So, upright left,

It appears that you’re trying to clarify some semantic interpretations within the comments, but I can’t really see how any poster misrepresented what Peake was saying – namely that not every vet who has suffered some form of brain injury should be diagnosed PTSD. (The doctors are in the business of making those distinctions.)

But that misses the point of what Peake was doing, which is to (try to) confuse PTSD with brain injury. Guinn asked about PTSD, and Peake responded by shifting to brain injuries (which are sometimes associated with PTSD), then comparing (some of) those to football injuries (proving my dad’s feelings that football is inherently violent and destructive :P ). What Peake did there was to associate PTSD with a brain injury, which is medically incorrect, and then take a portion of brain injuries as comparison to “normal” activities (as if football related brain injuries are not a horrible tragedy for those involved).

The person to blame is Peake (not the posters) for confusing brain injuries with PTSD.

The despicable thing here is to say that some PTSD diagnoses are comparable to injuries in everyday activities like football . . . it implies some (or nearly all) of the PTSD “applicants” are “gaming the system” – PTSD is a separate diagnosis from brain injury! Peake is the one who stirred the pot, muddied the waters, clouded the clarity of one from the other, by converting a question about PTSD into brain injuries into minor brain injuries (like football injuries).

It’s akin to redefining some cancers as “unregulated cell growth”, and therefore cutting reimbursements to the afflicted, because it’s not, you know, cancer.

That being said, I am slightly unnerved by the degree of anger (as opposed to dialogue) in response to your post(s). It leads me to believe that you are perhaps infamous in the blogs as an apologist or minimizer, but, as my name indicates, I don’t know.

In sum, Upright Left makes a valid, though semi-insignificant point in trying to keep “us” focused on the truthiest truths. (The problem being that Peake, by his statements, is doing the opposite – trying to blur and muddle PTSD/brain injury diagnosis.

Sorry – I realize that I made the same points over and over, but I guess I really got into this.

These are words of a veteran from Vietnam with PTSD. i’m married him. He has problems to sleep, (sleep only 2-3 hours and sometimes less than that), problems to approach people and deal with them. VA thinks he doesn’t have any problem, which seems to be the conclusion of the psychiatrist during his last visit (1 week ago).

“there’s close to 1000 suicides a month of veterans”. He tried to do it more than 2 times, fortunately for me (nor for the VA) he couldn’t do it.

It’s a shame that people that fought for your country and accepted to do what the government wanted, then this same government doesn’t want anything to do with them and it seems, nobody is interesting in doing something for changing this situation. They deserve something better than just “I don’t mind”, “I don’t care”, “it’s not my business”.

Why does the V.A. Sec. Hate the Vets?

.

Honesty? From you?

That’s funny. REEEEEEEEEALLY funny.

May 29th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
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Now that really hurt, Annie. ;)

That’s funny. REEEEEEEEEALLY funny.

Blah-blah-blah-frickity-blah.

Same old sh*t every day, right, er, upright?

May 29th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
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Absolutely, Annie, honesty every day. Try it.

Watch out R’s, those soldiers who gave a greater sacrifice than death, a life of suffering, might get more than they deserve in the form of healthcare, they might milk the system or something.

/sarc
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As we see in this exchange from Tuesday, some vets are R’s and they might not be appreciated because of it.

“Twice as many veterans of the Iraq war are running for Congress than in 2006, and this year Republican candidates outnumber Democrats…”

upside99 Says:
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I am heartened to see that we will have many more vets running for office, no matter which party they represent.

This will provide a much better environment for not only veteran’s issue but a truly bi-partisan look at where we go militarily, in the future.

barfly Says:
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Iwish I could share your sentiments, but there isn’t any evidence that these vets will be any better at governance, should they be elected. Duncan Hunter’s son would be a reliable republican rubberstamp, as would many of the current republican hopefuls.

Same old sh*t every day, right, er, upright?

That doesn’t change the fact that we need to be honest in our comments.

Weak as water! First off, you are acting as if how people interpreted Peake’s idiotic comment was so off base and mischaracterized as to make it your primary issue in your posts.

Can you take issue with Peake’s dishonesty here? His false linkage of brain injuries, severity, and PTSD?

May 29th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
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It’s off base to equate a comment explaining the severity of “some” brain injuries with saying that “the experience of war” is the same as playing football. Six of the first eleven posters made similar comments. Are you ok with having a thread that is dedicated to comments mischaracterizing a single statement? Your last sentence doesn’t make much sense. Peake didn’t link PTSD and brain injury. He did question whether the severity is as bad as some are making it seem. I agree that one soldier is too many to suffer either condition. I don’t think that makes it ok to misconstrue remarks. If it’s ok to knowingly misconstrue Peake’s comments, then you have no standing to complain when the right misconstrues Obama’s remarks.

*********************************************************

Good grief! Is there anyone else here who recognizes the significance of the Adjustment Disorder diagnosis under the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders?

If memory serves, the sort of client which a psychologist typically diagnoses as suffering from Adjustment Disorder is a client seeking help following a stressful life event such as a divorce. Now there’s no question that certain life events can trigger very high levels of stress lasting for a significant period of time — but with all due respect, I find it hard to believe that most of these genuinely compare with the stress of literally and regularly putting one’s life on the line in combat while serving a tour of duty in wartime. Granted, the Adjustment Diagnosis disorder encompasses a range of clients whose level of suffering is anywhere from mild to moderately severe in scope. However, at least in my opinion, Adjustment Disorder simply isn’t sufficient to capture what we’re seeing in a lot of the veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s nothing less than a deliberate attempt to downplay and minimize the suffering of these men and women who’ve served our country — an insult and a desecration.

Then again, this is the Bush administration we’re talking about…so why should anyone with two functioning brain cells to rub together be surprised by this? We all know by now that their “support for the troops” rhetoric has been proven time and time again to be little more than a political tool which they’ve used for their own benefit at the veterans’ expense.

/sarc

Weak as water! First off, you are acting as if how people interpreted Peake’s idiotic comment was so off base and mischaracterized as to make it your primary issue in your posts.

Can you take issue with Peake’s dishonesty here? His false linkage of brain injuries, severity, and PTSD?