Reading from Numbers 32: 20-22, Copeland said, “So this is a promise — if you do this thing, if you arm yourselves before the Lord for the war … you shall return, you’re coming back, and be guiltless before the Lord and before the nation.”
“Any of you suffering from PTSD right now, you listen to me,” Copeland said as Barton affirmed him. ”You get rid of that right now. You don’t take drugs to get rid of it. It doesn’t take psychology. That promise right there will get rid of it."
Barton added that many biblical warriors “took so many people out in battle,” but did so in the name of God.
“You’re on an elevated platform up here. You’re a hero, you’re put in the faith hall of fame,” Barton said. “… When you do it God’s way, not only are you guiltless for having done that, you’re esteemed.”I'm not sure what part of that is more disturbing: not recognizing that PTSD is a valid medical condition, or presuming that the source of it is guilt, and not the obvious stress of exposure to combat situations. Sadly, this kind of thinking isn't marginalized to the fringes-- Bush-era VA appointees set about ignoring the reality of PTSD or attempted to treat it with faith-based glurge. Although treatments may vary, glurge alone is good for little.
What is oddly unempathetic in all this is the assumption that because there is no mention of post-combat trauma in the Bible, it simply didn't exist. Really? We know modern soldiers have a hard time articulating their experiences--would that have been any easier for the warriors of the Bronze or Iron Age? Would those experiences have made it into the works of the Psalmists?
Really, these two need to stop assuming they know things about stuff.
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Dr. Ira Katz, then George W. Bush's head of the VA mental health department, wrote in 2008: "Shh! Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1000 suicide attempts per month among veterans we see in our medical facilitates." He then asked "is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?"
After CBS started asking questions about Veterans suicides back in 2007.
Part of the non-reporting on Veterans at the end of the W regime was a way to polish that turd but additionally, it's in the rights nature to be deliberately evil and to ignore the people they supposedly champion.
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