One nightmare eases for vets with new rules on post-traumatic stress disorder

[usregimechange]

The mortars rain down toward him in the dead of night. Orange red flashes, shrapnel slicing the dark.

In sweat-drenched nightmares and flashbacks, Hector “Rock” Lujan sees it all, again. Sees himself reaching for his Army buddy, feels the cloying stickiness. A flare sizzles from a circling C-130, illuminates a skull half gone …

A woman gently interrupts. Where in Vietnam? Somewhere in the country, the homeless veteran, 65, says with a shrug. Can’t remember, more than 30 years ago.

Without a verifiable location, the woman knows, the veteran’s post-traumatic stress disorder claim to the Department of Veterans Affairs is likely to be denied. And on Thursday, it was.

But today it might not be.

The VA is announcing the easing of requiring exact details of PTSD “stressors” — the specific traumatic events from the horrors of war, a change President Barack Obama calls long overdue.

“I don’t think our troops on the battlefield should have to take notes to keep for a claims application,” Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and online address.

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/07/11/2076737/new-rules-go-into-effect-today.html#ixzz0tTeDXr5N


:fistbump:

[usregimechange]

1. Obama video on this topic here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/07/10/weekly-address-help-vets-with-ptsd