Showing posts with label PTSD comes from bad training. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PTSD comes from bad training. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Cindy McCain made PTSD work worthless

I heard about Cindy McCain's comment on PTSD while I was away and it was infuriating. This just one example of how much harm what she said is doing to far too many.

Here’s the “one particular area” that was touched upon:

“MC: You met your husband after his POW days. To what extent is that still with you — or is it a part of history?
CM: My husband will be the first one to tell you that that’s in the past. Certainly it’s a part of who he is, but he doesn’t dwell on it. It’s not part of a daily experience that we experience or anything like that. But it has shaped him. It has made him the leader that he is.”

“MC: But no cold sweats in the middle of the night?
CM: Oh, no, no, no, no, no. My husband, he’d be the first one to tell you that he was trained to do what he was doing. The guys who had the trouble were the 18-year-olds who were drafted. He was trained, he went to the Naval Academy, he was a trained United States naval officer, and so he knew what he was doing.”
go here for more

http://www.opednews.com/articles/ACCORDING-TO-CINDY-
McCAIN-by-Stuart-Steinberg-081011-144.html



While trying to defend the fact McCain would statistically have PTSD from being tortured as a POW, just like the other 99% of victims of torture, she managed to insult everyone who is wounded by it.

Saying that McCain's training had anything to do with "preventing" him from developing it was a slap in the face to all veterans with PTSD and all the families who have watched them suffer. How dare she?

This pathetic excuse for a veteran's wife has just slandered millions including civilians who have PTSD. She also managed to push all the hard work that has been done since Vietnam to get rid of the stigma of it. She reinforced the view far too many ignorant fools have to even suggest if was her husband's "training" that made the difference. In other words, if a veteran has PTSD, it's their fault and the fault of their commanders for not training them right.

So what have all the years of fighting against people like her accomplished? This woman is reflecting the attitude her own husband has about PTSD. We've seen it long enough whenever another veteran even tries to talk to McCain about PTSD. She didn't come up with this absurd comment on her own.

Every veteran in this country should be sending letters to the McCain campaign demanding a full, public apology. Imagine the way this comment was received by some who were contemplating suicide when they heard this! Imagine a family left behind when someone they loved committed suicide over PTSD had when they heard this! It's like another stab in the back from someone who had the responsibility to find out what PTSD is and what causes it before she even opened her mouth.