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Home Front: Culture Wars
Massachusetts May Require Mental Health Screenings For Returning Soldiers
2005-08-16
But drunken Senators who kill women (not their wives) are elected, over and over again.... Drudge Headline
Massachusetts officials are considering mandatory mental health screenings for National Guardsmen returning from Iraq, the BOSTON GLOBE is reporting on Tuesday. Mandatory mental-health screening nationwide currently applies only to full-service soldiers and usually involves only answering a questionnaire. The key concern is post-traumatic stress disorder, which occurs following the witnessing of a life-threatening experience such as military combat. Symptoms include nightmares, flashbacks, depression and estrangement.
... and the desire to choke the living crap out of busybody officials...
Post-traumatic stress disorder, as the condition is commonly known, is one of the theories being weighed in the case of Daniel Cotnoir, the 33-year-old Marine sergeant charged with attempted murder in Lawrence for firing a shotgun into a crowd of raucous partiers outside his home early Saturday.
You mean the crowd who were throwing bottles thru the windows of his house with his kid sleeping in the next room?
Another attempt to paint GI Joe as a time-bomb babykiller, straight outta the VN playbook
A number of soldiers do end up suffering from PTSD. Only those who've been there understand the stresses. I confess I thought this sort of screening was already being done by the military, since they're well clued-in about the problem.
I believe the military healthcare system and the VA have it a lot better in hand than Massachussetts bureaucrats are going to...
Posted by:Frank G

#34  Congratulations, Shipman! You're sane!

let's not be hasty...they said I was sane too...
Posted by: Frank G   2005-08-16 22:50  

#33  Congratulations, Shipman! You're sane!
Posted by: Phil Fraering   2005-08-16 22:46  

#32   How about a mandatory mental health screening for all the people voting in Massatoooooosuch for electing and reelecting and reelecting two spoiled overgrown two year olds as senators.
Posted by: FeralCat   2005-08-16 22:12  

#31  And BETTY CROCKERCRATS were just an ugly stain on the horizon.
Posted by: Shipman   2005-08-16 19:39  

#30  "What dog breed is best used to prevent mushroom poaching? Are different breeds better if you're a) on foot or b) in a vehicle? Which breed drives best?"

"How do you feel about Betty Crocker?"


LOL!

Mushroom hippies have a genetic fear of beagles. In the old days (a long time ago, things were different then) a house goldie would drive the pickup with a cage full of beagles to clean the mushroom fields back home. But I say again, that was a long time ago, mushrooms were different then, dawgs were smarter, trucks were easier to operate, it was different.

Posted by: Shipman   2005-08-16 19:37  

#29  Your concern is well-founded, ob. You can extend that to NY in 2008, as well. We should all take a good look now, cuz she'll be wearing the finest wet-finger fashions then - and be unrecognizable, I'll wager.
Posted by: .com   2005-08-16 18:36  

#28  30 months in a combat zone and the only nightmares I have are of left wing communist liberals from Mass gaining politial power and demoralizing the great soldiers returning from their noble efforts to protect this country!!!!
Posted by: old bike   2005-08-16 18:33  

#27  the day Masshole gets to scrutinize our troops is when the US gets to administer breathalyzers on the Senate floor (you know we're talking about, right Ted?). This is not being done as a humanist gesture....
Posted by: Frank G   2005-08-16 18:19  

#26  Yah, Shipman, I hear when you're holding the moon for randsom you tend to value stability in your application servers...

Seriously, I had an idea: we could offer to handle the psychiatric testing for the state of taxachussets, and hire Muck4doo and Joseph Mendiola as examiners.

"What dog breed is best used to prevent mushroom poaching? Are different breeds better if you're a) on foot or b) in a vehicle? Which breed drives best?"

"How do you feel about Betty Crocker?"

"Does the constitution protect the right to keep and arm bears? Or bovines?"
Posted by: Phil   2005-08-16 18:18  

#25  Something Trollish this Way Comes....
Bradburys' Lost August Chronicles.
Posted by: Shipman   2005-08-16 18:16  

#24  too quiet...

Something trollish this way comes...
Posted by: .com   2005-08-16 18:13  

#23  :>

/been to quiet around here
Posted by: Shipman   2005-08-16 18:04  

#22  Thanks again .com I'd lost the link with an OS change. It works great with a right click on XP. Of course only my kidz and wife use XP, I use something cool and free that has lots of kernels and dists and such. Ima cool guy.
Posted by: Shipman   2005-08-16 17:55  

#21  "I said 'Sarge, I wanna kill! I wanna eat dead, burnt babies!'"
-- Alice's Resturaunt
Posted by: mojo   2005-08-16 16:22  

#20  USN - if you use IE or something like Maxthon (IE with tabs and much more) which uses the IE object then you can use this nifty little spell-checker add-on... 'Tis Free and it rocks.
Posted by: .com   2005-08-16 14:55  

#19  spellcheck, spellcheck: its retuRning, dummy...
Posted by: USN, ret.   2005-08-16 14:38  

#18  Easier solution: let the taxocrats have their stupid brainscan plan, and all the retuning servicemen return to one of the other 49. and have their families meet them. perhaps the exodus would register in the state's tills and they would get a Clue (or some othe fine Milton Bradley game).
Posted by: USN, ret.   2005-08-16 14:37  

#17  I agree with cyber sarge!! Have the two senators get the EVAL 1st.I think their BOTH suffering from PTSD.(Well maybe not.I don't think either one have a conscience)!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: ARMYGUY   2005-08-16 14:30  

#16  MASS doesn't want any brave, courageous, patrioitic soldiers infecting their populous.
Posted by: Captain America   2005-08-16 14:28  

#15  Politically, Mass is FUBAR. Trust me, I live there.

Another attempt to paint GI Joe as a time-bomb babykiller, straight outta the VN playbook

Plus, in Mass, guns are inherently eeeevil. One of the Boston stations is playing up a "news" story about people who have CandC permits (vanishingly few, actually), and how scary it is to contemplate that the person next to you may be packing heat or have a gun in their car - horrors! When we saw the teaser, my son and I looked at each other and agreed that we wish more people here had permits and were packing heat.
Posted by: Xbalanke   2005-08-16 11:49  

#14  IIRC, as long as it is service connected they're suppose to get the same support, though the source is more likely to be the VA if military facilities are not locally available. The closest major Army installation is Fort Drum in upstate NY, but unless they built a new hospital in the last 10 years, they outsourced most of the care less emergency care to the local hospitals even for the active duty and dependents.
Posted by: Jirt Omager7355   2005-08-16 11:12  

#13  I'm a chickenhawk, so could somebody with knowledge please enlighten me? Does post Iraq services/treatment for a soldier vary by whether the soldier is Regular Army, Reserve or National Guard? It seems to me they should all get the same post combat services/treatment.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis   2005-08-16 11:08  

#12  My first thought was to have Teddy and JF Skerry take the eval first. But after some contimplation I can see the benifit of having them take a eval when they return. Yes it is a bit big brotherish but we are talking about the welfare of the soldiers (I hope). I still would like to have the two Senators take the first crack at the eval.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge   2005-08-16 10:23  

#11  Cotnoir, whose wife and two daughters were home at the time of the shooting, later told police he feared for his family's safety because someone threw an empty juice bottle through his bedroom window.
Cotnoir was arrested and held on $US100,000 bail. He was to be arraigned in Lawrence District Court on attempted murder charges.
Lissette Cumba, 15, and Kelvin Castro, 20, were treated for gunshot wounds. Both have been released from local hospitals.
Cotnoir has frequently called police to complain about noise and fights outside the Punto Finale nightclub.
Last year, police said, he claimed someone leaving the club had fired a gunshot at his apartment.
Cotnoir's wife told police that her husband had been drinking and they had been fighting shortly before the shooting.


Sort of like drinking and fighting shortly before the car went off the bridge? This has more to do with beverage consumption that occupation.
Posted by: Jirt Omager7355   2005-08-16 08:48  

#10  Now, wait. I think I can see their point. After all, the most prominent veteran in the state of Massachusetts is a guy who told lurid stories of atrocities, stories which were pure fantasy. A guy who claimed to have run his boat along the Vietnam-Cambodia border -- despite the river he was on going straight through the border, and the river being blocked miles from the border -- and who claimed to have run weapons to the Khmer Rouge.

I think we can all understand that the good people of Massachusetts don't want any more delusional veterans like John Kerry running around their state.
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2005-08-16 08:24  

#9  As soon as I saw "Massachusetts" as the source for theis story, I could predict the content.

So, when is that state changing from "Commonwealth of Massachusetts" to "Massachusetts Soviet Socialist Republic"?
Posted by: BigEd   2005-08-16 08:11  

#8  Deacon -- I think we've learned that "it'll be another Vietnam" is not a prediction from a leftist, but a threat.
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2005-08-16 07:40  

#7  It's not like Vietnam. Returning soldiers spend up to two weeks at a military facility upon their return from Iraq before they are given leave or discharged to their homes. They are provided with counseling or other psychiatric help as required by the evaluation of the base physycians. This is a knee-jerk reaction based on the opinionof the Looney Left that all returning soldiers are homicidal maniacs. Been there. The hell with 'em.
Posted by: Deacon Blues   2005-08-16 07:22  

#6  When my young cousin came back(Army Reserve,served with the invasion force)he was required to serve an additional 3 months for counciling,physic eval,and generally unwind from the stress of combat.Iyot don't you think the soldiers and society in general be better served by letting the experts in post combat stress handle this,you know,like maybe active duty and VA shrinks that have decades of experience in dealing with this.Besides I have a real problem with letting liberial state hacks messing with a good soldiers head.
Posted by: raptor   2005-08-16 07:13  

#5   I do not see what is wrong with such a policy . There have been several examples of returning soldiers who committed suicide . That could have been prevented with mandatory mental health screenings.. Just saw an excellent documentary on the issue..
Posted by: lyot   2005-08-16 05:33  

#4  Someone tossed a bottle through his apartment window at 2:30 AM, and he's living in Lawrence. The shotgun discharge was justified, IMO.
Posted by: Raj   2005-08-16 01:39  

#3  This stinks. We all know what is up with this. We need to start enforcing the idea of sedition actually being a punishable crime. This is pathetic.
Posted by: Rex Mundi   2005-08-16 01:36  

#2  The outer limit of what is proper has been reached when the socalist bureaucrats of the state of Massachusetts think they can mandate a member of the US armed services should be force to do. Maybe they need to mandate a mental health screenings for their 2 federal Senators first.
Posted by: Sock Puppet 0’ Doom   2005-08-16 01:25  

#1  I also have the feeling that the Pentagon may have other ideas about State bureaucrats abusing the soldiers. I know they get awful shirty about States who don't deserve State taxes from soldiers trying to pry them out of them with threats.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2005-08-16 00:11  

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