Late-onset Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder--War and Hate Suck

On February 15, 2001, Sonia Reich fled her home in Skokie, Illinois, insisting that someone was trying to kill her -- to "put a bullet in [her] head." It took a year for her son, Chicago Tribune journalist Howard Reich, to understand why she was running the streets of Skokie, fearing for her life: Late-onset PTSD

Turns out that Ms. Reich is a Jewish survivor of the Ukrainian-Russian area known as Beyond the Pale of Settlement begun in the 18th century where Russian Jews became the victims of pogroms, an enterprise of West-Asian anti-Semites and Stalinists which became mindlessly organized to commit deadly violence upon Jews and assorted non-right thinking persons of the last century.

Soviets, Nazis, whatever; militarists and bigots share much in common notwithstanding wars among them.



Suddenly, and late in life for Sonia Reich the bystanders and perpetrators of some 60 years ago became a 21st-Century monster terrorizing her.

Ms. Reich's plight won't come as any great surprise to any victim of war.

War is always a crime, always an act of terror.

The people who fought wars in the name of the USA, American veterans, in a supreme irony for the world's greatest purveyor of violence remain the object of scorn and ridicule in our political system.

Running the streets, hiding out in the garage, staying vigilant against ghosts; this is a familiar story in America. Just not a story that many want to hear.

The neocons, Dr. Sally Satel, the American Enterprise Institute, Christian fundamentalists, the Republican Party with much of the Democratic Party in tow, all agree or tacitly accede to the asserted demands that caring for veterans just cost too much money.

And besides Dr. Sally Satel assures us: Trauma, PTSD, psychological problems associated with war aren't nearly as serious as veterans' groups say. No cause to expend public capital as though veterans, especially that bunch who served in the Vietnam War, can still have any problems associated with their service.

Here's an example of the tripe from Satel:

[M]emories of horrible experiences are rarely, if ever, repressed--that is, exiled from consciousness without the victim knowing it and actively kept out of her awareness.

But ask a Vietnam War veteran. Ask a Palestinian in Gaza or the West Bank. Ask a victim of the American wars of the last few decades which seem to have a more provincial benefactor like the state of Israel and its cheerleaders in American society. Ask Sonia Reich.

Ask the veterans before they shoot themselves.

As one angry Vietnam Army combat veteran, Bob Walsh, an attorney who battles the VA every day on behalf of veterans says, "(Veterans) freeze to death on the streets or blow their brains out in the garage. The veterans' benefits claims system is a national tragedy, and men like (longtime claims specialist with the Veterans Benefits Administration) Mark Rogers are the problem, not the solution for our veterans and their families."

Good point, Walsh.

And with respect to Sonia Reich: Perhaps she can us teach us something about demons, war and respect in a civilized society.

The GOP War Against Veterans

Gordon Duff at Veterans Today has a piece on the GOP hostility to veterans.

Duff is a Marine combat veteran and a writer on political and social issues who apparently has had enough.

Wisconsin's jailed veteran, Keith Roberts, get a prominent mention.

Writes Duff:

‘Conservative’ means ‘saving money’ and ‘keeping soldiers as slaves onto death.’ Whether we are talking John McCain or Burr or Graham or two dozen others, these patriotic heroes have done nothing over the years but receive continual support from our favorite veterans groups for gutting military and veterans benefits.

With a series of ‘think tanks’ selling pseudo science, most of them got their feet wet with decades of ‘smoking and lung cancer denial,’ or similar idiocy, the American Enterprise Institute stands out as the lead in the war against American heroes.

Even more maniacal and radical than the Heritiage Foundation, private ‘rubber stamp’ for the schemes of Amway/Blackwater, Coors extremism and Richard Mellon Scaife, private funder for the failed Clinton impeachment, the AEI focuses on destroying veterans.

Their primary tool is a Doctor Sally Satel. Satel is an ‘odd duck’ who believes that secret groups of extremist veterans, when not busy trying to overthrow the government or tap her telephone, plot to destroy the American economy by faking symptoms of PTSD after experiencing combat.

VA Outrages

Dedicated to Jimmy and Grover Cleveland Chapman. - Hello in There



Update: On a related note, see the NYT's Herbert's column on the new proposed GI Bill: "Politicians tend to talk very, very big about supporting our men and women in uniform. But time and again — whether it’s about providing armor for their safety or an education for their future — we find that talk to be very, very cheap."

via mal contends

The U.S. Dept of Veterans of Affairs (VA) has gone down the toilet.

This is what happens when the VA adopts the American Enterprise Institute's (AEI) Dr. Sally Satel ethos that veterans need to just get over it, and not be enabled in a 'culture of trauma'.

From South Carolina, Paul Alongi reports:
An 89-year-old World War II veteran bought six bullets from a Greenville pawnshop on Thursday before fatally shooting himself outside a nearby veterans’ clinic, authorities said. ... "He felt like the VA turned its back on him and a lot of other veterans," Harriett Chapman said.

From California, Jim Holt reports: The VA demands 87-year-old Iwo Jima Marine vet return $3,000; vet received $84/month.

From Wisconsin, coming here tomorrow are the latest VA outrages on Vietnam-era veteran Keith Roberts.

And nationally, final arguments were made last week in the landmark veterans/VA class action case alleging systemic VA failure in denying returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans proper care.

The chickenhawks talk a good game, but when it comes to giving the troops respect and care, they are absent without leave. To all our vets, you're not forgotten: Hello in there.

Iraq Surge Architects Are No ‘Vince Lombardis’

So when does incompetent, lying, and cowardly behavior make one a Vince Lombardi?

Having lied their way to war, and disgraced the sacrifice and courage of American troops in the field, now the war cheerleaders are saying that the chickenhawks are Vince Lombardi incarnate.

Hey fella, if you want to lie and cheat your way to a war and a disastrous occupation, that's not fine. But don't drag Lombardi's name into it.

You're out of your depth, so crawl back to the Brookings Institution and American Enterprise Institute, and posture about war from these safe and comfortable confines.

"I want to call them the Lombardis of this war," said Brookings analyst Michael O’Hanlon, who seems to know even less about football than war. O'Hanlon is referring to the Surge architects who have, he claims, achieved their objective of bringing about Iraqi political reconciliation through the escalation of American troops.

See the video at ThinkProgress of these chickenhawks congratulating themselves.

VA finding: Liberal-biased news worsens PTSD

"At the NEOCON-run VA, the first rule of PTSD treatment is to not talk politics (meaning anything that is negative about the war is TABOO) ...," writes Robert L. Hanafin, Major, U.S. Air Force-Retired.

Hanafin's piece in Veterans Today shines a light on the Dept. of Veterans Affairs (VA) that has become almost as politicized as the Dept. of Justice.

Nothing, not even the treatment of returning troops, is safe from the rightwing, pro-war-at-any-costs ideology of this administration.

Hanafin quotes from a VA "fact sheet" on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): “Families should minimize exposure to anxiety-arousing media related to the war. News programs often emphasize fearful content and frightening images to create a 'story.' Watching a lot of TV news programs, for example, can create needless distress. "

Bush's war against veterans just may be the worst scandal yet of the most corrupt and inept administration in American history. Writes Hanafin:

"I personally believe that what ‘the management’ of the VA meant to say way, 'Limit exposure to news media programs that are not screened, monitored, and controlled by AmericaSupportsBush.mil. If the media refuses to paint a rosy picture of Iraqinam, boycott it. IBEWARE the doom sayers of CBS, PBS, plus any other mainstream media outlet that does not enforce the Pentagon/VA picture of the war President Bush and enough members of Congress sent you to fight and die in and ‘maybe, just MAYBE’ you will limit your exposure to PTSD stressors.' COME ON NOW PEOPLE, the following had former House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Steve Buyers and American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Doctor Phil (oops I mean) Sally Satel's behind the scenes stench all over it. ..."

IF you are a Vet who does not know who Dr. Sally is or what the American Enterprise Institute is. The AEI for Public Policy Research is one of the oldest and most influential of the pro-business right-wing think tanks. It promotes the advancement of free enterprise capitalism, and has been extremely successful in placing its people in influential governmental positions, particularly in the Bush Administration. AEI has been described as one of the country's main bastions of neoconservatism. Dr. Sally, is the Bush administration's EXPERT on PTSD, with 'too many' PTSD fraud 'conspiracy' theorys [She really sounds more like a UFO expert, EXCEPT UFO experts have more credibility.] She adores B.G. Burkett, the Texas associate of the Bush mob, and she TOO OFTEN quotes FACT from Burkett's fake Vet book, Stolen Valor. Dr. Sally looks down on Vietnam Vets unless they fit Stolen Valor's criteria."

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Great American Military Photographs in History

A veteran friend just sent me this. One hundred shots capturing moments in American war history, that is of the people who did the fighting.

Of-course, these veterans who seek VA benefits, in the eyes of the American Enterprise Institute and Dr. Sally Satel, are just a bunch of malingerers looking for an entitlement.

GreatestMilitaryPhotographs.pps (5530.5 KB)
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