'Not Obama's Fault That Sarah Palin's Son Has PTSD,' Veteran's Group Head Says
A nonprofit organization for veterans has blasted Sarah Palin for recent comments she made attributing her son's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in part to Obama's failure to help veterans once they return home.
Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America [IAVA], a nonpartisan nonprofit group based in New York City, recently argued that PTSD is a "complicated" mental health issue that cannot be blamed on any one person.
"It's not President Obama's fault that Sarah Palin's son has PTSD," Rieckhoff, who founded the IAVA in 2004, told NBC News. "PTSD is a very serious problem, a complicated mental health injury and I would be extremely reluctant to blame any one person in particular."
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Rieckhoff went on to suggest that Palin is in a good position as a political figure and former vice presidential candidate to do something about PTSD awareness.
"This is a great opportunity for Sarah Palin to sound the alarm about PTSD," he said. "Now that she has endorsed Mr. Trump, I would encourage her to talk with him about it. Mr. Trump's campaign is pretty light on specifics about what he would do for veterans."
Palin said during a Tulsa, Oklahoma rally for GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump this week that her 26-year-old son Track's recent arrest was due to his struggle with PTSD, suggesting that Obama is in part to blame for soldiers returning to the United States without sufficient resources to deal with their trauma.
"My son, like so many others, they come back a bit different, they come back hardened, they come back wondering if there is that respect for what it is that their fellow soldiers and airmen every other member of the military so sacrificially have given to this country," Palin said during the rally.
"It starts from the top. The question though it comes from our own president, when they have to look at him and wonder, do you know what we go through, do you know what we're trying to do to secure America and to secure the freedoms that have been bequeathed us?" she added. "So when my own son is going through what he goes through, coming back, I can certainly relate with other families who feel these ramifications of some PTSD and some of the woundedness that our soldiers do return with."
"And it makes me realize more than ever it is now or never for the sake of America's finest that we have a commander-in-chief who will respect them," Palin added.
Palin, who has officially endorsed Trump for president, made her comments after her 26-year-old son was arrested in Wasilla, Alaska on Monday after his girlfriend claims he punched her in the face, kicked her in the knee and threatened suicide with an AR-15 rifle.
He has been charged with domestic violence assault, interfering with a report of a domestic violence crime and possessing a firearm while intoxicated.
Track Palin is a veteran of the Iraq War.
