(Washington D.C.) – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray, Chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, sent a letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta requesting next steps and a timeline for the execution of a critical military-wide review of PTSD and behavioral health diagnoses made since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began. The review, which Secretary Panetta promised following the misdiagnoses of servicemembers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, has seemingly stalled since being announced on June 13th. 

“The Department must act with a sense of urgency in order to complete this review and to act on its findings in coordinating with other ongoing efforts to improve the disability evaluation system.” Murray wrote to Panetta. “Each of these efforts is vital in ensuring servicemembers truly have a transparent, consistent, and expeditious disability evaluation process.”  

Senator Murray’s letter also addressed her concerns that records for military units in Iraq and Afghanistan, which are often used to provide information on potential health and exposure issues be carefully identified, located, and collected. 

The full text of Senator Murray’s letter follows:

October 18, 2012

The Honorable Leon E. Panetta

Secretary of Defense

1000 Defense Pentagon

Washington, DC  20301

Dear Secretary Panetta:  

I am writing to express my concern about two distinct issues, which taken together impact the disability evaluation process for servicemembers and veterans.  

At the outset, I very much appreciate your ongoing efforts to address behavioral health diagnoses and care both within the Integrated Disability Evaluation System and throughout the Department at large.  In June, as part of this ongoing effort, you announced a comprehensive Department-wide review of mental health diagnoses.  Shortly after the announcement, I had the opportunity to meet with Under Secretary Conaton to discuss some of the initial steps the Department had taken in preparation for this review.  However, it appears that progress on this effort may have stalled.  I am writing today to request the Department’s next steps and timeline for execution of this review.  

The Department must act with a sense of urgency in order to complete this review and to act on its findings in coordinating with other ongoing efforts to improve the disability evaluation system.  Each of these efforts is vital in ensuring servicemembers truly have a transparent, consistent, and expeditious disability evaluation process.    

My second concern relates to the ability of the Department, and specifically the Army, to identify and account for many records for units that served in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The lack of access to documentation of the locations and functions of specific military units interferes with the ability of both servicemembers and veterans to obtain evidence of military service that may result in adverse health conditions now or in the future.  As we have learned from prior conflicts, this lack of documentation all too often leads to hardship for veterans in establishing a relationship between military service and a specific medical condition.  

The lack of accessible documents may also impede future research efforts if health care problems arise from service in Iraq or Afghanistan.  For these reasons, I would like to know the current status of efforts to identify, locate and collect records for units that served in Iraq and Afghanistan.  I also urge you to take all necessary steps to ensure unit records are properly archived and accessible.           

I appreciate your attention to these requests and look forward to our continued work together to strengthen both the disability evaluation system and behavioral health diagnoses and care and to ensure our servicemembers and veterans have access to critical military documents.    

Sincerely,

Patty Murray

Chairman

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