Just a few words -

[kyburg]

I'm fully aware of what happened at Fort Hood yesterday.

And in the miasma of blame, racism and other asshattery...please keep this tucked away.

This was a healthcare professional who lost it completely after several years of warnings anyone could see, plain as plain.

And just thought it an acceptable risk.

Burnout. Know it, recognize it and give it credibility.

The biggest invisible unacknowledged disability out there.

...

And the worst part is that there was so much warning before it came to this.

Comments

[n6vfp.livejournal.com]

As a veteran of the Viet Nam era, I enlisted only after getting my preinduction physical. I did my damnedest not to become 'cannon fodder' and did my time either in training (that was the first year and one half of my time) or doing intelligence gathering as part of the Defense Intelligence Agency. I lost many friends in Viet Nam, mostly people who were drafted, and class mates from high school. No, there are those who want to do the best job under the conditions they find themselves, but like Viet Nam, fighting a war in an area where you are keeping some quasi-dictator in power and everyone you see could be your enemy does have a debilitating effect on people. I was anti-war before I enlisted, I did my four years and got out. BTW, back when I served we were paid very little, we didn't have services contracted out, we did guard duty, we worked 'kitchen patrol', we took out the trash. As for PTSD, they didn't treat that then, they just discharged you and either you went crazy or drank yourself to death (I lost friends both ways). Everyone served, you enlisted or got drafted, or took an easier way out by getting married and having a kid. If you were rich you went to college and stayed there hoping the war would end or after ROTC becoming an officer and maybe getting a desk job. No, I think the war in Iraq was a mistake and Afghanistan is another Viet Nam. The re-enlistment rate in my unit was so low that less and 10% stayed after one tour.

As for sanity, yes we had people who enlisted and served because they believed in what we were fighting for but there were not enough of them so we had a draft.

As for stress, we had it even though we were thousands of miles from the front lines. I gathered, filtered, and editted the intelligence during the 'cold war', and made sure that President Nixon got his morning reading, the President's Daily Brief. When the intelligence didn't fit the ongoing policy, we were told to ignore it. War is not pretty but politicians like good numbers, not the truth.

War is hell, and anyone who is in the midst of it is going to be hurt, either physically or mentally. The current structure of tour with little time to recover is not good for any human being. The Army knows that but they can't find enough people to willingly enlist and a draft would end the war so fast a whole lot of arms merchants would go bankrupt.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I'm from that era, too; I was anti-war all the while I sent supportive letters and "care" packages to my brother and friends who were in Vietnam. I lost friends and relatives there, too--some of them then, some of them later. I agree with every word you wrote here. Today's younger generation is going to live with the results of these pointless wars their entire lives, just as we are living with the results of Vietnam.