Reply #25: The passion for 'understanding' is what has led to therapy for PTSD for

[RaleighNCDUer]

returning troops. What precipitated it was seeing vets go off the deep end, time and again, one war after another, and always being ignored. In WW1 it was called 'shell shock'. WW2 it was 'combat fatigue'. Vietnam it was ignored, figuring the short rotations obviated the need for worry, because obviously combat fatigue was a product of years of near continuous front-line duty - even if it wasn't.

The need to understand it led directly to doing something about it. Now, there is a need to understand that there are stressors other than combat. You do know that kids raised in violent ghettos have PTSD at rates higher than combat veterans? Understanding can alert people to the warning signs of incipient violence. Just as people no longer ignore nihilistic scribblings of troubled teens with authority fixations, because we understand that sometimes they actually mean what they say, we need to understand the social stressors on the disenfranchised - and when a major in the US Army is not accorded the respect of his rank by his subordinates because of his race and religion, he IS disenfranchised.

And when a psychiatrist says "I'm in no fit condition to go to war" somebody should fucking LISTEN.