Our nations troops have literally been deployed into combat since Desert Storm almost non stop. During this time both congress and sitting presidents gutted the military. These guys are seeing far more repeated carnage over a longer period of time than any other time frame in our history.
The human mind is capable of only so much carnage before undesirable results surface. One of the first is PTSD. You can not get over PTSD in weeks, months, or in some cases a few years. No pill can really stop it as it is a decompressing of sorts of looking at events and putting them where they belong. Re-injury during this process compounds it. That is true no matter what circumstances lead up too PTSD.
If the reports of his injury are accurate the foot injury should have and in previous times in fact would have ended his career. Those safeguards were there for reasons more than besides how far a man could march.
If he snapped I can understand it. He should not have been pushed too that point. I have also been hearing for years that some in combat have been given antidepressants too deal with the stresses. IF that is policy it needs to end now as it can get people killed. The last thing needed on the battlefield is someone tripping. By tripping I mean hallucinating and such medications can induce this in some persons.
I'll give him a huge benefit of the doubt as too what happened and be thankful it wasn't me or my own facing what that man has. Your knowledge of his as well of what we have been told of his record says he is a fine soldier. We may never know what really happened and he may never even know why it happened. And it could have been a case of he knew or highly suspected a target was living there. The cowards just don't come out and fight a battle. Homes are their nest and civilians won't give the thugs up. How many times does a reasonable man let them attack their units and retreat? Once would be my answer. Prayers for him and his family.
Yes the Army does prescribe Anti depressants for PTSD. I had a friend go through this in Afghanistan. Was an NCO, stepped on a pressure plate that fatally wounded 2 others and he was messed up. First thing they do is prescribe anti-depressants. by the way - this was his 3rd deployment. 1 to Iraq and 2nd time in Afghanistan.
Yes the Army does prescribe Anti depressants for PTSD. I had a friend go through this in Afghanistan. Was an NCO, stepped on a pressure plate that fatally wounded 2 others and he was messed up. First thing they do is prescribe anti-depressants. by the way - this was his 3rd deployment. 1 to Iraq and 2nd time in Afghanistan.
Whenever I see the term PTSD, or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, I am reminded of a rant by the late George Carlin, who while, was a lefty, identified one of the things that has also been a sore spot for me, the watering down of the language over time:
"I don't like words that hide the truth. I don't words that conceal reality. I don't like euphemisms, or euphemistic language. And American English is loaded with euphemisms. Cause Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent the kind of a soft language to protest themselves from it, and it gets worse with every generation. For some reason, it just keeps getting worse. I'll give you an example of that. There's a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It's when a fighting person's nervous system has been stressed to it's absolute peak and maximum. Can't take anymore input. The nervous system has either (click) snapped or is about to snap. In the first world war, that condition was called 'Shell Shock.' Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables, 'shell shock'. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was seventy years ago.
Then a whole generation went by and the Second World War came along and very same combat condition was called 'battle fatigue.' Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn't seem to hurt as much. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. Shell shock! -- Battle fatigue.
Then we had the war in Korea, 1950. Madison Avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called 'Operational Exhaustion.' Hey, were up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase. It's totally sterile now. Operational exhaustion. Sounds like something that might happen to your car.
Then of course, came the war in Viet Nam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years, and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it's no surprise that the very same condition was called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Still eight syllables, but we've added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
I'll bet you if we'd of still been calling it 'shell shock', some of those Viet Nam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I'll betcha. I'll betcha."
I would add to Carlin's observation, that now we don't even say the eight syllables, we've got it down now to a four-letter acronym: PTSD.