Obama on C-Span

I never think to listen to C-Span so it was pure luck that I happened to tune in today just as Obama was speaking. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a clip of it on C-Span's Web site - too bad because he summed up the anti-war movement perfectly with his tone and approach.

Obama was speaking on an amendment that would increase funding for veteran affairs to achieve a variety of goals, particularly reducing the ratio of advocates to vets and providing better mental health care to our vets.

Apparently, the current ratio of advocates to vets is 50:1. This means that one advocate is responsible for ushering 50 vets through the red tape maze that is our government's system for "helping" vets. The discussion about Walter Reed has certainly brought to light the tremendous loads of paperwork our vets have to complete in order to receive treatment and the many hoops they have to jump through in order to locate the correct paperwork - and all of this on top of whatever maladies they suffered due to their time at war, be it post traumatic stress disorder or an amputated body part.

Walter Reed has also amplified the discussion of mental health care for vets. Anyone who has had less than stellar mental health at any point in their lives can tell you that "sucking it up" just doesn't work. While that's fine for plenty of minor physical ills, our brains are incredibly powerful and once they're out of whack, brains start to work against themselves, making the road to recovery even more difficult. And yes, I do speak from experience - I spent many years in therapy and on anti-depressants after being attacked more than 10 years ago - and this was in America, with family and friends who did everything they could to support my healing, and parents who were willing to pay out-of-pocket for all my mental healthcare needs. I can't imagine the added trauma of having to battle the system on top of needing to recover.

Obama also pointed out that though women are performing incredibly dangerous missions in Iraq (his example was driving a truck in Baghdad), their role is marginalized and therefore their post-service treatment is also marginalized. The same PTSD treatment that works for men may not work for women and yet we're treating them identically.

Obama said all this with the interjection that he hopes our Congress does its work to get us out of Iraq as soon as possible - a beautiful juxtaposition demonstrating how supporting the troops goes hand-in-hand with opposing the war.