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Wounded warriors finally get some help
A Times Editorial
Published December 31, 2007
Nearly a year after the Washington Post exposed deplorable conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Congress has responded in a meaningful way. Folded into next year's defense authorization act is important legislation, called the Wounded Warrior Act, that will address some of the shortcomings in medical care given soldiers injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. While this reform of an overburdened military health care system may have taken too long and not gone far enough, it is a welcome step forward.
Actually, the problems extended well beyond Walter Reed, where wounded soldiers often lived in squalid housing and faced a surreal bureaucracy that often ignored their needs. When those soldiers moved from active military to veteran status, particularly at far-flung Veterans Affairs medical facilities, the odds of receiving adequate care grew worse.
The act addresses one egregious shortcoming in treatment - recognition of the what the Post called the "invisibly wounded," those soldiers suffering from psychological wounds. "The Wounded Warrior provisions ... will improve veterans health care, especially for veterans with traumatic brain injury and mental health problems," said Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, an author of the bill.
Any soldier requesting a mental health evaluation will be guaranteed one within 30 days. Care for soldiers leaving active duty will be extended, as well, from the current two years to five years. That's particularly important for the treatment of psychological trauma that is less obvious than physical wounds.
Soldiers suffering traumatic brain injury will receive a comprehensive plan to return them to civilian life. They will be eligible for non-VA facilities if they live a great distance from one of the five VA Polytrauma centers. Some, of course, will never be independent again, and the VA will establish an assisted-living pilot program for those soldiers.
Most ambitiously, the act requires the VA and Pentagon to work together to end the bureaucratic infighting that thwarts reform. "Our wounded warriors deserve a seamless transition when leaving the military," Akaka said.
That will be more easily ordered than accomplished. Congress will have to keep after the Bush administration to see that the equal needs of a military at war and a growing class of traumatized veterans seeking re-entry into civilian life are met.
[Last modified December 30, 2007, 20:23:13]
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