There's an intriguing feature
story posted as a running article
at the Washington Post which
bears some review. After all,
the entire civilian world seems
to be able to weigh in on this
story, while other military women
are banned from the scrutiny microphone
so it seems.

1Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside has a
story going on that would raise
anybody's eyebrows as the sappy
pity machine tries to make here
out as yet another PTSD Icon of the year,
when in fact, there are indicators
along the way that says otherwise.

Before getting into the merits
of the story, it should be said
here that this is one more
attempt by the news media to
put all the forces of celebrity
and scandal on a troop FAILURE
instead of a troop success which
is exactly what irks a lot of us
out here with that whole identity.

After 7 years of exemplary service
in Iraq, Whiteside just ups and goes
ballistic one day, shooting herself
in the process and endangering
everyone else who was around
her at the time. That's the gist
of what this story is. Then she
gets diagnosed with mental illness
after all this and now faces a
court martial.

Well we all do know the drill
about the USMJ now don't we?

It comes out in her trial that
she "had experienced depression"
during her stint at ROTC college
well BEFORE going to Iraq.
Well now, THERE'S a new
and novel concept: somebody who
is in the military who is also
depressed. Geez, ya think ??

She then volunteers for Iraq with
THIS mental baggage on board.

All she did for a job there was drive
people around within the base compound,
but the simple fact that this job
required long hours and short,
separated times of sleep, then it
is here that the rest of us are
expected to break out the tissues
and buy into this crackup excuse of
hers with tears of sympathy.

Let me tell ya, in civilian life
I had a job once that makes
her job pale in comparison and
she would consider herself on the
good side of lucky to have hers
over what I used to have.

Nonetheless, here we go again
with wild, off the wall PTSD claims
when there is actually no TRAUMA
involved. I have said this before
so many times, how can there be
any PTSD if there is NO TRAUMA ??

It seems that the gold standard
now for any to scream PTSD is to
simply be in an inconvenient place
at any time during their military
service and then also, not like
it there either. I fail to see where
any of this meets the science standards
of clinical measures.

Couldn't it be that she just simply
made a rotten choice in her
career path and the Army failed
to do any real screening on her
to make sure she was up to the task?
She did, volunteer, after all.

In a separate and unrelated profile
in the CNN's broadcast of Waging
War On the VA, returning Iraq
War veteran Tammy Duckworth was
profiled in a different way, but
here again I noticed some red flags
that gives reason to pause.

Tammy was a chopper pilot and is
now a double leg amputee from an
air strike that took her rotors
down. She was reluctant to make
any on-air claims about PTSD since
she is now holding a Boffo job
as the state Director of the Illinois
Veterans Affairs agency. I'm not
sure I would go there either in
front of TV cameras if I had
a good salary and high profile
political appointment job too.

So here we have Tammy doing it up
and holding this top state job
and getting it done and even
still flying planes and helicopters
to boot, and then we have Sniffle-Butt
Lt. Whiteside losing her cookies
essentially over nothing at all
and then claiming to be the poster girl
for Iraq War mental cripples everywhere.

Do ya see the problem I have with
this ??

Going further into the Tammy Duckworth
story, I did spot other red flags
that maybe she isn't aware of herself.

Here she just gets back from war,
barely escaping death itself
and now faces a new and challenging
life ahead of her with no legs.
BUT --- apparently in full denial
of all that --- her husband who
is also in the military, turns
around and answers a deployment call
to Iraq. Even though he is given
a waiver option to NOT do this
because of the service of his wife,
the guy up and goes anyway.

Talk about a family who doesn't
get it!!

Here again we see the unfolding
chain of bad life choices and
then the rest of us are supposed
to rally under the PITY Flag when
it all goes to Hell in a handbasket
for this family, which we all know
it well it's just a matter of when
and under what circumstances.

Now, what is it about Risk and
bad life choices that women just
do NOT understand ??

This is just like those million dollar
beachfront homes on the coast who
insist on building too close to
the water, and then the rest of
us are supposed to break out
the kleenix boxes to cry over their
lost and demolished properties
in the face of a storm that washes
it out to sea.

Hey Boneheads --- get over yourselves
because we aren't going to do this
with you anymore!!

There is growing evidence as more
of these cases gain national attention
that women are complete failures in
the military and really can't pull
it off anyway, and even if they do,
they hop from one bad decision to
another to another until eventually
one of those decisions takes them
all the way down to life crisis
and personal collapse.

This is Bravado Worship gone nuts,
and yes the men do have it too, but
apparently not to the scale that
women do, because frankly, I've
seen some of the nonsense stories
out on this Internet time and time
again and it's a far more prevalent
trend in women than what even the
civilian news media or even some
of you knows about.

Women doing dumb things to a point
of crisis and then looking for
sympathy from everyone else for
the dumb things that got them
there in the first place.

It can even be said there is
enough controversy in it all
to throw out the question of whether
or not women who are mentally ill
in the first place, are just frauding
their way into the system so they
can find someplace to blame for
their original maladjustments that
they entered with.

The only way this can be truly
sorted out is for the military
to bump up it's game and take
on far more drastic and comprehensive
health evaluations right at the
time of recruitment, and then
again BEFORE orders are cut to
send them into an active combat
zone.

Then there has to be a plan in
place to take them out of the
eligibility heap and put them
into stateside desk duty if
the numbers come back with the
wrong answers.

If you read over the Whiteside story
(which I have included the LINK to
below this chat) the whole reason
she went to Iraq to begin with
was because of some vague notion
she had about Bravado Worship and
not for any real rational purpose.

We all know that extra money and pay
is part of the incentive to go into
these places, or the chance to get
career medals and accellerate promotions
is another part. But who is going
to say that out loud in a court martial
or to the Washington Post who is
attending the court martial ??

I cannot say that I have a spare
box of kleenix for Whiteside and
her pity story of crackup just
because she was there. But on the
legal front, I would also put the
blame at the military for throwing
open the floodgates and just letting
any Ole Joe or Jane walk through
and enter the perimeters of these
unforgiving terrains, and then
trying to prosecute them after
they get bad outcomes from these
Any Ole types.

The military wants to have it both
ways, first take no responsibility
to do any major league psych screenings
on entrants into Iraq, but then wants
to hold those entrants solely responsible
for their own bad life choices and
prosecute their meltdowns as voluntary
when it all comes undone in a not
so graceful kind of way.

On the flip side, there are hundreds
upon thousands, perhaps even millions
of us women who pass through this
military system without a hitch,
we get it all done, move on and pull
together a life for ourselves thereafer
--- and then here comes the ONE
Sniffle-Butt out of a half million to
fall on her face and grab all the
headlines.

Here lies the injustice. So which
is the real story, are we pulling
it off or NOT pulling it off?

There are jobs which are just plain
HARD all over the military and not
just in Iraq --- and there are many
which are even worse in the civilian
sector too. But then how many of
us have picked up a gun and shot
ourselves in reaction to a hard job??
What happened to "hey, I resign ---
I'm outta here"??

These are fair questions to know
and I'm just not buying into all
the crap that the news media likes
to shovel out in these situations.
Virtually anybody can FAKE a mental
illness and just plain use it to get
out of duty that a soldier doesn't
want so let's get real about how the
possibilities really are in military
service.

And why would the military even
get a clue that she was a potential
crack-up case when all she was
doing day to day was driving a
bunch of people around the compound?
It's easy to see where their
suspicions are.

But the military cannot first
cast itself as Slacker Extraordinnaire
and not do any comprehensive discovery
screenings prior to their deployments,
and then turn around and look all Stupid
in the face when they get a bad
result when that same troop develops
a low breaking point and loses her
cookies in the middle of it all.

A little caution goes a long way
in military systems, and we can
only stand around and wonder at what
point are they all going to wake
up and smell the coffee in the
recruitment process? There are all
kinds of mental screening tests
available now to find out people
BEFORE they are unleashed into riskier environments. So it is here that
the blame partially sits with the
military. Then on the other side, are
women really NOT pulling it off at all
in military service, but are they
just instead, merely entering
a place where they can meet and greet
with their next up and coming life
crisis and then have something to blame
when that crisis shows itself?

The Whiteside and Duckworth stories
are at odds with each other in
ways, and women veterans who get
caught up in these stories need
to understand that it's not always
totally valid what you see in these
stories. There are questions to
sort out and reality checks to
consider and we DO have to decide
whether we want these fall apart
stories to define our military
identities in the news when they
come up.


THE WASHINGTON POST STORY LINK

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...tml?hpid=rightpromo1

UPDATE NOTE: The following text
has been lifted from the Defense
Authorization Act which was just
passed a few days ago by the Senate
invoking new changes to the predeployment
exams which are to be made effective
in 2008 and will likely change more
in the future. [H.R. 1585]



SEC. 712. REPORT ON MEDICAL PHYSICAL EXAMINATIONS OF MEMBERS OF THE ARMED FORCES BEFORE THEIR DEPLOYMENT.

Not later than April 1, 2008, the Secretary of Defense shall submit to the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and the House of Representatives a report setting forth the following:

(1) The results of a study of the frequency of medical physical examinations conducted by each component of the Armed Forces (including both the regular components and the reserve components of the Armed Forces) for members of the Armed Forces within such component before their deployment.

(2) A comparison of the policies of the military departments concerning medical physical examinations of members of the Armed Forces before their deployment, including an identification of instances in which a member (including a member of a reserve component) may be required to undergo multiple physical examinations, from the time of notification of an upcoming deployment through the period of preparation for deployment.

(3) A model of, and a business case analysis for, each of the following:

(A) A single predeployment physical examination for members of the Armed Forces before their deployment.

(B) A single system for tracking electronically the results of examinations under subparagraph (A) that can be shared among the military departments and thereby eliminate redundancy of medical physical examinations for members of the Armed Forces before their deployment.

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