Some soldiers will return from Iraq and Afghanistan with severe psychological problems. However, imposing on them the questionable legacy of Vietnam will not do them any service.

So men and women who faced death at Fallujah or Kandahar or Desert Storm are now to face death panels at home? That’s the upshot of the administration’s plans for military health care.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is implementing new rules that seek to make it easier for veterans that have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder to receive disability, but misapplied largess can undermine the recovery prospects of other veterans.

By the end of the year, 10,000 American soldiers in Afghanistan will be home with their families--and their memories. As many as 20 percent of them will suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety or depression, while suicide rates have reached tragic new highs among veterans. In response, the Department of Veterans Affairs has greatly expanded its mental health services.

The Obama administration knows full well what the state of the military is. However, because it would rather shift the country’s spending priorities to domestic programs long favored by Democrats, it has willingly accepted, indeed gone beyond, what the 2011 Budget Control Act required in cuts to national security programs.

There is in fact a powerful reason to scrutinize the psychology field: we are in the midst of a mental illness epidemic. Office visits by children and adolescents treated for the condition jumped forty-fold from 1994 to 2003.

AEI scholar and psychiatrist Sally Satel explains the number of problems with current PTSD treatments and proposes methods to optimize the use of PTSD funding.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is now paying compensation for post-traumatic stress disordera newround of veterans--those in their 50s and 60s who fought in Vietnam.