Action+Plan

 The first step on our action plan is for recognition of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. If it is not recognized as a national problem then our troops will continue to go without treatment and therapy to help cure them. PTSD is not a disease so there is no pill that someone can take that can cure them. Common symptoms are experiencing the original trauma through flashback and/or nightmares, avoiding things that have a relation to the thing that caused the trauma (for instance if you got in a car accident and are experiencing symptoms then you might not even walk on a sidewalk where cars pass by, out of fear that one might run you over or get into an accident),  increased arousal, (not being able to fall or stay asleep, experiencing nightmares that neglect you from the sleep your body needs and having sleep medicines not affect how you sleep), feeling  emotionally numb, memory problems, being easily startled or frightened, trying to avoid talking or thinking about the traumatic event and hearing or seeing things that are not actually there. The  only way to cure it is by having expensive therapy which helps the person to get over the event.   The expense of this is part of the reason why the government doesn’t give most of our troops the treatment they need. Recently the Washington Post wrote an article saying that the treatment of PTSD in veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan could cost the  government 6.2 billion dollars over the next 2 years. Also treatment for PTSD isn’t a pill or a shot, it takes extensive, and experimental therapy, that doesn’t always get results.   Since treatment is so expensive, the government is always trying to get out of paying for it. One thing they will do is claim you have a personality disorder, therefore making you ineligible for receiving government paid treatment. But actually you aren’t allowed in the  military if you have a personality disorder, so therefore it is unlikely that the person actually has one.   Civilian support is very important to solving PTSD because it stops it at the source instead of the Government having to finance all the troops with PTSD. It decreases the numbers that have it making the expenses much less. After World War I & II the soldiers were  treated as world heroes when they returned many of them did not get PTSD because the popular outlook for what they did is that they saved  the world. However after fighting in Vietnam everyone looked down on the soldiers because the war was not very popular. More soldiers experienced PTSD because they were looked as killing innocent people instead of “War Heroes.”   After soldiers have PTSD it is often hard for them to maintain a steady job because of the effects listed above. If the job program helped them get a job and maintain it then it could change these former soldier’s lives. <span style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"> <span style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"> If our society and government would take responsibility and treat our veterans and help them transition into society with the care they need, we would be a much better country.

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