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Spouse group: Action needed for wounded vets

On the eve of a major Senate hearing to review the recommendations of two commissions aimed at helping wounded combat veterans, a politically active Army wife is looking for less talk and more action.

The Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee will hear Wednesday about proposals from the President’s Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Warriors, which completed its work in July, and the Veterans’ Disability Benefits Commission, which issued its final report Oct. 3.

There is some overlap between the two commissions; for example, both recommend that the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs use the same disability ratings system to eliminate confusing differences that often leave injured service members and their families feeling they have been treated unfairly.

It remains unclear when or if Congress will act on the recommendations, partly because some of the proposals could be costly.

Carissa Picard, whose husband is a Black Hawk pilot at Fort Hood, Texas, with orders to deploy to Iraq in the spring, is president of Military Spouses for Change. Picard said wounded combat veterans and their families are becoming weary of waiting.

“This is not how a grateful nation treats it heroes,” she said. “Action speaks louder than words. Thus, are our wounded warriors really not heroes? Is our country not grateful? Can someone in Congress answer this question for us?”

Military Spouses for Change is about four months old and has about 200 members, mostly the spouses of current or recently discharged veterans. Although Picard has been linked with Democratic causes, the spouses’ group is nonpartisan.

The group’s Web site includes a comparison of the presidential candidates’ views on Iraq.

“The presidential election is a great tool for us to try to get the changes we think are necessary without being seen as disloyal to the commander-in-chief, who is not running for re-election,” Picard said.

In addition to an overhaul of the disability ratings system, Picard said the government needs to take a new approach to diagnosing and treating mental health problems among combat veterans.

She said the government should automatically presume that a veteran with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder is suffering from a service-connected disability; the veteran should not have to prove it.

And the government needs to do more to help the families of combat veterans with mental disorders, she said.

“The vast majority of our returning warriors are suffering serious and significant mental and/or physical injuries and coming home to spouses and children,” she said. “The government needs to recognize the financial and emotional needs of the entire family, not just the wounded warrior. You cannot divorce the well-being of the service member from his family, and vice versa; what impacts one, impacts the other.”

Picard’s nonprofit organization is working on an initiative to limit punishment for misconduct by combat veterans because of reports of troops suffering from anger management and impulse control issues.

“Essentially, we believe that if a service member engages in nonviolent misconduct and has served in a combat zone in the previous five years, and has no prior military history of misconduct, he or she should undergo mental health treatment and only be subject to nonjudicial discipline,” Picard said.

Not treating troops with problems and sending them back for another deployment is “a failure of leadership,” she said.

“The chain of command for these young men should recognize that these are red flags and these young men could be exhibiting signs of an undiagnosed [traumatic brain injury] or PTSD and intervene,” she said. “However, that isn’t happening.”