Post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD poll

[formergrunt70]

Would not take My vote. War is Hell! But PTSD can be even worse.
That is My vote and opinion.

[39mto39g]

I couldn't figure out witch fit best in voteing. I think "I am a veteran and have No service related problem with PTSD." But the "NO" in it stoped me.
I have always been able to deal with what ever comes along, So dealing with sleepless nights and dreams and 2am walks in the woods is just part of dealing with it.
I have dreams about being in the jungle in Dominican Republic, Viet Nam, and different Fire experiances, Sometimes they run together. Like something I did in Dominican , the people will be wearing Vietnames hats and the house fire turns into a hut on fire.
I do get help for the guys sitting behind me though, When they run into a bloody or difficult time they also get councelling weither they want it or not.
I never send them where I haven't been. and if I haven't been there, I go first.

Ron

[exlrrp]

Originally posted by 39mto39g I do get help for the guys sitting behind me though, When they run into a bloody or difficult time they also get councelling weither they want it or not.
I never send them where I haven't been. and if I haven't been there, I go first.

Ron

Thats why youre my hero, one of em, any way.
Making life and death decisons on a daily basis got old for me real quick. After what I went through in the war (airborne lrrps:what they did) I was all for home and a quiet life. Didn't work out quite that way, but that was my intention!
But you keep going through it over and over--because youre good at it.Youre still playing the game at the highest stakes and youre only getting better at it
my hats off to you Ron! You are probably the most baddest ass person I know now and yet that badass is tempered by someone who does a tremendous amount of good for his community and his family--I say that with the utmost respect. But you pay a price for badass, as we all did who once lay claim to it.
On Fahreneheit 911, they interviewed a young GI in Iraq right off the battlefiield. (I think it was the one in The Cemetery) He said something I alwys will remember. " Everytime you kill somone, its like killing part of your own soul" That the way I experienced it also. And thats whats taking me the longest to recover from.
Its taken me quite a while to recover from the war (work still in progress!) and I would DEFINTELY say it put me at an extreme disadvantage.Three of the most formative years 17--20 and I donated it all for what amounted to, in the end, nothing. As a matter of fact less than nothing because I later came to believe it shouldn't have happened at all and that it had been a lot of wasted effort.
And it was a very violent donation too, I made it up to the top of that game by the time I turned 19--walking point on a lrrp patrol in the Ia Drang Valley.
Other people got rank and medals out of the Vietnam War but I sure got nothing for what amounted to some actual prodigious effort, all of which I volunteered for. They even forgot to give me a CIB (this was remedied later) I walked away from Vietnam and the Army feeling very very screwed--I did not have any good feeling at all about it, other than being happy just to be alive.
I'm still happy just to be alive.
What is there to recover from? Remember all that KILL! KILL! KILL! bullshit? How did that affect you after the war? take a while to get over it? The Army as I experienced it was a violent, hostile environment and in order to get along in it i learned how to become violent and hostile. It sure was heavy on me and that wasn't even the most of it--I had to unlearn everything I'd just learned in the last 3 years, especially everything about women and how to get along in society.
I had to learn to get along in normal society all over again while still in shock with no help from the Army at all. I was dumped on the street at age 20 with no usefull civilian skills other than digging ditches and shining shoes. You sure can't make a civilian living at "police call" Remember? they didn't have any of this grief counseling then, not that I would have done it. I never wanted them to know me.
Its always intersting to me to see all the euphemisms about what we did. What the infantry is into--trains constantly to do-- is kill people. YOu don't see any of that on the recruiting ads. Ive even heard this expressed as: "Saving lives" An artilleryman once told me what they were doing was saving lives. I've had my life saved by artillery and I promise you: they did it by taking lives, trust me on this.
Taking of life is a huge emotional Rubicon for most people, not because of the concept (its BIG in our society) but because of the grisly actuality of it. Its really an awful thing to do and to have done. I know when it happened to me--rather: I caused it to happen-- I was awed and shocked. I looked at those bodies and I thought: Boy NOTHINGS ever gonna be the same after this! B ut I don't want to generalize from my own experience here--anybody feel good about it? Later, I did sometimes--that may be the hardest thing for me to accept yet. Thats where the soul is REALLY dead. Been there, done that, still recovering from it.
I went through the whole panoply of whoopdydoo after the war including sex, drugs, alcohol and recovery (work still in progress) and need I say, without any help at all from the Army on this. (Next phase: The Expatriate Era, pt 1) Its been a long hard crawl back up to The Middle.
As I say: airborne lrrps: what they did, including whooping it up drunk in whorehouses whenever possible (had to recover from THAT,too! Wives don't like it, trust me on this). So when do you stop being a lrrp? The answer is you don't, all thats always there for you to look at. The game becomes about learning to direct your consciousness so you can function outside the shock and awe . I learned to bypass the pain to get the job done, which was actually one of the military skills I learned the best.
I got to be where I was good at handling it--HEY!!! George Bush has a worse and more extensive criminal record than I do!!!! And a longer history of alcohol abuse!! But someone who is handling internal pain well is: in pain. This HAS kept me up awake a lot of nights in the torment of the soul--way down deep where I'm real shallow.
Ive changed my mind a whole bunch of times in my life, my beliefs--many of them originated in the ARmy--have been challenged and I took a close look at them. Many of them were derived from prejudice and ignorance (ref: Army again) and I don't like that. I have changed my mind about everything significant in the world at least once. You name it: Race, War,Women, Gender roles, Parenting, Gays, ALL of it! I call this growth. You always amaze me Ron in that youre almost a snapshot of 1968. Maybe that because youre still living it, the part that PTSD comes from, anyway. I don't hardly recognize myself out of my war pictures any more, nor am I the same person you see in them then. That 19 year old lrrp didn't die, but I have to sit on him a lot. Thats what I call dealing with my PTSD.
And I changed my mind about PTSD . The first person I had to convince it was real was me.Some of it was realizing that PTSD is in fact a disability incurred on the job--it sure WAS (is). Some of it was coming on the INternet and finding myLRP/Ranger Company Association and their encouragement. ( a friend of mine was in the Tigers--yeah, THOSE Tigers--he walked in for marriage counseling and they declared him 70% in less than 2 months!) Some of it was finding veterans websites, seeing people's stories who got it and realizing I had just as good a story if not better. I came to believe that this was a disability I incurred while on the job serving my country and like evry other American who incurs a jobsite disablity, I filed for disability--I changed my mind about self sacrifice too! Why should I be "noble" about something that so obviously benefits me? That is SUPPOSED to benefit me? Its like they wrote this for me and people like me.
I went on the old Vets. com and asked everyone if I should file a claim--Many here may remember that. I got many positive responses, none negative. So I filed the claim. Because I wanted to see what they would rate it as and because I wanted the money.
An Airborne lrrp doesn't play for half the marbles. I put up an airtight claim that was buttressed by extensive documentation, including testimony from shrinks,a former commander, battlefield comrades (including pighumper-ABU!dude) I also got the CIB they needed to give me
I was declared 70% disabled from PTSD by the VA. To get more than that for PTSD you pretty much had to be sitting in a wheelchair drooling. Well, like I said, airborne lrrps: what they did, and an intersting what they did it was, too. You could call it stressful. The VA did, anyway.
Their official experts declared me 70% disabled with a disease they defined and they set the rate of compensation. And it worked for me! Why should I keep saying no? I had for years but I changed my mind! HEY--something that strong HAD to have a negative impact on me ("I could have been a contender, Joey....a contender!")
70% was interesting to me because I knew I had it but I didn't know what they would rate it as. That was one of the reasons I filed for it--I was curious to see what they would say. I had been going on and off to counseling for over a decade but I was too proud (and paranoiad) to file a claim.
The other reason I filed the claim was because I wanted the money. Youre not supposed to say this like youre not supposed to say you killed people in the war, but there it is. Everybody who files the claim for comp does it for the money. I decided I could handle the PTSD better with the money than without it so I finally filed the claim because I was entitled to it. Then I was sorry I didn't do it earlier.
I'm really trying to be honest here. I filed a claim for a compensation for a disease the official VA shrinks said I had seriously and that impacted my life negatively. I had extensive documentation to prove it was so. Who am I to argue with that? Especially when it works for me?
Concurrenlty with this, individual income taxes have been lowered all this time so why shold taxpayers complain? I'm one still (capital gains, rental income, dividends) and I can't thinko of anything I'd rather have my taxes do than support veterans.
So no hard feelings but if you think its a bad thing for me to get compensation for an obvious disablity,incurred in combat, defined AND rated by the government, then, in the immortal words of our Vice President, and I quote: "Fuck Yourself!"

Stay safe, Ron, if thats possible for you

James

[1CAVCCO15MED]

Good to hear from you, James! I might add to what you said that PTSD is a physical disorder as well as a hormonal one. It affects the brain as well as the mind. Unlike Rush Limbaugh, I really AM sitting here with half my brain tied behind me.

[PHO127]

It is the shrink that thinks I have a problem, For some reason they think I am homicidal and they think it is a problem. I kind of figure it is the other persons problem. I am rated at 70% PTSD now and along with all the agent orange diabetes and related items I am rated 100% disabled.

I figure I can use the Bush axiom in my defense, it was a premptive strike your honor, I didn't want to let him go get a gun.

[exlrrp]

Originally posted by 1CAVCCO15MED Good to hear from you, James! I might add to what you said that PTSD is a physical disorder as well as a hormonal one. It affects the brain as well as the mind. Unlike Rush Limbaugh, I really AM sitting here with half my brain tied behind me.

Well your war experience entitiles you to it. Yr wrong though, Rush really does have half his brain tied behind him--unfortunately its the half thats not on drugs so that handicaps him somewhat.
RE PTSD: Its not what yr enemies say about it thats important, its what yr friends say
Ciao for now

James

PS RON--you may be a hero of mine but definitely not one of my role models HI Sid

[39mto39g]

Your think that book James wrote about me would cost me. I sent him a check. Thanks James.
I will try to address a few of your statements,
The feelings someone gets after killing someone or something (to me) is different for just about everyone. The guys that could do it and not feel anything are the best to have next to you in a firefight, But, You really don't want to go back home and live next to him. I have delt with it by just not dealing with it, I pointed, pulled the trigger, someone died, Move on, Thats it. Every so often I think about what that guys future would have been, but I think about something else and it goes away.

Anytime you can get anything out of our government, its a good time, I would never pretend to understand someone with PTSD and if the Government says you are affected by PTSD than that is good enough for me. I will say, there are most likely people out there that claim to have PTSD and do not. But, I would guess there are far more people out there that have PTSD and clam not to have it.

Fahreneheit 911, is just a bunch of Bullshit, Although all I have seen are snip-its, (Im not giveing him money) .

Killing people is what our Infantry, Tanks and arty is all about, if someone can't deal with that, just don't raise the right hand. There are other things in the military someone can do.
The worst thing someone in the infantry can do is say they can do the killing and then they can't, That action has got a lot of good men killed. If someone can't kill, its not a big deal, unless your in a spot where that someone has to do it, Then they get PTSD bad, or they get there buddies killed by ther in-action.

Ron

[exlrrp]

Originally posted by 39mto39g
Fahreneheit 911, is just a bunch of Bullshit, Although all I have seen are snip-its, (Im not giveing him money) .

Killing people is what our Infantry, Tanks and arty is all about, if someone can't deal with that, just don't raise the right hand. There are other things in the military someone can do.
The worst thing someone in the infantry can do is say they can do the killing and then they can't, That action has got a lot of good men killed. If someone can't kill, its not a big deal, unless your in a spot where that someone has to do it, Then they get PTSD bad, or they get there buddies killed by ther in-action.

Ron

Ron: I'll send you the Fahrenheit 911 video if you PM me yr address and promise me to watch it--anybody else: the same offer. I knocked off some copies and am giving them out. HAHA!! Screw Michael Moore!! Watch his film for free!! THEN I'll listen to your criticism. Wanna see George Bush freeze on the trigger in a national emergency? Watch him sit for SEVEN full minutes reading My Pet Goat after he'd been told the country was under attack!!! They didn't fake THAT!--and he didn't deny it either, only said "I thought it would be better to project a calm and determined image!" I did NOT make that up. Thats not a man you want to have by your side in combat--give me J Kerry EVERY time!! There's a WHOLE lot thats in F911 thats real--thats why they don't want you to watch it. If you see the Anti Kerry thing you should at least see that. One thing for sure: Kerry showed up armed for a fight in the presnce of the enemy, volunteered for it, George Bush avoided it like the plague
http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/jkmilse...tboat_Duty.pdf
http://users.cis.net/coldfeet/Doc20.gif
ANytime you want to compare Kerry's military records--and I mean the OFFICIAL records--to Bush's just let me know,I love doing it. You won't see Bush doing it, though, nor posting his miltary records on his website, either

I think a whole lot of men couldn't do the killing, they just found ways of getting around it. Seems like it was always the same regulars you could count on. You got to know them after a while.
It really was different than what I'd been led to believe by society. I grew up seeing people killed every day on TV--Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Combat. Michael Landon said he'd killed over 300 people on Bonanza. Teenagers are susceptible to this stuff, they revere violence anyway. But tell me Ron, you must see gunshot wounds all the time since anyway--does it EVER look like on TV? No, its a whole lot different when its going on all around you.
Hoss and Little Joe, Marshal Dillon, Sgt Saunders, you'd see them all laughing and hoorawing right after knocking off a dozen or so--Man its WORK to kill a dozen people with a 6-gun!--heck they'd get up and kill people before breakfast. And so did I. But I sure thought it sucked. It wasn't like "On To Another Topic, film at 11:00" for me. Wait a minute, I'm not done dealing with thiis one yet.
But Sarge Saunders, the MArshall and The Ladsl would always be back right there for the next episode--with us that issue looked in doubt sometimes and I mean a LOT of doubt.
That willingness to take on society's bloody probvlems is heroic and I salute you for carrying on the fight to this day. But it does leave its mark.
Its only half about the violence and gore, its about losing the training that got us jacked up to do it.
Think about it Ron: they don't just pull guys off the street and give them rifles and tanks and send them out to do the job, We were trained very intensely to kill and it actually pays off in combat--I was running on pure training and instincts most of the time or I wouldn't have known WHAT to do. It was hard enough figuring out what to to do sometimes anyway.
There's an Evolution Of A Soldier and a De Evolution of a soldier for all of us, we're all somewhere on that journey. And here I mean a combat soldier--if the Army was a 9 to 5 for you, then turn the page. James Jones wrote a book about exactly that, the evolution and de evolution of a soldier and he should know--he was an infantryman on Gualdalcanal. They shove you into their mold and the rest of your life is about getting over it. Or not, as the case may be.
Its been happening all through history but our era is the first to see it as a jobsite disability--which it was. You can't see Carpal Tunnel Syndrome either but thats defintely a disability also. Why shouldn't it be?
I think the job ahead for us okld combat veterans is to welcome the new returning vets into the fold and help them get all the benefits to which they are entitled. They deserve it and Thats whats best for America.

Stay safe Ron
James

[SuperScout]

Maybe there needs to be an additional choice posted in the Poll section! At the urging of some of my VN buddies, I visited the VA center over in Austin, and after several tests, talking to the shrink, and stratching various body parts, I was determined to be sane and untetched by PTSD. Being certified as sane may have some plusses in some areas, but there's room for doubt!

I firmly believe, as others have stated, that the same incident can effect two different people in completely different ways. I was a bit older than the average Grunt, had a firm moral grounding, and a personal ethos that drove my actions. And let me hasten to add that these elements are not in any way, shape or form to be interpreted as gotta-haves to be sane. I truly mourn for and pray for those that are indeed adversely effected by PTSD, and believe that some may be benefitted by a deeper spiritural participation. (One might peruse the 12th Chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel for moe insight into this subject matter; perhaps Bro. Keith can help interpret this as well!)

Sadly, some folks have ridden the free pony provided by Uncle Sam with regards to PTSD, to the detriment of those that truly need and deserve the benefits. Those that are so pathologically degenerated can con the system into providing benefits. I had two wannabees call me, trying to get me to write them a letter to the VA about their claim for PTSD, when in fact they weren't ever in my unit, couldn't remember anybody in my unit, or any other detail that would make me want to help them. For those that are real, I'll move heaven, earth, and half of the next universe to assist them. For those that are phony, the same effort will be expended to expose you for the scum that you are.

[exlrrp]

Originally posted by SuperScout Maybe there needs to be an additional choice posted in the Poll section! At the urging of some of my VN buddies, I visited the VA center over in Austin, and after several tests, talking to the shrink, and stratching various body parts, I was determined to be sane and untetched by PTSD. Being certified as sane may have some plusses in some areas, but there's room for doubt!

I firmly believe, as others have stated, that the same incident can effect two different people in completely different ways. I was a bit older than the average Grunt, had a firm moral grounding, and a personal ethos that drove my actions. And let me hasten to add that these elements are not in any way, shape or form to be interpreted as gotta-haves to be sane. I truly mourn for and pray for those that are indeed adversely effected by PTSD, and believe that some may be benefitted by a deeper spiritural participation. (One might peruse the 12th Chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel for moe insight into this subject matter; perhaps Bro. Keith can help interpret this as well!)

Sadly, some folks have ridden the free pony provided by Uncle Sam with regards to PTSD, to the detriment of those that truly need and deserve the benefits. Those that are so pathologically degenerated can con the system into providing benefits. I had two wannabees call me, trying to get me to write them a letter to the VA about their claim for PTSD, when in fact they weren't ever in my unit, couldn't remember anybody in my unit, or any other detail that would make me want to help them. For those that are real, I'll move heaven, earth, and half of the next universe to assist them. For those that are phony, the same effort will be expended to expose you for the scum that you are.

Brice
Whatever!!!
Thanks for sharing that!
Have a nice day!

James