VA Blunders with Female Vets

Male patients aren't treated well but females are treated worse.

Female soldier in Afghanistan could have a long road ahead, depending on the treatment she receives by the Veterans Administration. Salem-News.com photo by Tim King

(MOLALLA, Ore.) - The above title is an abridged version of the article in Time Magazine July 12, 2010. The article is so condemnatory of the subject it brought tears of disbelief to this old Dogface Soldier.

I have written many articles about the gross betrayal of our wounded and sick Veterans by the VA but this expose is about the worst condemnation I have read.

I have already posted, Military Rape: SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) in which I wrote that the rapists went up to the rank of General.

It should be well known but apparently isn’t that females in military service such as nurses have among the highest rates of PTSD (the silent, hidden killer).

In recent years women have been in wars in which there are NO frontlines and back areas can even be equally or even more dangerous than the front where everybody is “somewhat safe” because everyone is alert to the danger. With bigger bombs, suicide bombers and booby traps everybody everywhere is at risk and casualties are spread throughout battle areas.

Some women are actually in combat roles in planes and helicopters. Pilots will tell anyone that planes are no longer a safe place. WWII lost about 90,000 flying airmen.

Iraq and Afghanistan are much dirtier wars with about 30,000 disabled troops from roadside mines and bombs. These “get” the women as well as the men.

Some women end up with very serious, disabling wounds. (Capt?) Tammy Duckworth is a prime example. She had both legs blown off by a grenade which hit her helicopter. This did bring attention to the plight of women warriors but obviously not enough. With more and more women getting into real combat roles or combat situations, these women will be flooding the VA system which is not even able to take care of present numbers.

THE VA SYSTEM IS NOT ONLY BROKEN - IT IS AS DANGEROUS AS BATTLE.

I hope members of congress can read, which I sometimes doubt, or that these women and/or their families will write to congress to correct this.

The statistics in the Time article appear to be reduced by persons not wanting to print the devastating facts. The figures seem to be much too low.

There’s an interesting aside to all of this. Many WWII Combat Veterans still cannot talk about their WWII combat experiences. Women are similarly affected.

PTSD IS REAL, DISABLING AND MAY BE LETHAL!!

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