Gates: Purple Heart for PTSD 'Needs to Be Looked At'
By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, May 5, 2008 - With growing recognition of the toll
post-traumatic stress disorder has taken on U.S. forces, Defense Secretary
Robert M. Gates
said the Defense Department may consider awarding Purple Heart medals to
combat veterans afflicted with it.
"It's an interesting idea," Gates said when asked about the concept during a
May 2 media availability at Red River Army Depot, Texas. "I think it is
clearly something that needs to be looked at."
I might take some flak for my opinion, but I think the regulations regarding the award of a Purple Heart, need not be changed. PTSD certainly is something the VA should treat, but awarding a Purple Heart for this condition would not make sense to me.

Tom: I absolutely agree with you. I have a PTSD rating (50%) and I would be chagrinned and embarressed to receive a Purple Heart. The Purple Heart is for people physically wounded as a DIRECT result of contact with the enemy.

I also agree that the purple heart should not be awarded For PTSD but I do feel that it should be awarded for the effects of agent orange. I have a severe knee injury from combat action in viet nam which will entitle me to the purple heart when I apply for it because the injury was dianosed at 4th med and 97th evac and again in korea whin I rotated from Viet Nam to ROK but I have lost one leg to diabetes and the other to cancer. and I can not weara prothesis properly because of the injury to the knee. But agent orange in it's self is devastating and just like CRSC is awarded for it , I feel that the purple heart should also be awarded if a limb is lost or the Veteran contracts cancer or diabetes. I have been awarded the order of the silver rose. Which is an award created by Veterans, Family and Friends of veterans that suffered or are suffering from the effects of agent orange.

I've got to disagree with you, about Agent Orange, Grant. It has even less of a case, for a PH, than PTSD. A diagnosis of PTSD requires that you were in hostile action. Agent Orange was inflicted on us by our own government.
If the door were to be opened for anything except physical injury recieved in combat, it would be awful hard to close it again. What about Malaria, or a snake bite?

PS: Some of us, from my Battalion, did decide that we should be decorated for Hardships which are not recognized by official military decorations. We created "The Order of the Red Ant" - The red ant being symbolic of these hardships.

Mad Doc, Not to make light of the subject, but someone else, in regard to this Purple Heart for PTSD, suggested the Army adopt a sash as part of the uniform to hold all the awards that might be forthcoming. It would be like the scouts have. After your post I was thinking we could have our own special sash for injuries received while in the Republic of South Vietnam, injuries that are not covered by current regs. Your red ants made me think of wait-a-minute vines, the runs caused by the horse pill for malaria. I believe we could come up with 20 or 30 that everybody would be eligible for. With the advent of velcro these things would be easy to affix as we came up with more and more. Stalked by a tiger, scared by a millipede, confused by a fu-k you lizard, thank God I wouldn't be able to wear the VD badge.

When we were thinking of what kind of decoration to create, we wanted something symbolic of all of the difficulties - including rotten details. We came very close to having a medal depicting a burning bucket of sh*t. Needless to say, the design committee were all enlisted men.

I somewhat agree with you mad doc, every hard ship of a combat tour can be reconized by the award of a medal, and I believe if policy was followed there were appropiate awards made, Such as I have heard that it was 4th ID policy to award al E-4s and below the ARCOM and E-5s and above the bronze star on thier departure from VN. I was awarded the bronze star but at the time I ded not really appreciate it for the reason it was given to me ant I thought of other reasons that it should have been given to me, suchas the time that I injured my self for which I will apply for thepurple heart. But at one time i believe part of the criteria was that it be awarded for injury or illness incured while engaged with a hostile force. If this is the case PTSD and agent orange should be awarded. But all of my medals and a buck fifty will get me a cup of coffee at dunkin donuts.. Besides I feel like I got the bronze star for chasing away coke girls and madam K.

Tom who would be the deciding factor on who recives the medal who dosen't? As i think we all here have a personal contact with the VA. If it is handled by the VA it would i think could become political issue.

I must agree with Doc's statement on this issue.
After all the award was (I might be wrong)set up for the combat wounded.

I am 60% rated at PTSD, I would never take a purple heart for it. When I see my brothers and sisters who are missing limbs, and remember hearing the cries of the wounded and the quite of the dead, I am reminded that is who deservers the purple heart.

I'm not sure whether I was understood. The "Order of the Red Ant" (ORA) is not an official military medal. I do not think official medals should be issued for general hardships shared by everybody. I do not think medals should be issued for illness, physical or otherwise. I do not think the Purple Heart should be issued for injuries which were not the direct result of enemy action. I think the DOD guidelines for the Purple Heart should remain as they are.
The ORA was created with our toungues firmly in cheek. We have a lot of fun with it, at reunions, requiring the recipient to relate his particular red ant experience. The recipients of the award cherish it, because it came from their fellow soldiers. "From us -To us" as we like to say. It is open to all ranks, the only requirement being "Service in the 2nd Bat. 22nd Inf. Reg. during the Vietnam war." Exceptions can be made, by the board of directors, for special cases.
I do not feel that the meaning of official military decorations should be diluted by issuing them too cheaply. We all know of instances where someone, who was truly deserving, received no official recognition - while someone less deserving was decorated. These instances gall us all; but they are part of "army politics." If someone can live with themselves, after receiving an undeserved decoration - Those who do deserve can live with the knowledge of "a job well done." We should not aggravate the problem by issuing medals as if they were candy.

I believe that the DOD is in charge of all Combat awards. The Awards Department of the DOD decides just who gets the Award due to the Guidelines put forth for a Purple Heart and uses evidence provided by the DD214 or documented evidence by an eye witness in the case a Purple Heart was inadvertently not recorded and awarded.

I rather think that the DOD won't issue a Purple Heart in the case of PTSD, they just went threw this with the CIB a few years ago and I think that they made the right decision on that.

PTSD is one of the things that the guidelines state are in the unqualified field to receive a purple heart along with Heat Stroke and a number of other ones.

Keep in mind that Guidelines have been changed for things like Friendly Fire wounds and such so its not entirely impossible that they won't be adjusted for PTSD, very slim I think but not impossible.

Also keep in mind that the DOD Department of Awards are reviewing current awards on a daily basis and have resended over 1500 Purple Heart awards just in the last two years of troops from the current war for what they call Non-Combat related.

The question is, will a Purple Heart be therapeutic to the new troops with PTSD? Maybe, Maybe Not, hard to tell with no data to support it.

The VA has tried many other "Quick Fixes" in regard to PTSD from a Pill to a Virtual video game, Lets hope this just isn't another.

Only Time will tell.

There is only one word for this and that word is "NO"

A recent article in the military press alluded to the possibility that the Purple Heart Medal might be awarded in cases of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, (PTSD), as being under consideration by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Honorable Robert Gates.

A spokesman for the Military Order of the Purple Heart, (MOPH), was quoted as saying, “The Purple Heart Medal is awarded to those Combat Wounded men and women, who as Members of the Armed Forces, shed blood by an instrument of war in the hands of an enemy of the United States of America.

” Our Founding Father, General George Washington, conceived the Medal of Merit and awarded this medal in 1782 to three stalwart soldiers during the Revolutionary War. In 1932, General Douglas MacArthur returned the honored tradition of awarding the Purple Heart and gave it the dignity it deserves as we march forward in the war against terrorism.

The MOPH takes issue with recent attempts to degrade the basic requirements and considerations for the award to include diagnosed illness, disease, and non-combat injuries suffered or incurred in combatant theatres of operations.

Vietnam Veterans and those before us who have PTSD never considered nor requested a look at receiving the Purple Heart issued to those who shed their blood on the battlefield.

It seems to me that those who have PTSD under the current confirtation are medal hungry and should be ashamed of themselves.

We can not allow the deteriation of the oldest medal, the Purple Heart to be handed out like some kind of candy. It is bad enough that medals are at times issued for no reason.

As I read it the Award will only cover the New guys.

As I also see it this is not the idea of the Afghan or Iraqi Veterans or any of their Groups. Its the idea of someone in the Employ of the Government and I think its just another fishing trip to get a quick fix and attempt to save Money not to mention the fact of trying to turn one group of veterans against another.

my answser is still "NO". This will degrade an award that is the oldest enlisted soldiers award handed out by George Washington.