Hiding the Harm of Men and War

The claim in today’s Australian, 20 Jan 10 (see link, below), by the head of Defence’s Joint Health Command, Major-General Paul Alexander, that only 1.3 per cent of returning veterans had a mental illness, simply does not make sense. There is a mountain of evidence that veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan in the USA and the UK experience markedly higher rates of mental illness than the general population, notably PTSD. In the USA, for example, the prevalence rate of PTSD amongst returning veterans there is around 12.5%, far greater than the community average. Moreover, suicide amongst these veterans, under-reported as it is, is still conservatively described as an epidemic. What is happening here in Australia is that our Federal Government, hypersensitive to any public criticism of our foreign incursions, is enforcing a lie that all is well. While that might assuage middle-class sensibilities and insulate us somewhat from the horrors of war, it leaves thousands of returning veterans without the necessary mental health care that they require and thus leads to their gross over-representation in homelessness, imprisonment and suicide statistics.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/diggers-on-war-sick-list/story-e6frg8yo-1225821403509