ok... Brace yourselves - the Captain is going on a tirade.

Yes, the military instills the "macho man" mentality - it IS how wars are won. That's the job of the military by the way - WIN. They do it the best way they can...

Yes - our injured vets - whether physically or mentally injured - need to be given the best of care - what they get now is a disgrace in many cases.

But blaming the military is pointing blame at the wrong target.... The military fights under the rules it is given by the politicians. Everything from the ROE to the available forces are ultimately POLITICAL decisions.

I can list just about every US "conflict" from Korea to present and show how it was an utter failure due to the lack of political will to actually fight it as a WAR!

The US has the ability to pretty much flatten 95% of the countries individually out there without real effort. Alliances happen for reasons. But so far, we have not faced an alliance of nations since WW2. Instead we deal with piss ant regimes that we COULD take out without much risk, yet we don't for fear of "world opinion". Screw opinion - WAR is us or them - and military forces around the world have marching orders from politicians who are more concerned about how the french will whine than they are about winning the conflict.

Iraq? Afghanistan? The islamic terrorist problem in Pakistan? All 3 could be solved in less than 2 months. But the politicians fear to take the actions necessary.

And so military forces around the world send people off to get screwed up, physically and mentally ......

What upsets me, and many other family members is (I am sure it is the same in most countries) is that the volunteer military expects better.

At one point we saw to it our vets got everything they needed , within reason of course.
No Private, you cannot have a yacht, and a private Island.:haha:

Sure I have concern for my family, but he will heal, he was always stronger than most of us.:yeah:

But I am concerned for his comrades, of all branches,.

America will have a large amount of troops coming home, away from all they knew for awhile.

Alot of troops needing civilian jobs amongst our already silly unemployment.

Alot of mental health money going towards a dumb aircraft engine.

But ya know, boeing does give alot to PACS.:x

And that is really what it is about. I bet there would be alot less "American Foreign Adventures" if our congress didn't go out of its way to give patronage towards them.

It all bubbles down to this.
America needs a culture shift.
It really seems like in recent years we have been trying to justify all the money we spent (for non use) during the cold war.

How about this?

Blatant forum rule breaking coming....


*&^$ the middle east. Let them off each other.
%^&* Israel, let the best man win.

Have fun with your Muzzy problem Europe, Soop wants nothing of it. (we got Mexicans and lax laws, be happy)

Osama went off the back of a ship, I am done. I am satisfied. Lets spend the money we give to Pakis, Afghanis, and Iraquis, who would love to cook us on a stake, to help vets. All of them, from all wars.

The treatment our congress has given to the VA in recent years is vile.:nope::damn:

Wow what a melodrama......a Turkish movie.
if any army tries to swipe under carpet(which i'm not sure it does)the stress disorders due to military service it is mistake.
I'm also pretty sure that vast majority of US army vets will do just great in their lives....certainly far from becoming some violent or traumatised psychos.

As it seems here... the life may be very traumatic for some.
In military service the magnitudes are much different.

So you are mocking me?

Perhaps you are unaware of the neglect given to sick military members. Due to defunding of services.

Or you are mocking me and my family.

Anymously on a forum. I can tell you where to put the Turkish melodrama, but I want to avoid saying enough to get banned or chastized.

(edit: He feels banished to a trailer. he shakes, no faking, he wants to work but cannot, because he is messed up, not violent, but really sad. loud noises mess with him, and he is much less agressive then he used to be Turkish movie, was freaking harsh bro,
pardon me for trying to relay real life experience)

http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-32

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/dail...-benefits.aspx

Those that say the US Government ignores the problem of Veteran PTSD are full of it.

Sorry for your cousin and what happened to him but....did he get the treatment he deserves?

From what i know about army...it can be sometimes very hardlined in acknowledging some issues as a direct couse of military service not necessarily due to not caring about its vets.


.................

Soopa
But a look at the history of pretty much any country wold suggest that you shouldn't expect that.


Haplo
99.9% correct.

Sorry but if you link that to the following lines then the big two have to be excluded as the whole reason behind the failure was because of the inability to militarily take on the "alliance" behind those "piss ant" countries.
Nice little dig at the French though, are you still upset that they said Iraq part deux was a really really dumb idea?

It could also be argued that the "damn male macho cult" is what causes wars and always has. If everybody refused to go the politicians would have to fight themselves. Of course that would require that everybody would have to refuse to go, and there are always going be some somewhere who want to fight, so the DMMC wins out, and everybody has to fight or be destroyed. Sucks, but testosterone is the enemy of the world. :sunny:

He is not the same.
I do not think you were attacking me personally. I still remember when he nearly kicked some guys butt in a bar for hitting on my future wife (then beat him up later for making fun of my limp) , now he won't leave the house. He just wants to isolate.

Won't hurt no one. But will never enjoy companionship, he won't even show up for Thanksgiving or Christmas, and my house is the place to be.

I know the original story was sopping with drama. But those sad stories do exist in real life. It is not always a piece of propaganda. Which pieces like this are always accused of, which I took from your original post.

So for what it is worth, sorry if I was harsh.

I was always too passionate about things.

But I will repeat, stories like this will be heard alot, and even more violent ones ahead if these guys return to civilian life unemployed. Just sayin':salute:

:yep:

I've heard horror stories told about other places, but I can get pretty much anything I need. My doctor asked me if I wanted to talk to somebody, and when I was ready they scheduled me to see a VA therapist. I got in within the week and was told I could stay as long as I wanted, join a group or stick with private consultation and quit when I wanted.

I don't know about other VA centers, but Salt Lake's is first rate. :rock:

Rally your family and together convince him to seek treatment. It is called "tough love". Don't take no for answer. There is help for him available and I'm sure he will thank you all afterwards for doing what it takes to get him the help he needs.
Guys like him need their families to not give up on them, to not accept that his life and his mental state cannot get better.

Y'know I could see that argument being made since most rulers throughout history have been men but I don't think that women are any less prone to such behavior.

Thankfully some people in the army have a slightly deeper understanding of the matter than August.

http://www.army.mil/article/45556/

http://www.army.mil/article/72230/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...lBJ_story.html

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/study-8...ry?id=15872301

BTW, August, longer time ago I was engaged in a project treating traumatised people from the balkans, torture victims. Chances are I made a much more and closer experiences with what traumatisation does with people, than you. You often pose as if people having worn a uniform were a better form of human beings. But as Steve already indicated indirectly: many of these people still cheered when their leaders sent them into unneeded wars, over lies and staged events, amongst that Iraq and of course Vietnam. That does not speak for their cleverness.

People are not all the same,. some are more robust, others are less. EVERYBODY has his breaking point. No exception. One should not just look at what somebody contributes in total, one should better check what he is willing to contribute for, over what cause he is indifferent, and what he is unwilling to contribute for, even if maybe following (opposing) orders. This tells oyu much more about the human you are delaing with, than his attitude to serve, no matter for what.

To make a rough example, to make the point clear: in WW2, the most potent forces often were the most fanatical Nazi units: SS units, and later youngster and teenagers at the end of the war being thrown from ther romantic Hitler Jugend directly into the meat grinder, to contribute their share to the defence of Hitler.

Obviously, an alone attitude of wanting to serve, to contribute, is not what decides the human value of the person. You still can be an extremely stupid person, even if wanting to serve your country alomost fanatically.

That is where for me calmness of mind, realism dominating over idealism, comes into play. This combined with discipline and a lack of illusions about what war is, what it means, and what iot does with humans - this I would call calm, cool professionalism. And that is a resulting quality in attitude that you can gain without ever having served in an army. Some may also gain it inside the army. But maybe that is not because of the army, but despite the army.

In 2003 or 2002 I mentioned first the to be expected high casualty numbers for the participating invading armies, due to PTS. August, you were amongst those laughing back then and attacking me for it. You still do now, because I scratch on your self-definition and the shining armour of how you see yourself and the role of the soldiers as you see it.

That you laugh about me means little, I just find it bewildering that I, as a foreigner, seem to care more for your army's people (and that of the German troops and that of the other nations) than you with all your plenty of macho experience. But like you offended many people repeatedly when thinking you must call me a warehouse worker time and again, you now offend all those "comrades" of yours" who return from recent wars mentally damaged, with a desintegrating social and family life, and find themselves falling through the social net because society does not lend its returnign warriors a hand if they do not grin wide and celebrate loud and parade with papertanks on the alley in Disneyland. War yes - but only if the blood and the sweat, the tears and the the the suffering gets faded out. Make it look like elegant sports, like fencing in white dresses, and let our bright heroes appear as marvel heroes, supermen with a skin of Mithril and a breath of fire that razors through mountains like laserbeam to teach the bad guys the lesson. The loosers - well, not needede to see their misery on TV. Who wants to see that, who wants to be reminded of the real costs the hip-hip-hooray event costed? The silence about PTS amongst troops, in the US, in britain, in germany, and probably elsewhere as well, was ear-deafening until recently.

I also remind of the fact that the army tries its best to manipulate statistics on losses. It emerged some years ago that for example soldiers dying while being en route to or being treated in Landstuhl, did not count as KIA in Afghanistan or Iraq, but were seen as deaths unrelated to combat and happening in Germany - they do not show up in the official KIA statistics. Other tricks like this are used as well, and have been revealed over the past couple of years by media. Bash that media now!

Further, there is the multiplication of suicides amongst troops with too much exposure to warzones. Again, the army tries to minimise interpretations thta link the suicides to mental stress resulting from having been in the warzones too long. A vet may be seen to have committed suicide due to a diovorce and not finding a job after the army retired him. That he may not find a job and his wife was more and more alienated because of his immense personality changes after he returned from his tours, gets intentionally not taken into account in such arguments. Many are said to volunatrily return to the war, since they cannot get otn out of their head, it keeps on rolling and rolling, and civilian life is where they do not fit, they want back to the war action, since that is what they now "know", although it consumes them, possibly. I knew one such case personally, a German Afghanistan veteran. He fell down the whole civilian ladder: job in family business, marrtiage, relation to children, getting divorced, alienating all his friends, finally working as mercenary in some security buzsiness in Afghanbistan. He shot himself in autumn 2010. The BW does not recognise any link between his time as BW soldier in afghanistan, and his suicide in private business - both officially are "unrelated".

The usual estimation on rates of PTS amongst BW soldiers serving in Afghanistan, is around 20-25%. For other armies, comprable rates are estimated. Now consider how many troops the US have rotated in and out in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002. And then do some basic math. Then you know the real casualty rate of American forces. It is multiple times as high than what the army says.

The total numbers on suicides amongst US soldiers range widely, depending on whether you ask the army, or some indipendent source, but even the army recongises that a statistzically highly significant rise has taken place. If it is just 80%, as the army claims, or up to 600% (some estimate even higher numbers!) as estim ated by independent orgisnations and researchers that are unrelated to the army, is hard to decide. I think it is more, since the army does not count suicides that are committed by vets who already have left the army and stayed alone with their problems in civilian life. And again, the army tries hard to make suicides due to PTS or caused by war-related mental proplems appearing as unrelated to right these war-factors.

I knew a doctor specialising in treatment of traumata, a Brit who was with the british army in 1991, at the Gulf. He now lives in Germany, was too alienated by what he called the stupditiy of the British leaders. I worked for him on that project I mentioned, a great man with a fantastic sense of dry humour and razorsharp mind - he was as British as a Brit can be: smart, elegant, and humorous, really. Anbd probbaly the best psycho doc I have ever seen in action. By what he told me about the background of medical caretaking in the British army at that time, and the expereinces from earlier war back to WW1, I would estimate the true number of american WIA in Afghanistan and Iraq alone to be several hundreds of thousands. And the KIA number also needs to be corrected upwards. God knows by how much.

Some people attack me when I am clear and determined about wars I see as a need, Iran for example. Others attack me when I am not all cheerio about unneeded wars based on stupidity and lies, like Iraq. But whatever it is, I find it strange that I seem to have less illusions about what war is and what it does to the human psyche, and am more aware of the need to care for those returning, than some people having been with the military and that now seem to think that that made them something better. The argument sometimes is that the attitude to serve and even sacrifice oneself for the cause (the criticism here would be that many seem to not care much for what cause they put themselves at risk, and that they do not care for the treacherous nature of those leaders they put their trust into), somewhat ennobles man. Or that the attitude taught in the army makes oyu dealing with your later civilian life "better", or ion the job. Well, in both cases the argument is not that war makes people better, but discipline. Altruism. Competence. NOT WAR ITSELF. War does only one thing: it destroys and kills. Bodies. Minds. Psyches. Own's, and enemy's. Combatants, and civilians. That'S all war does.

"Krieg vertiert." Nothing there that enobles man.

good old "Der Spiegel", still the propaganda arm of the European loony left I see. There are many good articles on PTSD available, no need to pick one with such a blatant anti-american slant.

Everyone agrees PTSD is a problem, always has and always will be, but it does not just affect soldiers: policemen, firemen, paramedics, victims of violent crimes/plane crash/major accidents can all be affected by PTSD. Most eventually recover and are able to function in society. For the ones who really go off the deep end, you can't really know for sure if there was not an underlying condition already present.

The big difference is that now, most armed forces recognize the problem and setup programs to help service members suffering from PTSD as opposed to previous wars when they would be jailed or shot for "cowardice".

Maybe, but you ain't one of them and you will never be one of them.

Oh and BTW I never claimed that PTSD does not exist or that it isn't a problem. That is a strawman you have created like this fantasy that you have any clue what military veterans have to deal with.

Oh, not to get dropped into silly wars and not wearing a uniform, neither yours nor ours, is a mishap I can happily live with. Leaves me with greater independeance of thought and wider array of options, and does not give me the feeling of getting sucked empty and spit out over excuses basing on betrayal and misleading of the people. It's great to decide yourself what you stand up for and what to make sacrifices for, instead of just following orders by politically superiors who could not care less for those they send into war. ;)

You implied that mentioning PTS in context of caretaking for psychologically injured veterans equals troll baiting. That was your charming opening in this thread, and it was completely unasked for.

Like was the rest.

PTSD Euphemisms ( Watch it. )

No I implied nothing of the sort. That was your misunderstanding. I think this threadis troll bait because it's you who started it.

You know what: I think it was a big mistake to start "talking" with you again. Thankfully it is easy to correct that.

And this is exactly what i wanted to quote - thanks.

It is not really funny, though - Orwell's doublespeak at its best, but who of the 18-year-old soldiers read that when being sent to war ?


(Also regarding the Spiegel: It is (not entirely wrong) regarded as "leftist", but it mostly tells the truth regardless of consequences, and this has brought this newspaper in a brédouille lots of times. They also attack left politicians and their tactics, and most hate it for speaking what others don't want the public to hear.
You read an article and instantly say that can't be true, only some 3-4 years later it becomes obvious that it has been)

Greetings,
Catfish