The Mercenary’s Cookbook

In the upside-down world of the Bush Administration the FDA is supposed to prevent private entrepreneurs from voluntarily testing their cattle for Mad Cow, the EPA is supposed to stop states from voluntarily enacting emissions standards, and the Veteran’s Administration is supposed compare PTSD to football injuries:

VA secretary Peake suggested some of the concern about post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury has been overblown.

Many of the brain injuries are serious but some of them are akin to what anyone who played football in their youth might have suffered, Peake [said].

That’s right. On the heels of a report saying veteran suicides could outnumber casualties, the VA secretary is saying we’re making too much of PTSD. After all, they volunteered for this, right?

The article goes on to say that the Vietnam Vet Peake was talking to found the answer “unsatisfying”, but I think the award for best response goes to VoteVets’, Brandon Friedman :

Frankly, Peake’s casually dismissive attitude sucks.  Being hunted by other humans every day for 15 months, watching your friend bleed to death, and having your brain flattened like a pancake from a thousand-pound detonation are not comparable to football injuries.  

And that’s all I have to say about that.