11 February 2008

Deploying Soldiers In Crisis

Deploying a just diagnosed bipolar, alcoholic soldier stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado, who has homicidal and suicidal tendencies, directly from inpatient mental health treatment to the Iraq War theater sounds like a really, really bad idea.

Maybe the Army officials involved have been listening to too much Amy Winehouse.

Do they not remember the lives lost when another soldier snapped and killed many people in his unit early on in this war?

Also, it is worth recalling, in the face of concerns about faked mental illness, that a great many serious mental illnesses normally manifest in someone's late teens or early twenties, around the same time that people often serve in the military, and that diagnosis of mental illnesses often comes long after a mental illness has manifested itself.

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