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09 Jan 2009 04:45 pm
Mental Wounds
James Joyner agrees with the Pentagon that the Purple Heart should not be awarded for PTSD:
While I take PTSD more seriously than Stacy McCain, who asks “What next? Medals for dysentery?” I share his credulity that this was even under serious consideration. To award the Purple Heart for psychological scars would be a slap in the face to the long line of combat wounded who have earned the medal the hard way, instantly cheapening it.
I find both judgments devoid of a real understanding of trauma and its profound mental effects. The mind can be wounded too in the line of duty. In the twenty-first century we should have some way of acknowledging that, even if the Purple Heart may not be the right way to go.
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