More than One in Three Returning Soldiers and Marines Need Mental Health Treatment as Result of Iraq War

About a third of US soldiers and Marines who served in Iraq have required mental health treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or other mental health problems resulting from the war, according to a study of military medical records published March 1 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study points out that the actual number of our troops receiving mental health treatment may be much higher because “Mental health problems treated in primary care settings may not be coded under the primary diagnosis, and service members may receive care from civilian professionals not connected with the military health care system. Thus, this study likely underestimates the total utilization of services for mental health problems.”

So MORE than One in Three of our returning US Soldiers and Marines are in need of mental health treatment due to Bush’s preemptively invading Iraq. He also cuts their VA benefits and educational benefits when they return and makes them pay for their own body armor and vehicle armor while they are in harms way. They are forced to serve beyond their agreed upon tour of duty through stop loss. Many have been forced to re-enlist by threatening to pull them back in and deploy them to Iraq if they don’t. A policy ruled illegal that continues under Bush.

Tell me again how the Republican Party is for the troops and we who are fighting to re-instate their benefits and provide adequate armor to them are against them?

“Well, Joe, Fox News [sic] tells me that every night. So it must be true. They have Bush and Cheney and everybody I trust telling me so. So who should I believe them or my own lying eyes?”