unlike OTHER senators (whose names i won't mention DA LIEBS, whom i am PROUD to say i did NOT vote for), this one IS doing something to protect our men and women
oh and a shout out to richard blumenthal as well!
Dodd Seeks Call-Back Exemptions For Unfit Soldiers
By LISA CHEDEKEL Courant Staff Writer December 20 2006
U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd is asking newly appointed Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to ensure that soldiers debilitated by post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental illnesses are not sent back into combat."If experienced VA doctors diagnose military personnel with incapacitating disabilities, such as severe PTSD, it would seem counter to our national security interests for the military services to somehow disregard these evaluations for less thorough assessments performed by military officials," Dodd wrote in a letter Tuesday to Gates. "It seems unacceptable and perhaps even reckless to ask our servicemen and women to entrust their lives to soldiers deemed mentally unfit by medical professionals."Dodd, D-Conn., said he was troubled by recent reports that some Connecticut veterans who had left active duty and had been deemed disabled with PTSD were being recalled for repeat deployments to Iraq. The Courant featured several of those soldiers in a recent story.One of the soldiers, Damian Fernandez, 24, of Waterbury, was diagnosed with severe PTSD and rated 70 percent disabled by the Department of Veterans Affairs after returning from Iraq in 2005. When he received a letter from the Army last month ordering him to report for duty Jan. 14, he became suicidal and was admitted to a lockdown unit at the Northampton VA Medical Center in Massachusetts, where he remains. The Army is now reviewing his medical records.Dodd asked Gates to exempt Fernandez from being recalled...........
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