Frank Perna, Las Vegas

Thu, Jun 5, 2008 (2:04 a.m.)

First they called it cowardice, then shell shock, battle fatigue and, after years of debate, post-traumatic stress disorder. Now Veterans Affairs Secretary James Peake, a retired general, declares that PTSD is overdiagnosed.

It seems as if we are going to use semantics instead of inpatient care to treat our veterans, whose rate of mental illness is about five times that of the general population.

In Southern Nevada we need domiciliaries (veterans homes), to provide inpatient care, to supplement the Veterans Affairs Department’s medical center health complex. They would provide therapy programs for PTSD and traumatic brain injury.

Our elected officials on the Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition Board passed a resolution March 20 in support of an accelerated completion date, prior to 2011, of the medical health center complex and the funding for domiciliaries.

Follow the lead of our elected officials and support our veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, who are entering our homeless population. We have about 4,000 homeless veterans, 60 percent of whom are Vietnam and first Gulf War veterans. Do we want our veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to suffer the same neglect?

Phone and write our congressional delegation!

The writer is the veterans representative for the Southern Nevada Advocates for Homeless People.