Is PTSD Becoming Just Another Welfare Giveaway to the 47%?

Soldiers who become casualties on the battlefield should be taken care of, including injuries that cause physical and mental impairment.  Societies have done so throughout history.  The prerequisite has always been a sound body and mind to begin with.  A pre-existing physical impairment wouldn’t qualify, nor would a weak mental make-up before entering service.

      Veterans in the past expected trauma and mental anguish as part and parcel of being in combat.  They all came home to encounter rough transitions from one world to the other.  It was part of what war was about.  You did your duty and personally absorbed the anguish, which would diminish with time.

   True PTSD should be anchored in wartime mental trauma that peers would confirm as being obvious and accurate.  Even Marine officer Philip Caputo in A Rumor of War says becoming a blubbering idiot isn’t even enough.  You’re supposed to have lots of fear during combat.  As Caputo recounts in “Philip Caputo on PTSD and Combat Cowardice,” a tough-love sergeant forced one such casualty to pull himself together, save his personal dignity, and not leave the battlefield with an official mental stain on his record.

     PTSD is becoming the welfare sweepstakes of choice for many veterans who welcome a lifetime of disability payments if they can only claim some mental anguish, the same “goes with the turf” conditions that former generations would “grin and bear.”  Now cooks and clerks who heard a distant shell burst or saw a dead body from a vehicle feel impaired.  You just have to be a good actor and stick to your story.

       If everyone who goes “off to war” becomes entitled to a disability payment for mental anguish, then war will become too costly.  Isn’t this what the anti-war faction really is pursuing as a goal?  Escalating “salaries” is often tied to the same motive.  Four-fifths of soldiers in most wars don’t see combat anyway, but are most of the PTSD claims originating from this majority?

       Democrats seem to welcome any and all dependency on government because beneficiaries of welfare will always vote to keep the free whatever rolling in.  Today we see various branches of the armed forces holding “counseling” sessions about “how to spot PTSD” for those leaving the service.  In reality, these sessions are actually teaching many how to fake a PTSD application.  Meanwhile, attention to those who really need the help goes unfulfilled.