Nice. From CREW's site:

This is an outrage.

CREW and VoteVets.org released an e-mail (May 1, 2008) obtained from a Veterans Affairs (VA) employee directing VA staff to refrain from diagnosing soldiers and veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

by Michael Leon (via mal contends)

Madison, Wisconsin —Vietnam-era Navy veteran Keith Roberts (1968-71) is an honorably discharged Navy airman who feels betrayed by his government, specifically the U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the U.S. Dept of Justice, for its self-conscious and successful efforts to financially ruin and imprison him.

Update: On a related note, see the NYT's Herbert's column on the new proposed GI Bill: "Politicians tend to talk very, very big about supporting our men and women in uniform. But time and again — whether it’s about providing armor for their safety or an education for their future — we find that talk to be very, very cheap."

via mal contends

The U.S. Dept of Veterans of Affairs (VA) has gone down the toilet.

This is what happens when the VA adopts the American Enterprise Institute's (AEI) Dr. Sally Satel ethos that veterans need to just get over it, and not be enabled in a 'culture of trauma'.

From South Carolina, Paul Alongi reports:

The Kentucky News-Enterprise has a piece this week on jailed Wisconsin veteran, Keith Roberts.

Sister takes up brother’s fight for freedom

By JOSHUA COFFMAN

RADCLIFF —Sally Harrod is crunching numbers that stretch beyond her job as an accountant. She oversees a legal fund for her brother in two legal cases regarding benefits he sought as a Navy veteran.

Keith Roberts, 60, is in a Minnesota federal prison, convicted of fraudulently receiving electronic funds from the department of Veterans Affairs. ...

Harrod, her family members and other veterans’ advocates ... fear the VA sought retribution against Roberts for seeking decades of back pay for post-traumatic stress disorder and criticizing the agency’s slow response to approve or deny his medical claims. ...

And, once it is all settled, she hopes her family can help veterans in similar situations.

“It’s unbelievable to all of them,” she said. “If they can do it to my brother, they can do it to anyone at any time.”

Today is the innocent and jailed Wisconsin Navy veteran Keith Roberts' birthday.

And Roberts (1968-71) is celebrating it back in the general population in a federal prison in Minnesota, as his wife reports that he has been released from solitary confinement, and is working on a supplemental brief, ordered to be filed with the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, while Roberts' parents, who are in their 80s and unable to travel to Minnesota, hope to see their son before they die.

Writes Mrs. Roberts in an e-mail:

An innocent and reportedly depressed Navy Airman Keith Roberts (1968-71) suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and serving a four-year sentence for wire fraud since March 2007, has for reasons unclear been moved and caged in solitary confinement in a federal prison in Minnesota for almost a month, according to the veteran's wife.

Roberts was targeted by the US Dept of Veterans Affairs (VA) in 2003-05, and became the central figure in an Alice-in-Wonderland tale, after U.S. Attorney Stephen Biskupic of Wisconsin and top VA officials schemed to convict Roberts’ of fraudulently receiving VA benefits (by wire transfer as the VA requires).

Despite hostility from high quarters of the VA, Roberts may be again granted the benefits for which he is federal prison for receiving.

U.S. Atty Biskupic is the same U.S. Atty who infamously prosecuted an innocent Wisconsin woman in a political prosecution, and several innocent Wisconsin citizens for voter fraud in apparent service to the electoral needs of the national GOP.

What happens when you deploy troops who
have seen high intensity combat time and time again with inadequate
dwell time between tours? You see skyrocketing mental health issues.

After months of investigative work,
talking to our troops and veterans, we released
a report on the situation at Fort Drum in Watertown, New York.
Since 9/11, the 2nd Brigade Combat Team has been deployed for more
than forty months, more than any other brigade in the Army, and we
are seeing what is nothing short of a cry for help from the men and
women on the base; a cry we will answer in Wisconsin, which has seen many of its soldiers deployed from Fort McCoy.

Around the United States, including here in the shadow of Fort McCoy, we see that the military is overwhelmed as it tries to assist servicemembers.

Here at Veterans For America, where I am proud to be Director of Policy, we are determined to do something to help the men and women who have served us. Part of our efforts include our easy-to-use registry that will help us get you the help you need (or help for someone you know).

Please click here to register with Veterans for America's Wounded Warrior Registry.

If you or someone you know needs help, we will work to make sure that you get it -- it's as simple as that. We will answer every single request we get. Sometimes it can be just knowing how to fight through the bureaucracy and get the mental health appointment you need or it might be how to get your family counseling.

Please let us help you or someone you know get the help you need and deserve.

The conduct of Stephen Biskupic, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin (2002 - present) has generated two prominent reactions.

As arguably the most controversial U.S. Atty in Wisconsin history, Biskupic has drawn both praise and angry denunciation for his prosecutions of:

- The proven-innocent Georgia Thompson (see also Biskupic tried to 'squeeze' Georgia Thompson)

- Several overturned “voter fraud” cases (see also Voter-Fraud Complaints by GOP Drove Dismissals)

"At the NEOCON-run VA, the first rule of PTSD treatment is to not talk politics (meaning anything that is negative about the war is TABOO) ...," writes Robert L. Hanafin, Major, U.S. Air Force-Retired.

Hanafin's piece in Veterans Today shines a light on the Dept. of Veterans Affairs (VA) that has become almost as politicized as the Dept. of Justice.

Nothing, not even the treatment of returning troops, is safe from the rightwing, pro-war-at-any-costs ideology of this administration.

Hanafin quotes from a VA "fact sheet" on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): “Families should minimize exposure to anxiety-arousing media related to the war. News programs often emphasize fearful content and frightening images to create a 'story.' Watching a lot of TV news programs, for example, can create needless distress. "