Mexican Judge to Sgt. Tahmooressi: You're out of here!

[Sapper Woody]

Essentially, you're acknowledging that what I said about the professional is correct. They put 'em in a box and they have to fight their way out. all or nothing, and if you're sitting in front of them talking about ptsd, you've got it.

It is documented fact that after the Vietnam war , the VA shrinks Ok'd ptsd benefits for some veterans who had never been in a combat zone. In fact , they paid disability benefits to some imposters that were never even in the service...so anxious were they to brand Vietnam veterans as victims, they didn't bother to check to see if their DD214s were authentic.

I even had one shrink ask me if I'd been treated for ptsd. I said I didn't have the problem. He said, and I quote, "Yes you do, you just don't know it." This is 30 years after the fact and he says, based on a 5 minute conversation that I have PTSD.

That's where I'm coming from.

I didn't know that about the Vietnam era. Not that I don't trust you, but I'm going to do some research into that. I'll Google it, but do you already have links that speak to this?

In my experience, most of the people who suffer from PTSD symptoms don't want to be diagnosed with it, because of the stigma that PTSD sufferers do crazy things. I've even had guys ask me (being diagnosed with PTSD myself) what they could say to the doctors to NOT get the diagnosis.

I feel where you're coming from. Fortunately, now there are programs that are addressing the symptoms "off the record". You can go get help and therapy without a diagnosis being made. Strong Star is one such program.

On the other hand, I've had guys tell me they had PTSD, when their deployment was to a non combat area, such as modern day Kuwait. That drives me insane.

So, until soldiers are honest about it (both ways) and medical personnel understand it more, I'm not sure what we can do to ensure that all diagnoses are accurate.

Personally, if someone tells me they have PTSD, I ask them where they were deployed. If a combat area, I take them at their word. If not, I'm skeptical. Being military, I also find it hard to believe when a civilian talks about PTSD due to a car accident or something. I know it's very possible. But when was the last time that civilian woke up screaming in the middle of the night, or refused to get out of a car for fear of something bad happening? For me it's been less than a week.