Last night, MSNBC's premier political show Hardball did a segment on PTSD. Billed as the complete treatment, the short scene was overshadowed by the news of House Majority Leader DeLay's stepping down. Nora O'Donnel interviewed James Miller, known as the "Marlboro Man", who, like other iconic heroes, has demonstrated symptons or been diagnosed with PTSD. After Nora's piece, Chris Matthews interviewed Undersecretary of Veteran's Affairs Gordon Mansfield and retired General McCaffrey.
Last night, MSNBC's premier political show Hardball did a segment on PTSD. Billed as the complete treatment, the short scene was overshadowed by the news of House Majority Leader DeLay's stepping down. Nora O'Donnel interviewed James Miller, known as the "Marlboro Man", who, like other iconic heroes, has demonstrated symptons or been diagnosed with PTSD. After Nora's piece, Chris Matthews interviewed Undersecretary of Veteran's Affairs Gordon Mansfield and retired General McCaffrey.
It struck me as odd that Barry McCaffrey was selected as a qualified advisor on matters of settled science. A grizzled Vet with a hard nose reputation, the former drug czar hasn't seen a dog and pony show in Iraq yet that he didn't want to ride. Although I often applaud his stand on support for our troops and the visits he makes to Walter Reed, he is no doctor and Matthew's oppositional style was not a proper forum to debate the existence of PTSD. Mansfield seem taken aback when Matthews asked little about the actual treatment or the numbers involved and instead seemed to want to start an argument over whether such a thing exists or not. Chris did let the Undersecretary roll out impressive numbers without challenge, even though the advertised increase in treatment dollars that Mansfield touted are really an accounting trick and basically an insult to the hordes of men and women now awaiting treatment by the VA.
Sometimes it seems like there is nothing new to say about this topic - the VA and the Army work really hard to get the word out. Hard working and concerned people like Ilona keep a great log of PTSD stories and many newspapers, magazines, and journals have written about it. Yet, still in the middle of conflict, we have a supposed expert disputing whether it exists or not? It moves me to write and write and keep talking because obviously - some still don't get it.
And it seems like Matthews will find all those people and give them a shot!