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LETTER TO EDITOR CALLING PTSD "COWARDICE" STIRS

DEBATE -- Writer says PTSD soldiers "will impress a

lot of mommies, perhaps, but not many men."

 

 

You'll want to go to the hyperlink below to read the many responses this letter received.

Story here... http://blogs.rockymountainnews.com/
denver/letters/2007/01/stress_disorder_
used_to_be_cal.html#more

Story below:

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‘Stress disorder’ used to be called cowardice

The sad picture in the Jan. 13 Rocky of the forlorn young soldier who wants out of the Army because of the dreadful things he saw in Iraq (“Terrors of war linger for some”) will impress a lot of mommies, perhaps, but not many men.

This fellow joined up intending to spend a lifetime in a proud career in the military.

One problem: Apparently he did not think it might involve battle, or, if it did, Army Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman could not have been right in describing it as “hell.”

Other soldiers are horrified and sickened by the consequences of firefights but they hang in and prevail.

This fellow claims “post-traumatic stress disorder” from things he saw and wants a kindly nation to turn him loose.

It will sound a whole lot more like cowardice to many.

Cowardice in the face of the enemy used to get you a firing squad; now it is called PTSD and you are sent home to your family while fellow soldiers fight to the end.

Lee Vander Jagt, Denver

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Larry Scott

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