Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is often associated with veterans, and hundreds of thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan combat vets have been diagnosed. But another group of people in the US with an even higher rate of PTSD… and they have never been to a foreign war zone. That’s according to out November 2013 by a presidential commission. Troy Eid is Chairman of the Indian Law and Order Commission.
“The rates for PTSD for Native American young people who are exposed to violence exceed the PTSD rates for combat vets returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. There’s a whole generation of young people who are experiencing just unimaginable violence.”
All that violence is taking place because law enforcement-- and the larger justice system-- on native lands is in the dumps. The commission says the federal government is often to blame. Aspen Public Radio’s Elise Thatcher talks with Troy Eid, Chairman of the Indian Law and Order Commission and former US Attorney for Colorado.
