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Tara McKelvey reports on one vet's campaign to turn his experience into a lesson for lawmakers:
Over the past several years, [Andrew] Pogany has visited military installations, set up meetings between congressional leaders and soldiers, and examined ways the Army can improve its mental-health care. On Jan. 1, 2008, he was hired as an investigator for the National Veterans Legal Services Program, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization. Experts in the field of veterans' care say he is one of the most effective advocates in the country. "Congress tends to hear about the military from higher-ups, and there's an institutional response. They're making things look the best they can," says Charles Sheehan-Miles, former executive director of Veterans for Common Sense. Pogany has worked hard to ensure that people in Washington meet directly with individuals who have been through the military's mental-heath-care system -- "the folks on the ground," as Sheehan-Miles explains.Pogany knows a great deal about the subject of mental-health care for veterans and soldiers, both through his research and from his own experience in the military. "I see this guy, and he's always pushing the meds," Pogany recalls, describing the mental-health treatment he had received. "‘So I say, 'Let's just say I'm going to take this drug. What are the side effects?' He had to look them up. One of them, it turns out, is an inability to get an erection. I'm like, ‘You think I'm depressed now?' He said, ‘If that happens, we'll just give you a prescription for Viagra.' We both laugh. "Later, I find out people I know are on nine or ten meds. I felt like I was dealing with a M-A-S-H episode. There is this comedy of errors, and it culminates with this guy going home and blowing his brains out. And they say, 'Oh, well, he was depressed.'"Read the rest (and comment) here.--The Editors
