Nor is one qualified to make authoritative judgements because they once read The Idiots Guide to Dentistry, and I at least have my families experience, and that of my friends, and my students and many, many others to go by.

"Students". And "many others". That certainly qualifies for a representative sample of the total population of war-experienced ex-combatants that is to be assessed on the matter of PTSD.

August, you are simply unknowing on certain methodological topics, you illustrate that all the time in this thread. That alone would not be anything to be criticised, not everybody know evewrtyhiong and has learned everything. But you even boast with your naivety and make your knowledge gap appear as a glorious virtue and claim that your precious personal view proves all data wrong that you do not like, no matter how empirically overhwhelming and methodologically robust it may be in case of many of such researches done. You simply ignore it, intentionally, which also is a common habit of yours when getting locked in a thread. Professional experience of doctors and therapists havign worked in this field, having had access to according ammounts od patient's files and biograohic datasets - all not needed, all relevant, becasue you already know it all better, due to your uncles and students and 15 million others that you do not know at all and never talked to. I think I must not further explain why I find this absurd, or must I?

Damn, I got a stiff neck from always needing to look up to your monumentally elevated position from which you see it all so much better. Well, readers here are not stupid and can judge themselves who has the more qualified and numerically stronger fundament for his opinion forming on this matter, so no need for me to stay around in here forever.

Nobody is holding you back. Get your nose out of Der Speigel and your butt out of your mom's basement, go out in the world and start interacting with real human beings. You might learn a thing or two not covered by your books.

Oh, do we have to get personal because we are out of valid arguments now, August?

:down:

Or maybe that one can be nice for only so long in the face of breathtaking obtuseness. Like I told you in my last reply to you (which you ignored): "...if you'll look back in the thread you'll see that Skybirds original premise was that thereis never a happy ending from war. I think I have amply proven that this is not the case."

Now you can agree or disagree or even continue to ignore but it's not my fault if your pal refuses to see reality.

Don't worry, didn't I told you August and me are old pals? For him it is quite normal to become personal when he has run our of arguments and has no grounds to turn to. Just step aside when now he may start to throw mud at you too, since you had no stakes in this confrontation: it is not about you. It's a many years old antipathy between August and me, so, so better just stay out. ;) :up:

No we're not old pals. I once called you that and you got all fake outraged like you always do when people don't accept your judgements and pronouncements.

No, when I repeat myself several times and you still continue to ignore what i'm saying then I might get a little testy but don't mistake that for running out of arguments. You haven't dis-proven my first one yet nor will you.

I think Skybird did a much greater deed to society than many of the German conscripts did during their service, who just wasted their time, drinking and waiting until it's over.

Sky's line of thought about war looks coherent to me: there is no happy ending to war because war by itself is no happy event - just like their is no happy ending to an accident, which in the best case leave people unharmed, but life would be better without. (Don't mistake my last sentence for a pipe dream of a pacifist, who I am not)

The percentage of persons with soul scars from a war, is much harder to evaluate than the percentage of people with body wounds. People have a normal live, but maybe snap in certain situations, some just live with their scars without anybody noticing. From my experiences with survivors of WW2 (military and civilian), nobody got out without scars to the soul. Which does not mean that they could not life a happy live and be loving persons.

Aye, it's like our eternal subject of how you should spend your time being conscripted. Most men I know (me included) think it's a big deal and individual choice, but as someone who chose the civilian service, I too have met my fair share of chest thumpers and all their stuff about patriotism and manhood and all that.

From them I like to ask this question: "I helped and after the obligatory service have continued helping the visually impaired people of this country by doing my service at the Guide Dog School. What did you do?"

What is so striking about you is that you accuse others of what you in fact practice yourself.

It's called projecting what you do. That is a psychoanalytical defence-mechanism by which people keep reality away from themselves, and make others responsible for their own deficits.

Most people in this forum are not dumb. You may be able to deceive yourself about the limited range of your claims. But many people reading in here are quite aware of what I said, and what you said, and how it compares.

Yes, that ^. I tend to be very uncomproimising about war, and thinbk of it in absolutely no half-hearted terms.

That'S also the reason why I am very hesitent to support a war. But want it to be totally uncompromised and totally determined if there is a war that I see as a need. You go all the way, or you don'T start walking at all. If that is too much asked of people, they better should not be in favour of a war. In the wars of the past 40 years wehere the Western powers got involved, compormise anmd hesitation were allowed, and about the ,motives we better do not even start talking. As a consequnces, these wars got lost, either militarily, or by turning them poltiically into strategicx defeats afterwards.

I hate our soldiers being wasted for such doing. And by "our soldiers" I mean the American and British soldiers as well as the German, Spanish and Polish ones. The flag is not important for my argument.

This question is very individual for specific couturiers...in Fin army probably not so much.
In USA it is a matter of whom you ask and what his/her political views are on the subject or/and what was his/her job in the army.
I personally hope for a day when army service will not be needed here.

I realize that. That's why I'm not running around these international forums asking the same question, unless someone directly starts thumping his chest at me and saying the same stuff some (a small minority) of our lads do.

Most of my friends chose the armed service. Or, if I've understood them correctly, rather went with it because it is the usual way and there was no reason they wouldn't. Some chose it because they wanted to get away with 6 months of service instead of the 12 which is one possible lenght in the army, but the only lenght in the civilian service. These days, that it. Back in mine it was 13.

I respect that. As I said, big deal. Everyone has to do it one way or another and we are all in the same boat there.

What I don't respect is having my contribution in the service and after it belittled by a person who sat in a hole in the mud for 6 months and yelled "shot, shot, burst" at the empty forest, fantasizing about being a war hero.

So when you oh so self righteously claim that there can never, ever be a happy ending from war then you post statistics that you admit claim only a relatively small percentage of vets ever experience problems that's just me projecting? :roll:

Personally the only one getting defensive here is you, like you always do when people don't accept you as the unimpeachable expert in all things that you think you are.

Strange, it's the same over here but just in the other direction. I get belittled for having been in the military...:shifty:

Any specific reason for that? I mean, I sure have heard of some less than admiring attitudes towards the military in various foreign countries. We are, for example, often adviced not to put any references of our army service to our CVs if applying to jobs abroad because it might be understood the wrong way. But in general, why would you get belittled for it?

Edit: Now that I think about it, I'm fairly sure that Penguin has enlightened me on this subject in the past, but I'm nevertheless interested in hearing this. Seeing all the stuff I have heard due to my choice, the idea feels absurd from my point of view.

Sorry I missed this but as I have said. Skybirds original premise and the whole reason for our disagreement is he feels there can never be a happy ending to a war.

Well aside from the fact that the end of any war is a happy event all I have tried to get through his thick skull is that no matter how many statistics he cites none of them are mention anything close to 100%. Less than that means by default that yes there are some happy endings in war.

@Hottentot
Well, those who do civil service usually do something that has a direct effect on someone, like helping in an old people's home or similar stuff. They often don't see the necessity for any form of military anymore and see it just as a huge waste of money (hey, we "won" the cold war after all so there is no direct threat anymore). To them there will never be a need of armed forces again because we don't have a direct threat right now and so they don't see the service that a soldier performs and the sacrifices they make even in peace time. There is no direct effect a soldier has in peace time, especially not when there is no direct threat pointing towards one's country. There is only an indirect one of keeping combat readiness up and standing vigil for the case where protection against an outside aggressor might be needed again however likely or unlikely that might be at a time.
They can't understand why someone would be "dumb enough to join an institution where you get yelled at, have to sleep with 6 guys in one room, get your rear end kicked (not literally but you know what I mean ;) ) and don't do anything useful at all".

On the other side I also now some military veterans who belittle the civil service guys calling them wimps and such BS....
Actually I think we've all served our country in one way or another and there is no "superior" way of serving. I don't belittle those who chose the civil service as I think they did society a great service but I also expect not to be belittled because I chose the join the armed forces.

Back in the good times, I was standing at the Berlin Zoo station, waiting for my ride home while wearing uniform and my blue beret with a nice aesculap staff... so... Even a complete Idiot could tell: "Hey, that´s a MEDIC"...

But what happened? A stupid jerk walked by and insulted me, not too quiet, as a "murderer" and "rapist".

I was speechless :dead:

Germans enter full-retard-mode quickly when it comes to uniforms and mitlitary at all. Still wearing blinders, Im afraid... :nope:

It's a dirty rotten shame when vets are not treated with the respect and love they gave their country. You all have my sympathies.