone.
2. Most combat personnel & combat service support troops are going to experience stress to a some degree.
3. A psychologist can pretty much find PTSD in the majority of these troops at some point during or after their deployment.
OK... Here’s the question... Does this not reduce the Order of the Purple Heart into some sort of a “campaign ribbon”?
Do you see what I’m getting at? It’s not that PTSD sufferers are not injured. It’s more of a defense of the award.
Thanks for your thoughtful and thought-provoking post. You write:
> OK... Here’s the question... Does this not reduce the Order of the Purple Heart into some sort of a “campaign ribbon”?
It certainly would if the PTSD weren’t clinical in nature, but rather something which everybody had. And I think what you’re saying is that it would be difficult to establish that the PTSD was clinical in nature. Which I acknowledge it well could be difficult.
> Do you see what I’m getting at? It’s not that PTSD sufferers are not injured. It’s more of a defense of the award.
I can accept that argument: the Purple Heart is for injuries where blood is shed or bones are broken.
With alot of mental illnesses, it is that way. If somebody has a broken arm, you can see that and say “I bet that hurt” because the injury is obvious. Similarly if they have lost a limb or gashed themselves open: the injury is obvious so it is easily acknowledged and treated.
But for the most part, mentally ill patients do not have obvious complaints: when you look at them they look normal, when you talk to them they can even look normal. They do not appear injured; however, their injuries are very real and often more serious in nature than somebody with a broken arm or missing limb. And they often go unacknowledged and untreated as a result.
If the Purple Heart isn’t the appropriate award for mental injuries, that’s OK. My question in return would be how best to recognize somebody who has been mentally injured during war time?
I don’t think the military has its head in the sand on this. They know that PTSD is real. Effectively dealing with it is the problem.
In WW1 they called it “Shell Shock” and though it was studied the soldiers affected carried the stigma. By WW2 it was officially called “Combat Fatigue” and units were rotated “off the line” after a prescribed interval if the situation permitted. Notice that I said “units”.
In Iraq we see repeated deployments of from 9 months to a year. This is new. It approaches the WW2 situation, but without the physical mortality rate, so the mental injuries are far more apparent.
The military will be dealing with this for the foreseeable future.
I remember that Carlin routine, and he had a good point when he said, I’ll bet you if we’d of still been calling it “shell shock”, some of those Viet Nam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time.
Maybe the best thing to do for someone who has had PTSD is to give them the treatment they need, a warm handshake and then let them get on with their lives? I am not a mental health professional, but I would think that the best treatment would be to get them on their feet and moving in the right direction and let them do the healing. I don't think a medal would help towards that end.
Look at the progression: Shell-shock... Combat Fatigue... Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The terminology goes from the graphic to the clinical. Wonder if there’s a lesson in there somewhere?
> Maybe the best thing to do for someone who has had PTSD is to give them the treatment they need, a warm handshake and then let them get on with their lives?
Why should that same thing not be done with physical injuries? Why should they warrant a medal, and not someone with mental injuries?
> I am not a mental health professional, but I would think that the best treatment would be to get them on their feet and moving in the right direction and let them do the healing.
I’m not a mental health professional either, but I do sit as a Trustee on a board of an organization that looks after the mentally ill. People who use our services struggle with a number of things right outside their mental illness: first is the stigma that always comes along with having a mental illness.
This stigma does not come along with any other illness or physical injury: only the mentally ill get stigmatized for being ill. And they struggle with having their illness being recognized as something that cannot be fixed by “simply snapping out of it”. Seems like everyone is an expert on fixing mental illnesses, from Tony Robbins to Deepak Chopra to Joe Bloggs at the water cooler. Yet physical illnesses and injuries are usually left to the “professionals”. So, usually, mental illness is not taken as seriously as it should be.
> I don’t think a medal would help towards that end.
Again, turning the question around, why would a medal help toward helping a soldier who had been physically injured to heal? Why is his physical injury more “serious” and “praiseworthy” than another soldier’s mental injury? Why is the physical injury more deserving of a medal?
I am unconvinced by this: I think the Pentagon is making a mistake.
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