ABC 7 News
By Chuck Goudie
May 21, 2015
WASHINGTON (WLS) -- On Capitol Hill there is movement in both houses of congress on new legislation that would help thousands of service members suffering from PTSD - although it is too late for Marine veteran Cole Van Dorn, who was buried Thursday at Arlington National Cemetery.
In the shadow of the Pentagon, at this resting place for American heroes, a rifle salute to the latest serviceman who died while fighting a hidden enemy in a private war: PTSD.
read more here
WARNING I just put my Chaplain vest in the closet because of what I am going to write and not feeling very "Christian" at the moment. Don't worry because I'll pray to be forgiven and I am sure He'll understand why. The trouble is, no member of Congress will ever get a fucking clue!
The sadness that hits me hard this time of year just turned into full-blown-head-exploding-outrage!
I have been getting sadder around Memorial Day for over 3 decades because every year there are more and more graves filled by veterans who should be marching in parades, not being followed by cars in a funeral procession. The majority of the country is all about having fun but in the veterans community, it is all about what this day was intended to be. Remembering generations of those who paid the price for what we have the other days of the year.
Too many of us remember how many we lost to suicide since last Memorial Day. The rest of the country, if they pay attention at all, keep spouting off with a fictitious 22 a day when the rest of us are fully aware veterans are committing suicide double the civilian rate and even with that fact, we also know we will never, ever know exactly how many decided that one day was the best day to die after surviving combat. Did you get that? Did you notice that they did everything they could to survive combat, make it back home and then gave up? That should tell you something right there and for most of us, it was a message we got years ago.
We've been listening to politicians and profiteers finagle these veterans out of their lives for far too long. It has been going on for as long as the Patriots took a stand against the best military in the world at the time, defeated them and then had to take care of their own wounded. None of them want you to remember that back then when the warfighters were paying the price with their minds because of combat, they were shot as cowards. Today politicians save the bullets and push veterans over the edge to kill themselves. Hey why bother to remind folks that the psychological price of serving was studied during every war and full blown research started over 40 years ago?
There is a special place in hell for all of them and for all the charities out there claiming they are taking care of veterans when clearly, most of them are taking care of themselves. There are some good ones and I am proudly associated in one way or another with them. Then there are the bottom dwellers screaming about "raising awareness" when they don't want anyone to be aware of the basic fact they never say what the fuck they are doing with the money or have to give one single, simple explanation as to why they haven't changed anything for anyone.
Ever wonder why these new groups pop up, get press attention and get swollen bank accounts instead of taking new ideas to older established groups? Here's a clue, they want to keep the money for themselves and have all the attention focused on them, not the veterans needing help.
Members of Congress have had the luxury of lazy reporters failing to ask them why things have gotten worse after decades of spending billions of dollars to make things better for veterans. They got to just blame the VA for the mess instead of having to answer for a single dime of feeding donors pockets with drugs instead of therapy and then their latest pull-the-wool shenanigans of letting veterans see outside doctors. Ya, right, that will work. Ever see a waiting line in an emergency room or long waits at a doctor's office? Ever see a hospital shut down?
The hospital I was born in and my daughter, was torn down. It is now a supermarket. Ever see a VA Hospital shut down?
Tomorrow is the opening of the new Lake Nona VA here in Florida. The groundbreaking was in 2008 and they handed out shovels as momentos. We didn't them considering all the crap we've all had to deal with all these years we needed this instead.
House and Senate members (but not their families) also are eligible to receive care at military hospitals. For outpatient care, there is no charge at the Washington, D.C., area hospitals (Walter Reed Army Medical Center and National Naval Medical Center). Inpatient care is billed at rates set by the Department of Defense. That was from AARP.
Politicians write the rules. They extended the time the troops can get free healthcare from the VA but didn't think to make sure they also hired enough doctors and nurses to take care of those entering in line behind combat wounded veterans.
Enhanced Eligibility For Health Care Benefits
Veterans who served in a theater of combat operations after November 11, 1998 are eligible for an extended period of eligibility for health care for 5 years post discharge.
Under the "Combat Veteran" authority, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provides health care services and community living care for any condition possibly related to the Veterans’s service in the theater of operations and enrollment in Priority Group 6, unless eligible for enrollment in a higher priority group to:
Combat Veterans who were discharged or released from active service on or after January 28, 2003, are eligible to enroll in the VA health care system for 5 years from the date of discharge or release.
What they don't tell you is that older veterans were put to the back of the line as well and they are also the majority of the suicides. But hey, why remind anyone they suffered longer and waited longer for promised changes they fought for in the first place?
We are watching them not getting the help they need from politicians hoping we don't remember and from profiteers hoping we don't notice what they are not doing. We are watching them die remembering and noticing everything, but reporters can't even remember what they wrote last week about facts destroying what some yahoo just claimed and never nailing them on it.
Ever wonder what suicides of younger veterans does to older ones? It reminds them of all the bullshit they've heard over and over and over again followed by more and more empty speeches blaming everyone but themselves and not one single hearing asking for accountability from anyone other than who they think will make an easy target of the day.
Too bad it is all on record and everyone can read who did what and when they did it. We know about all the stupid questions being asked during "hearings" but not one question that made any difference to anyone.
The reports about medications replacing therapy have been out for years but nothing has changed. They keep talking about doing something but then the drug companies will lose money. Why bother to do what was proven to be the most effective, which is peer support and talk therapy? After all, why fund the best when the most expensive is acceptable?
The question is how long do they think it will take until they reach the "one too many" they keep talking about? How many more have to die before someone does something real to change all this?
This is what it all boils down to. Congress knew about all this but after hearings, nothing was really done to change the outcome.
VA doctors tell House lawmakers of pressure to prescribe veterans opiates
The Center for Investigative Reporting
By Aaron Glantz
Published: October 10, 2013
The hearing marked the first time VA officials have spoken publicly about the skyrocketing number of painkiller prescriptions since The Center for Investigative Reporting revealed the trend last month.read more of this report here
"There are multiple instances when I have been coerced or even ordered to write for Schedule II narcotics when it was against my medical judgment," said Dr. Pamela Gray, a physician who formerly worked at the VA hospital in Hampton, Va.
Primary care doctors who don't want to prescribe large amounts of opiates may resign, do as they are told or be terminated, Gray said. Gray was fired.
You can find more about what Congress had hoped we'd all forget with Veteran Suicides Apocalypse Now because it was all happening before the internet and the general public had the ability to learn.
They hoped we'd forget that the VA has 1,000 veterans a month attempting suicide, even though there is the Veterans Crisis Line taking in thousands of calls every month and there is an ever growing number outside the VA system they admit they have no clear count of.
Vietnam veterans were trained to fight and kill but no one ever claimed they were trained to heal afterwards. For Gulf War veterans, it is the same story but no one talks about them. For OEF and OIF veterans, they are triple their peer rate after they had been trained in "prevention" and given all the attention of the new charities only interested in them.
It happened before the DOD spent billions a year on "prevention" that didn't work as they refused to change anything. It happened before the umteenth chairity begged for your money but didn't think they had to explain what they were doing with the money.
It all happened long before this generation and that is the saddest part of all. It is all still happening.
