Dr Phil: Pretends to be a Hero “Helping” Heroes

I was checking the guide on TV Thursday August 9 and saw a show with the focus on PTSD. Believing our military members sacrifice enough and deserve good care, I tuned in. . .just in time to see Dr Phil grandstanding disabled veterans to get ratings. Besides the Department of Veterans Affairs medical and mental care and benefits, there are hundreds of valid, credentialed service organizations for Veterans. There are also predator organizations out there taking advantage of our heroes. Dr Phil, perhaps by the “sin of omission,” clearly misled the people watching this show. He knows how decisions for care are made and people believe he intends to help. What happened to “do no harm?”

At this time when Veteran unemployment is so high and employers comment that they are wary of hiring vets–he decided to completely undermine all the good results working with Vets, so he could look like a hero–rather than really uplift the heroes. Shame on you, Dr Phil!

I am not speaking glibly. I am a Blue Star mother and military spouse. Two of my daughters were serving with the U.S. Navy when “the world stopped on 9/11” and one is disabled, receiving high tech, compassionate medical and mental health care from VA. Both daughters are honorably discharged veterans, completed degrees with their GI Bill monies, and were warned to watch for credible resources rather than people or organizations trying to look good by using Veterans.

I have two more children serving on active duty now. My son is a Marine and has served in combat zones multiple times. The USMC does a great job providing family and loved ones with tons of information to find appropriate, credible help for our heroes. My youngest daughter serves in Security Forces for the U.S. Air Force and just finished a tour at the NATO base in Turkey, close to the unstable Syrian border. They, too, provide information about multiple resources.

Dr Phil is often considered a fairly credible resource, yet that day he completely misled a population of Americans that deserves, and in fact, earned more respect from him than this. I did note it was a repeat, re-showing is to my mind adding insult to injury.

Dr Phil should be ashamed. That show should spend at least a full show highlighting the real work being done out there by the Department of Veterans Affairs and Wounded Warriors and Boston’s Vet Run. . .the list is huge. It’s the least they could do. I am a thoroughly disappointed, former fan of that show.

Elizabeth Benson is a Blue Star mother and military spouse.

Where this page came from

This page was imported from U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Published by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and, as a work of the United States government, in the public domain; material credited to others is left out.

Nobody has written it yet — it is the source material at a new address, which is why search engines are asked to skip it and why no one earns from it. It is up for grabs: take it on, and it is yours to rewrite and to earn from.