During the Vietnam War and after, many service personnel who had suffered traumatic experience were bounced out of the service with 'personality disorders' on general or honorable discharges because it was a back-door way of getting them out of the service and easy for the medical and personnel-types to administer.

This was a tragic and unethical way of doing business in those days...however, since there was no diagnosis of PTSD, many diagnosticians didn't know what else to do.

Here we are a full generation later and the practice continues. It is more tragic and unethical today...as we have the Acute Stress Disorder and PTSD diagnoses to work with.

A recent news story noted that 22,000 personnel have been discharged with 'personality disorders,' rather than more accurate diagnoses. This is likely done for a variety of reasons...not the least of which is that the military services are prone to avoid liability for injuries sustained in combat and don't want to admit that liability.

It may be confusing to some, but the mix of TBI, PTSD and ASD requires a lot of work on the part of a diagnostician either in the military or within the VA. Hopefully, VSOs can pick up on this and push hard for veterans with the 'personality disorder' diagnosis.

A true 'personality disorder' is a pervasive and easy to spot Axis II disorder, and would be evident prior to entrance into the military; trouble with the legal system, an inability to get along with others, etc. It is a developmental disorder, not something that pops up in the late teens or early 20s of a person's life.

Two things come to mind: Either the military is so hard up for people that such people are sworn in (very hard to believe) or there is something else at work here; avoidance of liability, laziness...you get the picture.

Any vet who has received any diagnosis should work with their VSO to insure that a proper diagnosis is made as quickly as possible on return to CONUS to get the requisite treatment and appropriate level of service.

Shame on the military for allowing this practice to continue!

As a retired personnel officer that put many out the way you are referring to, during the 70's, here is my take on it.
The personnel and command types were removed from responsibility, when there was a soldier with a problem, we simply sent him to see a shrink, it was ONLY by that medical type diagnosis was an individual discharged. We could not offer so much as a suggestion, since we were non medical types.
It was of course easier for the medical types to tell us to kick him out, than to "waste" any time on cures or attempts to correct the problem. We all had a win-win situation, except for the soldier.

OldFCop....I think both are a work.During the Vietnam war the military dropped standards for men under mental but not women, I myself can vouch for this that standards for women were higher than men during and after the draft. Many troops had criminal and mental backgrounds and we women were subjected to them. The rape statistics then were higher than when the standards were raised.(one statistic alone) This is happening again. Thus the same is happening again where the same problems are occurring except today there are more drug problems in addition. Good and bad will suffer with relaxed standards.

Thanks both for your comments.

We recently saw a case where a person re-upped, got a bonus, went back into theater, developed PTSD from Tour 1, was discharged with a personality disorder diagnosis; worse yet, could not qualify for any treatment or benefits....and had to pay back the bonus.

There were 21,000 PD discharges in 2001, which is unbelievable...and how many lives are being affected by this level of incompetence.

I don't have a link, but there is now some activity going on between DoD and the VA to try to mend some fences.

Hopefully it will be done ASAFP.

Thanks all.

I think you put your finger on part of the problem.... they send them back into theater before they treat them for PTSD for the first incident. They bring them out of combat and send them right back in without noting the signs and symptoms of developing problems. So sad and the soldier suffers.

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So sad and the soldier suffers.

Not only does the soldier suffer but so too does his/her family, community and the larger community in which we all live.

Recently DoD and the VA have stated that they are going to try to 'work together,' which is a pretty l-a-t-e statement in my view, to help vets.

I guess we can be thankful that something is being done!

Isn't that a pointer at an arising far worse problem? We've never --to my knowledge at least-- has a war situation quite like this one, in which non-active duty people are sent, held for extended tours, finally brought back home, and re=sent, multiple times. If these people are ripe for PTSD problems after their first tour, what is this new method of deployment going to cause by the end of the war (if there is an end. At this point I wonder if we'll ever be out of the area...).

I'm glad I found this info...I had read about PTSD being re-classified as a personality disorder but can't find the link...perhaps this is what was actually meant. It's a bit frightening...I can see the V.A. now, saddling me with a lable of PD because I had trouble at work and the management claimed I had trouble getting along with others after I called the union a few times....

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I had read about PTSD being re-classified as a personality disorder

This all too-often happens in the military because it is an easier way to get a person discharged. Unfortunately, it happens all the time and has been going on for decades. This practice requires the veteran to go through tons of hoops and bureacratic red tape for many years while paying the price of bonafide PTSD in many cases. This practice not only hurts the veteran, but the vet's family and community.

We've had a few article on this topic in the past and there was a recent Moderator discussion about this.

A 'personality disorder,' is a functional dis-abling condition with unknown causes. It is likely (and we have all discussed this before as well) that an individual with a 'personality disorder' would have a very hard time fitting into any military service, even for a short period of time.

So, the discharge process is flawed in many cases by those who wish to dump the servicemember out of the military and back into civilian life without many resources to support their condition, which actually may be a number of things and it will take a very long time and a great deal of work on the part of the veteran and many other professionals to sort out the mess created by DoD.

Sorry about the length of this posting, but this has been a long-standing problem and DoD really needs to get its act together and properly diagnose the condition of a servicemember prior to discharge in a competent and ethical fashion.

If not, well, the consequences are more than unfortunate; tragic is a much better word.