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New Jersey National Guard member Margaret Stevens barely gets into it in this interview, but this Memorial Day it's worth noting that the US military is a whole lot keener to deploy women than it is to look after them when they've done their service. By its own admission, the Department of Veterans Affairs is barely managing to provide services sufficient for all the women who've seen active duty (180,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan alone). From pap smears and mammograms to post-combat and post-sexual-assault trauma treatment, the VA suffers not only from budget shortfalls but from male-oriented traditions. Last year, the VA treated more than 255,000 female veterans. The number is expected to double within five years. Sen. Patti Murray has sponsored a bill to require the VA to provide female-specific and sexual trauma treatment. But women still face a military attitude that up to now has been "Because women aren't allowed in combat, they can't have PTSD. It must be depression or women's issues like PMS." Murray's bill received a hearing last week.
GRITtv: Women In The Military Can’t Have PTSD?By: Laura Flanders Monday May 26, 2008 5:07 pm |
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Zed. No one is really entitled to PTSD under Bushco and the republicans - even the old Nam guys who have been drawing disability pensions for years.
Yep.
The fact that women in (US) military uniform are more likely to be casualties of rape at the hands of US servicemen than they are to be killed or wounded in action is a little-known “psychic barrier” against combat PTSD…or so my erstwhile colleagues in “military psychiatry” appear to be acting.
Funny - in my trauma psychiatry fellowship, I never heard about that protective effect.
/s
Under the Bushies, “military psychiatry” is to psychiatry what “military intelligence” is to intelligence: hideously warped and limited.
jus cogens!
I still fear that with the current President and administration, if the funding were cut-off, that these [no expletives strong enough to express my disdain] would actually allow the troops to run out of food, supplies, ammunition, everything to just make the point that those DFHs and fellow travelors are not patriotic ‘Murkans
From a female vet in Alaska:
http://freewayblogger.blogspot.....laska.html
Okay, I’m being a bit disingenuous here - she’s an animal doctor…
Great round table Laura. Shall we set it?
Simply fund all exit costs.. with t-bone steaks for all who follow the funding orders of congress and come home.
I dont think Bush could talk the generals et. al. into starving the troops without ammo.
PW upstairs
A female vet who posted during her time in Iraq several years ago (when the rules on that were apparently less onerous), and who since her return has occasionally posted on her own PTSD is GinMar (http://ginmar.livejournal.com).
I don’t get over there much these days. Her posts are very personal, in the Livejournal tradition. She never leaves doubt about where she stands on matters, and particularly on women’s rights issues, she throws a blistering inside fast ball, with appropriate accompanying language.
Her compassionate and empathetic posts from Iraq were beautiful, and captured the mixture of (rare) hope and (more common) despair quite well; I hope they are still available in the archives over there.
I think her current life matches the lives of many veterans fairly well, with a mixture of her PTSD, fighting with the VA for benefits she is owed, money and job woes, etc. She does seem to have a lot of folks who care about her, though; thank goodness for that.
Which is why Obama should try to convince Hillary to take the Sec of Defense cabinet post. Spread the word.