Veterans deserve best care for complex stress disorder

By Ira Zunin

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Aug 06, 2011

~~<p>Veterans who were exposed to highly traumatic events during deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan and discharged because of post-traumatic stress disorder recently won a class-action law suit entitling them to lifetime disability benefits, including military health insurance. The ruling affects more than 1,000 veterans with PTSD who were denied these benefits upon discharge. The National Veterans Legal Service Program argued that the military services violated the law by failing to assign a 50 percent disability rating to those discharged for PTSD. A 50 percent disability rating entitles the veteran to disability retirement benefits.</p>
<p>This week one of my patients shared his emotional scars. “On April 1, 2004, I was on a convoy in Amarah, Iraq,” he said. “We started taking sniper fire and then got ambushed. My M-249 gunner was shot in the head and fell onto my lap. In the middle of the firefight, we ran over a mine which flipped our Humvee on its side. I was covered by the blood of my dead gunner and took shrapnel in my arms and legs. I couldn’t believe it was happening. This was supposed to be a normal convoy. It was the worst day in my life. I feel so guilty for my lost gunner. The worst part was having to explain to his son that his daddy wasn’t coming home. I have nightmares every day of my life. It just eats me up inside. It affects my marriage the most because my wife just doesn’t understand my pain.”</p>
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Veterans who were exposed to highly traumatic events during deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan and discharged because of post-traumatic stress disorder recently won a class-action law suit entitling them to lifetime disability benefits, including military health insurance. The ruling affects more than 1,000 veterans with PTSD who were denied these benefits upon discharge. The National Veterans Legal Service Program argued that the military services violated the law by failing to assign a 50 percent disability rating to those discharged for PTSD. A 50 percent disability rating entitles the veteran to disability retirement benefits.

This week one of my patients shared his emotional scars. “On April 1, 2004, I was on a convoy in Amarah, Iraq,” he said. “We started taking sniper fire and then got ambushed. My M-249 gunner was shot in the head and fell onto my lap. In the middle of the firefight, we ran over a mine which flipped our Humvee on its side. I was covered by the blood of my dead gunner and took shrapnel in my arms and legs. I couldn’t believe it was happening. This was supposed to be a normal convoy. It was the worst day in my life. I feel so guilty for my lost gunner. The worst part was having to explain to his son that his daddy wasn’t coming home. I have nightmares every day of my life. It just eats me up inside. It affects my marriage the most because my wife just doesn’t understand my pain.” Login for more...