Multiple combat tours linked to mental strain, disease

Um...can anyone say, "duh!"

I knew you could....

 

Exactly.

What else is new? This certainly isn't.

 

Another Reason to Revive the....

....draft? When this nation goes to war, especially one that is going to last longer than few years, it is imperative that we spread the responsibility around, and not leave it solely on the shoulders of a few good men and women.

The draft should have been brought back under Bush, and it may have been the redeeming factor to all of this PTSD and mental fatigue as a result of multiple combat tours for the few, the proud, the giving....:type:

 

Nah. The problem isn't with "sharing the responsibility"; that problem exists now. For example, I've had a disk fusion, multiple surgeries on my left ear resulting in my wearing a hearing aid, severe arthritis in my neck, and they've still deployed me three times. I know other Air Force guys who have "water on the knee" and are declared non-deployable.

You get a guy who wants to deploy (not talking about myself, but mainly my Marine and Army compadres), and he'll find a way to deploy -- unless the system "4F's" him.

And I'd rather have the guys who volunteer, knowing the risks, than some draftee who's only going to complain that he's there against his will.

As for the PTSD, well, let me say this: I've been through Air Force security specialist training and Army combat skills a couple of times. There is no training that prepares you to view a 12-year old kid as "the enemy." There is no training that prepares you for the frustration from being bombarded by a flurry of rockets and mortars, and knowing that you can't take the fight back to them because they fired their rocket or mortar once, then tore it down and skedaddled; they're already gone.

But people like you, the1bill, Tom Cassidy, and Sapper Woody (and there are others, I'm not meaning to leave anyone out or place these above anyone else) can speak to the combat situations better than I can.

 

A draft might start another US revolution. Especially when it must be 50% female.