No Purple Hearts for PTSD, Pentagon rules - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

No Purple Hearts for PTSD, Pentagon rules

The Purple Heart will not be awarded to service members suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, the Pentagon confirmed Monday.

“It’s not a qualifying Purple Heart wound,” said Defense Department spokeswoman Eileen Lainez, although she added that “advancements in medical science may support future re-evaluation.”

The decision, reached Nov. 3 but not made public until now, followed months of evaluation by military and outside officials. That evaluation was spurred when Defense Secretary Robert Gates was asked at a May press conference whether he would support awarding the Purple Heart to PTSD sufferers.

Gates said the idea was “clearly something that needs to be looked at.” His undersecretary for personnel and readiness, David S.C. Chu, decided against making such awards after conferring with the Pentagon’s Awards Advisory Group, which includes “awards experts” from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the military services, the Institute of Heraldry and the Center for Military History, according to Lainez.

Gates concurred with that decision, Lainez said.

The decision was first reported Monday by the Stars and Stripes newspaper.

The Purple Heart “recognizes those individuals wounded to a degree that requires treatment by a medical officer, in action with the enemy or as the result of enemy action where the intended effect of a specific enemy action is to kill or injure the service member,” Lainez said.

PTSD “is not a wound intentionally caused by the enemy from an outside force or agent, but is a secondary effect caused by witnessing or experiencing a traumatic event,” she said.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, PTSD is an anxiety disorder that can develop “after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened.”

The affliction is one of several reported in high numbers among veterans returning from duty in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, both marked by long tours and high exposure to combat trauma.

Lainez listed several additional factors in the Pentagon’s decision:

•Based on the definition of a wound, “an injury to any part of the body from an outside force or agent,” other Purple Heart award criteria, and 76 years of precedent, the Purple Heart has been limited to award for physical wounds, not psychological wounds;

•PTSD is specifically listed as an injury not justifying award of the Purple Heart in Title 32 of the Code of Federal Regulations.

•The requirement that a qualifying Purple Heart wound be caused by “an outside force or agent” provides a fairly objective assessment standard that minimizes disparate treatment between service members. Several members could witness the same traumatic event, for instance, but only those who suffer from PTSD would receive the Purple Heart.

•Current medical knowledge and technologies do not establish PTSD as objectively and routinely as would be required for this award at this time.

•Historically, the Purple Heart has never been awarded for mental disorders or psychological conditions resulting from witnessing or experiencing traumatic combat events — for example, combat stress reaction, shell-shock, combat stress fatigue, acute stress disorder, or PTSD.

Lainez stressed that the Pentagon “is working hard to encourage service members and their families to seek care for PTSD, by reducing the stigma and urging them to seek professional care.”

Service members diagnosed with PTSD “still warrant appropriate medical care and disability compensation,” she said.