FOX’S Enlisted is one of the only military TV comedies since MAS*H and one that runs in a post-Vietnam age when veterans are lazily written into television and film as unstable psychopaths with weapons training.

Goofy yet soulful, the show’s view of life in and around a fictional military garrison is unique when compared with sensationalist portrayals of veterans in other programmes. With the war in Afghanistan quietly humming in the background, Enlisted is a show about normal men and women in a workplace not many Americans know or understand.

It also confronts the duality of an American society that applauds 30-second beer commercial bromides of returning soldiers while admitting that fears of having PTSD-addled veterans in the workplace prevents some hiring managers from bringing on veterans and contributes to a relatively high unemployment rate for returning troops.

Tragedies like the recent Fort Hood shooting also offer a reminder of the deep, ugly partitions between civilians and the military personnel, the latter recast from heroes to pitiable, damaged victims. American society tends to view its military through those binary lenses, and neither view easily lends itself to an acceptance of military slapstick.

Indeed, most portrayals of veterans on TV and in film are decidedly negative. In House of Cards, one war veteran is an opportunistic sadist, one discharges his weapon on a residential street, and another botches a suicide bombing. In Justified, maniacal Gulf War veteran Boyd Crowder menaces Harlan County, with a war buddy in a green Army surplus jacket, his

service literally worn on his sleeve as a reminder. And in NCIS, Iraq and Afghanistan serve as backdrops to countless PTSD-fueled crimes.

Yet it took a comedy to quickly produce the most nuanced portrait of post-traumatic stress disorder in modern popular culture. Geoff Stults plays the swaggering but mentally struggling soldier Pete Hill, who brings a load of survivor’s guilt home when soldiers in his unit are killed in Afghanistan. Enlisted is an ensemble comedy, but it is really Hill’s show. The characters around Hill help soften the landing of their leader back home; these include his two subordinate brothers, Derrick and Randy (Chris Lowell and Parker Young, respectively).

Flip the channel to any other show, and war veterans are transformed into goons and monsters. On Enlisted, Hill is traumatised but capable, afflicted yet undoubtedly competent. A running gag pits Hill against Jill Perez (Angelique Cabral) to determine who is the most squared-away soldier in their unit. Hill leads the rear-detachment unit in drill and ceremony exercises for an upcoming parade in a recent episode, and in Paint Cart 5000 vs. The Mondo Spider, his soldiers rely on his combat experience to win a training exercise.

Hill’s soldiers know he deals with PTSD, but their conception of him as a leader is not affected by it. It’s a groundbreaking way to illustrate the coexistence of professionalism and mental health challenges in order to erode the long-standing stigma of seeking help within the military.

“Post-traumatic stress doesn’t mean you’re a crazy guy with a gun,” Kevin Biegel told me in an interview, alluding to the stereotypical depiction. “It’s a natural response to trauma that can happen to anyone.”

An alum of the South Park writing room, Biegel, created the TBS series Cougar Town and wrote for Scrubs.

With that guiding principle, Hill’s character was created to reflect the hundreds of thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans combating the symptoms of PTSD, which is linked to the military’s ongoing suicide problem.

Enlisted has done that better than any other show on television. But disappointing ratings paired with a public burned out on war could kill the show before it moves the needle on damaging cultural stereotypes.

Even if it goes off the air, Biegel is happy Enlisted will exist on DVD and other formats, and it could help alter the perception of veterans for some time. In one think-tank survey, representatives of more than half of 69 companies were hesitant to hire veterans due to portrayals of PTSD in news and entertainment. Art can damage, but in Enlisted’s case, it can also repair.

Sometime in the future, a hiring manger sitting across from a veteran might recall an old episode of Enlisted, one where Pete Hill struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder but remains a professional and capable leader. And maybe he’ll tell her that she’s hired because he thought of that show and not some other one.

—By arrangement with Foreign Policy-The Washington Post