Bush’s Shame
Over 35 percent of the veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom who have sought Veterans Administration healthcare have been diagnosed with mental disorders. The military has been returning troops to combat who have been diagnosed with PTSD, and repeated exposure to trauma worsens the symptoms. An alarming number of Iraq veterans are receiving less-than-honorable discharges for engaging in behavioral symptoms that appear to be PTSD as well as traumatic brain injury. They are shoved aside by claims that their PTSD is a “pre-existing” condition.
More often than not, it is family members who recognize the need and provide primary support for troops to recover from PTSD. Many of the younger soldiers entered the service as teenagers when they left their homes for the first time, which makes their transition back to civilian life all the more difficult; and many individuals were exposed to childhood risks, unstable households, and marginal family status before they joined the service. These personal factors, along with the multiple tours and extended deployments destroy families.
In Iraq, our troops face extremely hostile conditions; they are in constant 360-degree danger of drawing fire, coming under mortar attack, or falling prey to improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Their relentless exposure to urban guerrilla combat, car bombs, sectarian killings, and suicide attacks has made the current war perhaps the most psychologically taxing of any conflict in our nation’s history.
Over 1.1 million American troops have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with the physical and psychological injuries they have suffered, the number of severe PTSD cases will easily run into the hundreds of thousands. The social costs of George W. Bush’s war of choice in Iraq cannot be summed up by the $500 or $600 billion price tag so far. We are going to be paying the costs of this war for decades after Bush becomes just a shameful footnote in the ashbin of history.