Monday, March 26, 2012

Report Finds Hundreds of Illegal Personality Disorder Discharges

Full article at: Newly Disclosed Records Reveal Hundreds More Illegal Personality Disorder Discharges; VVA Finds Navy and Air Force Worst Offenders WASHINGTON, March 22, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Since 2008, the Department of Defense (DoD) has illegally discharged hundreds of veterans on the alleged basis of personality disorder (PD), denying them veterans' benefits, according to a Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) analysis of newly disclosed records released today. The analysis further concludes that since Fiscal Year (FY) 2002, the Navy has discharged the most service members on this basis in absolute terms (7735), and in FY 2006 the Air Force set a military record for the Afghanistan and Iraq era when PD discharges accounted for 3.7 percent of all airmen being discharged (1114 of 29,498 service members). The VVA report, Casting Troops Aside: The United States Military's Illegal Personality Disorder Discharge Problem, is based on records obtained by VVA in federal Freedom of Information Act litigation. The report found that, since 2008, internal DoD reviews discovered hundreds of illegal PD discharges, and since FY 2001, the military has discharged over 31,000 service members on the alleged basis of PD."