On Mental Health Care for Wounded Service Members

A congressman from North Carolina met with 15 Army kids. According to an article by that name on Military.com:

...the last child, Rep. Walter Jones recalled July 22 during a House Armed Services Committee subcommittee hearing on family support programs, left him stunned and speechless."The little boy looked up at me and said, 'My daddy's not dead yet,' " Jones said, then repeated the question more slowly for emphasis: " 'My daddy's not dead yet.' "

Back in DC, this Rep. Jones is now trying to figure out how to do more about mental care for service men and women and their families, and good for him.

This is the shtick behind so many of my posts: we can spend billions buying weapons systems, but what are we doing for the men and women actually using them on our behalf? We can debate whether or not certain programs should be canceled or not (such as F-22, Presidential Helicopter, FCS), but the budget is in many ways a zero-sum game. When it comes to taking care of people who give us their all vs. paying for a program, I would vote for people every time.

This is not about politics or ideology, it's not about jobs or economics. Everybody who fights for our country deserves our gratitude. A wounded soldier and his/her family deserve our best medicine, including the best mental health help, nothing less. The article sites a study grading mental health care performance for our military. It sighted excellent care for the few who can get it. Accessibility is the big problem. For starters, many private mental health companies will not accept Tri-Care (according to that study).

That's despicable. This is a moral issue. We should be better than this.