: Thousands of servicemembers have been erroneously discharged from the United States Armed Forces since September 11, 2001 due to the systemic under-diagnosis of \u201cPost-Traumatic Stress Disorder\u201d (PTSD) and \u201cTraumatic Brain Injury\u201d (TBI). In an effort to quickly remove servicemembers as a \u201cburden\u201d to the service, the military has, instead, improperly used the diagnoses of \u201cAdjustment Disorder\u201d and \u201cPersonality Disorder\u201d to discharge servicemembers in a manner that has denied, and in some instances continues to deny, servicemembers the medical care to which they are entitled. <\/p>\n
These administrative discharges typically fall under the broad categories of \u201cConvenience of the Government\u201d or \u201cMisconduct\u201d and has resulted in veterans\u2019 discharge characterizations being less than \u201cHonorable.\u201d Discharges other than \u201cHonorable\u201d limit or eliminate the federal and state benefits available to veterans upon separation from the military. <\/p>\n
Therefore, the more appropriate diagnoses of PTSD or TBI would allow for medical retirement of servicemembers, thereby granting them a broader array of federal benefits than does an administrative discharge. Nevertheless, many servicemembers who have been diagnosed with an Adjustment Disorder or Personality Disorder have a history of deployment into combat zones, and like those properly diagnosed with PTSD, suffered psychological impairment in the course of serving their country in combat and are in need of the support services afforded to servicemembers diagnosed with PTSD. <\/p>\n
We are, therefore, seeking a modification of the Servicemembers Mental Health Review Act (SMHRA), H.R. 975\/S.628, to clarify that the review procedures established by that act would apply equally to all discharged servicemembers who received a diagnosis of Personality Disorder or Adjustment Disorder while in service since September 11, 2001, including those who have received discharges other than \u201cHonorable.\u201d <\/p>\n
If SMHRA is enacted and includes the proposed modification, then such servicemembers would be allowed to submit testimony from psychologists and psychiatrists that support a more accurate diagnosis of PTSD or TBI. This change to the review procedures established by the SMHRA would then make these servicemembers eligible for a change of their military records to reflect medical retirement and an Honorable discharge. We would also ask, in light of the fact that the current wait time for decisions by the Disability Review Board (DRB), which is the body that would review the testimony, is 401 days, that this legislation be accompanied by the additional funding necessary to accommodate this additional caseload.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Kris sends this small correction to my editorializing;<\/p>\n
I personally didn’t get frozen out of access to the VA, because I had a General, not an OTH discharge. I did, however, lose the Post 9-11 GI Bill, my 3.5 years of government service credits, and access to unemployment benefits (which was particularly rough on me, since I was essentially unemployable for a long time).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Our buddy, Kris Goldsmith, has completely turned his life around. While Kris was in the Army, … Servicemembers Mental Health Review Act<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-veterans-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}