Consider Yourself Slapped

Yep... ranting again...

The other day the House Committee on Veterans Affairs held a "Symposium" on PTSD. The speakers (besides all the members of the committee) included people from the Thought Field Therapy Center (ummm, tapping various pressure points on your body in a specific sequence and applied to a psychological problem the person is focusing on, "will eliminate the perturbations in the thought field, the fundamental cause of all negative emotions..." [ed. comment: including war??] and you apparently don't have to understand or believe for it to work! Yah.), National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare (represents the interests of community behavioral healthcare organizations nationwide... conducts federal advocacy activities, representing the industry on Capitol Hill and before Federal agencies), American Psychiatric Association, Institute of Rural Health at Idaho State University (improving the health of rural communities in Idaho and the Intermountain Region, as well as throughout the nation and the world [ed. comment: nothing like a little over achievement to scream mentally healthy, huh?]), Wounded Warriors Project (assisting men and women of our armed forces who have been severely injured during the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other locations around the world) and the American Enterprise Institute [for Public Policy Research] (a private, nonpartisan, not-for-profit institution dedicated to research and education on issues of government, politics, economics, and social welfare. [ed. comment: don't "government, politics & economics" actually preclude "social welfare"?]

I watched the last 60-90 minutes of this "symposium" and to say that I was less than impressed would be an understatement; to say that I was infuriated at times might be an overstatement. Aggravated, agitated (principally at the attitude) might be most accurate.

But what I know for sure is that many of those people DO.NOT.HAVE.A.CLUE about COMBAT-INDUCED PTSD's effect on those with the condition. And a few need to be slapped up side the head for their generally self-serving attitude.

Lots more and all the links at Some Soldier's Mom

Remember Jesse MacBeth?

The wannabe boot camp washout who "confessed" to being an Army Ranger who committed war crimes, and who got a big following among the gullible left before mil-bloggers (among others) outed him, wasn't forgotten by the criminal justice system. He was charged with two counts today related to his deception under a federal indictment unsealed in Seattle:

A man who tried to position himself as a leader of the anti-war movement by claiming to have participated in war crimes while serving in Iraq is facing federal charges of falsifying his record.
A complaint unsealed Friday in U.S. District Court in Seattle charged 23-year-old Jesse Adam Macbeth with one count of using or possessing a forged or altered military discharge certificate, and one count of making false statements in seeking benefits from the Veterans Administration.
Macbeth garnered much attention on blogs and in some alternative media after he began claiming in 2005 to have been awarded a Purple Heart for his service, which he said included slaughtering innocent civilians in a Fallujah mosque.
His story was contradicted by his true discharge form, showing that he was kicked out of the Army after six weeks at Fort Benning, Ga., in 2003 because of his "entry level performance and conduct."

Update: Michelle Malkin has much more.

Yup, He Is A Criminal

JAG LCDR I mentioned below got six months and a big chicken dinner, according to reports.

That's pretty lenient, I would think, although not Sandy Berger lenient. Army Lawyer, what do you think?