This mindset needs to be removed

The very fact that the Army has on its medical evaluation staff, officers, doctors who are in decision-making positions that affect the retirement of soldiers — while at the same time holding the opinion that they are the nation’s “financial gatekeepers” — is simply unconscionable [“Army doc suspended over PTSD comments,” page one, Feb. 4].

Doctors with such a mindset should be barred from evaluating soldiers for any medical condition affecting their retirement from military service.

As Sen. Patty Murray rightly points out, “Their [the doctor’s] job is only one thing — to determine whether or not the patient has PTSD. And it is Congress’ job to make sure we have the resources to compensate them.”

Madigan Army Medical Center has done the right thing by suspending two of the doctors involved in assessing the PTSD diagnoses of soldiers under consideration for medical retirement.

But the Army needs to go further and purge all of its decision-making boards of officers with such mindsets — and, having served as president of the Army’s Walter Reed Medical Center Physical Evaluation Board, I can attest to the fact that there are many.

This article involved only PTSD but it is just as applicable to any disabling medical condition.

— Charles Bickel, Poulsbo