they are treated like nothing more

than a steamin' pile o' shite. they are sent into harm's way without one wink of sleep lost. they are expected to fight an unjust, immoral and illegal war. they are expected to withstand snipers and bombs and seeing their friends get blown away. they are expected to see the inhabitants of iraq with little to no electricity, no jobs, little food. they don't know who is friend or who is foe.

and when they come home, they get this:
Doctor Urged Fewer Diagnoses of PTSD

By Christopher Lee Washington Post Staff Writer
The physician in charge of the post-traumatic stress disorder program at a medical facility for veterans in Texas told staff members to refrain from diagnosing PTSD because so many veterans were seeking government disability payments for the condition.
"Given that we are having more and more compensation seeking veterans, I'd like to suggest that you refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out," Norma Perez wrote in a March 20 e-mail to mental-health specialists and social workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs' Olin E. Teague Veterans' Center in Temple, Tex. Instead, she recommended that they "consider a diagnosis of Adjustment Disorder."
VA staff members "really don't . . . have time to do the extensive testing that should be done to determine PTSD," Perez wrote. ...........