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To: Gaffer

I’m equally ambivalent about the situation. I’ve had contact with vets suffering from authentic cases of PTSD (some relatives), and it is very debilitating. If this fellow’s is the latter, then I’d grant him the benefit of the doubt.


6 posted on 05/17/2014 7:18:47 AM PDT by COBOL2Java (I'm a Christian, pro-life, pro-gun, Reaganite. The GOP hates me. Why should I vote for them?)
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To: COBOL2Java

About three months ago, I had my wife’s Explorer in for oil change, etc. and sat in the waiting room with a man a little older than me (64) and a young man who was waiting on his truck.

The young man was a born-and-raised country boy typical of my county. With one exception, he was fully 100% medically retired from the Army after serving in Iraq. He was a comm specialist in Iraq that traveled with convoys to maintain comms. He did 46 convoys, and the last one got him. IED got his truck, and he had to defend himself and others with his weapon. As he told it, he did kill a few Muzzies, but his demeanor, attitude and thought process told me so much more.

Most people don’t realize that IED explosions, often by HE devices like old 105mm shells rigged to detonate, carry with them one hell of an explosive trauma that is not always outwardly visible as wounds. What really happens is what can best be described as a scrambling of your insides - your organs, your bones - and your brain - take ‘shaken baby’ syndrome to it’s ultimate condition.

If you talk to victims of such, you’ll likely detect there just something isn’t right. I know one or two former Captains who’ve been there and seen troops like that still out there. He had it.

Thankfully, he doesn’t have to work, he has a wife and children and other family and friends who help him, and I could see him getting and having any damned kind of support animal he needs and would make any accommodation needed.

On this story, I just don’t have enough information to be able to tell.


9 posted on 05/17/2014 7:31:20 AM PDT by Gaffer
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