Other views: Our View: We’re still leaving the wounded on the battlefield – Shelby Star

Thousands of troops suffering from post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury and related conditions have been separated from the military for misconduct, the Government Accountability Office reported last week. In a recent four-year period, the GAO said, about 60,000 troops were separated despite being diagnosed with conditions that could cause the misconduct. More than 13,000 of them received less than honorable discharges, which meant they were no longer eligible for treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

While the Pentagon has objected to the study, saying it is flawed, those numbers are big enough to suggest that theres a serious deficiency in the ways our military services are screening and treating service members for these disorders.

If we want a strong piece of anecdotal evidence, we need only look at the case of Army Staff Sgt. Joshua Eisenhauer, who is serving time on North Carolinas Central Prison for an incident that occurred in Fayetteville in 2012. Eisenhauer was sentenced to in 2015 to between 10 and 18 years in prison after pleading guilty to shooting at police and firefighters who were called to his Fayetteville apartment. None of the police or fire responders were shot, but Eisenhauer was badly wounded.

Testimony during the trial revealed that the Army sergeant suffered from severe post-traumatic stress disorder and was under the influence of alcohol and prescription drugs at the time of the shooting incident. He was hallucinating and believed he was in Iraq, battling insurgents. When he awoke in a hospital bed after treatment for his wounds, he demanded that a nurse tell him, Whos covering the roof? Army medical officers later said Eisenhauer shouldnt have been living off-post and should have been in intensive treatment for his PTSD.

None of that was persuasive to the court, which sided instead with police and firefighters who testified that Eisenhauer should be locked up for a long sentence.

Last week, Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Jim Ammons who had imposed the original sentence approved Eisenhauers request for relief, revising the structure of his sentence so he could be released in about two years.

Thats still too little and too late. Eisenhauers mother, Dawn Erickson, says hes getting as good care as there is available in prison, but she remains incredulous that hell be locked up for more than seven years before hes released. He still needs intensive PTSD and traumatic brain injury treatment, along with surgeries, she said.

A bill is pending in the General Assembly that would make PTSD a mitigating factor in sentencing of veterans who suffer from it. That certainly should have been the way Eisenhauers case was handled.

Traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress are signature injuries of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The conditions affect thousands of soldiers. Military hospitals have pioneered new treatments and protocols for handling these injuries and the possibility of healing and resuming a nearly normal life has improved greatly in the past few years.

But as the GAO study shows, the military chain of command beyond medical personnel is still falling short of providing the help that is needed. Thats especially so when discharges preclude VA treatment for combat injuries.

Weve seen progress in our courts, too, with the advent of veterans courts that provide specialized handling for cases that often involve PTSD. But the courts still tend to impose standard criminal penalties in cases where medical treatment is clearly called for as it was in Joshua Eisenhauers conviction. This is a man whose mind and brain were ravaged by combat that he volunteered for, in service to his country. But when his intense illness resulted in a conflict with the police, he was punished severely and denied the full medical care that his country owed him.

Weve got to do better than that.

GateHouse Media

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Other views: Our View: We're still leaving the wounded on the battlefield - Shelby Star