Elana Levin
NYT Letter to the Editor of the Week!
In Honor of Veteran's Day (which is only 9 months away but its never to early to honor the contributions of our veterans) I am proud to present a special edition of Letter To The Editor of the Week!
Veteran's and advocates, we salute you!
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Sally Satel wants us to believe that there are veterans who try to scam the Veterans Affairs Department by requesting benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder long after their wartime experience.
What Dr. Satel actually does is expose a system that pits veteran against veteran in a competition for scarce resources. This is how our supposedly troop-supporting, grateful nation rewards its men and women in uniform.
My brother served in Iraq. He is one of the luckier ones and is home now, but the recovery from his experiences is extremely complex and will clearly take a lifetime to unpack. I hope that whenever he needs any of the benefits he was promised when he enlisted he will get them.
Which veterans deserve their benefits? All of them!
Laura Costas
Silver Spring, Md., March 1, 2006
* * *
Sally Satel mentions a report by the inspector general of the Veterans Affairs Department on compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder. But that report did not fault the veterans involved. Rather, it found premature ratings and sloppy record-keeping by overworked and undertrained V.A. staff members.
After intense review, the secretary of veterans affairs determined that there was no evidence of widespread abuse.
Combat is the root of all trauma for war veterans. This is often worsened by the V.A.'s labyrinthine bureaucracy, by prejudice and by those who question the veterans' integrity and the validity of their neuropsychiatric wounds — without offering a shred of evidence.
Many Vietnam veterans dealt with their post-traumatic stress disorder by becoming workaholics. But their symptoms are now re-emerging after retirement as they sit home and relive their trauma by watching a new war on TV.
Dr. Satel minimizes the problem of thousands of legitimate claims that have been denied veterans because of the great difficulty of finding supporting documentation to verify the stressor.
John P. Rowan
National President
Vietnam Veterans of America
Silver Spring, Md., March 1, 2006
Elana Levin: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 11:19 AM, Mar 07, 2006 in
Health Care | Media | public services
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