Fighting For Our Fighters
- Rasya Ramakrishnan
- Jul 6, 2021
- 2 min read
Updated: Jul 9, 2021
I was with my family at an ice cream shop a few nights ago. I noticed a figure in front of me as we entered the store. We're all humans, each one unique and born differently. We all have a unique life story that cannot be recreated. However, the individual before me had a particularly heartbreaking one.
His head was shaven. His ears had been burned to a crisp, and they sat lopsidedly to the side of his face. He wore an eyepatch over one of his eyes and was missing both of his arms (elbows down). I recognized his story from the moment I noticed the military pin on his shirt.
With everything he'd been through, you could tell he was in a lot of pain by the look on his face. As he carried a milkshake with what was left of his arm, it screamed pain and trauma. We pay taxes as citizens to assist the government. Shouldn't it, however, be used for a greater good, such as mental health treatment for soldiers?
According to studies by NCCP, “An estimated 320,000 service members may have experienced a [traumatic brain injury] (TBI). Eighty-five percent of veterans with TBI also had at least one psychiatric diagnosis. Most prevalent were PTSD, depression and substance use disorder”. These mental health disorders are common among soldiers, but there is insufficient help to prevent soldiers from developing permanent mental illnesses. These numbers are slowly climbing, and they aren’t going to stop any time soon if we don’t take action.
Furthermore, Verywell Minds claims that, “According to the Department of Defense, you're disqualified from serving in the U.S. military if you have a current diagnosis or a history of most mental disorders”. If this cycle continues, there will be a significant loss of military soldiers over the years. Soldiers who develop mental illnesses will be discharged from the military. This has an impact not only on their current job, but also on their ability to find a new one.
Fortunately, efforts have been made to mitigate this issue. Congressional Research Service states that “On March 11, 2019, President Donald Trump submitted his Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 budget request to Congress. The Department of Defense (DOD) budget request totals $761.8 billion, including $49.5 billion (6.5%) to fund the Military Health System (MHS)... The MHS provides health care to approximately 9.6 million beneficiaries in DOD hospitals and clinics–known as military treatment facilities (MTFs)–and through civilian health care providers participating in TRICARE”. These funds will be used to address both mental and physical health concerns. With the amount of effort and dedication that soldiers put in every day, it only makes sense to care for them the same way that they care for our country. Every day, small steps are taken, and if we continue to progress as a nation, we will be able to save millions of lives.
There’s still a long way to go, but small steps can change millions of lives for the better. There are many relief programs that were put in place by former soldiers to help those in need. We encourage you to look into these funding programs and learn more about their efforts:
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