:-?

We had to learn this lesson on 7/6/2003

http://www.faz.net/polopoly_fs/1.132.../849237566.jpg

29 Wounded
4 Killed

Andreas Beljo (†28)
Carsten Kühlmorgen (†32)
Jörg Baasch (†23)
Helmi Jimeniz-Paradis (†29)

Don't try to tell a soldier and the son (and grandson and great grandson) of a soldier how soldiers feel Skybird. We had something like 15 million people under arms during WW2. The overwhelming majority of them went on to lead great lives. Now you can claim that they all suffered some kind of hidden damage but if so it wasn't so great that it left them damaged goods. It did not stop them from living long and happy lives afterwards.

We have a saying over here that goes "the proof is in the pudding". The real lives of millions trumps your claims to the contrary.

I agree. Whatever war is in question, plenty of vets have returned to a normal life.

But, I also kinda agree with Skybird. I'm sure war changes most of the people
that go through it, some just learn to cope with it while others dont. :hmmm:

I doubt you are int he nbpsoition to make claims on behalf of millions of people, becasue you have noit made any systmatic effort to estzblish a methdolgoicvially correct statistic on it. I however trust such statistics better than individual cklaims basing onb a handful of personal exmaple spomebody knows, because when statistics are done well, this is what they excel in: deribing huge populationsd regharding the features and characterists of interst as exmained by such statistics.

And the statistics from according reasearch projects prove you wrong as far as the wars of modern times are concerned, the era when such counting projects were started to detemrine how wides-pread the issues in fact are.

Your family history is just this: your family history. A handful of individuals. And this should counter the weight of numericla findings from a statistic covering army staff from ten years of war, for example? If you thinbk that, then the whole purpose of why statiszics are doine has escape you so far. I could throw in the history of my family and two grandfathers, their fathers and brothers, and a history of war ravaging all of Europe and over hundreds and hundreds of years. A family history and a continental history that is slightly different from what you claim for America. Even beyond their physical injruioes, about which they never made much words, I know that my grandfathers carried inner scars, and certain mental handicaps derived from that. So do most soldiers who fought on any side in that war, or those after that.

If you want to claim those statistics are wrong, you have to show them to be wrong, methodologically. In other words you must run an accoridng reserchg yourself and check the methodology of it, and then present it and disucss why your statistic defeats the other. There were quite some researches done ion various countries, since '91, and even since Vietnam, as a matter of fact first such attempts already were done in Korea and WWII, though not with the pressing will like in recent years. On my own part, I got my first input on such data from a doctor who for some time was my direct boss when I helped in a medical aid project during the Balkan wars, a doctors' initiative that brought heavily traumatized - I would say: almost destroyed - torture victims from the Balkans to places in Northern Germany, Holland and Denmark for therapeuitical treatmnent. Very hard job, I must say, very stressing. I have highest respect for people working on such things all day in and out, and I think you inevitably get damaged yourself more or less if you do it too long. I was still studying, but had good contacts to get that job, and some other reasons why I was allowed to help there. My boss in that was a former Bundeswehr doctor, and expert for (especially war-induced) traumatizations. He had done two historical analysis and studies on PTSD in wars since WWII for the Bundeswehr, which unfortunately at least back then were only internally circulating, and were not allowed by the ministry for public release. Name was Helmut Boehring, if somebody knows of according studies being released since the mid-90s and under this name, let me know.

Sorry, I trust him and trust data statistically researched in the past 20-30 years in several countries and by several different researchers and projects, slightly more than you. What you say about the people in your family, may be correct for right these persons. But your family is just this:; one family, it is no representative sample in itself, not even a specially big one. You, your father, your grandfather, you said. For other families' experiences and internal history, you cannot speak. Statistics can speak for greater samples and populations. That's what they are being done for.

If you think statistics must not be trusted, I recommend you never take any pill and accept enver any injection the doctor subscribes to you. Because all medical research is - statistically founded. Empiry. Heck, all science business bases on that. ;) Don't let down statistics too easily just because you do not like what they tell you. Check their methods for flaws, but when you find none, then take their data for what it is.

BTW, there is more such research available via internet. Google is your friend.

Skybird the only statistic I need is that nearly all of those 15 million men came back home and got on with their lives and did so successfully. They got married, they got civilian careers, they had kids and they lived full and happy lives as are the great majority of our soldiers who have served in every war before and since. How can you call that a sad story?

You seem to be under the impression that a little adversity in ones life means nothing but sadness and failure thereafter. Well sorry but most people thankfully do not see it that way.

Getting married, becoming a father, running a civilian career etc. does not automatically say you are happy and/or dont have to fight with PTSS for the rest of your life and suffer to a certain degree...

Nor does it mean that a former soldier is by definition unhappy and nor does it mean that war is the only source of unhappiness or PTSD but degree matters here.

As they say "Life sucks then we die". Now you can sit through life feeling sorry for yourself or you can get on living it. The overwhelming majority of people who go through war do the latter and somehow still manage to do so quite happily.

Isn't it something we want to believe that is was so? That they just continued as nothing had happened?

I have and had relatives and friends father, who lived through WWII and the story I have been told by them give me the impression that most of them didn't take brain damage.

As my working colleagues father once told me(was in 1989).

We celebrated the end of the war and the day after we spitted in our hands and started to rebuild our country(England)

But I do know, from science program that many soldier and civilians got some kind of PTSD and had to live with it a very long time after the war was ended.

Markus

I never said that soldiers are automatically unhappy? And I dont think Skybird did. From my experience with soldiers (I have been one myself btw), they suffer a lot from PTSD (Its PTSS here, so dont wonder...). Ive seen people change dramatically after a tour in Afghanistan. Of course, those are just my experiences but again: I never said they all are destroyed afterwards, of course not.

Suffering from PTSD has nothing to do with "man the heck up and get your crap together, life goes on!".

Not that easy, unfortunately.

Damn. I was wondering, and thus rereading the thread - and just relaised that I forgot to put in the link about that report by CNN about the study from earlier last year that I mentioned. Completely my own fault, but explains maybe why August ignores it so strictly.

The CNN article mentioning the one study I was after I again did niot find again, they have plenty of articles about NCC from the past few years. However, there is so much more interesting material as well. I admit I only flew over most of it, checking abstracts, methods, samples, and conclusions.


Vietnam veterans (sample 108 thousand) face an almost doubled risk for developing dmeentia in later years when having suffered from PTSD from combat action. Summer 2010.
http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/data...12_608_613.pdf

Changes in brain structure and loss of grey matter in neo-cortex due to combat stress exposition and following severe PTSD in Vietnam and Gulf war veterans.
http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/data...12_608_613.pdf

Literature survey on PTSD in Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom:
http://epublications.marquette.edu/c...4&context=gjcp

I remind of my own estimation I gave earlier, that soldiers effected from combat PTSD numercially range from 1:6 to as many as 1:4.

http://winoverptsd.com/wp/persian-gu...q-combat-vets/

http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/...erly/v22n2.pdf

http://www.ispub.com/journal/the-int...stan-wars.html

The last article mentions (in 2009) the number of troops having done more than one tour in AF or IR to be around 420 thousand, and then plus x, x being those having done one tour so far. Most research done on how many people become victims of PTSD, range from 15-30%, extremes even go as high as 50%, which is a number I do not trust, however. When now taking the mean of my own estimation, as many as 1 in 4 or as few as 1 in 6 falling victim to PTSD, I would have a mark of 20% (1 in 5). Estimating those doing their first tour to be 80.000 for the comfort of pushing the total number of troops having been part of AF and IR to be roughly half a million, that would mean that 100.000 veterans returned home while suffering various degrees of PTSD. The official number for wounded soldiers in these wars is approaching 40 thousand, and it excludes PTSD patients.

Has my previous posting been deleted...???

Sigh. Forgot to hit the transmit button. Had it in another window still. This post goes before the other with the links, just above.

My two grandfathers came back from war and had families and an income, too. Still, the one had nightmares destroying his nights for the rest of his life, and at christmas he hid at home because the sight of christmas trees made him break out in tears, for it made the city look like memories of burning villages in Russia. At the same time, he gave hell to his little daughters, there was a lot of sadism and violence involved in the household - a feature of his character that should not have been present before the war. The other grandfather of mine lost one eye, most of one lung, one leg. He was very kind by heart, and very well meaning. And sometimes, out of the blue, broke down and cried. On the street. In a shopping mal. At work. At the table, with cake and coffee served.

You take the surface and do not look beyond, and that is a big mistake, August. And you seem to think that a man's meaning of life is not so much about happiness and being at peace with himself, but as you indicated give the impression of falling into the traditional norm of having social life and being successful in a job. I hear the Protestant or Calvinistic working ethics ringing bells in the background, but maybe I'm wrong there. Anyhow, I think this view on life is short-stretched, imho. We owe nobody for as long as we do not live at the other'S cost or disadvantage. I do not know whether life has a meaning or not. Maybe it is all just meaningless and useless. But I pragmatically think that it might be a good idea to try to experince happiness and love and get loved for the short moment of time that we are here. At least it seems that even if this also is in vain and meaningless, it at least does not add to any harm done. Business careers - let some water run down the wirver, and even these famous business careers will not even be remenbered by anyone anymore. It all is in transition. Nothing stays. Evertyhing is transitory. Fame, prestige means nothing.

That successful job life is not the criterion of health nor does it say anything about the state of a soul. You can be successful in a job and earn reputations in social life and found a family - and still be broken, empty. As you know I was running a meditation course for several years. About the emptiness of modern life I could tell you by quite some examples of people that I actually knew face to face, and which led them to me. Some came for curiosity only. But some came for more existential pain of theirs, or a deep-felt hunger for "more" of something that our society's standards cannot satisfy, they were searching, and sometimes desperately so. This, and other stuff I got myself occupied with in the past, spiritual crisis, death and hunger for a sense and meaning in life, has convinced me that often the appearance of the ordinary world, the row of tiny houses with correct garden and fresh-washed white doors, often hide mure suffering, fear and despair, than the first impression when looking down that street seems to tell.

This longer sermon to show you why your reference to those millions you seem to know so well does not impress me at all. In a way, you seem to me as if still living in the military mode that I mentioned before: giving the appearance of you and the gang being strong, shiny, invincible, bullets repelled by your skin, soul untouchable, fate cannot harm you, and everybody functions according to the ordered parameters. Well, I exaggerate a bit, but well - you get the idea.

Earlier I mentioned that the military is a closed parallel society, and is valuing traditions and the appearance of man being strong and invincible as a mechanism by which men cope with the inherent edge they walk on when making killing an getting killed their life's focus and profession. It is not just like any job. It needs coping strategies to cope with the threatening abyss behind it all. Boasting and acting extroverted, are part of that. It's also part of that that the naivety by which shiny promises and glorious reasons of their superior leaders why they go tot war, get swallowed and indeed believed in a very uncritical attitude, often. The trust and respect payed to "authorities", indeed illustrates a stellar amount of naivety, often. When one could get crippled or killed, and kill others, one wants to be sure that one does so on behalf of the good and the light and the right and the beautiful. Of course one believes in the fairy tales the criminal gangster in politics tell you over why they send you to war. And if the lying becomes obvious, and new reasons get invented, and excuses after the war replace the original arguments before the war, then even this often gets swallowed and accepted all too willingly. Because Mapuc has it absolutely correct where he said:

Very well noted, mapuc. Make war an ordinary thing. Give it the impression of normality. Problem is: war isn't like just any ordinary thing. It is a situation of extremes, and chaos and the lack of order previously known.

Normality. Man cannot live without the illusion of having at least a minimum of control over his fate, the world. Soul does not bear this, it wants a justification, the impression of normality, of being in sufficient control to prevent the worst striking us any time. Without this illusion, you indeed have to face that harm can struck you just any second, and that everything is uncertain, and your existence makes no difference in the face of a cosmos that always keeps its silence and never answers your questions and pleas. And that is more than many, very many people can bear.

August, stop talking about 15 million people that you do not know at all. You cannot look into their insides, and what is going on ion their hearts and minds. The literature of war traumatization however is empirical much more robust than you wild claims. In well-done statistics, the numbers come from actually counting, using established methods to secure the sample'S representativity for the total population, and if you want to laugh about these numbers, you have to prove them wrong and show where they are. We do not talk about a random poll, non-representive. We talk about medical and psychological research being done. It can be done in wrong and distorting ways, yes, and science is not invulnerable to being abused by intention or incompetence. I think this is not what has happened here. You said you need only one statistics, yours. But that is no statistics, you have none. That is not even experience of yours. It's just a wild claim about people you do not know. Sorry, but more it is not.

EDIT:
I copy this in here, to get back to the original order in which I had posted these two long posts.

Damn. I was wondering, and thus rereading the thread - and just relaised that I forgot to put in the link about that report by CNN about the study from earlier last year that I mentioned. Completely my own fault, but explains maybe why August ignores it so strictly.

The CNN article mentioning the one study I was after I again did niot find again, they have plenty of articles about PTSD from the past few years. However, there is so much more interesting material as well. I admit I only flew over most of it, checking abstracts, methods, samples, and conclusions.


Vietnam veterans (sample 108 thousand) face an almost doubled risk for developing dmeentia in later years when having suffered from PTSD from combat action. Summer 2010.
http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/data...12_608_613.pdf

Changes in brain structure and loss of grey matter in neo-cortex due to combat stress exposition and following severe PTSD in Vietnam and Gulf war veterans.
http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/data...12_608_613.pdf

Literature survey on PTSD in Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom:
http://epublications.marquette.edu/c...4&context=gjcp

I remind of my own estimation I gave earlier, that soldiers effected from combat PTSD numercially range from 1:6 to as many as 1:4.

http://winoverptsd.com/wp/persian-gu...q-combat-vets/

http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/...erly/v22n2.pdf

http://www.ispub.com/journal/the-int...stan-wars.html

The last article mentions (in 2009) the number of troops having done more than one tour in AF or IR to be around 420 thousand, and then plus x, x being those having done one tour so far. Most research done on how many people become victims of PTSD, range from 15-30%, extremes even go as high as 50%, which is a number I do not trust, however. When now taking the mean of my own estimation, as many as 1 in 4 or as few as 1 in 6 falling victim to PTSD, I would have a mark of 20% (1 in 5). Estimating those doing their first tour to be 80.000 for the comfort of pushing the total number of troops having been part of AF and IR to be roughly half a million, that would mean that 100.000 veterans returned home while suffering various degrees of PTSD. The official number for wounded soldiers in these wars is approaching 40 thousand, and it excludes PTSD patients.

^ Yes to all that.

And I never said there weren't those who have experienced difficulty but if you'll look back in the thread you'll see that Skybirds original premise was that there is never a happy ending from war. I think I have amply proven that this is not the case.

My premise is that by results war create for all affected people, it always is unjust, unfair, and kills more innocents and civilians than "guilty" ones or combatants, and thus war never can be said to have had a happy ending. One can hardly say that WWII has had a happy end, after 60 million deads and millions of families having had losses and hundreds of citiesy and villages shattered. Nor can you say that about Korea. Vietnam. Gulf 91. Afghanistan. Iraq.

Those having played any role in it, may feel relieved that it is over and that they survived, they may be glad that their families suffered no losses, if it is so.

But the whole and total thing that war is, never has happy ends in total. There are always far too many innocent victims, and there always has been to much chaos ruling and too much horror taking place.

And that includes war witnesses who afterwards seem to live an apparently normal, ordinary life. Who can look into them? You only see the surface, their conformity with the social rules and conventions. Their insides, you cannot judge. To say that war did nothing to them after they went through it, is a bit like like claiming that in a neat and tidy street with friendly houses none of the inhabitants has haemorrhoids. - Maybe you just don't want to look closer.

It had a far, far happier ending than if the Germans and Japanese had won that war and don't you forget it.

War, like any human endeavor, is a collection of individual stories, some sad, some not, but for you, a person who has never served his country in any way, to claim that you know the minds of untold millions of people is simply ridiculous.

Exactly, certainly not you, yet that is exactly what you are doing when you claim that no one can ever have a happy ending after a war. I look at what these people have made of their lives. The laughter of my friends, uncles and grandfathers is not fake, it is not effected nor forced. Yet of course you think you know better, well sorry I will just not reject real life examples over your usual dark, Nihilist prognostications of doom.

Okay, you are right, and statistical research and actual countings have it all wrong. It's a new form of math, but I think I understand the basics now. Sorry for having bothered you. Will not happen again. After all, beliefs weigh heavier than verified facts - I finally must mark that in thick red letters in my book.

You can't rely on books to give you common sense Skybird.

Ahh you know sky is a drama queen but you are actually looking at the same issue from opposite angels and you both are right.
Yet those functioning people may have lot of things going in their heads or simply pushed deep into corners of mind..that is good case scenario.
Those are the people who can deal with the issues but there are others who cant.
Simply if not for army service their life might be better and happier...
This is somwhat similar to a traumas people experience in civilian life....for some it ruins their lives while others cope.


.........

Agreed. That's why I don't do that, but demand empirical checks. And that is what all this is about.

And here is now one wise sentence for you, as a direct reply to yours: you cannot gain credibility and respect for your beliefs by just insisting that you believe so and so. Believing is not knowing.

Empirical experience is knowledge.

And the empirical database is such that your beliefs already were crushed and shown absurd the very moment you entered in this debate. Statistics - describe bigger populations. Your uncles and my grandfathers - are just individual biographies.

One does not judge the state of dentition of all people in a nation's population, by looking at the teeth in one's own family. And when gathering data of a representative sample, one does not take people's self-description of what they think about their teeth, but one does it in a standardized format: one has a dentist checking out their set of teeth according to specified parameters.

One does not leave it to beliefs, hopes, intuition and having a certain feeling in the stomach.