PTSD patients deserve better

More than 300,000 troops have returned from Iraq or Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, traumatic brain injury or some combination of those, and military physicians are challenged to examine each individually. Frustrated at the attention given to his PTSD, Schofield Barracks Sgt. Daniel McCarley is staying with friends on Oahu without leave, for the second time since the first of the year. The case is a kick-start for the Army and other military branches to give full and forceful attention to the growing wave of brave Americans bearing the scars of war.

"The numbers are alarming," states the recent Army report, "Generating Health and Discipline in the Force Ahead of the Strategic Reset," which forecasts a PTSD "epidemic" in a post-Iraq and -Afghanistan era.

Having served three combat tours in Iraq as a medic and one as a cavalry scout, McCarley tells of frustrations with a military bureaucratic machine. He told the Star-Advertiser’s William Cole about his commander telling him twice that he was rejected by a Warrior Transition Unit for receiving medical care. He said medical personnel told him that "the only way you are going to get in there is you have to go tell them you are going to kill yourself."

That rings of "Catch 22," Joseph Heller’s 1961 classic of World War II American airmen’s understanding that they would have to continue flying missions unless they were crazy, but if they expressed that they didn’t want to fly more missions, they would be regarded as sane and be required to keeping flying.

Being unable to resolve a case like McCarley’s and other current PTSD conundrums cannot become acceptable, not when it’s predicted that more than 20 percent of the 2 million troops who deployed — close to 472,000 veterans — will develop PTSD. Already, the estimated cost to care for 300,000 veterans with PTSD in 2010 was between $4 billion and $6.2 billion.

The Warrior Transition Unit was created following the 2007 scandal surrounding the neglect at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. It was intended to provide shelter at more than 30 way stations for injured soldiers to recuperate, return to duty or gently process out of the Army.

McCarley was diagnosed with severe PTSD and anxiety upon his return to Schofield Barracks from his fourth tour of Iraq last summer, according to his parents in Florida. The sergeant warned his command that he would go AWOL because he was "not going to continue to be forced to be sick" because of the lack of treatment of the stress.

McCarley said he was to have been honorably discharged last November. However, he was told he would not be released until next spring after a medical review board process that could lead to a PTSD disability determination.

His parents contend their son and others "are backed into a corner through lack of action by the Army until they do something stupid and are less than honorably discharged, meaning they will be denied needed (Veterans Administration) benefits."

That would be a terribly wrong outcome to this unfortunate situation. A spokesman for the 25th Infantry Division at Schofield says McCarley is "a valued member of our team" and deserves "the best possible care the Army can give him."

The McCarley family should be given assurance that Daniel McCarley’s repeated, dedicated service to his nation is deserving of an outcome that includes honorable discharge and VA benefits, and the needed mental health support.