lying and goldbricking, especially those with reactivated PTSD from earlier wars. This, of course, is the Bush Administration's position, which is no coincidence because the author of the article is a resident scholar of the American Enterprise Institute:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/01/opinion/01satel.html?ex=1151467200&en=8c0834998405b387&ei=5070(snip)
Medically speaking, there is some evidence to support what psychiatrists call "reactivated" post-traumatic stress disorder. The literature is dotted with cases of veterans of World War I, World War II and the Korean War who, after briefly showing signs of stress disorders in the immediate aftermath of their ordeals, led productive lives for decades before breaking down in their 60's and 70's. Little is known about the treatment of reactivated symptoms, but there is reason to be optimistic that patients will recover nicely in view of their having functioned well for so long.
But it's also very likely that some of the veteran baby boomers who have filed claims in recent years did so not out of medical need but out of a desire for financial security in their retirement years. Indeed, 40 percent of last year's claimants had been out of the military for 35 to 49 years.
In any case, the rush of applications for long-term disability entitlements reflects the extent to which the culture of the Department of Veterans Affairs since Vietnam has become fixated on post-traumatic stress disorder. While claims for all other forms of mental illness, like schizophrenia and bipolar illness, have declined by about 12 percent of patients at veterans' hospitals over the last decade, the number of veterans receiving compensation for post-traumatic shock has nearly tripled.
Having worked as a psychiatrist at a Veterans Affairs hospital, I can attest to the good intentions with which the department created its post-traumatic stress disorder programs. But as the bureaucracy has become entrenched — and politicians and veterans' groups have applied pressure — a culture of trauma has blossomed. If a veteran can demonstrate service in Vietnam and simply list a few symptoms of the disorder (terrifying nightmares, bad memories, anxiety, survivor guilt and so on), there is a good chance he will be granted the diagnosis and a tax-free monthly stipend.
(snip)
The author of this smear piece is described this way: "Sally Satel, a psychiatrist and resident scholar at the
American Enterprise Institute, is a co-author of
One Nation Under Therapy."
The American Enterprise Institute, of course, is a neocon think-tank very closely associated with the Bush Administration's agenda. Here's one description:
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1431Founded in 1943, the American Enterprise Institute is today the single most influential think tank in America and the country's main bastion of neoconservatism. In a January 2003 speech at an AEI dinner celebrating the life of neocon godfather Irving Kristol, President Bush underscored the institute's impact. After commending AEI for having "some of the finest minds in our nation," the president said: "You do such good work that my administration has borrowed 20 such minds." That was a conservative estimate: Since the Bush administration took over in 2001, more than two dozen AEI alums have served either in a policy post or on one of the government's many panels and commissions--like the Defense Policy Board, which until early 2003 was chaired by AEI all-star Richard Perle. (5)
(snip)
In fact, AEI knew it was going to play a prominent role in the Bush administration even before George W. took office. In a December 2000 Washington Post article, "White House Hopes Gas Up Think Tank," Dana Milbank wrote: "It's noon in the American Enterprise Institute's 12th-floor dining room, where Irving Kristol, Norman Ornstein and other luminaries lunch. On the menu is swordfish and white wine. On the agenda is a Bush transition. If George W. Bush becomes president, says AEI scholar Douglas Besharov, beckoning to the dining room, 'this whole place empties out.'"
AEI says it is "dedicated to preserving and strengthening the foundations of freedom--limited government, private enterprise, vital cultural and political institutions, and a strong foreign policy and national defense--through scholarly research, open debate, and publications." (1)
Ironically, AEI, whose pro-Likud stance on Middle East policy has become legend, was at one point in its history regarded as an even-handed forum on Israeli-Arab affairs. But that was in the 1970s and early 1980s, before the death of its former president, William Baroody, and the massive influx of neoconservative ideologues into its halls.
Given the Bush Administration's strong views on PTSD and veterans who dare to report it, I have to suspect that anyone writing a Veterans' Administration report with PTSD numbers is under strong pressure to under-represent and distort the true scope of the incidence and severity of PTSD and other war-related psychological damage.
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