For 30 years we've been experimenting with specialty courts because we know that putting someone with a mental health issue or an addiction in prison instead of treatment is not only cruel, it's much more expensive. For three years, we've been tentatively opening that model to veterans, who often fit into both categories. Since the attack on the Twin Towers, tens of thousands of veterans of previous conflicts have flooded VA facilities across the country, with PTSD by far the most common diagnosis. Ten years later, those old soldiers are being joined by younger veterans, in equally daunting numbers, who are similarly haunted by their memories and overwhelmed by the symptoms of their psychic injuries.
They use drugs or alcohol to manage their nightmares, red-line their Harleys to feed their addiction to adrenalin, keep guns under their pillows to feel safe, and when they have flashbacks, muscle-memory takes over and they default to combat survival skills. Rages at the terrible images that colonize their minds get misdirected at innocent bystanders, often the people who love them the most—all known symptoms of PTSD, all predictive of trouble.
Shorter: Train them, use them up, throw them away, punish them for their nightmares instead of helping them.
Some vets get help, some get jail. Shameful, and we have a whole new generation of them who were used every bit as badly as the Vietnam vets.
Thanks again Georgie, you fucking weakling.
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