Veterans Groups Remain Uncommitted on Gainful Employment Rules

(Flickr/The U.S. Army)

Last Wednesday, at the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center, several veterans gathered to talk about what veterans need in higher education. Their concerns ranged from making credit transfers easier for veterans and active duty members who often attend multiple schools because of deployments, to making sure campuses have dedicated veteran counselors who can help them navigate paperwork for GI Bill benefits. The event was sponsored by the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities (APSCU), formerly known as the Career Colleges Association, which represents the interests of many for-profit schools.

Only one veterans' advocacy group was represented on the panel. Tim Embree, legislative associate for the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), commented on the need for colleges to have dedicated offices for veteran students. Other panelists included: Michael Brink, a Republican staffer on the House Committee on Veterans Affairs; Kathy Snead, president of the Servicemembers Opportunity College; Craig Herndon, special assistant to the chancellor of Virginia's Community Colleges; William Hillard, CEO of Anthem College; James Hendrickson, vice president of the Wounded Warriors and Spouses Scholarship Fund for Colorado Technical University; Scott Palumbo DeVry University's National Director of Military Affairs; and Will Sampson, senior vice president and chief information officer of ECB Bankcorp, Inc.

According to data provided by APSCU at the event, "Private sector colleges and universities have a higher percentage of those working with military service than any other segment of postsecondary education." The group used data from the National Center for Education Statistics to conclude that 6.1 percent of students at private sector schools have at least some military experience compared with 3.9 percent at public schools and 4.2 at private non-profit schools. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported in 2008 that "While 6 percent of all college students choose for-profit institutions, 19 percent of students who use GI Bill benefits at the top 500 colleges that serve such students do."

Once the panel discussion had concluded, Harris Miller, the president of APSCU, got up to talk about gainful employment regulations, a set of technical requirements proposed in July by the Department of Education. The proposed regulations would place restrictions on which programs can receive federal funding based on student debt loads and a debt-to-expected-earnings ratio. The purpose is to reduce the number of students with overwhelming student debt and channel federal financial aid to programs that are effective in training people for jobs. Miller insisted that these regulations would cut off access to programs and would "hurt veterans." [Disclosure: The advocacy arm of Campus Progress has submitted comments and testified before the Department of Education in support of the proposed regulations.]

APSCU has been one of the leading groups opposing the proposed gainful employment regulations. The group helped sponsor a rally on Capitol Hill in September with about 1,000 students from for-profit schools around the country to oppose the regulations. IAVA, the veterans group represented on last week’s panel, says it hasn't taken a position on the gainful employment regulations; its spokesperson offered no further comment on Embree's presence on APSCU's panel. Overall, veterans groups have largely remained silent on the gainful employment regulation issue.

But veterans groups should be very concerned with the issue. As noted, many veterans attend for-profit institutions. And recent investigations, including by the Government Accountability Office, the New York Times, and Dallas TV station WFAA, demonstrate that some for-profit programs engage in deceptive practices and leave many students deeply in debt and without marketable skills.

Bloomberg News recently discovered that Kaplan University sent a collection agency after Keith Melvin, a decorated and disabled veteran, for $4,125 when his federal grants didn't come through. The Bloomberg report shows that Kaplan aggressively recruited Melvin—even telling him he could lose his spot in the class even though Kapaln doesn't limit online enrollment.

According to data from the National Survey of Student Engagement compiled by APSCU, Kaplan University enrolls more than 1,500 students who claim Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits. (University of Phoenix and DeVry University top the list, with 10, 872 and 4,428 students, respectively.)

Brian Hawthorne of the Student Veterans of America, a group that supports veterans in higher education, says his group doesn't have an official position on gainful employment regulations at this time, but, he wrote in an email to Campus Progress, SVA calls "on all schools, for-profits included, to closely examine their policies and programs to ensure that a student veteran has the greatest chance of success." "Online education can be a real asset to a service member or a veteran, as I know myself as I earned my Associates Degree online while in Iraq. Schools should be offering programs that fit the lives of their student veteran population, not pursuing them to increase their Federal Aid and then not supporting them through to graduation. This would not be acceptable at any type of school, not just for-profits."

In fact, as was a prevalent theme on last Wednesday's panel, nearly all higher education instructions offer some of its education in the form of distance-learning classes, whether public, private non-profit, or for-profit. Many for-profit schools also don't just have online classes. Kaplan, the school that was subject of the Bloomberg investigation, offers both online and in-person classes.

For now, prominent national veterans groups are staying away from the debate on gainful employment, which currently remains divided between the companies that own for-profit schools and student advocacy groups like U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), United States Students Association, and the advocacy arm of Campus Progress. Whether or not gainful employment regulations are put in place could affect a significant number of veterans. And if veterans' organizations speak out now, they could have a powerful impact on the debate.

Cross posted at Campus Progress.

Graph of the Day: Veterans' Unemployment

Courtesy Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

VA Under Secretary of Benefits Steps Down, Possibly Due to GI Bill Benefits Delays

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced in a press release today that the Under Secretary for Benefits has announced that he will be stepping down.

WASHINGTON (Nov. 20, 2009) - Patrick W. Dunne, the Under Secretary for Benefits for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), today announced his resignation for early next year. Dunne, who attained the rank of rear admiral while in the U.S. Navy, has been with VA since 2006.

As Under Secretary for Benefits since October 2008, Admiral Dunne has directed the administration of VA's disability compensation, pension, education, home loan guaranty, vocational rehabilitation and employment, and life insurance programs through a nationwide network of 57 regional offices, other special processing centers, and Veterans Benefits Administration headquarters.

I don't know Dunne's exact reasons for stepping down, but since he's only held the position about a year, and during that time there has been massive trouble with the distribution of the new Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits, it seems likely that that may have factored into his departure.

The VA received more than 25,000 applications for updated GI Bill benefits within two weeks of the new program. At the time, Dunne was quoted on PR Newswire as saying, "We are very pleased with the tremendous interest in the Post-9/11 GI Bill. The number of applications submitted in the first two weeks clearly shows the value and importance of this new benefit for Veterans."

But it quickly became clear the VA was worried about being able to process the volume of claims they received. Dunne himself noted, "Our top priority is providing our students and schools with accurate and timely benefit payments so veterans can focus all of their energy on studies," he said in a statement quoted by the Columbus Dispatch in late September.

Although veterans were scheduled to receive living stipends from the VA by Nov. 1, by the end of October, it was clear that wasn't going to happen. The Navy Times reported at the end of October that, "'It is possible, if we have not worked their case by the end of the month, that some may not receive their housing payment on the first,' VA officials said in a statement, referring to Nov. 1."

The VA was supposed to implement a new computer program that would process the new GI Bill benefits faster. But delays in implementing the program put the VA behind in processing claims. Eventually, some emergency checks were distributed to veterans that were written by hand.

In a late September story about the delays in the payments from the GI Bill program, the LA Times quoted Dunne as saying, "The learning curve has been steep for us all." Indeed.

Cross posted.

New Site for Veteran Benefits

A new veterans information site, Today's G.I. Bill, has been launched this week by the Lumina Foundation. The site aims to put all of the information about access, eligibility, and benefits for veterans all in one place. The Lumina foundation funds a lot of higher-education access information endeavors, and this seems to be its latest project.

The site could be useful for veterans seeking to understand their benefits, but much of the site links to other tools (the housing stipend section links to the Department of Defense's Basic Allowance for Housing tool and the section addressing the Yellow Ribbon Program, which outlines private institutions that provide a benefit for veterans, links to the Department of Veterans Affairs' list of participating institutions). Increasing information for veterans will help ensure they have access to the benefits expanded by the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill update that went into effect earlier this year.

Still, there have been problems with implementing the new program, with the VA falling behind on issuing many checks to veterans and higher education institutions. One veteran, a student at Cuesta College, reported that as of Friday his first check had only recently arrived. Veterans are turning to student loans to pay for tuition, housing, and books until their benefit checks. The new Post-9/11 G.I. Bill program is a huge expansion of benefits, so it's somewhat expected that the department may have trouble handling the increased volume of requests. But for many veterans who are starting to take out expensive loans and work part-time jobs to make up the difference, it can be a long time to wait.

Cross posted.

Fort Hood Has Experienced Other Kinds of Violence

Although the investigation of the shooting at Fort Hood last week is still underway, it seems clear that it wasn't the result of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). But in the New York Times today, Michael Moss and Ray Rivera report on a different kind of violence that has been happening, quietly, in the town of Killeen, Tx, the town surrounding Ft. Hood.

Reports of domestic abuse have grown by 75 percent since 2001. At the same time, violent crime in Killeen has risen 22 percent while declining 7 percent in towns of similar size in other parts of the country. [...]

Since 2003, there have been 76 suicides by personnel assigned to Fort Hood, with 10 this year, according to military officials.

The shooting last week earned national attention, but in many ways, it is a freak occurrence. Domestic violence, violent crime, and suicide is far more typical in this Army base town.

Estimates vary, but the National Alliance on Mental Illness says some experts predict about 15 percent of veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan will develop some form of PTSD. But the policy on how to treat PTSD is a bit underdeveloped. So far, the only way to treat PTSD is through therapy with a psychiatrist or psychologist, but the Veterans Administration doesn't employ nearly enough of them to effectively treat all of the cases of PTSD that can develop in veterans (and the DOD has a similar problem with active-duty soldiers). Furthermore, mental health professionals are a really expensive kind of employee that requires a lot of specialized training. How to effectively (and cheaply) treat the soldiers and veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan for PTSD is somewhat of a quagmire that lawmakers, the military, and activists continue to grapple with. It becomes complicated by some individuals who are reluctant to seek help because of the stigma that can sometimes be associated with seeking help from a mental health professional.

It's true that the majority of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan will return from duty, well adjusted and quickly readapt to civilian life. But for a minority of soldiers, the problems of PTSD extend to their families and their surrounding communities.

Cross posted.

Messing with VA Care

There is a story that the VA, with the support of the Obama administration, is considering a plan to change VA care to be provided via private insurers -- the plan has been met with a lot of resistance. Senators described the plan as DOA: "dead on arrival."

Veterans in this country, despite all of the problems that have been reported in recent years -- experience health care in a way that no other American can hope for. A veteran makes an appointment for medical care (and there have been some reported long wait times, although to be fair, I often have to wait several weeks to see a doctor on my employer's insurance) and arrive on the day to see the doctor. When they are done, they walk out the door. No payment necessary. No insurance checks, no waiting to see if procedures are covered by their insurance.

In the end, veterans in this country, despite the problems, have health care that any American would love to have. I'm not sure if this is a plan to work everyone into this public/private hybrid that Obama envisioned during the election, but to mess with VA care by switching to private insurers is political suicide. Veterans like their care. They deserve it. It's been around for decades. The only thing they want is for it to be better, and they definitely don't want to change it.

Dear John Doe, We're sorry for your loss ...

Well this is depressing. Apparently offering condolences to the families of fallen soldiers has become so rote that it results in printing errors that mistakenly addressed more than 7,000 letters as "John Doe." I once wrote (can't find the link now) before about how Spencer's reprinting of DoD press releases was becoming so frequent it was becoming mundane -- a disturbing product of war. I guess even the army finds condolences mundane.

Treating the G.I.s

One of the better Iraq War movies to be released (although overall they're all pretty bad) was In the Valley of Elah, a film that used the detective murder-mystery format to explore the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder gone wrong in returned Iraq soldiers. The movie depicted soldiers who were willing to dismantle the body of their fellow soldier, and a young veteran who strangled his wife to death. The theme was revisited yesterday in the vacuum of New Year's Day reporting by a New York Times article that examined violent crimes committed by returning soldiers.

In particular, it focused on a military base in soon-to-be-Secretary-of-the-Interior Ken Salazar's state of Colorado. The article talks of nine cases murder by the base's soldiers, five in the last year alone. Add to that the overall national statistics of murder by veterans, suicides, rapes, and domestic violence and it's no wonder that people are concerned. The article didn't address if rates of violent crimes are higher among soldiers than they are among the general population, but my guess is they're probably not (although rates of suicide among former soldiers tend to be higher than among the general population). I'd like to see an analysis of this done so if you know of one, please, leave it in comments.

The key to investigating PTSD in soldiers is that what we figure out there might help us with other kinds of criminological and sociological work. If we can figure out what drives a person to suicide or murder when we know of a traumatic event like combat, it may help us treat and eventually prevent suicide, murder, rape, and domestic violence in the general population. After all, some of the prosthetic limb research done by the VA has lead to cutting-edge technology for others who lose their limbs in more everyday occurrences like car accidents. When we develop effective new treatments for veterans, everyone wins.

The reluctance is that treating PTSD is expensive, and there's no clear way for every person that's effective. Therapy is costly, especially for a population that largely comes from lower and middle classes who probably can't afford it on their own. But the more we begin to look at mental health treatment as part of the holistic health care we promise veterans, the more clues we unlock for preventing some of the most atrocious crimes known to humanity.

Veterans' Groups File Lawsuit Against VA

Via Annabel at Pushback. Two veterans groups, Vietnam Veterans of America and the Veterans of Modern Warfare, filed a lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs for delays in making decisions on disability claims. The VA is required to deliver decisions on claims within 90 days and address appeals within 180 days. If the VA can't get to the claim in time, they're supposed to administer an interim fee, something else the groups are saying the VA is failing to do.

I think the frustration here is on both sides. The VA has become inundated with claims over the last few years, without enough staff capacity to get through them all. The veterans are frustrated because they can't work at an able bodied pace, and need the disability certification for insurance claims and work benefits. The VA's delay is frustrating and affects their lives severely. The reality is that part of the problem is that Congress needs to sink more money into the VA for administrative support. With more people on staff to process claims, the faster they can be addressed.

Veterans Day: Looking at Veterans' Needs

This election season, the moniker of “Support the Troops” warring with “Support the Troops: Bring Them Home” fell off the national scene. Instead, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are quietly getting shipped home. As reporting in the Washington Post after the election showed, troops don’t necessarily have a ton of time to ponder election returns. On seeing the election results, one soldier even quipped, “We're all going home! … What time does the plane leave?”

In other words, solving some of the problems we have is nowhere near that simple, especially as we address the needs of our largest war veteran population since Vietnam. Following is an examination of the upcoming battles in veterans’ issues.

The Montgomery G.I. Bill

This year Congress passed an expanded version of the Montgomery G.I. Bill this summer, initially proposed by Sen. Jim Webb, addresses some of the key problems that a highly mobilized military presented. The bill expanded benefits to those that served on or after September 11, 2001 and increased funding of the G.I. Bill to total up to the cost of in-state tuition at a public university (including some housing benefits).

But the problem here isn't with the legislation; it's with the execution. The changes to the G.I. Bill are supposed to go into effect on August 1, 2009. But the Veterans Administration may not be ready by then to handle the high volume of paperwork that they are expecting to receive. Another problem is that many veterans may already be finishing school (or nearly finished) by the time the benefits go into effect, and the benefits aren't retroactive.

Veterans’ Health Care

Believe it or not, veterans tend to enjoy some of the best, most "socialized" medical care in this country today. Veterans receive free care at any VA facility, and the government picks up the bill. VA hospitals also tend to have the most advanced prosthetic technology available. There has also been a push to convert to electronic medical records to increase speed and accuracy of treatment. It's something that many have called for to be replicated in the private health care sector.

But the VA system isn't perfect. With an increased population of war veterans and only marginal increases in the VA budgets until 2006, the VA hospitals often don't have enough doctors or appointment times, with waits of up to 18 months for some patients, to meet the demand of patients. An audit [pdf ] conducted last year by the VA's inspector general found that only three-fourths of patients had wait times of less than 30 days , far fewer than the 95 percent the VA had originally claimed. Additionally about 1.8 million veterans are "uninsured" because they don't live near enough to a VA facility for that treatment to be accessible.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Of the roughly 1.7 million soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, about 300,000 of them -- 1 in 5 -- are estimated to be suffering from some form of PTSD or severe depression, according to a RAND report released earlier this year. The costs for treating these veterans can cost upwards of $6.2 billion. As recently as this May, a PTSD program director in Texas urged her facility to cut back on the number of PTSD diagnoses so that

Since there's no one way to treat a person for PTSD, the problem of treating all of these veterans becomes a very difficult one. Some propose interviewing all soldiers upon their return from a war deployment to get a baseline and flag those who may be susceptible to PTSD. More recently, the Army is trying a program where soldiers are treated in the field almost immediately after a traumatic event. There needs to be more research into the best and most effective ways to treat soldiers and veterans with PTSD.

What is especially problematic is that women who are sexually assaulted while deployed in a war zone can get a "double wammy" of PTSD. The VA has opened a few treatment facilities exclusively for women that can allow them to address their PTSD in an environment they perceive to be more safe.

Image by Flickr user eggman, used with a Creative Commons license.

Cross posted at Pushback.

Concerns on GI Bill Changes

This summer Congress passed a widely anticipated GI Bill revision that was supposed to fix many of the problems that had been lingering since the mobilization of the military in late 2001. But it turns out there are some bureaucratic concerns with this version of the bill.

Because there will be so many changes, the old Veterans Affairs system may not be ready to handle the volume of requests it will receive after the program goes into effect on August 1, 2009. The VA contracted out an automated system and those rejected by the system will be handled by VA staff, but Subcommittee Chair Bob Filner asked a lot of hard questions about how this contracted system will handle the paperwork. Filner demanded that the system be demonstrated to be in working condition by March 1, five months before the VA is required to implement the new benefits.

This goes to show that proper implementation of laws is just as important as the laws themselves. If it takes too long for veterans to get their GI Bill reimbursements, the bill does little good in practice. The updates to the GI Bill are massive–many say this is the biggest set of changes since the program’s implementation just after World War II. The kind of oversight the veterans subcommittee is conducting keeps the administration on its toes, and setting early deadlines is key.

Cross posted on Pushback.

The G.I. Bill Loophole

A guest post by veteran and former Education Department official Jon Oberg over at Higher Ed Watch yesterday noted that the new G.I. Bill may still end up screwing veterans over a bit, even if the new Higher Ed Reauthorization Act prevents counting veterans benefits against a veteran’s federal aid package.

Because federal aid is never enough to cover the cost of tuition, room and board, and books, it’s ultimately up to each individual institution to create a total aid package. Even if there are federal regulations about not counting veterans benefits against the federal aid package, an individual college or university might. Instead of giving a student institutional grants to make up the difference between federal aid and cost, they could end up supplementing the remaining costs with loans or work study.

The new G.I. Bill does create the Yellow Ribbon Program, which matches college and university aid dollar-for-dollar from the Department of Veterans Affairs. This could create the proper incentive for institutions to give veterans their best possible package instead of their worst. But the program is optional, and Oberg fears that still might not be enough to compete with the private loan system.

The way that federal and institutional aid is packaged is complicated, and it seems like individual institutions have a lot of leeway in figuring out how to allocate aid packages. This can be good or bad, depending on the priorities of the institution.

Cross posted at Pushback.

How the Higher Ed Reauthorization Helps Veterans

Higher Ed Watch has a good breakdown of what’s good and bad about the Higher Ed Reauthorization Act, but it looks like the legislation works in some benefits for veterans and their spouses and children by

-requiring zero family contribution for Pell Grants: Someone whose parent is killed in Iraq or Afghanistan while they’re under 24 or enrolled in college will have their family contribution readjusted to zero as long as they already qualify for the Pell Grant. What this means is that if you qualify, you’ll end up getting the maximum Pell Grant amount. Because the buying power of the Pell Grant has been declining for years, it amounts to a few extra thousand dollars in some cases. But every little bit helps, right?

-excluding GI Bill benefits from FAFSA calculations: When you fill out that overly complicated form to determine your eligibility for Stafford loans and other federal aid, the form no longer factors in benefits from the GI Bill, thus increasing aid you qualify for.

-guaranteeing readmission for veterans: The new legislation requires schools to readmit students who get called away for active-duty deployments. This was a problem before when tours of duty and training exceeded schools’ maximum leave lengths. Veterans would return from tours of duty only to be denied readmission, forcing them to go through a lengthy appeals process.

-establishing a Center for Excellence for Veterans: This is a newly proposed idea that still would need funding and further administration, but the idea is to create a body that would be the single point of contact to assist and advocate for veterans as they try to navigate the financial aid system. The proposed organization might also act as a contact for other veteran benefits, including those related to housing and health care.

There were some other fairly minor changes included with the legislation as well, mostly definition changes and changes to disability benefits for veterans. Veterans face a lot of the same issues that students face. The problem is that veterans may already come from low-income families, be first-generation college students, or be trying to raise families themselves. While most veterans benefits are handled through veterans committees and veteran-specific legislation, there needs to be cooperation across issue areas on issues like housing, education, and health care.

Cross posted at Pushback. (H/T to Ben Miller at Higher Ed Watch for much of the analysis.)

Treating PTSD in the Field

The Army is trying a new approach to treating PTSD, according to a story today by McClatchy. After soldiers witness a traumatizing incident they speak with a doctor one to three days after the incident, something called Critical Incident Debrief (CID). They're basically asked to relate what happened during the incident -- right down to their feelings. The Army is starting to treat PTSD as a normal response to an abnormal experience, and they recognize the value in treating PTSD. Apparently it's cheaper to treat it than to recruit and train a new soldier. I'd also argue there's something of a moral imperative to help the person you put in a fucked up situation.

GI Bill a Boon to For-Profits?

That's the subject of a recent Chronicle article (subscription required):

According to data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the for-profit giant enrolled 17,221 veterans during the past fiscal year, making [the University of Phoenix] the top recipient of federal aid for military veterans. Two other for-profit institutions, American InterContinental University and American Public University, ranked second and third, with about 3,700 veterans each.

Today Inside Higher Ed has an article about the GI Bill update today as well. Their reporting reveals that the new benefit would place a greater emphasis on part-time or online college enrollment.

“I have a feeling that University of Phoenix will always be the number one recipient of GI Bill benefits, in part because they make themselves so incredibly accessible to veterans throughout this country,” said Patrick Campbell, legislative director for the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

There's no doubt that the way the current GI bill is insufficient, but we should be making a full-time option equitable to a part-time one. There are plenty of veterans out there for whom part time and online options are the only real options available, especially if they have families with small children or live in rural areas far from colleges or universities.

Veterans Bill Passed In House

Yesterday, amid talk of McCain pulling troops out in 2013 and the war funding bill, the House also passed their version of Jim Webb's Montgomery GI Bill changes, which would greatly expand education benefits to veterans who have served since 9/11. The bill has pretty wide support in the Senate, but Bush has asked for more modest reforms, and the majority that passed the bill yesterday wasn't veto-proof.

Vet Benefits and the GI Bill

Word is the Senate could be voting on the Webb-Mitchell bill next week. The bill is designed to give special educational assistance to veterans who served after 9/11 by extending the time a veteran must use the benefit to 15 years after discharge or release. The bill has been endorsed by veteran advocacy groups like Vote Vets and the VFW. It's a solid bill, and they're planning to lump it in with the Iraq supplemental spending bill, so it has a decent chance of passing.

Gainesville Winter Soldier

Last night I went to a Winter Soldier panel Campus Progress co-hosted down here in Gainesville, FL. It was a smaller scale than the one Spencer reported on in DC, consisting of six Iraq veterans, four of whom are with Iraq Veterans Against the War and two who just came forward to talk about their experiences unaffiliated. The event was extremely intense, gripping the audience during each soldier's story and lasting nearly four hours. The stories ranging from witnessing deaths of Iraqis, suicide bombers, self-medicating drug use, lack of veterans benefits, and sexual assault of both American female soldiers and Iraqi women.

Clifton Hicks, who was once suspected of being the author of TNR's disputed "Shock Troops" article, said, "None of us are here to make American soldiers look bad, because anyone in this room is capable of the same thing." Hicks blames the evil of war and not the individual troops. Many soldiers said they were still "pro-military" but opposed the Iraq war in particular. The opinions on pullout varied from immediately and as quickly as possible to a strategic and slow withdrawl. Unsurprisingly, the veterans aren't a monolithic group and don't have one opinion about the war.

Reviewing In the Valley of Elah

My review of In the Valley of Elah is up on The American Prospect's site today:

What’s peaking though the fairly transparent plot is the costs of sending soldiers to war -- encouraging them to torture and kill terrorists (or suspected terrorists) -- and returning them home unable to continue with normal lives. A side plot of the film has a woman ahead of Deerfield at the police station there to report her husband's (another recently returned Iraq vet) violent drowning of the family's Doberman Pincher in the bathtub in front of their son. Later in the film he is arrested for drowning his wife, who Theron's character had sent home without helping.

The movie clearly depicts post traumatic stress disorder. But what makes In the Valley of Elah portrayal valuable is that it depicts the strain of PTSD on families and communities as well.

Official estimates of how many Iraq war veterans might be affected by PTSD vary, mainly because it’s something that affects patients in a matter of degrees, many of which are not necessarily violent. It’s a cost of war that’s little talked about estimated to cost billions of dollars. Many psychologists, including the American Psychological Association's Education Directorate, advocate a public education campaign that would not only teach soldiers and their families what the symptoms of PTSD are (often sleeplessness, flashbacks, problems with aggression, and relationship stress) but also instruct the public that PTSD can be a normal reaction to abnormal levels of stress or violence, especially when encountered for long periods of time. Some soldiers are serving tours as long as 15 months.

Read the whole thing.

TESTING THE TROOPS.

Over the weekend, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on some Minnesota National Guard troops who have elected to be part of a VA study monitoring the effects of deployment on a soldier. The study, funded by the Department of Defense, began

nearly two years ago, [when researcher Melissa Polusny] and three other VA psychologists went to Camp Shelby, Miss., where 2,500 Minnesota Guard troops were preparing to deploy to Iraq. Of those, 531 agreed to fill out 22-page questionnaires covering everything from their childhood and family life to how they handle setbacks.

This is exactly the kind of monitoring that could give the VA a better idea of how combat stress affects veterans after they've returned from a deployment. Some experts proposed making such testing mandatory, so as to reduce the stigma of PTSD symptoms like sleeplessness, flashbacks, and emotional isolation. Broad testing, of course, can be very expensive. The Minnesota study is of a self-selected group of soldiers, so it may not be an entirely accurate picture. But research into combat stress is so scarce that even a small study such as this could have a big impact.

--Kay Steiger

Cross-posted at TAPPED.