McCain says because he survived 5½ years of brutal torture, while a prisoner of the communist Vietnamese, he is better qualified to be president of the United States than any other candidate. McCain claims his POW sufferings included three years in solitary confinement where he was tortured so badly that he "broke," causing him to attempt suicide.

John McCain, married to a filthy-rich heiress, a guy who owns like eleven houses throughout the world and doesn't pay taxes on them, has decided that His Big Thing is that he's gonna spend OUR money to "win" in Iraq.

Republican John McCain, addressing fellow veterans of foreign wars in Orlando today, is telling them that both he and Democratic rival Barack Obama plan to bring U.S. forces home from the war in Iraq - "the great difference is that I intend to win it first.''

Let's see, the world's lone superpower, the country that spends 50% of the world's military budgets combined, has just spent more years trying to "win" in Iraq than it took to win World War Two.

But McCain can do it.  He knows he can do it.  The different will be "HIM" at the helm!  What kind of monumental, psychopathically monstrous EGO does this man have?

This was initially going to be a comment on TomP's diary, but I decided to expand...

I think McCain would be a lousy president, but, as he is running for office in the 21st century, is doomed to have his statements gone over with a fine tooth comb by everyone with access to The Google and wikipedia.  Such is politics.

However, I am leery of hitting him on this.  Yes, maybe it's a lie put together by his handlers.  But there is a history of false memories among vets that needs to be added to the context here.

When the U.S. military death toll in Iraq dropped to 13 last month it received wide attention.  But now, midway through August, the toll this month has already topped the July rate.  Meanwhile, two more Iraq vets have killed themselves here at home.  

A U.S. marine killed by gunmen in Fallujah west of Baghdad on Thursday became the 15th American to die in August.  A troubling seven had died in noncombat incidents.   The 15 tally tops July by two.

And the war at home?

Earlier this week, James Hoyt, one of the first four soldiers in WWII to discover the Buchenwald concentration camp which led to its liberation in 1945, died at his home. He was buried yesterday.

Reports CNN:

Hoyt had rarely spoken about that day in 1945, but he recently opened up to a journalist.

"There were thousands of bodies piled high. I saw hearts that had been taken from live people in medical experiments," Hoyt told author Stephen Bloom in a soon-to-be-published book called "The Oxford Project."

We have truly lost a great American hero, but his story can still teach us about a much-discussed issue plaguing America today: the thousands of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffering from PTSD.

Heal the Country.

I most certainly am not an Edward Tick, author of War and the Soul: Healing Our Nation's Veterans from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and a few other books, as well as the article in Yes Magazine linked above. He is also the director and senior psychotherapist of Soldier’s Heart: Veteran’s Safe Return Initiatives.

So I'll give a few of the cuts from the article and add some other related information I've recently received.

The Purple Heart is awarded for sustaining an injury in battle.  It was the first medal ever authorized by General George Washington and it remains a mark of respect among veterans.  I believe it is held in the highest of regard among civilians, as well.

The unfortunate fact for far too many veterans is that the wound they take in battle doesn't get noticed.  They get no Purple Heart because the wound can't be seen.  When they come home, they are expected to act as if they've never been wounded.  The gaping, gasping hole in their soul goes unnoticed.  Many times, they deny the wound themselves.

For a long time, the existence of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was officially denied.  Thankfully, those days are gone.  But the efforts at preventing, identifying, and treating PTSD remain painfully inadequate.  We have to change that.  Now.

Dedicated individuals in the nonprofit sector have the programs that our government should be carrying forward to help our troubled vets today and produce fewer wounded vets tomorrow.  Building Veterans Villages helps vets erase post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and build their lives.  Fielding 21 million Americans under the American World Service Corps will eliminate creating future PTSD wounded vets and build stronger lives for all who serve and are served. Visit www.VeteransVillage.org and www.WorldServiceCorps.us to learn more.

Diane Benson (second from the right) plus her team and Vietnam Veteran Mo Bailey

Late in July, Writing Raven and I had a fundraiser at Phil Munger's (Progressive Alaska) beautiful home for our trip to Denver...and Democratic Candidate for the Alaska At-Large Congressional seat, Diane Benson was kind enough to show up and donate.  It was then that I asked her the question that had been bugging me for months.  "Did I meet you about 14-15 years ago?"

These are a couple of recent posts from Ilona. The first looks to be a Very Interesting Online Tool to use for information and citizen research and much more, I'll let her explain:

Did you know that, with returns from Iraq, we are seeing growth in reports of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?

Did you also know that divorce is more common, when a soldier returns from war with PTSD?

Did you know that chances of anger, irrationality and spousal abuse rise with the diagnosis of PTSD?

Did you know that naval veteran John McCain divorced his first wife soon after returning from the traumatic experience of viet-cong captivity?

[Cross Posted at VetVoice]
President Bush took time yesterday to talk about how well the the War in Iraq was going and the "success" of the surge.  I'll leave aside for the moment the ongoing debate on the validity of those claims.  I would like to focus instead on the new kind of surge that is going on in our country's VA Medical Facilities.

Actually the number is probably higher - 22,000 identified themselves explicitly as vets.  Over 55,000 called the special line set up through the VA in its first year of operation.  Some are friends and family of vets, which makes sense, as watching someone close struggle with PTSD or worse must be unbearable.  These statistics are gruesome.

Calls to the VA’s hotline more than doubled this calendar year going from a total of about 21,000 in January to more than 55,000 by the end of June, averaging about 250 calls a day.

over...

Last week, I shared a tragic story of a veteran who committed suicide less than three hours after being assessed as a "low risk" patient, and was released from VA care. The carelessness of his assessment was largely due to a standardized questionnaire that was used to identify high risk patients. This is a serious oversight, especially when you consider the statistic that by the end of the day, 18 veterans will have taken their own lives.

Since these troops make it home from Iraq, Afghanistan or other battlefields alive, they are not counted as casualties of war. In 2007, 6,256 veterans committed suicide. That's about two thousand more than the number of troops who died in Iraq since the beginning of the war. And yet, these deaths are not counted among the war casualties.

PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder): An anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened. People with PTSD have persistent frightening thoughts and memories of their ordeal. They may experience sleep problems, feel detached or numb, or be easily startled.

TBI (traumatic brain injury): Also called a concussion.

ASR (acute stress reaction): The immediate aftermath of a traumatic incident in a combat zone. The military describes it as normal reactions among troops confronted by abnormal situations.

CID (critical incident debrief): The Army's term for a mandatory session that takes place 24 to 72 hours after an event that may be sapping a soldier's will to fight.

National Institute Of Mental Health

We come together today to discuss one of the more disturbing things that the Administration has done recently...and for a President who claims he "supports the troops", this story is even more disturbing than usual.

It has his fingerprints all over it, however: laws ignored, rules rendered irrelevant, secrets kept from those who need to know—and ultimately, the cost of his bad decisions are being borne by those who have already paid about a high a price as could be possible in the service of this Nation.

Follow along, my friends, and I will treat you to a magic trick: one in which "Support The Wounded Troops" magically becomes "Screw The Wounded Troops" right before your very eyes...and while you probably won’t feel like applauding at the end, it’s nonetheless a trick you don’t want to miss.

A few months ago, when I interviewed Josh, an Iraq War veteran, about his struggles with a traumatic brain injury and PTSD that he was affected with in Iraq, and which followed him home to Wisconsin, he told me that it had taken him 2 years to receive treatment for his conditions. His girlfriend told me that she was grateful that Josh was not one of the approximate 1,000 veterans who attempt suicide a month.

"Hundreds of thousands of soldiers who need it aren't even getting taken care of by the VA, and thousands more are attempting to commit suicide under their care. Not only that, but when I went there as 'a danger to myself and other people,' they said it was in the past and that it didn't mean that I was still. They didn't want me to be there and they didn't know what to do with me. It's no wonder they wanted to 'Shhh...' the numbers of veterans attempting to commit suicide under their care."