Just because you can't see blood doesn't mean that their injuries and deaths aren't real

Getting shot out of the sky can get you a medal, while coming home with suicidality that only you, your family, and your friends can see will barely get you a hospital bed.

Purple Heart Is Ruled Out for Traumatic Stress - NYTimes.com

“I’m glad they finally got something right,” said Jeremy Rausch, an Army staff sergeant who saw some of the Iraq War’s fiercest fighting in Adhamiya in 2006 and 2007. “PTSD can be serious, but there is absolutely no way to prove that someone truly is suffering from it or faking it.”

...a Pentagon-supported service group, the Military Order of the Purple Heart, has strongly opposed expanding the definition to include psychological symptoms, saying it would “debase” the honor. “Would you award it to anyone who suffered the effects of chemicals or for other diseases and illnesses?” John E. Bircher III, director of public relations for the group, said Wednesday. “How far do you want to take it?”

“You have to had shed blood by an instrument of war at the hands of the enemy of the United States,” [Mr. Bircher] said. “Shedding blood is the objective.”