Metro Center bracing for Iraq vets with mental problems.

This is a heart warming story from the Post. Once again the military is showing the same kind of weird disconnect the White House has with their perceptions of what is going on in Iraq versus what the real situation is.

They act like we're still in peace time. They can't maintain the troop levels and have any chance of success in Iraq, or in Afghanistan. We are headed toward disaster. Our military cannot keep on this track and survive.

It doesn't matter how many billions they pump into the "military-industrial complex;" unless the big shots at Boeing and Ratheon are willing to mount up and kick some insurgent ass, we're screwed.

Soldier to be punished for going to hospital:

1st Lt. Jullian Philip Goodrum, U.S. Army Reserve, is being prosecuted because he did not request the appropriate military leave before checking himself into a civilian psychiatric hospital last fall, during a mental breakdown. He is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

According to the Post " An Army survey, completed last December, found that 17 percent of soldiers and Marines who'd returned from duty in Iraq reported symptoms of major depression, anxiety or PTSD.

The number is expected to go higher with time, as more soldiers return from duty in this conventional war that has become a harsh counterinsurgency campaign.

And Matthew J. Friedman, executive director of the National Center for PTSD, predicts that many more PTSD cases will go unreported; the Army survey also found that soldiers still are intensely reluctant to divulge their symptoms because of fear of being stigmatized as weak."

This is just the beginning. Go down to Metro Center in D.C. when it gets really cold and see all the Vietnam mental casualties rolled up in sleeping bags.

You'll be happy to know however, according to ABC News

"Oct. 14, 2004 -- Following inquiries by ABC News, the Pentagon has dropped plans to force a severely wounded U.S. soldier to repay his enlistment bonus after injuries had forced him out of the service.

Army Spc. Tyson Johnson III of Mobile, Ala., who lost a kidney in a mortar attack last year in Iraq, was still recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center when he received notice from the Pentagon's own collection agency that he owed more than $2,700 because he could not fulfill his full 36-month tour of duty.

Johnson said the Pentagon listed the bonus on his credit report as an unpaid government loan, making it impossible for him to rent an apartment or obtain credit cards.

"Oh man, I felt betrayed," Johnson said. "I felt, like, oh, my heart dropped."

Great, now he can stop living out of his car. See, the military really is getting up to speed on this problem. And that multi-billion dollar boondoggle called Star Wars will protect him from ICBMs some time in the distant future. Rummy is busy testing it and rolling it and playing with it.