Republican Sarah Palin has been criticised for suggesting that the arrest of her Iraqi war veteran son was due to his post-traumatic stress disorder and Barack Obama's supposed lack of "respect" for veterans.
Campaigning for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at a rally in Oklahoma on Wednesday, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee said that her son Track returned "different" and "hardened' from his deployment in Iraq.
Track Palin (26) was arrested on Monday night near Anchorage in the family’s home state of Alaska and charged with domestic violence and possession of a firearm while intoxicated after police were called to a disturbance. He is alleged to have punched his girlfriend.
Rally remarks
Addressing the “elephant in the room”, Ms Palin told Mr Trump’s supporters at the rally that her son, like other military veterans, came back from serving in conflict overseas “wondering if there is that respect” for what they have sacrificed for their country.
“When my own son is going through what he goes through coming back, I can certainly relate to other families who feel these ramifications of PTSD our soldiers return with,” she said.
“And it makes me realise more than ever it is now or never for the sake of America’s finest that we have a commander-in-chief who will respect them.”
Ms Palin, who endorsed Mr Trump’s presidential bid on Tuesday, accused Mr Obama of failing to provide adequate care to veterans.
“They have to question if they’re respected any more. It starts at the top,” she said. “The question, though, that comes from our president where they have to look at him and wonder, ‘Do you know what we go through?’” she said.
A group representing veterans, the New York-based Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, criticised Ms Palin for her remarks, saying that Mr Obama should not be blamed for her son's disorder.
“It’s not President Obama’s fault that Sarah Palin’s son has PTSD,” Paul Rieckhoff, the head of the group, told NBC News.
“PTSD is a very serious problem, a complicated mental health injury and I would be extremely reluctant to blame any one person in particular.”
Disorder
Mr Rieckhoff urged Ms Palin to “resist the urge to politicise” the issue of PTSD but to raise awareness of it and to talk to Mr Trump to encourage him to speak about the disorder. “Mr Trump’s campaign is pretty light on specifics about what he would do for veterans,” he said.
In her speech endorsing Mr Trump at a rally in Iowa on Tuesday, Ms Palin condemned the treatment of military veterans under the Obama administration, telling his supporters she believed they were "ready to see that our vets are treated better than illegal immigrants."
Track Palin’s arrest this week is not the first time he has found himself in trouble with police.
He and other members of the family were involved in a brawl at a party in Anchorage in September 2014.
