U.S. Has Obligation To Meet Short-, Long-Term Mental Health Needs Of Service Members, Columnist Writes

Main Category: Mental Health
Also Included In: Public Health;  Psychology / Psychiatry
Article Date: 25 Jun 2008 - 7:00 PST

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"Among the least-noted aspects of these two seemingly endless wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan "is the psychological toll they are taking on those who have volunteered to fight them," New York Times columnist Bob Herbert writes. According to Herbert, multiple tours are not only putting soldiers in "the obvious physical danger" but are "blueprints for psychological disaster." He writes, "Increasingly, [soldiers] are being medicated on the battlefield, and many thousands are returning with brain damage and psychological wounds that cause tremendous suffering and have the potential to alter their lives forever."

Herbert says, "Never before has such a strain been placed on the all-volunteer military," adding that brain injuries and mental health issues "are not even being talked about enough, much less dealt with adequately." These wounds are "as real as a bullet or a shrapnel wound," although "not always as obvious," Herbert writes. He continues, "However one feels about the nation's war policies, we have an ironclad obligation to look out for the short- and long-term needs of the troops we send off to combat," adding, "In the absence of any general call for sacrifice, it's the least we can do," however, "Right now we're not even doing that" (Herbert, New York Times, 6/24).

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