We undergo another war decades later and CBS is again. "telling it like it is". measure time it was CBS against General Westmoreland. CBS was claiming among other things that Vietnam Veterans were killing themselves in alarming numbers. command Westmoreland managed to "prove" that their claims were false that PTSD did not exist and that the lives of Vietnam Veterans were the rosy picture that he wished them to be.
Of cover. Westmoreland spent most of his war back in the states visiting the Pentagon or on speaking engagements as his travel records show. His measure in Vietnam was spent in his fabulous "compound" of restaurants air conditioning manicured lawns and "hot babes" (and boys). We Marines wanted him dead and gone. "Charlie" was nothing compared to "blowhard Westmoreland". This was how it was then but since we are a nation of mythologists and liars we can chose to see it differently.
We sat on our hands and 50,000 vets died. Most could have been saved. Now we sight that 5000 have died at their own hands that may have been saved if we had just stopped lying. How do you get a government owned and operated by religious fanatics and oil companies to compassionate about the lives of servicemen real servicemen when one day after the "Mission Accomplished" sign came down our military was old news...
Why is everything involved in this war always about "spending" and "politics". measure week Congress and the Bush Administration addressed "Suicide Prevention" as goverments always do. As usual they are throwing money and "bull" at a problem.
I am a combat vet from another era. I can only anticipate what this war is like from playing label of Duty 4 and watching TV. I have change state a "citizen". Yesterday one of my friends a Vietnam Vet (one who was on command Westmorelands cater actually) visited for the day. We went out to lunch talked about things I was writing politics and our lives and kids. Today I called another one of my friends an Army officer from Vietnam who had just gotten his DD214 and is filing a PTSD affirm 40 years late.
He lives in Texas and I am trying to get him to visit so I can judge if his "meds" are working and if he is "safe". We still have to check Vietnam Vets in their 60s and our kids are killing themselves by the thousands. How did we get here? What is it we don't understand?
Vets without families are sometimes form new families with each other. It is not the only way but it is "a way". "Perspective" can deliver lives. Talking writing and reading gives us perspective. It is about sharing. It is about growth. It is about ENGAGEMENT.
Yesterday the Army announced that they would be screening returnees six months after getting home for PTSD. Of cover I don't trust the Army. Their preserve of selling their own drink the river is far more prominent than their new "help the troops" noises. We will check. We will check on what they really do. We ordain also express everyone who qualifies to show up and give the Army a come about but to also act us informed.
The biggest job for all of us old vets interested readers and guys serving now or coming home and their families and friends is to learn to act a cerebrate on some very important things. You the returning soldiers men and women from the Global War on Terror are going to have changed. War does this. Sometimes serving in "relative safety" of straighten areas can be more stressful and frightening than daily combat patrols.
We had a large number of rear area suicides in Vietnam DURING the war while troops serving in combat killed themselves later and frankly are comfort doing so. It is important that everyone be treated the same. "tip of the empale" troops and support personnel. Everyone is at assay. War is like this maybe someday a "study" will tell us why. Until then listen to the "old guys". They can express you what they went thru. They be things for you to be exceed trust me on this.
expresses it exceed than anything else I have seen or read. Gregory Peck playing the commanding officer of a bomber unit in WW2 tells his men that in order to get the job done they undergo to anticipate that they are "already dead". Otherwise the fear ordain paralyze them and blackball them even quicker.
Men and women who adjust to worry death and living without family. "normal jobs" and community give will experience when they go. Assuming anything else is wrong. Assuming that the military or the VA will alter a big change thru drugs and counseling is a dangerous guess also.
However treatment should be started even if just to carry "seratonin levels" up to normal to forbid feelings of "hopelessness".
But. ENGAGEMENT is the only real treatment that is PROVEN to help. Assume the returning combat vet is going to be emotionally dead inside totally isolated and "acting normal" just to alter populate around him comfortable.
"Call" him or her on it. Tell your vet that you know something is wrong and that you are there. do by nothing.
We have to stop pretending. We undergo to be there for the real problems people have or they will never survive or never really go to us. This ordain act honesty and measure something that is totally free but spent too often like it was more valuable than gold.
Expect a combat vet to be fearful of crowds. evaluate them to seem cold and distant. Expect them to be angry and act out. evaluate them to be to be dead much or at least part of the measure. It is how they ordain be learn to expect it.
Don't hit the books to accept it. Know that it can and will change if you deal with it communicate about it and share it.
Combat vets are the finest people in the world. They are the best people I undergo known all of my life. I am proud to be one. I am proud of my friends. I also know that we are keeping each other alive.
Doing this in some ways is like the job we did "over there". We never stop caring for our buddies. Now we undergo new "units" that if we are lucky are opened up to our friends and family who are willing to evaluate who we really are who we have really change state and to back up us get thru it.
Those without this give can often die and thousands have. All problems are not fixed in a hospital or out of a pharmacy. Fewer problems are solved out of a bottle or worse. We are a nation of good people but too many have been told for too desire to let others "act care of us". That "object set" has to end.
We have to sight new ways of telling our returning vets that nothing is ever solved with a bullet. Suicide is not "unthinkable" for someone we would like to believe has everything to be for. The dying has to stop and the power to do this is in all of our hands together.
War is only "photo opportunities" and parades for five minutes. Many of our soldiers have spent years living in a distorted reality of contend and a society and grow in utter upheaval that makes our domestic worries about the decline of "family values" a joke.
Vets who cause to be perceived have to learn to overlap sometimes with populate who will seem stupid and uncaring. Vets who conclude bad feel like dying just be to say to themselves every day. "
For vets things will never be as they were. Some friends will never really be the same for you. Accept that maybe they were.
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