Veterans for America won't be taking sides in the presidential election, but as a veteran who has spent much of the past seven years helping and advocating for soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with combat stress, I can't let the following exchange between Cindy McCain and a Marie Claire reporter go unchallenged:
Marie Claire: You met your husband after his POW days. To what extent is that still with you - or is it a part of history?
Cindy McCain: My husband will be the first one to tell you that that's in the past. Certainly it's a part of who he is, but he doesn't dwell on it. It's not part of a daily experience that we experience or anything like that. But it has shaped him. It has made him the leader that he is.
Marie Claire: But no cold sweats in the middle of the night?
Cindy McCain: Oh, no, no, no, no, no. My husband, he'd be the first one to tell you that he was trained to do what he was doing. The guys who had the trouble were the 18-year-olds who were drafted. He was trained, he went to the Naval Academy, he was a trained United States naval officer, and so he knew what he was doing.
I've read this exchange thirty times on my screen, trying to see if I read it wrong. I've tried give her the benefit of the doubt and come up with some other interpretation, but all I can gather from this is that Cindy McCain thinks that PTSD is a result of either incompetence, poor training, lack of resolve, or some combination of the three. That her husband escaped the wrath of combat stress because his heart was more in it than draftees', that his training left him better equipped than infantrymen to deal with the horrors of war, or that he "knew what he was doing" more than the countless Vietnam veterans Sen. McCain and I both know who still suffer from PTSD.
Cindy McCain should apologize to veterans and PTSD sufferers and go on record saying that her husband's lack of mental combat wounds don't result from his training, valor, or competence. We have soldiers arriving from Iraq and Afghanistan in thousands, facing two ruthlessly difficult tasks: fighting tooth and nail to get the proper treatment and care for their mental wounds, and dealing with the stigma of PTSD. Having any public figure, let alone the potential first lady, insinuate that sufferers have a hand in their condition can make both of these already difficult tasks unbearable. This perspective is both false on its face, and harmful to our troops and veterans.
Mrs. McCain: PTSD is a non-partisan issue. It doesn't discriminate between Democrats, Republicans, or independents, and doesn't discriminate between Fort Bragg and the U.S. Naval Academy either. Please retract your misinformed statements about the nature of the mental wounds of war.