McCaskill and Obama score again with introduction of a bill to provide Mental Health Program for Female soldiers
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According to Retired Army Lt. Colonel Irene Evankovich, of Anniston, Alabama, soldiers seldom seek mental health help for themselves or their families because it is viewed as a sign of weakness and funding is not a priority but under a bill proposed by senators Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Barack Obama of Illinois additional funding will be made available.
Their proposed bill may not remove the stigma of seeking mental health counseling but it would require the Department of Defense to improve medical care for all soldiers. One significant inclusion to this bill, however, addresses several reports documenting sexual abuse of female soldiers within the US Central Command area that includes Iraq and Afghanistan and would result in the development of a mental health treatment program for female soldiers. This treatment would most specifically be aimed at dealing with the after effects of sexual abuse and/or the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
This bill is long overdue when one considers that of the over three thousand soldiers who have died in Iraq 71 of them were female with an additional 47 females having been wounded in the line of duty.
Tags: mental health, soldiers, female soldiers, military, claire mccaskill, obama, wounded soldiers
2 Comments
marc klink
April 17th, 2007
at 5:36am
As the step-son of a Vietnam veteran, I can attest to the fact that war changes people. My step-father returned with major hair loss, sores all over his body, and a mental state that was never to be the same as before he went.
As someone who enjoys watching Dirty Harry as much as anyone, I still know that violence should be avoided whenever possible. It is especially advisable to make war a last resort. Once it has come, it is time to try to ameliorate as many of the lasting effects as possible. How can we take care of the outer shell of the human, without trying to repair and nurture what is within?
I wonder why it takes something catastrophic to get some results. Women in the military seems like such a contradiction anyway. I am older, and yet I’ve always felt this. Women are the start of life, they are by nature nurturers. I know that with the female wish for equality, my views on this are not popular. I also know that in every other area, I am fully behind female equality. How changed might these women in, or near, combat be? As they return, every possible action to return them to their prior state, both mentally and physically must be taken. If we don’t do this, we risk incorporating the ‘war view’ into the psyches of the young that these women bring into society.
reflections
April 17th, 2007
at 11:55am
Dear Marc
Your thoughts are very well thought out. I am a stay at home wife, mother, and Grandmother helping to raise our grandson. I am quite traditional in my thoughts on some things but I do believe in equal pay for comparable work. I also support a woman’s right to make her own decisions but I agree with you that a woman in combat will prevent her from being the nurturing person she may have been.
My daughter is a single mom, who works hard to maintain her home and raise her son. I would have hated to have had her join the military since I am afraid it would have made her a different person that the loving woman she is. I do want her to be able to support herself so obviously that is where my stand on equal pay comes from.
Have a nice day. Jackie