LAT: These Unseen Wounds Cut Deep

[maddezmom]

WASHINGTON — Matt LaBranche got the tattoos at a seedy place down the street from the Army hospital here where he was a patient in the psychiatric ward.



The pain of the needle felt good to the 40-year-old former Army sergeant, whose memories of his nine months as a machine-gunner in Iraq (news - web sites) had left him, he said, "feeling dead inside." LaBranche's back is now covered in images, the largest the dark outline of a sword. Drawn from his neck to the small of his back, it is emblazoned with the words LaBranche says encapsulate the war's effect on him: "I've come to bring you hell."


In soldiers like LaBranche — their bodies whole but their psyches deeply wounded — a crisis is unfolding, mental health experts say. One out of six soldiers returning from Iraq is suffering the effects of post-traumatic stress — and as more come home, that number is widely expected to grow.


The Pentagon (news - web sites), which did not anticipate the extent of the problem, is scrambling to find resources to address it.


A study by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research found that 15.6% of Marines and 17.1% of soldiers surveyed after they returned from Iraq suffered major depression, generalized anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder — a debilitating, sometimes lifelong change in the brain's chemistry that can include flashbacks, sleep disorders, panic attacks, violent outbursts, acute anxiety and emotional numbness.

more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&nc...

No lessons learned from the past, more evidence of no pre-war, post-war or neverendeing war planning by *.

[Mari333]

1. Vietnam redux

this country never learns.

[bemildred]

4. Haven't learned a thing.

If anything even dumber.

I rememeber my buddies diving for cover at loud noises and waking
up in the middle of the night with dreams. Your kid sounds like his
head is still screwed on more or less straight.

Welcome to Arbustoland.

[lapfog_1]

2. My dad was a WWII vet

and saw some things no one should see.

I remember when I was a child that he had trouble sleeping, and
when he did sleep, sometimes he would wake up screaming. I don't
know that he ever "got over" it.

We will have 50,000 "casualties" before this is over, maybe more.
Sad.

[NC_Nurse]

3. Denial

the one word definition of the American public and their leaders. (present company excepted, of course.)

[pippin]

5. Does anyone really care?

Judging by *'s supposed "mandate" it would seem as if most of Americans don't care.
Like it or not, we've got four more years of unnecessary deaths, suffering and mayhem America--not only for the Iraqis but for our own.

[0007]

13. Jerry Falwell cares! He cares about the money he can get from

the government and the prestige and power that comes with great men. Jerry is more powerful than Jays'us.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

20. SOBs like Falwell would tell these vets

that they wouldn't have any problems if they put their faith in Jesus Christ.

I think we should send Falwell, Robertson, and Jones to Iraq.

[xchrom]

16. they don't care -- they got a war and a tax cut

how have average americans been asked to sacrifise for this slaughter we are committing in iraq?
what's to care?

[babylonsister]

6. My brother-in-law is a VietNam Vet

100% disabled due to PTSD and he is one of many. Yes, idiots, no one learned anything? Has no one checked the VA hospitals/clinics?

[Mari333]

7. My brother in law was too..he blew his brains out in 88

and so far it looks like a lot of Iraq Vets are following the same path..of course, the Pentagon is covering it up..


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/29/eveningnews/m...

[KitSileya]

15. Not to mention that their families are in danger as well.

There hasn't been a lot on the news about it recently (if there ever was), but wasn't there a spate of spousal murders at Fort Bragg committed by veterans of the Afghanistan campaign?

Anyone suffering from PTSD knows that it can be pretty debilitating, and it can completely destroy your life if you don't get help. Frankly, I'm surprised that not more of the veterans aren't diagnosed with it. You can get PTSD from any traumatic event, rape, car crash etc. One would think that the prolonged experience that combat is should cause more incidences of it.

[0007]

14. I have and they are pretty lame.

[Cerridwen]

8. Vote the story up, please.

Experts on post-traumatic stress disorder say it should come as no surprise that some of the soldiers in Iraq are fighting mental illness.

Combat stress disorders — named and renamed but strikingly alike — have ruined lives following every war in history. Homer's Achilles may have suffered from some form of it. Combat stress was documented in the late 19th century after the Franco-Prussian War. After the Civil War, doctors called the condition "nostalgia," or "soldiers heart." In World War I, soldiers were said to suffer shell shock; in World War II and Korea, combat fatigue or battle fatigue.

<snip>

"We're gearing ourselves up now and preparing ourselves to meet whatever the need is, but clearly this is something that could not be planned for," said Dr. Alfonso Batres, a psychologist who heads the VA's national office of readjustment counseling services.

emphasis added: not much of a contradiction going on here. methinks this particular psychologist shouldn't be heading anything if he can't tell from history.

[maddezmom]

25. You have given the news article These Unseen Wounds Cut Deep a rating of 5

You have given the news article These Unseen Wounds Cut Deep a rating of 5.
Its current average rating is 4.43 with 194 vote(s).

[cassiepriam]

9. PTSD will be bad, and extensive

Based on everything I am hearing and reading.
Many of the ill soldiers stock piled in Germany
til after the election. They will be coming home
at some point. But my guess is no one will care.

[Crunchy Frog]

11. They may care

the next time there's an incident involving a new Timothy Mcviegh. I wonder how many of those are going to be produced as a result of this present adventure.

[cassiepriam]

22. Yes, I have thought the same thing

But still, the american people do not seem
to care about anything, it is all, "Oh well"

[Swede]

10. Does anyone remember TV cop shows where crazed vets

were on week after week,wreaking havoc. I hated what they did to these poor guys. But there was a grain of truth to it.

[starroute]

17. More than a grain of truth, unfortunately

Somebody I know lost an eye when he was shot in the head by a Vietnam vet friend who thought everybody was plotting against him.

The "Wild West" wasn't wild just because it was a frontier situation. It was wild because it was full of Civil War vets with PTSD and a lingering tendency to shoot anything that moved.

[Crunchy Frog]

23. I never thought about that before

re the Wild West, but it sort of makes sense.

[JI7]

12. remember those soldiers from Afghanistans who murdered their wives

or girlfriends all in a matter of about a few weeks? and they were mostly from the same base also.

if anyone really cared about this they would already have done something about this after seeing that (not to mention the previous wars). but nobody in this administration cares.

[jukes]

18. the imperials

just don't care.

we're animals for their use; expendable & disposable.

from black-lung to PTSD, they have to be forced to acknowledge it & i'm afraid that our ability to influence opinion through the media is dying.

the future is bleak.

[lawladyprof]

19. "Did not anticipate" so what else is new--eom

[depakid]

21. "...but clearly this is something that could not be planned for,"

What were they expecting- divine intervention.

No wait... don't answer that.

[maddezmom]

24. AFP - Psychological trauma seen in US soldiers returning from Iraq: report

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - One in six American soldiers returning from Iraq (news - web sites) is suffering from psychological trauma, and the problem is likely to get worse as more troops return from longer tours.


A study by a US army research institute found that 15.6 percent of Marines and 17.1 percent of soldiers surveyed after they returned from Iraq suffered major depression, generalized anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder, the Los Angeles Times said.


The disorder, formally identified by the American Psychiatric Association in 1985, is a debilitating change in the brain's chemistry that can include sleep disorders, panic attacks, violent outbursts, and acute anxiety, among other symptoms.


More than 30 percent of US veterans of the Vietnam War were afflicted, plunging tens of thousands into homelessness, addiction, crime and despair.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/2004...