COUNTRY OR STATE	Dates of intervention	Forces	Comments
SOUTH DAKOTA	1890 (-?)	Troops	300 Lakota Indians massacred at Wounded Knee.
ARGENTINA	1890	Troops	Buenos Aires interests protected.
CHILE	1891	Troops	Marines clash with nationalist rebels.
HAITI	1891	Troops	Black revolt on Navassa defeated.
IDAHO	1892	Troops	Army suppresses silver miners� strike.
HAWAII	1893 (-?)	Naval, troops	Independent kingdom overthrown, annexed.
CHICAGO	1894	Troops	Breaking of rail strike, 34 killed.
NICARAGUA	1894	Troops	Month-long occupation of Bluefields.
CHINA	1894-95	Naval, troops	Marines land in Sino-Japanese War
KOREA	1894-96	Troops	Marines kept in Seoul during war.
PANAMA	1895	Troops, naval	Marines land in Colombian province.
NICARAGUA	1896	Troops	Marines land in port of Corinto.
CHINA	1898-1900	Troops	Boxer Rebellion fought by foreign armies.
PHILIPPINES	1898-1910 (-?)	Naval, troops	Seized from Spain, killed 600,000 Filipinos
CUBA	1898-1902 (-?)	Naval, troops	Seized from Spain, still hold Navy base.
PUERTO RICO	1898 (-?)	Naval, troops	Seized from Spain, occupation continues.
GUAM	1898 (-?)	Naval, troops	Seized from Spain, still use as base.
MINNESOTA	1898 (-?)	Troops	Army battles Chippewa at Leech Lake.
NICARAGUA	1898	Troops	Marines land at port of San Juan del Sur.
SAMOA	1899 (-?)	Troops	Battle over succession to throne.
NICARAGUA	1899	Troops	Marines land at port of Bluefields.
IDAHO	1899-1901	Troops	Army occupies Coeur d�Alene mining region.
OKLAHOMA	1901	Troops	Army battles Creek Indian revolt.
PANAMA	1901-14	Naval, troops	Broke off from Colombia 1903, annexed Canal Zone 1914.
HONDURAS	1903	Troops	Marines intervene in revolution.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC	1903-04	Troops	U.S. interests protected in Revolution.
KOREA	1904-05	Troops	Marines land in Russo-Japanese War.
CUBA	1906-09	Troops	Marines land in democratic election.
NICARAGUA	1907	Troops	�Dollar Diplomacy� protectorate set up.
HONDURAS	1907	Troops	Marines land during war with Nicaragua
PANAMA	1908	Troops	Marines intervene in election contest.
NICARAGUA	1910	Troops	Marines land in Bluefields and Corinto.
HONDURAS	1911	Troops	U.S. interests protected in civil war.
CHINA	1911-41	Naval, troops	Continuous occupation with flare-ups.
CUBA	1912	Troops	U.S. interests protected in civil war.
PANAMA	1912	Troops	Marines land during heated election.
HONDURAS	1912	Troops	Marines protect U.S. economic interests.
NICARAGUA	1912-33	Troops, bombing	10-year occupation, fought guerillas
MEXICO	1913	Naval	Americans evacuated during revolution.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC	1914	Naval	Fight with rebels over Santo Domingo.
COLORADO	1914	Troops	Breaking of miners� strike by Army.
MEXICO	1914-18	Naval, troops	Series of interventions against nationalists.
HAITI	1914-34	Troops, bombing	19-year occupation after revolts.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC	1916-24	Troops	8-year Marine occupation.
CUBA	1917-33	Troops	Military occupation, economic protectorate.
WORLD WAR I	1917-18	Naval, troops	Ships sunk, fought Germany for 1 1/2 years.
RUSSIA	1918-22	Naval, troops	Five landings to fight Bolsheviks
PANAMA	1918-20	Troops	�Police duty� during unrest after elections.
HONDURAS	1919	Troops	Marines land during election campaign.
YUGOSLAVIA	1919	Troops/Marines	intervene for Italy against Serbs in Dalmatia.
GUATEMALA	1920	Troops	2-week intervention against unionists.
WEST VIRGINIA	1920-21	Troops, bombing	Army intervenes against mineworkers.
TURKEY	1922	Troops	Fought nationalists in Smyrna.
CHINA	1922-27	Naval, troops	Deployment during nationalist revolt.
HONDURAS	1924-25	Troops	Landed twice during election strife.
PANAMA	1925	Troops	Marines suppress general strike.
CHINA	1927-34	Troops	Marines stationed throughout the country.
EL SALVADOR	1932	Naval	Warships send during Marti revolt.
WASHINGTON DC	1932	Troops	Army stops WWI vet bonus protest.
WORLD WAR II	1941-45	Naval, troops, bombing, nuclear	Hawaii bombed, fought Japan, Italy and Germay for 3 years; first nuclear war.
DETROIT	1943	Troops	Army put down Black rebellion.
IRAN	1946	Nuclear threat	Soviet troops told to leave north.
YUGOSLAVIA	1946	Nuclear threat, naval	Response to shoot-down of US plane.
URUGUAY	1947	Nuclear threat	Bombers deployed as show of strength.
GREECE	1947-49	Command operation	U.S. directs extreme-right in civil war.
GERMANY	1948	Nuclear Threat	Atomic-capable bombers guard Berlin Airlift.
CHINA	1948-49	Troops/Marines	evacuate Americans before Communist victory.
PHILIPPINES	1948-54	Command operation	CIA directs war against Huk Rebellion.
PUERTO RICO	1950	Command operation	Independence rebellion crushed in Ponce.
KOREA	1951-53 (-?)	Troops, naval, bombing , nuclear threats	U.S./So. Korea fights China/No. Korea to stalemate; A-bomb threat in 1950, and against China in 1953. Still have bases.
IRAN	1953	Command Operation	CIA overthrows democracy, installs Shah.
VIETNAM	1954	Nuclear threat	French offered bombs to use against seige.
GUATEMALA	1954	Command operation, bombing, nuclear threat	CIA directs exile invasion after new gov�t nationalized U.S. company lands; bombers based in Nicaragua.
EGYPT	1956	Nuclear threat, troops	Soviets told to keep out of Suez crisis; Marines evacuate foreigners.
LEBANON	l958	Troops, naval	Marine occupation against rebels.
IRAQ	1958	Nuclear threat	Iraq warned against invading Kuwait.
CHINA	l958	Nuclear threat	China told not to move on Taiwan isles.
PANAMA	1958	Troops	Flag protests erupt into confrontation.
VIETNAM	l960-75	Troops, naval, bombing, nuclear threats	Fought South Vietnam revolt & North Vietnam; one million killed in longest U.S. war; atomic bomb threats in l968 and l969.
LAOS	1962	Command operation	Military buildup during guerrilla war.
CUBA	l961	Command operation	CIA-directed exile invasion fails.
GERMANY	l961	Nuclear threat	Alert during Berlin Wall crisis.
CUBA	l962	Nuclear threat, naval	Blockade during missile crisis; near-war with Soviet Union.
PANAMA	l964	Troops	Panamanians shot for urging canal�s return.
INDONESIA	l965	Command operation	Million killed in CIA-assisted army coup.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC	1965-66	Troops, bombing	Marines land during election campaign.
GUATEMALA	l966-67	Command operation	Green Berets intervene against rebels.
DETROIT	l967	Troops	Army battles African Americans, 43 killed.
UNITED STATES	l968	Troops	After King is shot; over 21,000 soldiers in cities.
CAMBODIA	l969-75	Bombing, troops, naval	Up to 2 million killed in decade of bombing, starvation, and political chaos.
OMAN	l970	Command operation	U.S. directs Iranian marine invasion.
LAOS	l971-73	Command operation, bombing	U.S. directs South Vietnamese invasion; �carpet-bombs� countryside.
SOUTH DAKOTA	l973	Command operation	Army directs Wounded Knee siege of Lakotas.
MIDEAST	1973	Nuclear threat	World-wide alert during Mideast War.
CHILE	1973	Command operation	CIA-backed coup ousts elected marxist president.
CAMBODIA	l975	Troops, bombing	Gas captured ship, 28 die in copter crash.
ANGOLA	l976-92	Command operation	CIA assists South African-backed rebels.
IRAN	l980	Troops, nuclear threat, aborted bombing	Raid to rescue Embassy hostages; 8 troops die in copter-plane crash. Soviets warned not to get involved in revolution.
LIBYA	l981	Naval jets	Two Libyan jets shot down in maneuvers.
EL SALVADOR	l981-92	Command operation, troops	Advisors, overflights aid anti-rebel war, soldiers briefly involved in hostage clash.
NICARAGUA	l981-90	Command operation, naval	CIA directs exile (Contra) invasions, plants harbor mines against revolution.
LEBANON	l982-84	Naval, bombing, troops	Marines expel PLO and back Phalangists, Navy bombs and shells Muslim positions.
GRENADA	l983-84	Troops, bombing	Invasion four years after revolution.
HONDURAS	l983-89	Troops	Maneuvers help build bases near borders.
IRAN	l984	Jets	Two Iranian jets shot down over Persian Gulf.
LIBYA	l986	Bombing, naval	Air strikes to topple nationalist gov�t.
BOLIVIA	1986	Troops	Army assists raids on cocaine region.
IRAN	l987-88	Naval, bombing	US intervenes on side of Iraq in war.
LIBYA	1989	Naval jets	Two Libyan jets shot down.
VIRGIN ISLANDS	1989	Troops	St. Croix Black unrest after storm.
PHILIPPINES	1989	Jets	Air cover provided for government against coup.
PANAMA	1989 (-?)	Troops, bombing	Nationalist government ousted by 27,000 soldiers, leaders arrested, 2000+ killed.
LIBERIA	1990	Troops	Foreigners evacuated during civil war.
SAUDI ARABIA	1990-91	Troops, jets	Iraq countered after invading Kuwait. 540,000 troops also stationed in Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Israel.
IRAQ	1990-?	Bombing, troops, naval	Blockade of Iraqi and Jordanian ports, air strikes; 200,000+ killed in invasion of Iraq and Kuwait; no-fly zone over Kurdish north, Shiite south, large-scale destruction of Iraqi military.
KUWAIT	1991	Naval, bombing, troops	Kuwait royal family returned to throne.
LOS ANGELES	1992	Troops	Army, Marines deployed against anti-police uprising.
SOMALIA	1992-94	Troops, naval, bombing	U.S.-led United Nations occupation during civil war; raids against one Mogadishu faction.
YUGOSLAVIA	1992-94	Naval	NATO blockade of Serbia and Montenegro.
BOSNIA	1993-?	Jets, bombing	No-fly zone patrolled in civil war; downed jets, bombed Serbs.
HAITI	1994	Troops, naval	Blockade against military government; troops restore President Aristide to office three years after coup.
ZAIRE (CONGO)	1996-97	Troops	Marines at Rwandan Hutu refugee camps, in area where Congo revolution begins.
LIBERIA	1997	Troops	Soldiers under fire during evacuation of foreigners.
ALBANIA	1997	Troops	Soldiers under fire during evacuation of foreigners.
SUDAN	1998	Missiles	Attack on pharmaceutical plant alleged to be �terrorist� nerve gas plant.
AFGHANISTAN	1998	Missiles	Attack on former CIA training camps used by Islamic fundamentalist groups alleged to have attacked embassies.
IRAQ	1998-?	Bombing, Missiles	Four days of intensive air strikes after weapons inspectors allege Iraqi obstructions.
YUGOSLAVIA	1999	Bombing, Missiles	Heavy NATO air strikes after Serbia declines to withdraw from Kosovo. NATO occupation of Kosovo.
YEMEN	2000	Naval	USS Cole, docked in Aden, bombed.
MACEDONIA	2001	Troops	NATO forces deployed to move and disarm Albanian rebels.
UNITED STATES	2001	Jets, naval	Reaction to hijacker attacks on New York, DC
AFGHANISTAN	2001-?	Troops, bombing, missiles	Massive U.S. mobilization to overthrow Taliban, hunt Al Qaeda fighters, install Karzai regime, and battle Taliban insurgency.
YEMEN	2002	Missiles	Predator drone missile attack on Al Qaeda, including a US citizen.
PHILIPPINES	2002-?	Troops, naval	Training mission for Philippine military fighting Abu Sayyaf rebels evolves into US combat missions in Sulu Archipelago next to Mindanao.
COLOMBIA	2003-?	Troops	US special forces sent to rebel zone to back up Colombian military protecting oil pipeline.
IRAQ	2003-?	Troops, naval, bombing, missiles	Saddam regime toppled in Baghdad. US and UK forces occupy country and battle Sunni and Shi�ite insurgencies. Clashes on border with Syria.
LIBERIA	2003	Troops	Brief involvement in peacekeeping force as rebels drove out leader.
HAITI	2004-05	Troops, naval	Marines land after rebels oust elected President Aristide, who was advised to leave by Washington.
PAKISTAN	2005-?	Missiles, covert operation	CIA airstrikes on Al Qaeda refuge villages kill civilians
SOMALIA	2007	Troops, naval	Helicopter gunship raid; naval blockade against Islamists

Veterans Deserve Better

This article can be found on the web at
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070409/kors
How Specialist Town Lost His Benefits

by JOSHUA KORS

[from the April 9, 2007 issue]

Jon Town has spent the last few years fighting two battles, one against his body, the other against the US Army. Both began in October 2004 in Ramadi, Iraq. He was standing in the doorway of his battalion’s headquarters when a 107-millimeter rocket struck two feet above his head. The impact punched a piano-sized hole in the concrete facade, sparked a huge fireball and tossed the 25-year-old Army specialist to the floor, where he lay blacked out among the rubble.

“The next thing I remember is waking up on the ground.” Men from his unit had gathered around his body and were screaming his name. “They started shaking me. But I was numb all over,” he says. “And it’s weird because… because for a few minutes you feel like you’re not really there. I could see them, but I couldn’t hear them. I couldn’t hear anything. I started shaking because I thought I was dead.”

Eventually the rocket shrapnel was removed from Town’s neck and his ears stopped leaking blood. But his hearing never really recovered, and in many ways, neither has his life. A soldier honored twelve times during his seven years in uniform, Town has spent the last three struggling with deafness, memory failure and depression. By September 2006 he and the Army agreed he was no longer combat-ready.

But instead of sending Town to a medical board and discharging him because of his injuries, doctors at Fort Carson, Colorado, did something strange: They claimed Town’s wounds were actually caused by a “personality disorder.” Town was then booted from the Army and told that under a personality disorder discharge, he would never receive disability or medical benefits.

Town is not alone. A six-month investigation has uncovered multiple cases in which soldiers wounded in Iraq are suspiciously diagnosed as having a personality disorder, then prevented from collecting benefits. The conditions of their discharge have infuriated many in the military community, including the injured soldiers and their families, veterans’ rights groups, even military officials required to process these dismissals.

They say the military is purposely misdiagnosing soldiers like Town and that it’s doing so for one reason: to cheat them out of a lifetime of disability and medical benefits, thereby saving billions in expenses.

The Fine Print

In the Army’s separations manual it’s called Regulation 635-200, Chapter 5-13: “Separation Because of Personality Disorder.” It’s an alluring choice for a cash-strapped military because enacting it is quick and cheap. The Department of Veterans Affairs doesn’t have to provide medical care to soldiers dismissed with personality disorder. That’s because under Chapter 5-13, personality disorder is a pre-existing condition. The VA is only required to treat wounds sustained during service.

Soldiers discharged under 5-13 can’t collect disability pay either. To receive those benefits, a soldier must be evaluated by a medical board, which must confirm that he is wounded and that his wounds stem from combat. The process takes several months, in contrast with a 5-13 discharge, which can be wrapped up in a few days.

If a soldier dismissed under 5-13 hasn’t served out his contract, he has to give back a slice of his re-enlistment bonus as well. That amount is often larger than the soldier’s final paycheck. As a result, on the day of their discharge, many injured vets learn that they owe the Army several thousand dollars.

One military official says doctors at his base are doing more than withholding this information from wounded soldiers; they’re actually telling them the opposite: that if they go along with a 5-13, they’ll get to keep their bonus and receive disability and medical benefits. The official, who demanded anonymity, handles discharge papers at a prominent Army facility. He says the soldiers he works with know they don’t have a personality disorder. “But the doctors are telling them, this will get you out quicker, and the VA will take care of you. To stay out of Iraq, a soldier will take that in a heartbeat. What they don’t realize is, those things are lies. The soldiers, they don’t read the fine print,” he says. “They don’t know to ask for a med board. They’re taking the word of the doctors. Then they sit down with me and find out what a 5-13 really means–they’re shocked.”

Russell Terry, founder of the Iraq War Veterans Organization (IWVO), says he’s watched this scenario play itself out many times. For more than a year, his veterans’ rights group has been receiving calls from distraught soldiers discharged under Chapter 5-13. Most, he says, say their military doctors pushed the personality disorder diagnosis, strained to prove that their problems existed before their service in Iraq and refused to acknowledge evidence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury and physical traumas, which would allow them to collect disability and medical benefits.

“These soldiers are coming home from Iraq with all kinds of problems,” Terry says. “They go to the VA for treatment, and they’re turned away. They’re told, ‘No, you have a pre-existing condition, something from childhood.’” That leap in logic boils Terry’s blood. “Everybody receives a psychological screening when they join the military. What I want to know is, if all these soldiers really did have a severe pre-existing condition, how did they get into the military in the first place?”

Terry says that trying to reverse a 5-13 discharge is a frustrating process. A soldier has to claw through a thicket of paperwork, appeals panels and backstage political dealing, and even with the guidance of an experienced advocate, few are successful. “The 5-13,” he says, “it’s like a scarlet letter you can’t get taken off.”

In the last six years the Army has diagnosed and discharged more than 5,600 soldiers because of personality disorder, according to the Defense Department. And the numbers keep rising: 805 cases in 2001, 980 cases in 2003, 1,086 from January to November 2006. “It’s getting worse and worse every day,” says the official who handles discharge papers. “At my office the numbers started out normal. Now it’s up to three or four soldiers each day. It’s like, suddenly everybody has a personality disorder.”

The reason is simple, he says. “They’re saving a buck. And they’re saving the VA money too. It’s all about money.”

Exactly how much money is difficult to calculate. Defense Department records show that across the entire armed forces, more than 22,500 soldiers have been dismissed due to personality disorder in the last six years. How much those soldiers would have collected in disability pay would have been determined by a medical board, which evaluates just how disabled a veteran is. A completely disabled soldier receives about $44,000 a year. In a recent study on the cost of veterans’ benefits for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Harvard professor Linda Bilmes estimates an average disability payout of $8,890 per year and a future life expectancy of forty years for soldiers returning from service.

Using those figures, by discharging soldiers under Chapter 5-13, the military could be saving upwards of $8 billion in disability pay. Add to that savings the cost of medical care over the soldiers’ lifetimes. Bilmes estimates that each year the VA spends an average of $5,000 in medical care per veteran. Applying those numbers, by discharging 22,500 soldiers because of personality disorder, the military saves $4.5 billion in medical care over their lifetimes.

Town says Fort Carson psychologist Mark Wexler assured him that he would receive disability benefits, VA medical care and that he’d get to keep his bonus–good news he discussed with Christian Fields and Brandon Murray, two soldiers in his unit at Fort Carson. “We talked about it many times,” Murray says. “Jon said the doctor there promised him benefits, and he was happy about it. Who wouldn’t be?” Town shared that excitement with his wife, Kristy, shortly after his appointment with Wexler. “He said that Wexler had explained to him that he’d get to keep his benefits,” Kristy says, “that the doctor had looked into it, and it was all coming with the chapter he was getting.”

In fact, Town would not get disability pay or receive long-term VA medical care. And he would have to give back the bulk of his $15,000 bonus. Returning that money meant Town would leave Fort Carson less than empty-handed: He now owed the Army more than $3,000. “We had this on our heads the whole way, driving home to Ohio,” says Town. Wexler made him promises, he says, about what would happen if he went along with the diagnosis. “The final day, we find out, none of it was true. It was a total shock. I felt like I’d been betrayed by the Army.”

Wexler denies discussing benefits with Town. In a statement, the psychologist writes, “I have never discussed benefits with my patients as that is not my area of expertise. The only thing I said to Spc. Town was that the Chapter 5-13 is an honorable discharge…. I assure you, after over 15 years in my position, both as active duty and now civilian, I don’t presume to know all the details about benefits and therefore do not discuss them with my patients.”

Wexler’s boss, Col. Steven Knorr, chief of the Department of Behavioral Health at Evans Army Hospital, declined to speak about Town’s case. When asked if doctors at Fort Carson were assuring patients set for a 5-13 discharge that they’ll receive disability benefits and keep their bonuses, Knorr said, “I don’t believe they’re doing that.”

Not the Man He Used to Be

Interviews with soldiers diagnosed with personality disorder suggest that the military is using the psychological condition as a catch-all diagnosis, encompassing symptoms as diverse as deafness, headaches and schizophrenic delusions. That flies in the face of the Army’s own regulations.

According to those regulations, to be classified a personality disorder, a soldier’s symptoms had to exist before he joined the military. And they have to match the “personality disorder” described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the national standard for psychiatric diagnosis. Town’s case provides a clear window into how these personality disorder diagnoses are being used because even a cursory examination of his case casts grave doubt as to whether he fits either criterion.

Town’s wife, for one, laughs in disbelief at the idea that her husband was suffering from hearing loss before he headed to Iraq. But since returning, she says, he can’t watch TV unless the volume is full-blast, can’t use the phone unless its volume is set to high. Medical papers from Fort Carson list Town as having no health problems before serving in Iraq; after, a Fort Carson audiologist documents “functional (non-organic) hearing loss.” Town says his right ear, his “good” ear, has lost 50 percent of its hearing; his left is still essentially useless.

He is more disturbed by how his memory has eroded. Since the rocket blast, he has struggled to retain new information. “Like, I’ll be driving places, and then I totally forget where I’m going,” he says. “Numbers, names, dates–unless I knew them before, I pretty much don’t remember.” When Town returned to his desk job at Fort Carson, he found himself straining to recall the Army’s regulations. “People were like, ‘What are you, dumb?’ And I’m like, ‘No, I’m probably smarter than you. I just can’t remember stuff,’” he says, his melancholy suddenly replaced by anger. “They don’t understand–I got hit by a rocket.”

Those bursts of rage mark the biggest change, says Kristy Town. She says the man she married four years ago was “a real goofball. He’d do funny voices and faces–a great Jim Carrey imitation. When the kids would get a boo-boo, he’d fall on the ground and pretend he got a boo-boo too.” Now, she says, “his emotions are all over the place. He’ll get so angry at things, and it’s not toward anybody. It’s toward himself. He blames himself for everything.” He has a hard time sleeping and doesn’t spend as much time as he used to with the kids. “They get rowdy when they play, and he just has to be alone. It’s almost like his nerves can’t handle it.”

Kristy begins to cry, pauses, before forcing herself to continue. She’s been watching him when he’s alone, she says. “He kind of… zones out, almost like he’s in a daze.”

In May 2006 Town tried to electrocute himself, dropping his wife’s hair dryer into the bathtub. The dryer short-circuited before it could electrify the water. Fort Carson officials put Town in an off-post hospital that specializes in suicidal depression. Town had been promoted to corporal after returning from Iraq; he was stripped of that rank and reduced back to specialist. “When he came back, I tried to be the same,” Kristy says. “He just can’t. He’s definitely not the man he used to be.”

Town says his dreams have changed too. They keep taking him back to Ramadi, to the death of a good friend who’d been too near an explosion, taken too much shrapnel to the face. In his dreams Town returns there night after night to soak up the blood.

He stops his description for a rare moment of levity. “Sleep didn’t use to be like that,” he says. “I used to sleep just fine.”

How the Army determined then that Town’s behavioral problems existed before his military service is unclear. Wexler, the Fort Carson psychologist who made the diagnosis, didn’t interview any of Town’s family or friends. It’s unclear whether he even questioned Town’s fellow soldiers in 2-17 Field Artillery, men like Fields, Murray and Michael Forbus, who could have testified to his stability and award-winning performance before the October 2004 rocket attack. As Forbus puts it, before the attack Town was “one of the best in our unit”; after, “the son of a gun was deaf in one ear. He seemed lost and disoriented. It just took the life out of him.”

Town finds his diagnosis especially strange because the Diagnostic Manual appears to preclude cases like his. It says that a pattern of erratic behavior cannot be labeled a “personality disorder” if it’s from a head injury. The specialist asserts that his hearing loss, headaches and anger all began with the rocket attack that knocked him unconscious.

Wexler did not reply to repeated requests seeking comment on Town’s diagnosis. But Col. Knorr of Fort Carson’s Evans hospital says he’s confident his doctors are properly diagnosing personality disorder. The colonel says there is a simple explanation as to why in so many cases the lifelong condition of personality disorder isn’t apparent until after serving in Iraq. Traumatic experiences, Knorr says, can trigger a condition that has lain dormant for years. “They may have done fine in high school and before, but it comes out during the stress of service.”

“I’ve never heard of that occurring,” says Keith Armstrong, a clinical professor with the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. Armstrong has been counseling traumatized veterans for more than twenty years at the San Francisco VA; most recently he is the co-author of Courage After Fire: Coping Strategies for Troops Returning From Iraq and Afghanistan and Their Families. “Personality disorder is a diagnosis I’m very cautious about,” he says. “My question would be, has PTSD been ruled out? It seems to me that if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, let’s see if it’s a duck before other factors are implicated.”

Knorr admits that in most cases, before making a diagnosis, his doctors only interview the soldier. But he adds that interviewing family members, untrained to recognize signs of personality disorder, would be of limited value. “The soldier’s perception and their parents’ perception is that they were fine. But maybe they didn’t or weren’t able to see that wasn’t the case.”

Armstrong takes a very different approach. He says family is a “crucial part” of the diagnosis and treatment of soldiers returning from war. The professor sees parents and wives as so important, he encourages his soldiers to invite their families into the counseling sessions. “They bring in particular information that can be helpful,” he says. “By not taking advantage of their knowledge and support, I think we’re doing soldiers a disservice.”

Knorr would not discuss the specifics of Town’s case. He did note, however, that his department treats thousands of soldiers each year and says within that population, there are bound to be a small fraction of misdiagnosed cases and dissatisfied soldiers. He adds that the soldiers he’s seen diagnosed and discharged with personality disorder are “usually quite pleased.”

The Army holds soldiers’ medical records and contact information strictly confidential. But The Nation was able to locate a half-dozen soldiers from bases across the country who were diagnosed with personality disorder. All of them rejected that diagnosis. Most said military doctors tried to force the diagnosis upon them and turned a blind eye to symptoms of PTSD and physical injury.

One such veteran, Richard Dykstra, went to the hospital at Fort Stewart, Georgia, complaining of flashbacks, anger and stomach pains. The doctor there diagnosed personality disorder. Dykstra thinks the symptoms actually stem from PTSD and a bilateral hernia he suffered in Iraq. “When I told her my symptoms, she said, ‘Oh, it looks like you’ve been reading up on PTSD.’ Then she basically said I was making it all up,” he says.

In her report on Dykstra, Col. Ana Parodi, head of Behavioral Health at Fort Stewart’s Winn Army Hospital, writes that the soldier gives a clear description of PTSD symptoms but lays them out with such detail, it’s “as if he had memorized the criteria.” She concludes that Dykstra has personality disorder, not PTSD, though her report also notes that Dykstra has had “no previous psychiatric history” and that she confirmed the validity of his symptoms with the soldier’s wife.

Parodi is currently on leave and could not be reached for comment. Speaking for Fort Stewart, Public Affairs Officer Lieut. Col. Randy Martin says that the Army’s diagnosis procedures “have been developed over time, and they are accepted as being fair.” Martin said he could not address Dykstra’s case specifically because his files have been moved to a storage facility in St. Louis.

William Wooldridge had a similar fight with the Army. The specialist was hauling missiles and tank ammunition outside Baghdad when, he says, a man standing at the side of the road grabbed hold of a young girl and pushed her in front of his truck. “The little girl,” Wooldridge says, his voice suddenly quiet, “she looked like one of my daughters.”

When he returned to Fort Polk, Louisiana, Wooldridge told his doctor that he was now hearing voices and seeing visions, hallucinations of a mangled girl who would ask him why he had killed her. His doctor told him he had personality disorder. “When I heard that, I flew off the handle because I said, ‘Hey, that ain’t me. Before I went over there, I was a happy-go-lucky kind of guy.’” Wooldridge says his psychologist, Capt. Patrick Brady of Baynes-Jones Army Community Hospital, saw him for thirty minutes before making his diagnosis. Soon after, Wooldridge was discharged from Fort Polk under Chapter 5-13.

He began to fight that discharge immediately, without success. Then in March 2005, eighteen months after Wooldridge’s dismissal, his psychiatrist at the Memphis VA filed papers rejecting Brady’s diagnosis and asserting that Wooldridge suffered from PTSD so severe, it made him “totally disabled.” Weeks later the Army Discharge Review Board voided Wooldridge’s 5-13 dismissal, but the eighteen months he’d spent lingering without benefits had already taken its toll.

“They put me out on the street to rot, and if I had left things like they were, there would have been no way I could have survived. I would have had to take myself out or had someone do it for me,” he says. The way they use personality disorder to diagnose and discharge, he says, “it’s like a mental rape. That’s the only way I can describe it.”

Captain Brady has since left Fort Polk and is now on staff at Fort Wainwright, Alaska; recently he deployed to Iraq and was unavailable for comment. In a statement, Maj. Byron Strother, chief of the Department of Behavioral Health at Baynes-Jones hospital, writes that allegations that soldiers at Fort Polk are being misdiagnosed “are not true.” Strother says diagnoses at his hospital are made “only after careful consideration of all relevant clinical observation, direct examination [and] appropriate testing.”

If there are dissatisfied soldiers, says Knorr, the Fort Carson official, “I’ll bet not a single one of them has been diagnosed with conditions that are clear-cut and makes them medically unfit, like schizophrenia.”

Linda Mosier disputes that. When her son Chris left for Iraq in 2004, he was a “normal kid,” she says, who’d call her long-­distance and joke about the strange food and expensive taxis overseas. When he returned home for Christmas 2005, “he wouldn’t sit down for a meal with us. He just kept walking around. I took him to the department store for slacks, and he was inside rushing around saying, ‘Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.’ He wouldn’t sleep, and the one time he did, he woke up screaming.”

Mosier told his mother of a breaking point in Iraq: a roadside bomb that blew up the truck in front of his. “He said his buddies were screaming. They were on fire,” she says, her voice trailing off. “He was there at the end to pick up the hands and arms.” After that Mosier started having delusions. Dr. Wexler of Fort Carson diagnosed personality disorder. Soon after, Mosier was discharged under Chapter 5-13.

Mosier returned home, still plagued by visions. In October he put a note on the front door of their Des Moines, Iowa, home saying the Iraqis were after him and he had to protect the family, then shot himself.

Mosier’s mother is furious that doctors at Fort Carson treated her son for such a brief period of time and that Wexler, citing confidentiality, refused to tell her anything about that treatment or give her family any direction on how to help Chris upon his return home. She does not believe her son had a personality disorder. “They take a normal kid, he comes back messed up, then nobody was there for him when he came back,” Linda says. “They discharged him so they didn’t have to treat him.”

Wexler did not reply to a written request seeking comment on Mosier’s case.

Thrown to the Wolves

Today Jon Town is home, in small-town Findlay, Ohio, with no job, no prospects and plenty of time to reflect on how he got there. Diagnosing him with personality disorder may have saved the Army thousands of dollars, he says, but what did Wexler have to gain?

Quite a lot, says Steve Robinson, director of veterans affairs at Veterans for America, a Washington, DC-based soldiers’ rights group. Since the Iraq War began, he says, doctors have been facing an overflow of wounded soldiers and a shortage of rooms, supplies and time to treat them. By calling PTSD a personality disorder, they usher one soldier out quickly, freeing up space for the three or four who are waiting.

Terry, the veterans’ advocate from IWVO, notes that unlike doctors in the private sector, Army doctors who give questionable diagnoses face no danger of malpractice suits due to Feres v. U.S., a 1950 Supreme Court ruling that bars soldiers from suing for negligence. To maintain that protection, Terry says, most doctors will diagnose personality disorder when prodded to do so by military officials.

That’s precisely how the system works, says one military official familiar with the discharge process. The official, who requested anonymity, is a lawyer with Trial Defense Services (TDS), a unit of the Army that guides soldiers through their 5-13 discharge. “Commanders want to get these guys out the door and get it done fast. Even if the next soldier isn’t as good, at least he’s good to go. He’s deployable. So they’re telling the docs what diagnosis to give to get what discharge.”

The lawyer says he knows this is happening because commanders have told him that they’re doing it. “Some have come to me and talked about doing this. They’re saying, ‘Give me a specific diagnosis. It’ll support a certain chapter.’”

Colonel Martin of Fort Stewart said the prospect of commanders pressuring doctors to diagnose personality disorder is “highly unlikely.” “Doctors are making these determinations themselves,” Martin says. In a statement, Col. William Statz, commander at Fort Polk’s Baynes-Jones hospital, says, “Any allegations that clinical decisions are influenced by either political considerations or command pressures, at any level, are untrue.”

But a second TDS lawyer, who also demanded anonymity, says he’s watched the same process play out at his base. “What I’ve noticed is right before a unit deploys, we see a spike in 5-13s, as if the commanders are trying to clean house, get rid of the soldiers they don’t really need,” he says. “The chain of command just wants to eliminate them and get a new body in there fast to plug up the holes.” If anyone shows even moderate signs of psychological distress, he says, “they’re kicking them to the curb instead of treating them.”

Both lawyers say that once a commander steps in and pushes for a 5-13, the diagnosis and discharge are carved in stone fairly fast. After that happens, one lawyer says he points soldiers toward the Army Board for Correction of Military Records, where a 5-13 label could be overturned, and failing that, advises them to seek redress from their representative in Congress. Town did that, contacting Republican Representative Michael Oxley of Ohio, with little success. Oxley, who has since retired, did not return calls seeking comment.

Few cases are challenged successfully or overturned later, say the TDS lawyers. The system, says one, is essentially broken. “Right now, the Army is eating its own. What I want to see is these soldiers getting the right diagnosis, so they can get the right help, not be thrown to the wolves right away. That is what they’re doing.”

Still, Town tries to remain undaunted. He got his story to Robinson of Veterans for America, who brought papers on his case to an October meeting with several top Washington officials, including Deputy Surgeon General Gale Pollock, Assistant Surgeon General Bernard DeKoning and Republican Senator Kit Bond of Missouri. There Robinson laid out the larger 5-13 problem and submitted a briefing specifically on Town.

“We got a very positive response,” Robinson says. “After we presented, they were almost appalled, like we are every day. They said, ‘We didn’t know this was happening.’” Robinson says the deputy surgeon general promised to look into Town’s case and the others presented to her. Senator Bond, whose son has served in Iraq, floated the idea of a Congressional hearing if the 5-13 issue isn’t resolved. The senator did not return calls seeking comment.

In the meantime, Town is doing his best to keep his head in check. He says his nightmares have been waning in recent weeks, but most of his problems persist. He’s thinking of going to a veterans support group in Toledo, forty-five miles north of Findlay. There will be guys there who have been through this, he says, vets who understand.

Town hesitates, his voice suddenly much softer. “I have my good days and my bad days,” he says. “It all depends on whether I wake up in Findlay or Iraq.”