Veterans on Trial: The Coming Court Battles over PTSD

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Open Preview See a Problem? Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Veterans on Trial by Barry R. Experts anticipate that more than , veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will return to civilian life with posttraumatic stress disorder PTSD. Schaller, a judge and a bioethicist, chronicles the events leading to what he predicts will be the most challenging PTSD epidemic in U.

Veterans on Trial: The Coming Court Battles over PTSD by Barry R. Schaller

Although combat veterans have experienced similar d Experts anticipate that more than , veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will return to civilian life with posttraumatic stress disorder PTSD. Although combat veterans have experienced similar disorders in previous wars, Schaller explains why these two contemporaneous wars in particular are a breeding ground for the condition.

Veterans on Trial deals with the problem of PTSD from the ground up, starting with the issues that returning veterans and their families face.

When they leave the battlefield to become civilians again, many soldiers are not prepared, or are unable, to cope successfully with the challenges. Their compounded anxieties often result in serious trouble: Schaller also explains how PTSD now operates as a means of defense in the criminal court system and how it will affect the courts in the next decade. After unveiling this invisible injury among the walking wounded, Schaller offers far-reaching solutions for returning veterans and their families.

He specifies what political and judicial officials, military leaders, legislators, and the mental health communities can do to meet their responsibilities to the men and women who serve our nation. Hardcover , pages.

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To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Veterans on Trial , please sign up. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Jan 20, Michael Zacchea rated it it was amazing Shelves: In my estimation, it is an important contribution to the national discussion about the looming crisis in mental health care and how our nation will deal with the tidal wave of veterans returning from combat theaters and attempting to re-integrate into a post-combat, post-military society which may be at best apathetic, and at worst subtly hostile to them.

I find particularly blameworthy the chronic failure of political and military leaders to consider — before deploying military force — the human cost of war. They are equally culpable for their lack of accountability for the consequences of the interventions. One measure is to provide a seamless transition from military to VA care.

I am also convinced that, despite the growing role of women in the military, the military has utterly failed to take obvious steps to bring about the cultural change needed to eliminate widespread sexual assault and harassment.

The high rate of suicide among active duty soldiers and veterans is a clear signal of dysfunction within military culture. Although I recognize that the leadership has instituted some typical measures in an effort to stem the tide, the military has failed to take the most obvious step to uproot the causes — a painstaking examination of the root causes within its own culture. It is obvious to me that political leaders must shoulder responsibility for failing to take into account the human cost of war before making decisions to use force. If all costs, including human as well as economic, social, and foreign policy, were taken into account fully, war would become what it should be — a last resort for critical situations to be used only after every possible diplomatic measure.

I confront other controversial subjects, including the widespread creation of veterans treatment courts and the claim that returning veterans are bringing violence into American society. As for the former, I believe that diversion programs for veterans should be available to other defendants based on an equal justice standard. Establishing special courts for any category of citizens, even deserving veterans, is misguided because it is inconsistent with our system of justice and it lets the responsible institutions — the executive and legislative branches — off the hook by cleaning up the problems that they created.

As for societal violence, contrary to familiar claims made after nearly every war, veterans have not been proven to cause a spill-over of violence in civilian society. While isolated episodes do occur, it is painfully true, as shown by recent events, that American society has a long history of episodic violence. Americans suffer from a national amnesia about the violence in civilian society, just as we do about our reliance on force in our foreign policy.

For so young a nation, we have a well-developed national mythology to explain away the policies and practices that we do not care to acknowledge. I cannot urge too strongly that we — political leaders and citizens alike — forego our usual post-war practice of evading a hard look at the mistakes, misjudgments, and lessons of war. Unless we undertake a painstakingly critical examination of these long wars, we are destined to repeat the past — and we will suffer the consequences.

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Create a Foreign Policy account to access 3 articles per month and free newsletters developed by policy experts. Best Defense Veterans on trial: The coming court battles over PTSD — and the costs of war By Barry Schaller Best Defense office of combat-related litigation I wrote Veterans on Trial to provide an unflinching view of how combat-related PTSD evolved and to assess its current and future impact on American society and, in particular, on the court system.

I sought to serve another major purpose as well — to set the Ricks January 3, , 3: Ricks covered the U. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment gmail.