Scott West (Photo by Wiley Hendrix, Branson Daily News)

Hello, soldier. Hello, Scott West of Branson, Mo. Thanks for your service.

We read about you in Phillip O’Connor’s story in the Sunday Post-Dispatch. Thanks for enlisting in the Army, especially back in…

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the firing stopped. The Great War — the war to end all wars — ended. Nov. 11 was celebrated as Armistice Day.
But just 21 years later,…

Disturbing new evidence emerged last week that the Department of Veterans Affairs continues to provide shoddy mental health care for soldiers and Marines returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Lack of effective screening, delayed care and denied diagnoses add up to a…

My Wednesday column contrasted the solicitous treatment the government gives to retired senior officers moonlighting as on-air military analysts with the years of continuing struggle faced by active-duty troops and veterans to get decent care for mental problems, including post-traumatic…

Last week, the RAND Corp. released a massive study suggesting that as many as 300,000 U.S. troops who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan may be suffering from severe depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. Another 320,000 may have suffered traumatic brain…