Boys dont cry

I am posting this knowing full well I am going to draw "friendly fire." This story left me speechless. I hope the US military will do all it can to correct what is obviously the very serious problem of PTSD.

P.S: Although some might disagree, I find National Public Radio to be one of the more informative and educational media sources around. This is not some American leftwing radio station spouting off rubbish for the sake of ratings.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6576505

 

Hmmm, Our guy's who needed help had no issues getting help, but then the NCO's kept up with it.

 

Man this one is even worst see:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/nov2004/sold-n20.shtml

now ,This's somthing time cant heal.

 

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) First time I have ever heard of that.

The increase in brain injury cases is largely due to the advanced body armor and helmets now used by US forces.

 

I take that to mean modern body armour results in it being possible to get through events that in the past would have resulted in serious bodily injury.

As the death rate of wounded troops has declined compared to previous conflicts, the rate of TBI has shot up. The nature of the Iraq war has also increased the number of brain injuries. Rocket propelled grenades, mortars, and other explosive devices cause concussive shock blasts damaging to the brain.

In short yer brain can get bounced around inside your skull causing injury much the same as Richard (Hampster) Hammond experienced from his crash in the jet car: scrambled brains.

I had a minor dose of this thanks to collecting one on the bonce. Result was outwardly not much apart from what you might expect to be the immediate effects of collecting a half brick on the side of your helmet but took me quite a while to fully get over it.

Not fun at all.

 

How does this work?

I get seriously confused and can't help of thinking of those godzillions of troops marching off to WWII and ½ a godzillion marching back to bring in to being the squeeky clean 50s. Did our Dads and Grandads all come back mentally disturbed? They must have done. They can't have all topped themselves though 'cos none of us would have been born. Is this a thing like stress, which "didn't" exist 20 years ago... but is now expected of everyone? In the eighties if you had stress you were unemployable... now you can't get promoted unless you say "sh1t I'm stressed."

I'm not suggesting that some people will need help and all people will have been changed by the experience... but is this becoming an epedemic and if so, fuelled by who?

 

Time changes...This war is much different than any other war USA and its allies has ever involved in....
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1859664,00.html

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3912/is_200501/ai_n9474065

 

User 'gentlman':

How would you know anything about this subject? Was it on 'My Tube?'

 

Gentleman your input into this subject is based on what?????? You have no clue.

 

- Because the Body Armor, Helmets do such a good job of protecting against penetrating wounds, more Soldiers survive. However being so close to 155mm, 130mm Blasts can rattle your "yolk" around. I was approx.10M away from a 130mm IED when it went off, and was thrown about 5-7M landing on a curb shoulder/headfirst- there's still things I dont remember about the aftermath of it, and the Ambush which followed. I've no Memory of returning fire, but according to my friends & My Lt. thats just what I did.

The New ACH helmet suspension system is a series of pads which reduce significantly such injuries over the older sweatband system.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/ach.htm

 

BaldricksBullet said,

A few years ago,a person with Alzeimer's (which is now condidered a pretty serious medical condition) was simply dismissed as being 'senile'. Up until,I believe, the end of Nam, PTSD was refered to as 'shellshock'. So PTSD has always been around and with better understanding it is finally getting the attention it deserves.

I think, one reason WWII did not produce a proportionate number of headcases like Nam and Iraq is because, one was conventional warfare and the other two had a lot of "guerillaness" about them. The whole tingly feeling of knowing you are a sitting duck is enough to drive quite a few people up the wall.

You can not live on adrenaline alone which is what most PTSD sufferers did for a while and now can't adjust in the "post" action period.

Dr DD (Md, Bs, CrP.)

 

Quality

 

Wessex Man said,

Excuse moi, Wessex_Dude,

Are you saying that going to war on shaky premises, changing the mission statement a gazillion times, sidestepping international law, being deaf to the advice of your generals, fighting the war with slogans, declaring victory too soon, keeping the same feckups in command well into the third year of conflict even when the light at the end of the tunnel is a freight train heading your way, waiting for some commission to tell you the way forward because you are at a loss- are you saying that somehow this is a "bad war?"

 

-See if you can find the reports from the Pacific, there were several studies done among frontline G.I.'s during the Island Hopping Campaign that would amaze you. the number of cases were Enormous. Battle Fatigue, Combat Fatigue were the terms used in the USA until Vietnam era