Pretty common act among U.S. military veterans.
What is uncommon, or at least is a new occurrence, is that PTSD victims such as Hunt are no longer openly ridiculed while they are still alive by the neocons and their medical mouthpiece, Dr. Sally Satel; prosecuted for filing for disability benefits; or belittled by official U.S. military reports for engaging in "risky behavior."
We have finally reached a place where the mainstream culture in several fields more often than not recognizes PTSD as a condition in which veterans are victims, not perpetrators; and it follows: War is the enemy.
We are moving away (not fast enough though) from the mindset that trauma is a personal failing, results from a lack of faith in God; is a dodge or fraud to a health-centered approach.
As recently as 2010, Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli came under heavy criticism from veterans' advocates for his part in treating suicide and trauma in the neocon way—blaming the troops and treating this trauma "as a lack of moral character, and a lack of intestinal fortitude, when it is really a medical issue," as Steve Robinson wrote in August 2010 in angry reaction.
That 2010 Army report has been effectually killed now; it was commissioned by the Bush-Cheney administration that targeted veterans who give war a bad name.
We take issue at this site on occasion for President Obama's not moving fast enough in renouncing the many imbecilic policies of the Bush-Cheney administration.
On the issue of PTSD and how it is treated, we recognize that there has been a sea change.
War being war, this is not nearly enough for U.S. military veterans, and certainly not enough for the victims of war who are not American, and whose humanity remains.
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