My personal view, not knowing the specifics of Capt. Carlson's case, is that the Army may have been better off trying to deal with Capt. Carlson's actual actions, which can likely be evaluated by the legal system or via commanders' nonjudicial punishment as appropriate or inappropriate, rather than trying to deal with this as an issue of mental health. Trying to "psychologize bad behavior" is often perceived as lightening punishment, but in a case like this, it also moves from provable facts to things that are very hard to prove one way or the other and can result in people getting hit with penalties for hard-to-evaluate diagnoses.
Shrinks tend to self select to investigate why they, personally, are crazy.
When I worked for my previous company - a DoD contractor. We had a guy who did a year in Iraq and when he got back, management did everything to get rid of him but definitely walked a fine line to get rid of him. When he got back, they assigned him to a position where he had to show but had nothing to do and as soon as enough time passed by, they laid him off. Pretty shameful IMHO.
It is not true that a personality disorder necessarily causes a lifetime of "job difficulties and broken relationships." Sometimes it does, but then Bill Clinton was one of the most severe personality disorders in public history and he was quite successful.
Personality Disorder NOS is a suspect diagnosis because there usually are sufficient criteria met to settle on one type or another. One problem not explained here is, psychiatrists are generally weak on the personality disorders. They don't like them much because there is no medication treatment for them, and are seldom expert at the diagnosis.
Finally, it is not true that her diagnosis will be on her discharge papers. That is simply a false statement, probably picked up from one of the advocates on whose opinions the story is based.
50 year old woman, making sexually suggestive comments to junior enlisted personnel. Hmmmm. She’s a social worker in her real life. So, I’d venture to guess that she just might be a little liberal.
She deploys and is surrounded by meat eating men all day and night, high levels of testosterone not normally found in her functions with her liberal friends. She was one of handful of women in the area and she wanted to get busy with some of the guys.
Then they start talking to her and find out she’s batshit crazy like most liberal women. surprise surprise
This situation goes to show that nothing is new under the sun. The same thing happened in the Carter years when the military took some severe hits in manpower. I was an Air Force mental health specialist on an Air Training Command base. Our appointment books were full of young airmen who were referred by their commanders for alleged “difficulties” in adapting to the military. A behavior disorder diagnosis was easy, too easy, to make in many cases. Most of those young people were given administrative discharges, general under honorable conditions, with no hope of ever claiming benefits of any sort. So in short, the Mental Health Clinic became a discharge factory.
The VA shrink I see said that in the 60s and 70s personality disorder was a required diagnosis even when the doctors knew it was inaccurate. Doctors knew something was going on but it wasn’t personality disorder. It was of course finally called Post Vietnam Syndrome, now known as PTSD. The entire ploy was to save money.
As to the claim made by the enlistee:who’s to say the claim is factual?
It will end up just suing the DOD for causing it.
“But her problems began soon after she arrived in Afghanistan last February. She got lost outside a combat outpost and wore shorts when she should have been in combat uniform. Then a junior enlisted soldier accused her of sexual harassment, citing an off-color remark she made during a game of Scrabble with several soldiers at a combat outpost.”
Does anybody know what happen to male Soldiers who get “lost” outside a combat outpost? Bad stuff. I wonder how many Soldiers had to go and find Capt Carlson when she got lost, thus endangering everybody with her fruit loop actions.
“Hmm, I shall put on these shorts, and take a hike through the exotic wilds of Afghanistan. Let me take my expensive camera, and photograph the harsh beauty of the rugged terrain.” Hint- it’s war. She got lost, and a few good men had to mount up and find her before she was kidnapped, raped, and possibly killed.
I don’t know her, her case, or anything, but if the NYT had these facts and her pic and interviewed her, these facts are probably good.
Good gracious, people!
The article is from the New Yort Times! The New York Times!!!!
Take it with a very big grain of salt.
In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb here to state most of the “facts” are BS because it is from the New York Times.
A soldier comes on here and posts that he actually KNOWS the Captain, speaks a few words of support for her, and you are all going to dispute him in favor of what you read in the New York Freekin’ Times? That’s an M.O. for liberals; not FReepers.