“existed prior to service”

This:

or whether other factors are at work, is not clear.

Is frankly well documented, and a search would show, as it was becoming public as to many who were sent into these theaters and came home suffering from PTSD. The DoD and that administration, along with their congress {the FOX was even trying to sugarcoat this as nothing wrong with the policy just the soldiers} , was allowing them to be booted out so as not to place them under the VA care system, this after they had served in the wars of choice theaters!

Troops booted for pre-existing mental issues

Dec 12, 2010 - From 2003 to 2008, more people were separated from the military within their first year of service for “pre-existing” psychiatric conditions than for any other reason, according to a military report.

Those discharges do not qualify a service member for medical benefits or medical retirement pay after leaving.

Twenty-two percent of soldiers who were given “existed prior to service,” or EPTS, discharges had psychiatric conditions, while 42 percent of Marine Corps EPTS discharges fell under that category. The figures for the Navy and Air Force were 24 percent and less than 1 percent, respectively.

Whether the Marine Corps is not screening its new recruits for mental health issues as well as the other services, or whether other factors are at work, is not clear.

According to the 2010 Accession Medical Standards Analysis & Research Activity Report, the Army approved 1,231 waivers for anxiety, dissociative and somatoform disorders from 2004 until 2009, and another 522 for depressive disorder.

The Marines gave out 766 waivers during the same period for neurotic, mood, somatoform, dissociative or fictitious disorder, and 230 for “disturbance of emotions specific to childhood and adolescence.” {continued}

For many you can't do rovian revisionist history, it's all archived!!