by Robert Mckenna

Created on: September 01, 2010

A startling figure recently exposed by the national news networks, and verified by the military, suggests approximately twenty percent of combat veterans are experiencing some degree of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) from their experiences in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  That is one in five soldiers.  Over two million soldiers served in these wars.

PTSD is a severe anxiety disorder because of a psychological trauma.  This disorder is not limited to soldiers in combat.  PTSD sufferer results from an overwhelming inability to cope psychologically with trauma.  The trauma of child abuse, a severe auto accident, and rape are but a few examples outside the arena of war that can leave a person psychologically scared for life.

Why are so many in the military being diagnosed with PTSD?  Is it because it has become easier to diagnose?  Certainly great strides in recognition were made since the First and Second World Wars when PTSD was called shell shock.  Back then, soldiers were sent away to insane asylums, to be housed away from the public view, as they were thought a threat to themselves or others.  The famous General Patton was embroiled in a situation, and he was made to apologize after he slapped a shell-shocked victim in a field hospital, calling the man a coward.  Men were sent away because they were an embarrassment to what brave fighting man are supposed to appear like in public.  Maybe these men regarded as fearful and uncourageous, is not the American image of brave soldiers facing down hell itself in war, for the rights of freedom and the American way of life.  Maybe these men could not cope, because they were full of the nonsensical stories that war builds men and builds character.  In fact, war only kills men, maims men mentally and physically, and destroys character, after fighting and breaking all the Commandments learned as a youth in church and home.

When the cost of a war is calculated, it is easy to figure the expense of material and logistics.  It is easy to calculate the dollar figure of rehabilitation for the wounded veterans.  It is almost impossible to estimate in dollars, human pain, and family suffering, from the horrors that dwell within a man who passed his breaking point psychologically.  The real costs of the First World War, taking into account the unknown variables of mind and body, peaked fifty years after the war ended.  How will America deal with our soldiers who have flashbacks, nightmares, and hyper-vigilance symptoms, who only find relief by drinking to excess, fighting, or using illicit drugs?  Will our War on Drugs honor our veterans by putting them in jail?  That was the American response to Vietnam's veterans.  Veterans who acted out and self-medicated for some relief of the horror they lived with everyday, found themselves locked in prisons for years.  The problems have grown worse, young men continue to suffer, and now a “Grateful Nation” does not want to pay the hidden costs of war, the cost of broken minds, and untold suffering.

The sick in this country receive treatment in hospitals, unless they are veterans of a war suffering from something no one understands except other soldiers who have had their boots in the same mud.  On one hand, the media preach the wonderful respect the veterans get today, versus the mistreatment and hatred they received coming home from Nam.  It is not true.  If you have a psychological disorder from serving in hell, then you are weak.  If you are self-medicating to stop the screaming in your head, then you go to jail when you are caught.  Welcome home soldier!

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