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January 7, 2009

Pentagon: PTSD Victims Not Eligible for Purple Heart
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The Pentagon has rejected a proposal to make troops suffering from
post-traumatic stress disorder eligible for the Purple Heart. The
newspaper Stars and Stripes reports the matter came up in May, when a
military psychologist told reporters he felt that making troops
suffering from PTSD eligible for the Purple Heart would help remove the
disorder’s stigma. The psychologist, John Fortunato, said soldiers have
paid as high a price as anybody with a traumatic brain injury or anybody
with a shrapnel wound.