I fully recognize the sad reality of PTSD in some of our returning warriors and encourage those who truly need help to seek it. I also applaud the various organizations dedicated to assisting our returning heroes with issues like depression, suicide and alcohol abuse. However, I have detected an emerging, and in my view, disturbing trend in how these veterans are depicted in solicitations for support and even in good-hearted PSA’s reaching out to those in need.

Perception is reality as the saying goes, and any depiction of our warriors as “victims” or psychiatric time-bombs is just plain wrong. These heroes are NOT victims and the vast, overwhelming, majority is not in desperate need of counseling, to the contrary. Even those who have been injured or who suffer PTSD would not wish to be considered victims, that implies helplessness or random circumstance, when in fact they were bravely performing in their chosen profession and defending our nation.

Some have suggested that training and troop expectations may be a possible factor in the numbers and severity of mental stress in this conflict. Preparation and training for combat can help inure soldiers for the rigors of combat and perhaps even develop the necessary mental coping skills to get them through. Nation building and counter-insurgency missions are entirely different matters. Our troops have entirely different missions, limitations, ROE, and expectations from what are perceived as standard combat operations. Coping with IED’s, “friendly” turncoats, and hard-to-fathom rules of engagement has got to be a factor not experienced on such a large scale in prior conflicts.

This current outreach to help our veterans is laudable but we have to question if it is not also influenced by the nanny state mentality. It seems to us this could be another example of an attempt to hollow out another national institution – in this case the military. Let’s not make our soldiers, their families, and veterans just another class of victims dependent on government largess.

Meanwhile, from the “nothing should be considered paranoid when it comes to this administration files,” I also have to wonder if this administrations enthusiastic “outreach” to veterans and efforts to encourage psychological counseling may not also easily set them up for weapon seizures and denial of firearm purchases.

We already know that DHS has previously classified certain veterans as potential terrorist threats. How much easier to justify “action” against a veteran than if they have a psychological evaluation from the VA? We already know that even local law enforcement has used “questionable” Facebook statements to arrest a veteran and order him to psychiatric evaluation. How much easier to do this with a “psych history”? Scrutiny of the pending gun control legislation for any such authority is in order. Will veterans seeking psychiatric help be forever classified as unfit to possess firearms? VA health and psychiatric records are not hard to obtain by law enforcement so we need to watch this very closely.