http://www.myheroesathome.com/blog/2009/11/can-ptsd-be-eliminated/clip-
Casey promoted Cornum to general and tasked her with finding a way to toughen up the millennial generation recruits who come to the Army much younger, in developmental age, accustomed to Mom and Dad wrapping them in knee pads and helmets and car seats, and expecting them to call home when they’re out late on a Saturday night.
“They bubble-wrap them,” scoffs Cornum. “That teaches them that just about everything they do is dangerous.” She was particularly appalled at learning a new statistic: Just 30 percent of recruits come into the Army today with a driver’s license. “That means 70 percent don’t get a license as soon as they can,” says the general, in amazement. “Does that mean they still expect Mom and Dad to drive them around?” She plays out this ludicrous notion. “How do they even get pregnant? Does Mommy drive them around while they do it the back of the SUV?”
She sees a disturbing disparity between the coddling of many of today’s Army-age youngsters and the 360-degree dangers they will face in the “persistent conflict” in Iraq and Afghanistan. “You can be talking to a sergeant and all of a sudden he’s snipered,” she says. That’s why she sees training in emotional and spiritual toughness, along with family and social resilience, to be every bit as essential as one-arm pushups to keep our military strong.
Driving herself to work at the Pentagon last Friday morning after the gruesome shooting spree by a psychiatrist, Cornum practiced what she preaches. She avoided catastrophic thoughts by thinking back to her time as a POW.
“When I was shot down
, people asked, how did I maintain my good attitude and not just implode?” she says. “It was the absolute confidence that the Army was going to come get me. That’s the most important thing that we have—and it isn’t necessarily a core value of the rest of society—which is: ‘Never leave a fallen comrade.’ I was on my way to get somebody else, and got shot down en route. I knew that somebody was going to say yes to coming to find me. They would either be successful or they would turn the whole country into glass looking for me.”
And she matter-of-factly dismisses any notion of PTSD: “No post-trauma. No nightmares. No difficulty relating to my family. No intrusive thoughts.” Having exhausted the list of the most common post-traumatic stress reactions, she acknowledges one chink in her full metal jacket: “I did have some feelings of invincibility.”
Her biggest problem was how to transition to the tedious safety of civilian life. “I went out and bought a new bright red Dodge Stealth,” she boasts, “and ditched a 10-year-old diesel Rabbit that couldn’t go over 55 mph except downhill.” She laughs heartily. “I asked my husband, ‘Is this my version of post-traumatic stress? Driving too fast?’ But I got over it by the end of a year.”
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