You're still dealing with dinosaurs. There are still people in the organization who do not believe that PTSD is a viable injury, despite all the medical evidence to the contrary.
The root issue is one of education. Again, I come back to the SHARP program where the military was not asked but forced to sit down and endure lecture after lecture on what constitutes good behaviour. The same thing needs to happen within the structure of the military for PTSD and mental injuries.
Education is the key here. That is why I plug it into the post-deployment thing, because while it's true that there were many babies born nine months after the deployment, I can tell you that there were 37 sets of divorce papers sitting on the clerk's desk. There were many separations, and I can't tell you how many boyfriend-girlfriend splits that occurred after guys came home. First, it's the reintegration back into the family, second, into the society, and then accepting the fact that when we take on a job that puts the mission first, to admit weakness is a bad thing. We need to change that type of culture.
Let's be clear; it's not easy to be the man who we all imagine ourselves to be, the guy in the black balaclava, the perfect pilot, the perfect sailor. The road is too long and the hills are too heavy and high. When we end up taking a knee because of the strain that we're put under because we're understaffed, overworked, and trying to do too much with too little, even though we accomplish it.... I can tell you that Brian doesn't get to do the job that he would like to do for his troops because he has too many reports and returns to do.
All we're asking is that at some point we acknowledge that it's a tough row to hoe and that what we want is a little help along the way.