Winter Soldier LiveBlog Two: Veterans Issues
by Justin Cliburn IVAW.orgi, March 14, 2008 - 10:26am hr />Zollie Goodman was told when he was enlisting that the one thing the military would never take away from him was health care for he and his family. His pregnant wife, while he was at sea, started bleeding and called the doctor. She was told that, if she had $1500 for an ambulance, they would send one, but that they couldn't pay for it. She had to wait for a friend to drive her to a different hospital and eventually had a miscarriage. Shortly after, Goodman was discharged from the military. He found out that he was eligible for veterans healthcare and sought out help for PTSD. The medications he was given made him nervous, anxious, and having suicidal thoughts; he later learned that those were merely side effects of the medication the VA was giving him. He tried therapy and found Vietnam veterans who had been taking the same medication and going to the same therapy for years and hadn't changed. He saw homeless veterans on the street and realized what a terrible job the VA was doing.
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