Yesterday in Part I of this article Chris Hernandez wrote a response to Army Major Tupper’s Daily Beast op-ed about awarding the Purple Heart to those suffering PTSD from serving in a war zone. Today he’ll complete that response, addressing among other things the problems he foresees with proposed solution, his take on CAB hunters and some perspective regarding post-deployment health surveys. Please join the discussion.

Should we award Purple Hearts for PTSD? Continued from yesterday.

by Chris Hernandez

The problem with Tupper’s (Major Benjamin Tupper, US Army) proposed solution is that witness statements can’t prove or disprove feelings. Unlike awards for valor, which require witnesses to a specific action, there is no way to verify someone else’s emotions. Yes, witnesses could testify that a soldier experienced a traumatic event. They could testify to his or her behavior afterward. But they couldn’t give an insight into what that soldier is truly feeling.

In Iraq we had a soldier who was on numerous convoy escort missions as s gunner. On one mission his convoy was hit by multiple IEDs and small arms fire. He was wounded in the hand, but stayed on his gun. He was later given a Purple Heart and an award for valor, which we felt he legitimately earned.

But one day he got drunk on illicit liquor and passed out. He was taken to the base hospital. At the hospital he had to be restrained because he tried to fight staff members. At one point during his violent outburst, he screamed, “Have you ever been to Najaf? Then you don’t know what it’s liiiiiike!”

This soldier could be viewed as suffering from the effects of PTSD. He had an alcohol problem. He had been wounded in combat. He was screaming about a dangerous place, maybe even having a flashback.

But when I had conversations with other soldiers in my unit about the drunken outburst, the response was either laughter or a dismissive shake of the head. “What the hell was he yelling about? Nothing ever happened to us in Najaf.” And the soldier in question, who by the way I still respect for his service and genuinely like as a person, was known to have an alcohol problem long before we deployed. When I asked him why he was yelling about Najaf, he laughed and said, “Man, I was just drunk. I don’t know what the hell I was saying.”

So was his behavior caused by PTSD, or just a lack of self-discipline? How can the military tell? Witness statements wouldn’t prove anything either way.

Tupper also acknowledges, “… most soldiers look down on awards given for minor injuries, arguing that doing so cheapens the Purple Heart’s significance for those who were killed or more gravely wounded.” I absolutely agree, based on my personal experience with the Army’s latest watered-down award: the Combat Action Badge. Yes, I was in combat. Yes, I earned my CAB. But some soldiers see the CAB on my uniform and think, “Huh. I bet he was on some huge FOB and a rocket landed a kilometer away. Sure, he was really in combat.”

I know they think this because I catch myself thinking the same thing when I see a CAB on a stranger’s uniform. I think this because during my Afghanistan tour a rocket landed in a living area, and the next day “CAB hunters” paced off the distance from the impact crater to their huts to find out if they were inside the rocket’s killing radius and therefore qualified for the award (even though numerous other huts blocked the shrapnel). I think this because in Iraq mortars landed near a tactical operations center, and everyone who was assigned to the TOC received CABs whether they were in the TOC at the time or not. I think this because I was there when another team had a vehicle window chipped by a rock, and one soldier wrote a report citing “damaged by gunfire” as the cause of the chipped window, then tried to use that to claim a Combat Action Badge.

I’m damn proud of my Combat Action Badge, because it means I’ve followed in the footsteps of generations of family members before me. But because of people who stretch the truth or outright lie to get it, the CAB doesn’t mean to others what it means to me. I don’t want the same thing to happen with the Purple Heart, one of our most respected awards.

When my brigade returned from Iraq, as part of our outprocessing we listened to a parade of representatives from veterans’ advocacy groups. One of those representatives urged us to submit a VA disability claim for anything that might be service connected. Ringing in the ear, sore elbows, lower back pain, headaches, anything.

One soldier asked, “But if we have a lot of problems, how many should we claim? Should we really claim every little thing?”

The representative answered, “Well, how much money do you want to get every month?”

Do I think some soldiers apply that same greedy, morally corrupt thinking to PTSD claims? You bet. The American military is a reflection of American society. If we have liars, cowards, posers and thieves in our civilian population, we’ll have some in the military. Awarding the Purple Heart for PTSD is guaranteed to produce more liars seeking an award, attention and money. Which makes it harder for real PTSD sufferers to get treatment.

In Tupper’s essay, he tells the story of a friend who was slightly wounded in Afghanistan, but almost killed himself in a drunk-driving accident, fueled by PTSD, after his return home. I don’t doubt Tupper’s story, and I wish his friend well. But I also have a friend who suffers from PTSD. My friend was horribly wounded and almost killed by a huge IED blast that killed two of his friends. He’ll never walk normally again and will struggle with memory issues the rest of his life.

Does my friend benefit if soldiers are awarded Purple Hearts for PTSD? I don’t see how. He would likely have to wait even longer to receive the services and benefits he’s entitled to, because of the mad rush of alleged PTSD patients who would mob the VA in search of a medal and a free monthly handout. If we think we have a problem with liars and posers now, wait until we start issuing Purple Hearts for how people feel.

As I said before, I don’t have PTSD. I know this, and two independent counselors confirmed it. But if the military changes its policy and awards Purple Hearts for PTSD, I could get one. All I’d have to do is go back to the VA, retell my story, add a few nightmares, claim I get scared in crowds or have withdrawn from my friends, say whatever’s necessary to meet the criteria for PTSD. No witness statements could refute what I claim to feel. And I could go home with a shiny Purple Heart, at the cost of only my integrity, on the back of a heroic American who died valiantly facing the enemy one horrible day in 2009.

I’d rather shoot myself than get a Purple Heart that way. I’d almost rather shoot myself than see others lie to get a free medal and monthly check. I’d venture a guess that even many veterans with PTSD would rather not get a Purple Heart for it. Even if I really had PTSD, I know that I could never look my horribly wounded friend in the eye and tell him about my “PTSD Purple Heart”

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Sorry, Major Tupper. Love you, brother, and I respect what you’re trying to do. But I just can’t see it.

And by the way, remember Paul Schroeder, the Special Forces sergeant suffering from PTSD who I mentioned earlier? Turned out he was never SF and never in combat. He was just another lying scumbag, holding a hand out for all the money he’d get for being a PTSD victim.

Respectfully,

Chris Hernandez

About the Author: Chris Hernandez is a veteran of both the Marine Corps and the Army National Guard who has served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, where he frequently worked with French elements of ISAF while training and mentoring Afghan personnel. He is also a veteran police officer, having spent a long (and eye-opening) deployment as part of a UN police mission in Kosovo. Chris will occasionally be doing some guest ranting here as well as on his own page when he’s not working on the sequel to his novel Proof of Our Resolve. Read some of his other work in The Statesman and on his blog.

Wait until you see his upcoming fiction novel Line in the Valley – fighting between our troops against the Cartels in the near future. It’s going to be awesome. Read excerpts of that in his blog.

 

Mad Duo, Breach-Bang-CLEAR!