PTSD and thee

Since DEC 2004, I seem to do this once a quarter, so being that it is 1QFY10 - I might as well give it a go.

If you have not already, you need to read and keep handy in your library B.G. Burkett's, Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History.

In the book there is a chapter about PTSD. In order to understand what is going on now, you need to read how PTSD was used as a tool to abuse the Vietnam Generation. You need to read the other guy's playbook as reported by someone on our team.

Don't get me wrong - PTSD is real, it is there, and I know people who actually have it, military and civilian alike. It has been known by many names through the centuries - it is nothing new.

What I do know is that it is not a virus that you can "catch." It is not a catch-all for every little issue that people may or may not have. PTSD is a term that those in the military especially need to guard jelously for two reasons.

1. If everything is PTSD - then nothing is. Real cases will be lost in the chaff.
2. If everyone has PTSD from their time in the military - then we are all going to have trouble finding a job. You don't think that is happening? You don't think civilian minds are being reprogrammed to look at Long War vets differently? Ha. You need to get out more and talk to people who are not associated with the military.

Finally, one thing I do know about PTSD - it had nothing to do with the Ft. Hood terrorism case. I could not believe the garbage I had to read and listen to this weekend trying to make excuses for that sack.

Shipmates - the Vietnam generation went through this before us. They did not know it was coming. They did not have an alternative media. They did not have email, the internet, etc.

We do. We can fight those who want to turn us into a problem and therefor weaken us. Do not let them get away with this. First of all though - learn from their history. Feed your brain. Read the book.

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UPDATE: From DBS - not totally unrelated.

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UPDATE II - Electric Boogaloo: Perfect example via Allah - Time magazine's house a55hat, Tim McGirk.

As a U.S. Army psychiatrist treating soldiers who had returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, Major Nidal Malik Hasan had a front-row seat for the brutal toll of war. It is too early to know what may have triggered his murderous shooting rampage on Nov. 5 at Fort Hood in Texas — Hasan is accused of killing 12 people and wounding 32 others before he was wounded by a police officer — but it is not uncommon for therapists treating soldiers with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to be swept up in patients' displays of war-related paranoia, helplessness and fury.
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At Fort Hood, ..., there was no shortage of horrific tales that could have set loose the demons in Hasan's mind.

Who is McGirk? Let me steal something from Noah Pollak at Commentary;

This shouldn’t be surprising coming from Tim McGirk. He went to Afghanistan after 9/11, had Thanksgiving with the Taliban, and wrote a long piece for National Geographic about what agreat time he had and how we’re all just human beings doing our thing on this big blue marble, so let’s not judge. Then he went to Iraq and singlehandedly created the Haditha Massacre hoax. Then he went to Jerusalem and spent a few years slandering Israel. Now he’s trafficking in pop psychology on behalf of a likely domestic jihadist. It’s been quite a career.