By David Allen
If you are a Veteran of the US military, especially one that served in any combat zone from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan, you have undoubtedly been faced with misconceptions that many civilians have about Veterans and military service. For the most part, these are innocent and come from nothing more than a general lack of education on Veterans’ issues. Then there are those ideas that are untrue and do nothing but corrupt society’s views about Veterans. The most damaging of all of these are the ones that have to do with the Veterans who have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
It is understandable for the average American citizen to have some serious misconceptions about Veterans with PTSD because, according to the Defense Manpower Data Center¹, as of 31 January 2015, there are 1.4 million Americans who are Active duty military, or 0.4% of the US population. According to Veterans Administration (VA) numbers, as of 2014, there are a total of 22 million Veterans in the US. Adding both numbers, only 7.3% of the US population has ever served in the military (WWII to current conflicts).
As of 2014 approximately 2.6 million are Veterans of the post-9/11 era. So 96.7% of the US population has never served and therefore cannot relate to Veteran’s issues. So most repeat whatever they have heard on the news or read or heard somewhere. In my opinion and from my experiences, this is made worse by the fact that many people who work in health care don’t seem to have a much better grasp of this subject. As someone who works in the medical field, I have seen this, first-hand, and have had some intense discussions with health care providers about what it really means to live with PTSD. As we proceed, I want to address four primary misconceptions and/or outright lies.
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