The Nexus between Engaged in Combat with the Enemy and PTSD in an Era of Changing Warfare Tactics

The Nexus between Engaged in Combat with the Enemy and PTSD in an Era of Changing Warfare Tactics

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for hearing me speak today.  On behalf of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America the nation’s first and largest non-partisan non-profit organization for veterans of the current conflict, I would like to thank you all for your unwavering commitment to our nation’s veterans.

My name is Carolyn Schapper, and I am a combat veteran.  While serving on a Tactical Human Intelligence Team in Iraq from October 2005 to September 2006, I participated in approximately 200 combat patrols.   The “traditional” rolls that men and women have played in combat have changed dramatically over the last 20 years.  From MPs to Fighter Pilots, the roll that women play in combat has become more and more familiar to those of us who have been over there.  The nature of asymmetrical warfare has demanded more of our soldiers both in changing the perceptions of who fights to the way we negotiate the battlefield.  More and more, women are being called upon to serve on the front lines.  While not necessarily infantry or armor soldiers, women play an active role in the combat theater across a wide range of specialties that often place them in direct contact with the enemy. 

Although women are technically excluded from combat roles, many female troops have seen combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, and are suffering from PTSD or other psychological injuries as a result.  Although the military occupational rolls women work in comparatively reduce their exposure to combat, rates of psychological injury appear to be similar to rates among men.  One unique factor in the psychological injuries suffered by female troops is the threat of sexual harassment and assault. Military Sexual Trauma leads to a 59 percent higher risk for mental health problems.

The nature of modern warfare and the history of this conflict force us to constantly reassess the conventional wisdom surrounding what we perceive to be the “front lines”.  No longer is there a single line in the sand where the military operates according to a rigid force structure that defines the rolls of combat, combat support and combat service support soldiers.  To determine whether one’s Post Traumatic Stress is combat related based on an outdated perception of combat operations hurts veterans and is an active impediment to the recovery and reintegration process.

When returning home and seeking treatment at the Department of Veterans Affairs, it is critical that the criteria that they use to rate and award compensation for service connected disabilities reflect the reality on the ground. It is the feeling of IAVA that the nature of PTSD makes it difficult to identify stressors in the plainest of cases, and quite often it is the perceptions of the traditional combat roll that is used to evaluate service connection.  A service connection for post traumatic stress would seem obvious for a former infantryman, but would undoubtedly come under more scrutiny for a female intelligence agent despite how much actual contact either of us had with enemy forces.

H.R. 952, introduced by the chairman, corrects this hole in the evaluation process by changing title 38 to presume service connection for PTSD based solely on a soldier’s presence in a combat zone.  This is a common sense solution to a complex problem that continues to change as the nature of warfare evolves.