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July 19, 2007
Personality Disorder Discharges
One of those things that really irks me is how dedicated we can seem to making memorials or salutes of all sorts to fallen soldiers, and then end up not paying attention (or respect) to soldiers that come home. The military with each passing war just seems to get more efficient at screwing our soldiers.
It's not unlike chemical/pharm companies or other companies that suddenly launch a "lets all feel good" publicity campaign. 9 times out of 10 the only reason they are doing that is in preparation for some legal lawsuit declaring them only concerned with making profit any way they can.
Using "lets honor our fallen soldiers" events to inoculate/prevent people from looking at what the military is really doing to our soldiers is taking it to the most obscene degree.
http://ptsdcombat.blogspot.com/2007/07/personality-disorder-discharges-under.html
Another soldier tells his story:
Donald Louis Schmidt of Chillicothe, Ill., was being treated for posttraumatic stress disorder after his second combat tour in Iraq. His commanders at Fort Carson later decided he was no longer mentally fit and discharged him with personality disorder. "They just slapped me with that label to get me out quicker," Schmidt said. He said superiors told him "'Everything will be great. Peachy keen.' Well, it's not."
The discharge left Schmidt ineligible for disability pay and benefits. He was also required to return more than $10,000 of his $15,000 reenlistment bonus, but he said no one explained that to him until it was too late. "If I didn't have family, I'd be living on the sidewalk," Schmidt said.
"It's not right that they would do this to him after him going to war for us," Schmidt's mother, Patrice Semtner-Myers, said. "They threw him away. They're done with him. He's no use to them anymore so they say, 'We're done. … Thanks for nothing.'"
Posted by keefner at July 19, 2007 05:51 PM
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