In the March 4, 2012 report from the Northwest McClatchey-Belingham News Tribune noted that the Madigan PTSD team had a superb reputation. In fact, the Army Surgeon General, Patricia Horoho endorsed the so called “forensic psychiatry unit at Madigan “as an example of best practices in a briefing she gave senior Army leaders at the Pentagon in March 2009,” when she was then the commander of the hospital. She called the forensic program “an innovative solution to meet increased demands.” So, the doctors who she praised while commander are the same physicians and psychologists she has now thrown under the bus to cover her own ass. In fact, “the forensic psychiatry unit has an extensive history dating to the middle of the Iraq war…It was known to the past four Madigan commanders, including one who predated Horoho. The News Tribune stated “right up until three weeks ago, Madigan was the shining example of what was right,” said retired COL Mike Courts, “who was familiar with the forensic psychology unit as the Chief of Staff for the Lewis-McChord I corps during the 2009-2010 deployment to Iraq.” Courts asked the question: “Since when is the right diagnosis the wrong answer?” The Surgeon General used the program to shine her credentials when it was expedient, and may well have contributed in some small way to her rapid rise to her current position. And now, certainly because members of Congress are doing the fecal smear in this election year and the media are shining some light on her best practices, so to speak, she is taking cover under the trenchcoats of indignant members of Congress. In fact, the Surgeon General and members of Congress have no idea what they are talking about, but they are skilled at ignoring the real issues of the abomination of mental health services to our servicemen and women. Now the Secretary of Defense, the honorable and ingratiating Leon Panetta , is doing his comparative coprology: “Panetra replied [to inquiries] “that he was troubled by the Madigan reports and said he asked his undersecretary of personnel, Dr. Jo Anne Rooney, to look into the situation at Madigan.” (Wow, the under secretayr of Perosnnel) When actually, if any senior member of the Surgeon General’s office had any cajones, they would put a stop to this debacle and get on with looking at the piss poor quality of mental health care for members of the United States military. There has been no significant progress since at least 1973, the year the Vietnam war ended. Let me give an example of this mess in an upclose and personal vignette: A 38 yer old Army E5 (SGT) has been in the Army 9 years and has been deployed 6 times. Most recently he was medically evacuated from Afghanistan because he was not sleeping and was unable to carryout his duties as an 11Bravo (combat infantry), was suicidal, failed to take medication previously prescribed at his home base for Bipolar disorder and PTSD, and was sent from Afghanistan through Germany to a WTU in North Carolina, where he became suicidal, was hospitalized and found to be consuming a liter of vodka per day; he thus was then referred to the substance abuse rehab (RTF). Before he entered the Army he had at least 3 suicide attempts and was in 2 inpatient substance abuse treatment programs. There have also been multiple psychiatric hospitalizations since he entered the military. The obvious question: how did he get in the Army in the first place? is easily answered: in the time of buildup a recruiter does not ask the necessary questions or ignores the answers so that a quota can be filled. How he continues to be considered able to be deployed is no doubt related to the mess we call the behavioral health service of the US Army and the need for his line commanders to fill slots even when it puts this particular soldier and his unit in jeopardy. And, as I can demonstrate, this not an isolated example. More cover stories to follow.