A Review of Bum PTSD Diagnoses Coming Soon

If a soldier, sailor, airman or Marine has a post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury diagnosis, then they can retire with a disability check that will cost the Treasury money for decades.

If those diagnoses are reversed -- or if the military can cite a “personality disorder” condition -- then no retirement benefits.

Cruel, but hey, the country faces a fiscal crisis, and we need to save money in any way we can, even if it’s on the backs of the thin line of troops who served in combat. Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Wash., has recently become the focus of inquiries and news stories into the dubious practice of reversing PTSD diagnoses, with 300 tossed out over the past five years, The Seattle Times reported.

A Madigan forensic psychiatry team developed screening tests to root out PTSD “fakers” The Times said. The head of that team said a PTSD diagnosis “could cost as much as $1.5 million over the lifetime of a soldier, and he urged staff to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars.”

Secretary of the Army John McHugh and Chief of Staff Raymond Odierno on Wednesday ordered a systematic review of PTSD and TBI diagnoses, and the Army admitted in a press release that Madigan unfairly rejected some PTSD diagnoses.

The Army promised a comprehensive review of its behavioral health policies. We all know such reviews usually take a long time and result in reports few read and even fewer act on.