We're saving a fortune on V.A. benefits! I kid, I kid. But yeah, that's awful. My company has been doing preferential hiring of vets for a few years now and we've got a bunch on staff. In general they're tough, resourceful, and best of all, used to working in a huge bureaucratic structure.
When I read shit like this, I see really fuct-up priorities within our government. These vets should be well taken care of when they get home. Not swept under the rug. The really sad thing? MSP's opening crack is probably what some high up mucky-muck's decisions are motivated by.
Nope on pretty much all of this. The VA and other organizations have been doing huge pushes recently to get vets diagnosed for PTSD, depression and other mental ailments. There were several reports last week about PTSD being at it's highest diagnosis rate due to better diagnosis and awareness. Not to mention, like MSP stated, there's a huge push in many industries to reincorporate soldiers into society. As for the cause of this, the average age of service members is lower for this war than those of Vietnam or WW2 and troops are in combat for longer periods of time. Plus, while deployed like in Vietnam, there's never any true resting periods as the base is always under threat of attack adding to mental anguish. And really, since we've switched to a volunteer army, something like 1% of the population is bearing the burden of this conflict.
It's closer to say that the problem is under chronic management. Like diabetes, it's there for good now, and will require lifelong treatment to keep under control. Solving the problem would be ending foreign adventures altogether, instituting the draft and enlarging the armed forces so that we don't have to send folks back on endless repeated tours of duty in conflict areas, and have an older average age of soldier serving those tours of duty.
"Management", you mean like Federal Emergency Management Agency, or Bureau of Land Management. I'm not too confident in the managing skills of our career bureacrats. I guess if these stats trend downward and real progress is documented, then the ends will justify the means and we can say we did OK by these soldiers.
I mean management like diabetes management. But yes, the agencies overseeing the management will indeed tend to be like those organizations!
I knew what you meant. I was getting at the tendence of the US government to create an agency whenever that word is passed around :wink:
