Cindy McCain, in an interview published by Marie Claire:
MC: You met your husband after his POW days. To what extent is that still with you — or is it a part of history?
CM: My husband will be the first one to tell you that that’s in the past. Certainly it’s a part of who he is, but he doesn’t dwell on it. It’s not part of a daily experience that we experience or anything like that. But it has shaped him. It has made him the leader that he is.MC: But no cold sweats in the middle of the night?
CM: Oh, no, no, no, no, no. My husband, he’d be the first one to tell you that he was trained to do what he was doing. The guys who had the trouble were the 18-year-olds who were drafted. He was trained, he went to the Naval Academy, he was a trained United States naval officer, and so he knew what he was doing.
Really? The only veterans in Vietnam were the 18-year-old kids who were drafted? Let’s be real. Some people may say that this shouldn’t matter when you’re voting for president. I disagree. I’d bet that Cindy and Sen. McCain have discussed this before. Can’t you just hear McCain “Oh, no! I never had PTSD … it was just those untrained kids who couldn’t deal!”
Give me a break. The National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study estimates that around one-third of those who served in Vietnam experienced some kind of PTSD. And many experts say that the prevalance is underestimated due to social stigmas and a lack of definitive research. More recently, the VA noticed a 30% increase in PTSD claims in 2005. Do the McCains think those are just from untrained kids? Hardly. If you don’t understand — or just disregard — the source of a problem, how are you supposed to provide the leadership needed to fix it?