If you haven’t watched the movie Wag the Dog with Robert De Niro and  Willy Nelson, this might not have so much resonance with you. If you have, the similarities are priceless.

The PTSD thing has become a giant hairball and the Army, no matter how many times they clear their throat, find it lodged firmly with no help in sight. To make this worse, Sen. Sneakers is breathing down their neck and preparing to do her own investigation.

With each new admission of tainted diagnoses, they have to rearrange the crime scene. Once it’s obvious that another doctor is preparing to jump ship, the numbers change again in hopes of appeasing the beast. We now have virtually every big wig in the Medical arm of the Army shucking and jiving, bobbing and weaving and doing their best imitation of “Nobody told me”. Heads have rolled and more will do so. This will be news until they come clean-but they can’t. It’s like Malcom McDowell in Clockwork Orange being forced against his will to watch porno until he eschews it for normal fare. The Army is being  subjected to a movie of their own making and now must watch it play out.

As the plot thickens, more collateral damage ensues. What most find entertaining is the number fudging. Remember back when? This was just about 14 guys. They were all shipped off to Walter Reed and Poof! Some were ill! then it became a review of 280 since 2009 or maybe it was 2007 and 1640? Since no one seems to be on the same page, somebody has to reassign problem personnel with the Chatty Cathy doll syndrome. The shrinks see this coming and stampede en masse. Nobody wants to be in this game of musical chairs and still be standing when the music stops.

There is a loyal cadre of Wag the Doggie personnel who are tasked with changing written history behind the scenes. Every new revelation has to have a supporting set of facts and a logical explanation to present to the loyal media. Each new News conference by succeedingly higher ranked apologists is followed by a “we won’t sleep until we get to the bottom of this.” It did look for all the world like they might have pulled it off until last Wednesday.

Sen. Sneakers is going to use this as the springboard for her seventh stint as Senator. It makes for good free press without squandering valuable  reelection shekels. Whether it will result in any real reform in the long run is debatable. The fallout from Vietnam is still on the floor  and is beginning to crop up, too. This is worse than getting dog poo on the shoe and then tracking it in on the carpet. It’s going to stink for quite some time and the Army gomers don’t get it. This is no time to retreat. It’s simply time to advance in a different direction away from it-anywhere.

We will see a lot of careers wrecked- and rightfully so. You cannot screw with Vets even if it’s in the best financial interests of the country. Now that it has been uncovered, the Brass will call forward the loyal to fall on their swords. Some will, some won’t. Since they have always had loyal kool-aid drinkers, this problem has never arisen. Unfortunately for the Army, we are in a new world. This one consists of civic-minded chuckleheads willing to divulge just about anything.  Witness the Wiki-leaks imbroglio.

When the dust settles, Omerta as a way of life will be an anachronism- a footnote in history that marked a transition from smoky, backroom horsetrading to mea culpas on the stand. The Army can’t or won’t see this. Now we see the contamination starting to spread sideways to the Air Force and elsewhere. Denial will eventually culminate in “new rules and safeguards which will prevent this from ever, ever happening in the future”. That phrase is already being employed profusely but has no takers because of the ever -widening revelations.

Watch this story unfold. It will become a “Who’s the Vet’s best friend?” before November with plenty of finger pointing and “My record speaks for itself.” What I can’t wait for is the day all this begins at the VA when Deepthroat comes forward and spills the beans on how they have been screwing us for years. Perhaps this PTSD ratings fiasco will crop up there as well during the investigation. After all, these “clinicians” are all part and parcel of the process.