US Troops

Our young men and women join the military to protect America. Almost to the person they say that anywhere they are stationed in either Iraq or Afghanistan is the battle front.

We hear it on the news, we read about it in our newspapers, our soldiers are being maimed and killed by the number one weapon of choice, the IED (Improvised explosive device). When they come home for treatment, whether it is for battle wounds or PTSD, they are not given the best care that money can buy. Instead, they are being treated as second class citizens and "thrown away".

From The Nation....Veterans' Health-Care System Does NOT "Support The Troops"

A House Veterans' Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday reviewed the 544-page commission report which details how unresponsive the executive branch and military are to veteran's medical needs. James Terry Scott, chairman of the independent commission, said at the hearing that there is a lack of expertise among clinicians in army hospitals and that veterans frequently receive inadequate medical advice, especially concerning posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

A new tactic by the military is to claim that PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) is a "pre-exisisting condition". From The Nation.... "How Specialist Town Lost His Benefits"

Eventually the rocket shrapnel was removed from Town's neck and his ears stopped leaking blood. But his hearing never really recovered, and in many ways, neither has his life. A soldier honored twelve times during his seven years in uniform, Town has spent the last three struggling with deafness, memory failure and depression. By September 2006 he and the Army agreed he was no longer combat-ready.