Posted on 09/13/2019 7:52:38 AM PDT by huldah1776
"Some 161 service men and women have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last 4 ½ years -- a little less than three deaths per month. They are tragedies, and we mourn, as we should, with medals and flags and honors. Yet across the nation 20 veterans take their own lives every day, on average.
“Every day.”
"In Alabama in 2016 – one year alone – 128 veterans took their own lives. And hundreds more live on the streets across Alabama.
“We salute our fallen heroes, and ignore them on our park benches.” - John Archibald
Our Alabama’s homeless veterans series has given us the opportunity to talk with several veterans who have dealt with homelessness, alcoholism and various stages of depression. Regardless of how they wound up on the streets, many talk about how they didn’t want to ask for help. How they didn’t want to be a burden to anybody. How they felt worthless, isolated, stuck in the shadows. Some talked about how they didn’t want to live anymore.
The ones who found help before it was too late have inspirational stories to share. We want to hear more inspirational stories and fewer tragic statistics.
We heard many inspirational stories at a recent American Legion Veterans Retreat near Wetumpka, Alabama. Check out parts of three of those stories in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nszn9Kbw7Yw&feature=youtu.be
Hopelessness and not wanting to burden others because of independence has to be addressed.
Why not use funding from invaders to get these veterans off the streets and into service?
They are worthy. Their sacrifice is not in vain when they are willing to lay down their lives for their friends, their family, their homeland.
Our WW2 parents didn’t kill themselves because they were too busy making money and raising families.
Of course your parents didn’t. They also didn’t keep track of those who never got the chance to be parents.
They also came home as heroes. Their war was over.
"Prenatal stress" - WTF?
PTSD or what we used to call the "shakes" comes from long periods of stress, fear, shocking sights (like seeing people blown apart in front of you) and having to kill other people up close. In earlier wars, that included enduring and surviving artillery barrages. in later wars, the effects were increased somewhat by lousy support by the folks at home and even hostility to returning veterans.
Everydamnbody who survives combat and sometimes just near combat, suffers from some level of PTSD. It is the normal human reaction to those stresses.
That makes it much more acceptable.
Yes, everyone has a normal reaction to an abnormal crises. However, those who have been stressed before birth do not recover as quickly as others. And being labeled as broken keeps many from seeking out assistance in healing the reaction.
There is recovery. It takes longer. Each trauma does damage therefore the more damage the more healing must take place.
Recovery for those who have not had a previous trauma is faster. The memories do not fade. The reaction to those memories is changed. We never forget.
It is complicated. It is painful. It can be overcome.
There are levels of PTS. Chronic being the most severe. There is PTS, PTSD, and C-PTSD.
Thing is, recovery is the goal and it can be reached.
What all of us had in common was the residuals of living through what we went through and some of the effects - self-medicating through drinking, bouts of bad dreams, the Startle Reaction, depression, failed marriages, etc. All of us.
What people outside of the realities of combat don't understand is that the infantry and those specialties close associated with it are exposed to far more stress than all others, even those in proximity but not direct combat.
Those of you outside of this don't understand that almost ever infantryman in sustained combat is wounded - I knew some that had been wounded twice, threes times with lighter wounds but stayed at it. The average time until an infantry Marines was medevaced for serious wounds or killed was one and half months. We lost friends, saw many of our own dead and injured and also underwent the undiscussed changes of men who have killed the enemy and discovered that it wasn't unpleasant - something that most of us thought was impossible. All of that will have serious effects - but it is not a mental disease or a disorder, it is the completely expected result of our young minds attempting to accommodate experiences and sensations completely out of the ordinary.
Most veterans that I knew overcame most of the effects over time and with the help of discussing things with other veterans. Having a good, supportive family is also an enormous help. I have a great deal of doubt that some civilian with no comparable experience will be much help at all - particularly if the underlying thought is that it is a mental illness.
Personally, I don’t think of wounds as an illness. The wounds we are discussing are serious wounds. however, wounds to the mind, the heart (did you know there are brain cells in our heart?), and wounds to the soul are wounds that need to be understood by all and regrettably, those who systematize and define do so in an un-empathetic and dispassionate manner.
Welcome home warrior.
Thanks Huldah -
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