Quote:
Originally Posted by August
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.
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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.