Transcripts

SPEAKER: Well, two of Minnesota's members of Congress are pushing legislation they say will help thousands of military veterans who were wrongly denied Veterans Administration benefits. And they say thousands of veterans who have had post-traumatic stress disorder were wrongly diagnosed. Jess Mador has more.

JESS MADOR: A national study by Yale University found more than 31,000 veterans were wrongly discharged from the military. The study found they were inaccurately diagnosed with either personality or adjustment disorder. The military doesn't consider those disorders connected to their military service, so these veterans typically aren't eligible for all of the benefits veterans with honorable discharge receive.

At a news conference with Senator Amy Klobuchar, Southern Minnesota Congressman Tim Walz said many of them should have received help for post-traumatic stress disorder. Instead, they found themselves without access to the VA.

TIM WALZ: And then when they were experiencing trouble, they were told by the very service that they served that that was a preexisting condition. They should have never been allowed to serve. And for that, we're going to discharge them.

JESS MADOR: Walz says either general or less than honorable discharges based on inaccurate diagnoses left these veterans without the benefits they earned.

TIM WALZ: Denying them the access to the mental health they deserve, denying them the opportunity for career advancement, denying them the right to become made whole again in the sacrifices they made to us.

JESS MADOR: Walz's bill would make it easier for veterans to contest this kind of discharge and access VA services. The Service Members Mental Health Review Act would allow veterans to have their cases reviewed by a psychologist or psychiatrist.

It would allow them to present medical information from the VA or Department of Defense, and have their records changed if mistakes are found. Ramsey County Veterans Services director, Maria Weatherall, says new rules are urgently needed. She says personality or adjustment disorder became a sort of catch all diagnosis for struggling veterans over the last 10 years of war.

MARIA WEATHERALL: And this practice, I think, is just evolving into a problem, largely because the injuries that many veterans are receiving in the combat setting and in other settings, military sexual trauma, are difficult to diagnose and may take time to diagnose. And many, many of the symptoms associated with those conditions provide challenges and even addressing-- trying to figure out what the problem is. Where does the problem originate? What's causing the problem?

JESS MADOR: Without a proper diagnosis, veterans dealing with combat or other trauma often languish without treatment as their symptoms intensify. An MPR News examination of VA data shows the number of Minnesota veterans diagnosed with adjustment reaction or personality disorder has risen sharply over the last decade.

Since the start of the current conflicts in 2003 to 2012, that's more than 133,000 veterans. How many of these Minnesota veterans may have been improperly diagnosed is unknown. University of Minnesota Psychiatry Professor Michael Miller says diagnosing mental trauma is no easy task. The signature injuries of today's wars, PTSD, brain and other psychological injury can be difficult to pinpoint.

MICHAEL MILLER: They sort of cope and deal with it, but don't necessarily seek proper treatment. And certainly in the military, soldiers coming out of deployments who don't want to report certain symptoms, or maybe don't even realize that certain symptoms are odd.

JESS MADOR: Miller says it could take months or years, and in some cases, decades, before all of today's veterans seek help. Jess Mador, Minnesota Public Radio News.