Mayor: Backers of free mental health care for soldiers are "anti-army"

[Rose Siding]

Facing protesters who picketed a City Council meeting Tuesday, Colorado Springs Mayor Lionel Rivera said he won’t endorse a program to give soldiers free mental-health care because its organizers have a “second agenda.”

Operation Just One, which would match Iraq war veterans with professionals willing to give free and confidential counseling, is backed by people who oppose the war and are “anti-Army,” Rivera said during a break in the meeting.

Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center, which is underwriting the program, accused the mayor of pandering to military brass in Colorado Springs.

“Someone convinced him that it was better to shoot the messenger than support the program,” Robinson said in a telephone interview Tuesday evening from Maryland.
....
One of Robinson’s claims is that soldiers won’t seek mental-health help at Fort Carson because they fear it would ruin their Army careers. He also says that Fort Carson lacks adequate psychiatric care for soldiers, a claim the post disputes.

http://www.gazette.com/display.php?id=1311180&secid=1

[tk2kewl]

1. It's a plot...

sounds like the mayor could use some free mental health care for his paranoia

[liberal N proud]

2. Has the man ever known any soldier that returned from combat

shell shocked?
It does not sound like it.

[meganmonkey]

3. Good lord - is it that difficult a concept?

That someone can be anti-war and pro-soldier?!

Apparently so... *shakes head*

[Larkspur]

5. Only for the pro-war, anti-soldier crowd.

War is good. Social services for war veterans is bad. Soldiers are suppose to die in a blaze of patriotic glory and not be a burden to the elite who sent them. :sarcasm:

[afdip]

4. the shame is that once the active duty or reservists

are back in civilian life, they'll have to deal with the veteran's administration suffering from budget cuts. bushco, for all the lip service they give to vets, are just shoving them to the back of the bus -- if they get on the bus at all.

[applegrove]

6. At the very least they need free pharmaceuticals and free treatment for

PTSD until they are stabilized. Why would some great fighters come home from war and get mortgages & education and this lot not?

Creepy. Neocons just spread the juice and it is fun to say all sorts of evil stuff.