PREPARE FOR THE WORST!

There's an old saying, hope for the best, prepare for the worst. We have another example of this administration's not anticipating problems they would run into had things not gone the rosy way they expected. First it was lack of troops strength, lackof planning to win the peace, lack of planning for armour for the troops, etc.
Now according to an article in the Los Angeles Times a mental health crisis is emerging, with one in six returning soldiers afflicted, experts say. The Pentagon did not anticipate the problem and are now scrambling to find resources to address it.
A study by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research found that 15.6% of Marines and 17.1% of soldiers surveyed after they returned from Iraq suffered major depression, generalized anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder -- a debilitating, sometimes lifelong change in the brain's chemistry that can include flashbacks, sleep disorders, panic attacks, violent outbursts, acute anxiety and emotional numbness.
The bad news is that the study did not look at reservists, who tend to suffer a higher rate of phsycological injury than career Marines and soldiers. And the soldiers in the study served in the early months of the war, when tours were shorter and before the Iraqi insurgency took shape. Since the study was completed the war has changed into a grueling counterinsurgency.
The Army initially sent far too few psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers, according to an Army study released in the summer of 2003. Congress allocated no new funds to deal with the mental health effects of the war in Iraq.
I guess this will all slowly unfold as preparations -- that should have been taken just in case we weren't greeted with flowers, hug and kisses -- were not even considered. But I suppose if you don't have to be concerned about you or your loved ones being involved, why not take a shot at doing it on the cheap.