Posted on 02/23/2014 3:01:01 PM PST by kristinn
President Bush is front and center in the news this week, a position he hasn’t frequently occupied since leaving office five years ago, stepping back into the spotlight to shine a spotlight of his own on post-9/11 veterans and his fight to take the “Disorder” out of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
“We’re getting rid of the D,” he said. “PTS is an injury; it’s not a disorder. The problem is when you call it a disorder, [veterans] don’t think they can be treated.
“An employer says, ‘I don’t want to hire somebody with a disorder.’ And so our mission tomorrow is to begin to change the dialogue in the United States,” he said. “And we’ve got a lot of good support.”
According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which still uses the designation “PTSD,” roughly 30 percent of post 9/11 veterans suffer from the malady, which hinders their reintegration into civilian society.
Though our troops have long since left Iraq and are on track to draw down in Afghanistan within the year, America’s veterans face a longer journey, and perhaps a harder struggle, on the home front. With a steep unemployment rate facing today’s veterans, The Bush Center’s recent joint study with Syracuse University only confirmed what so many vets are already aware of – their top priorities are jobs and education.
“It’s hard to put on your resume, ‘hire me; I was a sniper.’ I mean the average employer can’t figure out what that means,” Bush said.
“On the other hand, it took enormous courage and discipline and steadiness under pressure to be successful,” he said. “His job application, his job skill before, when employers better understand what he brings to the — would bring to their firm, they’re more likely to hire him.”
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
I vaguely remember hearing they used diagnosis of ptsd to take away gun rights somewhere, or is my memory bad?
As liberal as George Carlin was, he did point out how they kept changing the language to attempt to soften the approach to medical problems. Per his routine, the “disorder” in question here started as “shell shock” (direct and to the point), then became “battle fatigue” (double the number of syllables), further softened to “operational exhaustion” (target keeps getting more vague) and ended up with the long-winded “post-traumatic stress disorder” of today. Kind of like how hyperactivity suddenly became “ADHD” or something like that.
Well maybe he can spread around some of that compassionate conservatism. I supported this man, but he was totally and completely clueless when it comes to the mentality of liberal mindset. He should have known first hand how liberals of all stripes pervert the language!
Tell that to the government that takes away your firearms the minute you’re diagnosed with it.
While probably over diagnosed, I like this change in language. W is right. When it is legitimate, it is an injury not a disorder.
That deserves a YouTube post. One of Carlin’s brilliant moments.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSp8IyaKCs0
Wow !
Talk about guts!
Jumping feet first into one of the defining issues of the day.
That’s the way to stand up for America, Dubya.
This makes some sense to me, but perhaps I am clueless.
No, your memory is fine, that is pretty much the entire purpose of VA PTSD "treatment".
Bush is way too late, being snookered for decades by Rats.
PTSI
His take on it was brutally honest, and I'm sure he spoke for a lot of people in his audience:
"Developmentally delayed? Let's be real, folks ... Does anyone think they're ever going to catch up?"
If you got it, you got it so what's your point? There was a time, circa 1940's, when it was diagnosed simply as "shell shocked".......Remember that?
Fortunately our current crop of veterans have been treated much better than our WW-II and Vietnam vets and are now being treated for the legitimate mental injuries which accompany war.......
Kudos to President Bush to even take a stand on such a serious issue befalling our veterans, can you say the same for the past presidents of the last 60 years?
Continue with your BDS but the fact remains that President Bush has shown more compassion towards our active and past veterans than any president before him..........
History will eventually exhonorate him from the eight years of MSM attacks he was forced to endure........
Can you say "Valerie Plame" and "Abu Ghraib"? Sure you can..........
And lets not forget the claims by the MSM that there was no evidence of chemical weapons or uranium ever being found in Iraq, which led to the continued attacks on President Bush........
Syria's Chemical Weapons Came From Saddam's Iraq
Pentagon Completes Secret Shipment Of 500 Tons Of Uranium From Iraq To Canada
Whenever it says “Bush”, I stop reading.
Calm the **** down, Tabasco, I wasn’t attacking your precious Dubya. I was saying that the minute you are diagnosed with “shell shock” (and no, I don’t remember World War II, I was born in 1960) you lose your guns.
Turn off Bush's euphemism generator and you get
control the language
corrupt the speech
debase normal meanings and definitions
The problem is when you call it a disorder, [veterans] don’t think they can be treated.
The problem is, that 1) this health care is controlled and provided by those who work for and follow the directives of fedzilla or another behemoth IOW not the patient, and 2) that same entity defines the meaning of "health care".
It's the health care (sustainability) of the beast system that is paramount. Any supposed improvement in treatment isn't going to happen via slight of hand or twist of the tongue... it's just another Gotcha! scheme (covenant with death) to separate Americans from their unalienable rights.
Yeah, let the government dictate word meanings. Look what beast.gov has done to the definition of marriage. It has horned in and proclaimed itself supreme deity over the land, exchanging truth for lies, using its supreme jackboot to force agreement with hell.
As part of their effort, I hope Mr. Bush and his institute will encourage a more definitive diagnosis of PTSD and its victims. Sadly, there are thousands of vets who have claimed PTSD—and received disability benefits—based on little more than their personal accounts, even when service records clearly indicate they never served in combat, or in a support role that might trigger PTSD. Some of the individuals in that latter category include doctors, medics, nurses and chaplains working in a military trauma center, or as a drone sensor operators/analysts, who watch troops they are supporting (and communicating with on the radio), come under fire and sometimes die.
At the other extreme, there are individuals who claim PTSD on dubious grounds. In a former job, I had a retired Navy senior chief working for me. He spent most of his years as a recruiter, and never came close to a combat zone. Yet, when he retired, he claimed service-related PTSD and receives a 70% disability pension. Or how about a well-know Air Force Major who claimed that she was “kidnapped” during a deployment to Kyrgyzstan, then managed to escape and run 30 miles to freedom, in bare feet and with freshly-dyed hair. She was awarded a 100% disability pension (on claims of PTSD), and temporarily retired. Three years later, she returned to active duty and is now bucking for Lt Col.
The problem is that too many phonies claim PTSD and clog the system for processing claims from service members who actually suffer from that condition. And, of course, they siphon off medical resources and benefits from those who truly deserve them.
In today’s environment, the services and the VA are afraid to reject any claim of PTSD, so a lot of fraudulent claims are getting through the system. It would be interesting to know the percentage of departing service members who are claiming PTSD, particularly those who were never exposed to traumatic events, based on their service records.
Clearly, you don’t have to serve in combat to suffer from PTSD. But there are plenty of fakers who are claiming trauma from all sorts of military-related events, all in the name of collecting tax-free pension when they leave the service.
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