February 21, 2012 in Region

Wash. Army commander removed over PTSD probe

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TACOMA — The Army has removed the head of Madigan Army Medical Center in Washington state over an investigation into whether soldiers had a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder reversed to reduce medical costs.

The News Tribune reports the removal of Col. Dallas Homas was announced Monday evening by Maj. Gen. Phillip Volpe, who leads the Western Region Medical Command.

The Army Surgeon General is contacting the families of 14 soldiers whose diagnoses for PTSD were adjusted by the Madigan forensic psychiatry team to reduce disability pensions. The soldiers’ cases were reviewed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center over the past few weeks.

Memos show that last fall, members of the forensic psychiatry team urged Madigan behavioral health professionals to consider the long-term costs of a PTSD diagnosis on taxpayers.

© Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Five comments on this story so far. Add yours!

• 

  oneanddone on February 21 at 11:05 a.m.

  The problem is what do you do about the cheaters, liars, malingerers, and the fraud. When we came back from the Vietnam rice paddies all we got was spit on or ignored. We upheld our responsibility to the country but got kicked in the teeth for our trouble. To help pay for this I’d like to see a special tax on those who have never served in the military - ESPECIALLY those my age.

• 

  jddavis on February 21 at 11:20 a.m.

  Just a drop in the bucket of veterans with Service Connected issues. It is bad enough the VA does crap like this, now one of the services?

• 

  wcougars on February 21 at 11:43 a.m.

  We send people into hardcore war situations with out actually planning on helping them when they come home. They become expendable and it is the shame of our nation. And 95% of those great politicians who make these choices have never served and would not allow their own sons and daughters to go. Tough talk from draft dodgers like Cheney got us in to the last wars. Bush served but in a support role so he would not have to go to NAM.

• 

  PROFINTOX on February 21 at 12:32 p.m.

  Agree with all of the commenters here.

  This type of thing is a slap in the face to those who have served and those involved, being part of the military establishment, ought to know better, even if they have not actively served.

  PTSD is not a new thing; it is just something that more recently has been recognized and given a name and studied. My father was in WWII and told me about how there were plenty of guys that came back messed up in one way or another (mentally that is) back then but the situation was handled differently in terms of the culture back then and the fact that the situation was not as well understood. The fact is though — people back then had to deal with it also. As one poster noted, we send people into hardcore war situations where you see a lot of nasty things and then just expect them all to be normal and unfazed when they return? That just does not compute. So for these individuals to reduce diagnoses of some serious problems just to massage some numbers and reduce taxpayer burden is really pretty sick.

  Oneanddone — thank you for your service. I was only a young child during the NAM era (born in 1966) but when we learned about things that went on during this time later in life regarding how those who returned were treated, it made me sick. I have no problem with people objecting to a war itself — that is to be expected in a free country and can be healthy depending on the nature of the conflict involved. But I cannot believe some people cannot separate that objection from the people fighting the battles — why they have to villify them and treat them like sh**. They were doing what they were required to do, regardless of how they felt about whether the war should or should not be fought. And I am sure plenty of them were scared to go but unlike the dodgers, who were simply cowards, they faced their fears and went (and many never returned). Today we have the Westboro Baptist people doing basically the same type of thing as the Vietnam-era war protesters of which we are speaking. Personally, if one of them gets the crap beat out of them while protesting a funeral, I will not lose any sleep.

• 

  greenlibertarian on February 21 at 3:29 p.m.

  Politicians don’t care a damn about injured soldiers.

  War Is A Racket

  A speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.

  Smedley Butler

  WAR is a racket. It always has been

  It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
  :
  A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
  :
  In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.
  :
  How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?
  :
  Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.
  :
  And what is this bill?
  :
  This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.
  :
  For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out. (continues)

  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4377.htm

  If you don’t already know war is a racket, you are purposely ignorant.

  Major General Butler, USMC, was THE most decorated soldier of his time. We have ignored his advice to our detriment.