Doctors in the VA are under pressure NOT to diagnose PTSD, because a diagnosis of PTSD leads to increased benefits and disqualifies the soldier from re-deployment. Bodies are at a premium here, folks, with many soldiers being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan numerous times. Hardball on msnbc.com reports that the VA docs are giving out the diagnosis of Adjustment Disorder instead. That's like saying the soldier who shot up his comrades at an Iraqi mental health clinic was just having a bad day.

A 2006 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reports that nearly 74,000 former soldiers who returned from Iraq and Afghanistan between 2003 and 2004 sought VA treatment for mental disorders in the year after they came home. Many of those same men and women were sent back to the combat zone. The current figures must be staggering. Keep in mind that 30% of the army has PTSD or TBI (traumatic brain injury). According to Mark Benjamin who was being interviewed by Chris Matthews on Hardball, that means 30% of the army has no business carrying a gun. If we were to admit the truth of this, how would our military survive? But if we don't, how will our military survive once they are "safe" at home?

Paul Rieckhoff, a U.S. Army veteran, who led an infantry platoon on more than 1,000 combat patrols in Bagdhdad, founder of the nonprofit Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) says "The reality is that mental health issues are probably one of the greatest threats facing Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. But our country is not ready to care for them. Contrary to what our president keeps telling us, we're not a country at war. Less than 1 percent of this country is at war. Our military is at war. Our military families are at war. Everyone else is shopping or watching American Idol."

I couldn't agree with Paul more. What are you doing to show our military personnel that you support them? Are you making sacrifices so that our freedom can be protected? Even if you don't agree with the war, you can still support the sacrifices made by these men and women. As a citizen you need to ask how you can be involved. If you don't have money, volunteer your time. If you don't have time, then donate money, goods, or services. If you don't have any resources whatsoever, write a letter to congress supporting more programs specifically designed to increase benefits to those combat vets who need them, be they mental health or otherwise.

You see the problem is that we don't treat our military personnel as the Warrior class they are. We treat them as expendable soldiers, and once we are done with them, they are of no use to us. You need only to look at the statistics of alcohol and drug abuse, homelessness, spousal and child abuse, depression, anxiety, divorce and suicide among veterans to see the truth....

WASHINGTON - Military contractor KBR Inc. was paid $83.4 million in bonuses for electrical work in Iraq - much of the money coming even after that work was declared to be shoddy, a senator said yesterday.

Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, said he learned of the bonuses from Pentagon documents. Dorgan chairs the Democrats' Policy Committee, which examined at a hearing the electrocution deaths of US troops in Iraq.

At least three troops have been electrocuted while showering in Iraq, and others have been injured and killed in other electrical incidents. KBR, which has the responsibility of maintaining electrical work in tens of thousands of US facilities in Iraq, has denied any responsibility in the deaths.

But Dorgan said evidence suggests KBR's work was involved in some of the deaths. He said $34 million in bonuses was paid three months after Green Beret Staff Sergeant Ryan Maseth, 24, was electrocuted while showering in his barracks in Iraq on Jan. 2, 2008. Maseth's family has sued KBR, alleging wrongful death.

KBR was once a subsidiary of Halliburton, the oil services company headed by Dick Cheney before his two terms as vice president.

Jim Childs, an electrical inspector hired by the Army to help inspect US-run facilities in Iraq testified that 90 percent of the wiring done by KBR in newly constructed buildings was done improperly. He said that means that an estimated 70,000 buildings where troops live and work in Iraq were not up to code.