Midterm Exam: Analysis of “The Wounded Platoon”

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Recommended: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in Military Veterans Outline

PBS’ Frontline film “The Wounded Platoon” reviews the effects the Iraq war has had on soldiers as they return home and transition back into civilian life, focusing particularly on the rise in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among American military members from Fort Carson Army base (Edge, 2010). Incidents of PTSD have risen dramatically in the military since the beginning of the Iraq war and military mental health policies and treatment procedures have adapted to manage this increase (Edge, 2010). In “The Wounded Platoon,” many military personnel discuss how PTSD, and other mental health struggles, have been inadequately treated (if at all) by military mental health services. Reasons and Perdue’s definition of a social problem allows us to see inadequate treatment of PTSD among returning United States military members as a social problem because it is a condition affecting a significant number of people in undesirable ways that can be remedied through collective action (Reasons & Perdue, 1981). Neoconservative Paradigm From a neoconservative perspective, social problems only occur when the individuals fail to properly care for themselves. Using this perspective, the rise in PTSD is not a social problem, but a personal problem and it is up to the individual to resolve it rather than society or institutions. Neoconservatives believe that individuals are either morally superior or inferior and that poverty is the result of improper values, attitudes, behaviors, or choices (Mullaly, 2007). This perspective diminishes the role society and its’ institutions play in generational poverty and oppression, taking a victim-blaming stance and labeling individuals as deviants. Individuals begin to see their social/personal probl... ... middle of paper ... ...t and seeing signs of improvement in their mental health (Edge, 2010). Ultimately, the current structure of the United States’ society under capitalism does not allow for an adequate solution to the social problem of the rise of PTSD among military members. Society is structured around individual and corporate interests, which does not leave room for the unique treatments required for PTSD. Unless capitalism is dismantled and a socialist society is created, which would dramatically change the current military structure and potentially reinstate the draft, soldiers will be forced to seek treatment from the neoconservative and liberal systems that offer inadequate treatment, if at all. As social workers, we must operate from the radical humanist perspective of structural social work and seek to help our military members from within the current system, for now.

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